The Endeavour space shuttle launched off Friday for the International Space Station, carrying various equipment that aims at making life on the orbiting space station more comfortable and easier. One of the main missions of the Endeavour crew was to make accommodation on the station in order to host a total of 6 people, instead of 3, the capacity the station currently has.

The space shuttle carried from Earth to outer space a new kitchen, an extra bathroom and new compartments the size of refrigerators, where astronauts should sleep. Astronauts on the International Space Station should also perform a total of 4 spacewalking missions, which have as a goal repositioning one of the station’s solar wings, which is not facing the right way.

The spacewalking missions should also serve for transporting an empty tank to the shuttle’s cargo bay. The first spacewalking mission, said to be crucially important for the astronauts’ morale, has ended with some minor events, which, fortunately, did not endanger any of the astronauts’ lives. On the first spacewalk one of the tool bags was permanently lost into outer space, as one of the astronauts misplaced the bag.

The preparations for spacewalking missions are pretty harsh as the brave astronauts had to spend an entire night into a depressurized chamber in order to eliminate as much nitrogen from their bodies as it’s humanly possible. This is done in order to prevent decompression sickness, which creates nitrogen bubbles in blood and tissue.

All in all, it seems that things are running smoothly out there and taking into consideration that Endeavour is in perfect shape and that its heat shield is working perfectly, this might just be an eventless, but successful outer space mission.