Launch is coming! LADEE arrives at Wallops

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla

2013/06/06 10:01 CDT

Topics: mission status, LADEE

LADEE has arrived at its launch facility! The spacecraft was successfully delivered to NASA Wallops on June 4. Here are a couple of photos of the delivery.

NASA / Patrick Black

LADEE delivered to NASA Wallops

The NASA Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) arrived at NASA Wallops on June 4, 2013, to begin final processing for its trip to the Moon later that year.

There's something that tickles my funny bone about this rather pedestrian warehouse forklift with the retro-cool 1970's NASA "worm" logo painted on the side. It is, of course, doing something totally non-pedestrian: moving a hundreds-million-dollar spacecraft from a truck to a clean room. It still makes me chuckle. I'll bet this forklift totally lords it over other forklifts at the annual forklift convention. If forklifts had conventions. Okay, I'll stop now.

NASA / Patrick Black

LADEE delivered to NASA Wallops

The NASA Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) arrived at NASA Wallops on June 4, 2013, to begin final processing for its trip to the moon later that year.

LADEE is the next planetary mission launch, scheduled for September 5, 2013, three months from now. Tick tick tick!

Comments:

Bob Ware: 06/06/2013 09:00 CDT

...but I'll continue! The front tires are white walls!!!! How 70's stylish huh?!

Thomas Faber: 06/07/2013 11:41 CDT

Hi Emily, that's not the "worm" logo. It's the "meatball." It was NASA's original logo. In the mid '70's the logo was changed to the "worm" which was the letters NASA with the center bar missing from the As. It was thought that NASA needed a more "modern" logo. Under administrator Dan Golden in the '90's the logo was changed back to the meatball seen on the carrier in the photo.

Thomas Faber: 06/07/2013 11:42 CDT

Woops! I just realized you were talking about the logo on the forklift. Sorry!

S.M. Ahmed: 06/13/2013 03:04 CDT

It is an amazing job on her part, that Emily keeps a tab on every whisper that takes place in the name of "planetary exploration"; starting from far east in China, then to India where she has picked each and every bit of information that percolates to the public domain. Coming back to the present "LADEE", I wish her all the best in exploring the Lunar "atmosphere"

Emily Lakdawalla: 06/18/2013 07:55 CDT

Thanks :)