Friday, August 7, 2009

Solar Dynamics Observatory Set For Shipment

GREENBELT, Md. - NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) soon will leave its home at Goddard Space Flight Center here and travel by truck to Cape Canaveral, Fla., where it is due to be orbited by an Atlas V rocket in November.

The first mission in NASA's Living With A Star program, SDO will study the solar atmosphere from geosynchronous Earth orbit, taking images of the sun in multiple wavelengths at a resolution 10 times higher than high-definition TV.

The spacecraft was designed and built by a team of 250 people at Goddard, and will be run from a dedicated Mission Operations Center here. It is scheduled to ship out July 7.

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