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Blanketing for Environmental Tests

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APL STEREO technicians install solar blankets on the "A" observatory (the one that will be placed "ahead" of Earth in its orbit around the sun) prior to environmental tests. These tests, which include shock, vibration, acoustic, spin and thermal vacuum tests, simulate the ride into space the observatory will encounter aboard a Delta II launch vehicle from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., in 2006.

Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory