A number of Swiss firms have been involved in the construction of the Columbus space lab, a project of the European Space Agency. The lab is scheduled to dock with the International Space Station at the end of 2007.

During the lab's ten year lifetime it is planned to perform hundreds of experiments, which can only be carried out in conditions of weightlessness.

The Swiss firms involved in its construction include Meteolabor of Wetzikon, which has designed a dew point sensor for measuring humidity; Alcatel Switzerland of Zurich, which has made a payload power switching box for controlling power supplies; and Mecanex, of Nyon, which has produced high precision joints of the European Robotic Arm on the space station.

The Space Technology Group at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich will help process the information from the biological experiments carried out on Columbus.