European Technology Exposure Facility

External research platforms at the Columbus space laboratory (lower platform: EuTEF)

The European Technology Exposure Facility (EuTEF) is an experimental carrier that was attached to the outside of the Columbus Space Laboratory , ESA's science laboratory for the International Space Station , on February 15, 2008 .

EuTEF is a platform to support up to seven experiments. The impact of solar ultraviolet radiation on biological samples is to be tested both in the short and long term .

The platform was designed and built between 1997 and 1999 by the Italian space company Carlo Gavazzi Space (CGS).

At the beginning of September 2009 the platform was dismantled during the Discovery mission STS-128 and transported back to Earth.

Additional external payloads from Columbus

• Solar Monitoring Observatory (SMO / SOLAR)
• Atomic Clock Ensemble in Space (ACES)

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1. ↑ Discovery Mission STS-128
2. ^ Engineers Excited by EuTEF's Return on Discovery

Web links

• ESA website for EuTEF (English)
• EuTEF factsheet on the ESA website (English; PDF file; 3.50 MB)