Technicians prepare to install protective thermal blankets around the Radiation Belt Storm Probes or RBSP spacecraft A.

Inside the Astrotech payload processing facility near NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, technicians prepare to install protective thermal blankets around the Radiation Belt Storm Probes, or RBSP, spacecraft A.

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 launch aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. Launch is targeted for Aug. 23. For more information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/rbsp. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett