A crane is moved into position to lift NASA's Infrared Survey Explorer or WISE from its test stand to determine its exact weight.

At the Astrotech processing facility on Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, a crane is moved into position to lift NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, from its test stand to determine its exact weight.

The satellite will survey the entire sky at infrared wavelengths, creating a cosmic clearinghouse of hundreds of millions of objects which will be catalogued and provide a vast storehouse of knowledge about the solar system, the Milky Way, and the universe. Launch is scheduled for Dec. 7. Photo credit: NASA/Doug Kolkow