At the Astrotech processing facility on Vandenberg Air Force Base Attach Fitting in the foreground.

At the Astrotech processing facility on Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, workers guide NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, being lifted by crane from its test stand for mating to its Payload Attach Fitting in the foreground.

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