LADEE Fully Stacked on Minotaur V

The LADEE spacecraft in the nose-cone at the top of the full Minotaur V launch vehicle stack. LADEE is the first spacecraft designed, developed, built, integrated and tested at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif.
Image Credit: NASA Wallops / Terry Zaperach

NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) spacecraft is now in the nose-cone at the top of the full Minotaur V launch vehicle stack at the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, awaiting a launch at 11:27 p.m. EDT on Sept. 6, 2013. 

Engineers at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia prepare to encapsulate the LADEE spacecraft into the fairing of the Minotaur V launch vehicle nose-cone.
Image Credit: NASA Wallops / Terry Zaperach

Engineers at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia encapsulate NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) spacecraft into the fairing of the Minotaur V launch vehicle nose-cone.
Image Credit: NASA Wallops / Terry Zaperach.

NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) spacecraft sits in the nose-cone at the top of the full Minotaur V launch vehicle stack.
Image Credit:
NASA Ames / Zion Young

LADEE is a robotic mission that will orbit the moon to gather detailed information about the lunar atmosphere, conditions near the surface and environmental influences on lunar dust. A thorough understanding of these characteristics will address long-standing unknowns, and help scientists understand other planetary bodies as well.

LADEE is the first spacecraft designed, developed, built, integrated and tested at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif.

The probe will launch on a U.S. Air Force Minotaur V rocket, an excess ballistic missile converted into a space launch vehicle and operated by Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va., from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility. 

Source : NASA

By Science and Universe

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