Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
When preparing the twin STEREO observatories for travel, several precautions were taken to ensure their safety and cleanliness. Before leaving the clean room, the spacecraft were covered with several antistatic bags to maintain their cleanliness. Each observatory was then loaded into, and sealed within, specially designed shipping containers with instrumentation to record humidity, temperature, shock and pressure. A continuous nitrogen purge was maintained on each observatory to keep moisture and contaminants out -- keeping instruments extremely clean. The containers were then loaded onto a custom flatbed truck equipped with special shocks to reduce vibration to the spacecraft and its systems during transport.
The STEREO observatories were transported Nov. 9, 2005, from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, in Laurel, Md., to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, in Greenbelt, Md., for additional pre-launch environmental tests. The mission team transported the STEREO observatories to Florida on May 3, 2006, for final launch preparations.
