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[b]LADEE Journeys to its Launch Facility[/b] After safely arriving at Wallops Flight Facility, technicians removed LADEE from the shipping container and placed it in a clean room, where it will stay until ready to roll out to the launch pad. LADEE was tested to make sure nothing was damaged during the transport, then engineers conducted a final radio communications compatibility test. To perform this test, engineers brought the same equipment used in previous tests to Wallops and connected it to the spacecraft to exercise the communications modes that will be used during the mission. LADEE is going through final preparation and close-out in advance of fueling and being encapsulated by Orbital Sciences Corp., in the fairing of the U.S. Air Force's Minotaur V launch vehicle. One important preparation is spin-balancing LADEE. During this procedure, the spacecraft is mounted to a spin table and rotated at a high-speed to make sure it is perfectly balanced for launch. The observatory will be spin-balanced dry, then fueled, and then spun again after fueling. At that point the LADEE Observatory will be ready to be encapsulated in the launch vehicle fairing and rolled out to Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport’s launch pad to be mated to the launch vehicle stack.
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