Space Shuttle mission STS-98 delivered the Destiny laboratory to the International Space Station. Atlantis carried the module into orbit and installed it during the shuttle’s February 2001 mission.
STS-98 launched on February 7, 2001, and docked with the ISS two days later. The crew used the shuttle’s robotic arm to lift the roughly 14.5-ton laboratory from Atlantis’s payload bay and berth it to the forward port of the Unity node. Three spacewalks completed electrical, data, and structural connections.
Destiny became the primary U.S. research laboratory aboard the station. It supports experiments in fields including human biology, medicine, physics, materials science, biotechnology, and Earth science. Its arrival was especially significant because it was NASA’s first permanent orbital research laboratory since Skylab.
The mission is sometimes confused with STS-120, which delivered Harmony, or STS-122, which delivered the European Columbus laboratory. STS-88, meanwhile, delivered Unity, the first ISS node, in 1998.