Workers offload the Centaur second stage for the Atlas V rocket slated to launch NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory or SDO.

At the Skid Strip on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, workers offload the Centaur second stage for the Atlas V rocket slated to launch NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, from a Volga-Dnepr Antonov AN-124-100, a Ukranian/Russian aircraft.

SDO is the first space weather research network mission in NASA's Living With a Star Program. The spacecraft's long-term measurements will give solar scientists in-depth information about changes in the sun's magnetic field and insight into how they affect Earth. Liftoff on the United Launch Alliance Atlas V is scheduled for Feb. 3, 2010. For information on SDO, visit http://www.nasa.gov/sdo. Photo credit: NASA/Jim Grossmann