  thumb|250px|a cut-away illustration of the columbus laboratory.  columbus is a science laboratory that is part of the international space station (iss) and is the largest single contribution to the iss made by the european space agency (esa). like the harmony and tranquility modules, the columbus laboratory was constructed in turin, italy by rome based alcatel alenia space with respect to structures and thermal control. the functional architecture (including software) of the lab was designed by eads in bremen, germany where it was also integrated before being flown to the kennedy space center (ksc) in florida in an airbus beluga. it was launched aboard space shuttle atlantis on february 7, 2008 on flight sts-122. it is designed for ten years of operation. the module is controlled by the columbus control centre, located at the german space operations centre, part of the german aerospace center in oberpfaffenhofen near munich, germany. the european space agency has spent â¬1.4 billion (about us$2 billion) on building columbus, including the experiments that will fly in it and the ground control infrastructure necessary to operate them. == description == the laboratory is a cylindrical module with two end cones. it is  in external diameter and  in overall length, excluding the projecting external experiment racks. its shape is very similar to that of the multi-purpose logistics modules (mplms), since both were designed to fit in the cargo bay of a space shuttle orbiter. the starboard end cone contains most of the laboratory's on-board computers. the port end cone contains the common berthing mechanism. == construction == esa chose eads astrium space transportation as prime contractor for columbus. the columbus flight structure, the micro-meteorite protection system, the active and passive thermal control, the environmental control, the harness and all the related ground support equipment were designed and qualified by alcatel alenia space in turin, italy as defined by the pica - principle (for definition see history below); the related hardware was pre-integrated and sent as pica in september 2001 to bremen. the lab was
Columbus_(ISS_module) Components_of_the_International_Space_Station European_Space_Agency Laboratories Spacecraft_launched_by_the_Space_Shuttle Spacecraft_launched_in_2008