Endeavour shuttle launching Japan lab to space station

When space shuttle Endeavour launches Tuesday it will carry Japan's first space lab to the International Space Station, giving the country a prized spot alongside the United States, Russia and Europe. The Europeans joined the elite space grouping in February with the long-overdue delivery of its Columbus laboratory via the Atlantis shuttle.

It will be the largest by far of the four research modules on board the station and represents Japan's most important offering to the project, to which the island nation has contributed a total of 10 billion dollars. A main task at the ISS will be installing the first stage of the Japanese laboratory called Kibo, a micro-gravity research facility which aims to open a vital new stage in deeper space exploration.