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Emily Lakdawalla • Jun 06, 2013

Launch is coming! LADEE arrives at Wallops

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.

LADEE delivered to NASA Wallops
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.Image: NASA / Patrick Black

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.

LADEE delivered to NASA Wallops
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.Image: NASA / Patrick Black

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