KSC-00pp1498

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. -- An overhead crane in the Operations and Checkout Building hovers over the Joint Airlock Module (right) that it will lift and place in the payload canister in the foreground. The canister will transfer the module to the Space Station Processing Facility where it will continue to undergo preflight processing for the STS-104 mission scheduled for launch aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis May 17, 2001. The Joint Airlock Module is the gateway from which crew members aboard the International Space Station will enter and exit the 470-ton orbiting research facility