Space shuttle Endeavour successfully launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 09:14 GMT today.

“It was an important event,” said Jean-Jacques Dordain, director general of the European Space Agency. “… A very beautiful launch.”

Among the cargo is the European-made Cupola, a collection of seven windows that will allow space station dwellers to look directly out into space. The Cupola will attach to the Tranquility node, which Endeavour is also carting up into orbit.

Once Tranquility is installed, astronauts will move in air purifiers, urine converters and a bathroom which are currently cluttering the station’s Destiny science laboratory.

Image: NASA/Jim Grossmann