Billion Dollar Space Station Lab Opened

After countless hours of work and planning, and billions of dollars in funding, the Kibo lab formally made its grand opening on Thursday, June 5 at 6:09 a.m. at the international space station.

The name of the lab, Kibo, is the Japanese word for hope. The opening ceremony was excitedly lead by the Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide. He commented on the new lab, stating that "It looks really empty but it's full of dreams." Equipment and scientific tools are still being arranged and placed in the lab.

The Kibo lab is the largest of the nine rooms in the international space station, including the NASA lab, with a length measuring 37 feet. Although the lab was opened Wednesday, it has still not been completed. Later this week, a large storage unit is expected to be installed in connection with the lab. A third section of the lab is expected to be added in Spring, which will mainly serve as an area for experiments. In total, there will be six sections of the lab when it is completed.

According to NASA, the experiments in the Kibo lab will mainly focus on "space medicine, biology, Earth observations, material production, biotechnology and communications research."