March 11, 2011 12:45 am EDT

NASA says International Space Station is now 'essentially' complete

The news got a bit overlooked among the hubbub of Discovery's final flight and the first humanoid robot sent into space, but the recently completed shuttle mission also marked another significant milestone: it delivered the final room to the International Space Station. While there are still some additional components to be added, the new room dubbed the "Permanent Multipurpose Module" is NASA's final contribution to the actual assembly of the station and, according to the agency, it means that it has "essentially completed" all that it had planned. The two remaining shuttle missions will just be carrying supplies and spare parts, along with a little $1.5 billion experiment called the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, which will be used to search for fun stuff like antimatter galaxies and dark matter.

NASA says International Space Station is now 'essentially' complete originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 10 Mar 2011 19:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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