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Music.

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I'm Scott Higginbotham, NASA's payload manager for the Permanent Multipurpose Module.

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For many years, NASA and the Italian Space Agency have been looking at the potential of

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turning one of the multipurpose logistics modules into a permanent module to fly

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and attach to the station and leave behind.

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Efforts to actually conduct the conversion got serious in the summer of 2009 when we started studies to

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understand specifically what modifications would be necessary to make the

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conversion from a temporary visiting vehicle to a permanent vehicle.

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There are three basic types of modifications that were performed to make the conversion from the MPLM to the PMM.

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The first has to do with weight.

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We tried to reduce the weight of the module as much as possible by eliminating hardware that we didn't

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need for the long-duration stay on orbit to allow us to carry more useful cargo up to space on STS-133.

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The second type of modification was associated with trying to make the interior of the module a

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little bit more useful for the astronauts during this long duration stay.

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For example, we have modified some of the panels inside the vehicle so that they are much

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easier for the astronauts to open and close during a flight.

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And then last and probably most importantly, we had to look at a series of changes to make the

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vehicle compatible for its new long-duration stay on orbit.

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The MPLMs were really only designed to be in space for about a week and a half,

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and now we have a vehicle that we're trying to leave in space for ten years.

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So we had to go back and recertify all the equipment, all the hardware,

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to make sure that it would be compatible in a space environment for that long,

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and that involved both analysis and actually physically swapping out some parts with

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newer parts that would be able to last that duration of the mission.

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And then probably most significant, we had to armor the exterior of the module so that it can withstand the

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micrometeoroid and hypervelocity debris impacts over the 10 years that it'll be on the station.

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Rather than modify the external shields, which are made of metal, which was going to be heavy and expensive,

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the clever idea that both we and the Italians came up with was to install a micrometeoroid mattress,

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which is basically a bullet-proof vest for the station that lies underneath the metallic

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shield and on top of the pressure vessel.

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This mattress is made up of Kevlar and Nextel fabric woven together and attached to our multi-layer

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insulation that lies between the pressure vessel and the external shields.