If you want to make a spacecraft, you've got to break a few eggs.
No, that's not right.
You've got to bake for a few days.
That's it. So follow along for our recipe for homemade satellite.
First up, collect your ingredients.
We're making an ocean, land, and atmosphere monitoring satellite
called PACE. So we'll gather two polarimeters, which measure
the polarization state of light
as it travels through water and atmospheric aerosols.
And one Ocean Color Instrument, which will measure light reflected
from the ocean surface to study tiny ocean creatures called phytoplankton,
as well as atmospheric properties above the ocean.
Wrap these individual components in special spacecraft foil.
These blankets for satellites help keep the instruments that need to be hot, hot,
and those that need to be cold, cold while they're in space.
We make them special right here at Goddard.
Place the instruments in the Thermal Vacuum Chamber or TVAC.
This chamber mimics some of the extremes the satellite will experience.
Space can be very cold, but sunlight can heat the spacecraft up.
This test ensures the spacecraft and its instruments will handle both.
It also creates a vacuum, like the vacuum of space,
to make sure the satellite can withstand those pressures.
We'll bake the satellite components at a variety
of temperatures and pressures for several days.
When your timer goes off, remove PACE from TVAC.
It's time for the last step of building a spacecraft: Assembly!
We'll install PACE's instruments to get ready for launch in 2024
and a new view of our home planet's ocean and atmosphere.