European Space Agency space station manager Alan Thirkettle stated earlier that Europeans are very excited about the addition of the Columbus module. He stated at a briefing at the Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas, “Today has been a truly momentous step and a historic day for Europe.”

He added, referring to the attachment of Columbus onto the space station, “You might imagine we're rather happy and overjoyed. There were whoops and cheers." [Scientific American]
Full egress into the Columbus is scheduled to occur at about 2:55 p.m. EST (1955 GMT), also on NASA TV.

Later in the day, the shuttle and station astronauts will activate the Columbus scientific laboratory. They will turn on the permanent power and cooling systems onboard the Columbus module.

On Wednesday, the second spacewalk will help to hook up additional pipes and cabling.

The astronauts will also be readying the interior of the Columbus laboratory over the next few days. The third spacewalk will attach some external experiments on the laboratory.

Once the Columbus is fully functional it will add about 2,600 cubic feet of volume to the space station. Eventually six astronauts will occupy the International Space Station, doubling the size of the past residents of the station.

The Columbus module is operated by the Columbus Control Centre (Col-CC), which is located within the German Space Operations Center (GSOC) of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Oberpfaffenhofen near Munich, Germany.

The website of the ESA Columbus Control Center is: http://www.dlr.de/iss/en/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-1417/2048_read-3535/

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