GPM: Journey to Launch
A U.S. Air Force C-5 transport aircraft carrying the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory landed at Kitakyushu Airport, about 600 miles southwest of Tokyo, at approximately 10:30 p.m. EST Saturday, Nov. 23.
The spacecraft, the size of a small private jet, is the largest satellite ever built at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. It left Goddard inside a large shipping container Nov. 19 and began its journey across the Pacific Ocean Nov. 21 from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, with a refueling stop in Anchorage, Alaska.
From Kitakyushu Airport, the spacecraft was loaded onto a barge heading to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA's) Tanegashima Space Center on Tanegashima Island in southern Japan, where it will be prepared for launch in early 2014 on an H-IIA rocket.
Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
Writer
- Ellen T. Gray (NASA/HQ)
Video editors
- Michael Starobin (KBRwyle)
- Ryan Fitzgibbons (KBRwyle)
Scientists
- Ardeshir A Azarbarzin (NASA/GSFC)
- Candace C Carlisle (NASA/GSFC)
Producers
- Michael Starobin (KBRwyle)
- Ryan Fitzgibbons (KBRwyle)
Videographers
- Michael Starobin (KBRwyle)
- Ryan Fitzgibbons (KBRwyle)
Project support
- Warren F. Shultzaberger (ASRC Research and Technology Solutions)