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Solar Orbiter Spacecraft Unboxed; Atlas V Launch Vehicle Arrives

The Solar Orbiter spacecraft is suspended on a mechanical support stand inside a cleanroom. Its body is covered in reflective thermal insulation, with exposed scientific instruments and structural components visible. The spacecraft is being carefully positioned for integration and testing, surrounded by bright white walls, sterile equipment, and overhead platforms, indicating a controlled laboratory environment.
The Solar Orbiter spacecraft has been removed from its shipping container inside the Astrotech Space Operations facility in Titusville, Florida. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett

The United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V booster that will launch the Solar Orbiter on its upcoming mission to study the Sun has arrived at the Florida spaceport, while the spacecraft is beginning launch preparations of its own.

A large rocket booster, wrapped in protective coverings, is transported horizontally on a multi-wheeled trailer under a partly cloudy blue sky. The cylindrical structure is tan and silver with pink and white shielding at one end. Yellow and red transport equipment secures the booster, which appears to be arriving at a spaceport facility for launch preparation.
The United Launch Alliance Atlas V booster that will launch the Solar Orbiter spacecraft is delivered by truck to the Atlas Spaceflight Operations Center at Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Nov. 21, 2019. Photo credit: NASA/Ben Smegelsky

The company’s cargo vessel, Rocketship – formerly known as Mariner – delivered the Atlas V first stage and Centaur upper stage to Port Canaveral on Nov. 20, 2019, after traveling from the booster’s manufacturing facility at Decatur, Alabama. Upon arrival at the port, the launch hardware was trucked to separate facilities at nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station: the booster to ULA’s Atlas Spaceflight Operations Center (ASOC) and the Centaur to a separate facility. Both stages will undergo preflight checkouts before the components are stacked for launch at the Space Launch Complex 41 Vertical Integration Facility closer to liftoff.

Meanwhile, the Solar Orbiter spacecraft has been removed from its shipping container for the start of its own prelaunch preparations at the Astrotech Space Operations Facility in Titusville, Florida. The spacecraft was uncrated Nov. 15 and rotated to vertical on Nov. 18, paving the way for upcoming processing and checkouts, including tests of the spacecraft and its suite of science instruments, as well as its propellant pressurization system.

Solar Orbiter is a European Space Agency mission with strong NASA participation. The mission aims to study the Sun, its outer atmosphere and solar winds. The spacecraft will provide the first images of the Sun’s poles. NASA’s Launch Services Program based at Kennedy is managing the launch. Liftoff is scheduled for Feb. 5, 2020, from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 41 aboard the ULA Atlas V launch vehicle.