Technicians move the payload faring containing the two Radiation Belt Storm Probes or RBSP spacecraft.

Inside the Astrotech payload processing facility in Titusville, Fla. near NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, technicians move the payload faring containing the two Radiation Belt Storm Probes, or RBSP, spacecraft into position for lifting on to a transporter to be moved to the launch complex.

NASA’s RBSP mission will help us understand the sun’s influence on Earth and near-Earth space by studying the Earth’s radiation belts on various scales of space and time. RBSP will begin its mission of exploration of Earth’s Van Allen radiation belts and the extremes of space weather after its liftoff aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. Liftoff is targeted for Aug. 23, 2012. For more information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/rbsp Photo credit: NASA/ Kim Shiflett