[Music] 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 [Music] 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 [Music] you