Workers attach the overhead crane onto the shipping container to remove from around NASA's Infrared Survey Explorer or WISE spacecraft.

In the Astrotech payload processing facility at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, workers attach the overhead crane onto the shipping container to remove it from around NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, spacecraft. The satellite will survey the entire sky at infrared wavelengths, creating a cosmic clearinghouse of hundreds of millions of objects, which will be catalogued, providing a vast storehouse of knowledge about the solar system, the Milky Way, and the universe. Launch is scheduled no earlier than Dec. 10. Photo credit: NASA/Doug Kolkow, VAFB