The role of the APM centre to support Columbus Precursor Flights

he APM Centre will be one of the most important European ground facilities for the support of the Columbus Attached Laboratory: it will act as system reference, it will support the on-board operations through the engineering and logistics support functions and it will play a key-role for the payload integration, performing both the payload analytical integration and the final acceptance of the Payload Elements before shipping to the U.S. for the integration on the Logistic Carrier. As the Spacelab mission E-1 is a Columbus Precursor Flight, it will be a unique opportunity to test at least two of the main functions of the APM Centre, namely the payload integration support and the engineering support. This paper describes in detail the above mentioned tasks performed by the APM Centre in the frame of Spacelab mission E-1, making comparison to the corresponding Columbus activities, as applicable.