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NASA's Parker Solar Probe scheduled to
launch in summer of 2018 is the first
mission to touch the Sun built by the
Johns Hopkins Applied Physics lab in
Laurel Maryland the spacecraft completed
the first part of its environmental
testing in early November we're just
getting ready to pack up our whole show
and take it over to Goddard Space Flight
Center over there they have giant
acoustic chambers and also a very large
thermal vacuum chamber that we'll use to
do the rest of our environmental testing
even though it's only about a 20 mile
trip it still takes lots of planning
procedures and teamwork to actually make
it happen
the moving team includes many different
people working together from engineers
and technicians to safety and mission
assurance experts we serve as an extra
pair of eyes and ears for the people
working on the spacecraft we keep
watching for everything that could cause
an issue when it's time to move the
spacecraft we first wrap it inside a
special bag to protect it from
contamination by dust dirt and other
unwanted elements after wrapping it the
spacecraft goes into the bottom of its
protective container where we attach it
to a special pedestal with high strength
bolts at this height there we have a
problem we can't put the lid on and even
if we could they won't fit under the
highway bridges for the drive to Goddard
that's why we have the special pedestal
it lets us rotate the spacecraft to a
horizontal position and then we can
close the container now the container is
moved to the loading dock where it will
be put on a truck that will transport it
to Goddard the container loaded with
Parker Solar Probe weighs about 14,000
pounds to lift it on to the truck we use
a heavy duty crane
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to keep Parker Solar Probe safe inside
the container the team performs a
nitrogen purge all the air from inside
the container is removed by slowly
forcing nitrogen inside
after the purge is complete we parked
the truck in the loading dock and wait
for moving time at 4:00 in the morning
to avoid traffic the truck with maryland
state police escort leaves APL for the
20-mile trip to goddard once we're at
Goddard after a smooth and safe journey
the spacecraft is taken off the truck
then taken out of the container and
brought into a clean room for the next
phase of testing
at Goddard Parker Solar Probe will
undergo acoustic testing thermal and
vacuum testing and other grueling
simulations all to make sure it's ready
for its historic mission to touch the
Sun
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