The Cupola is the International Space Station’s window. 

It’s a small module equipped with seven windows, which offers to astronauts a privileged view of Earth and the celestial bodies. The module was designed for observation operations outside the ISS, such as: robotic activities, astronauts’ spacewalks and cargo vehicles approach. Built in Europe under the guidance of Italy by Thales Alenia Space Italia (TAS-I), contracted by the European Space Agency, the Cupola was launched in space on February 8th, 2010 with the Shuttle STS-130 mission, along with the Node-3, Tranquility. The installation was completed on February 17th 2010, when the Cupola became operational. 

It’s 1.50 m high, with a maximum diameter of 2.95 meters. The Cupola has six side windows and an observation window targeted at the nadir point, 80 cm wide. This allows an all-round visibility in a single direction. The windows can be sealed with special shutters which protect them from micrometeorites and space debris. Inside the Cupola is the robotic workstation, which checks the ISS Canadarm robotic arm. It can simultaneously host up to two crewmembers and can be accessed through the Node-3, which is Italian too.  

‣ News

WEDNESDAY 14 SEPTEMBER 2022

SAMANTHA CRISTOFORETTI WILL BE THE COMMANDER OF THE ISS ‣

AstroSamantha will become the first European astronaut in command of the International Space Station MORE...

THURSDAY 21 JULY 2022

ASTROSAMANTHA, THE FIRST EUROPEAN SPACEWALKER ‣

First extravehicular activity for Samantha Cristoforetti MORE...

TUESDAY 19 JULY 2022

AGILE, published the first article about the “New Year’s Burst” ‣

On Friday 15 July, the first detailed study on this "New Year's Burst" was published in the Astrophysical Journal, using data acquired by the AGILE satellite MORE...

MONDAY 11 JULY 2022

Fermi-LAT collaboration has released the updated list of cosmic gamma-ray sources to date ‣

The third release of the Fermi Point Source Catalog (4FGL-DR3) covers 12 years of data taken by the Large Area Telescope (LAT) on board of the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope MORE...

WEDNESDAY 18 MAY 2022

SECOND MEETING IN SPACE WITH ASTROSAMANTHA ‣

The Italian experiments of the Minerva mission were presented MORE...