Space Station Observation Deck Installed

The long-awaited observation deck or 'the cupola' has been installed on the orbiting international space station where it is expected to provide astronauts and cosmonauts multi-directional views utilizing six side windows and yet another on top. Built in Italy by Thales Alenia Space, the $27 million domed lookout is expected to provide unprecedented 360-degree views of Earth, outer space and the space station itself, will be unlocked during the mission's third and final spacewalk Tuesday night by STS-130 Endeavour astronauts and cranked open Wednesday or Thursday for the first time providing the current 5-member station crew of cosmonauts and astronauts and the visiting 7-shuttle astronauts with an astounding outlook.

With the space station construction now 98% complete, only four more space shuttles are scheduled in the flight manifest. The $1-billion+ Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer instrument is expected to attached to the space station during the upcoming summer flight of Endeavour on STS-134.

Italian Thales Alenia Space is also under contract with Virginia-based Orbital Sciences Corp. to build nine pressurized cargo vehicles for the U.S. company’s Cygnus program, the first to be launched aboard a Taurus 2 booster from Wallops Island, Va. in 2011 as part of the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) effort NASA already has underway.