When GOES-16 was shipped from from Colorado to Florida, it had to be put in a special satellite shipping container. To find out what makes this shipping container so special -- and what’s involved in shipping a satellite across the country -- we consulted NASA.
Before launching into orbit on November 19, 2016, GOES-16 (then GOES-R) had to be shipped from where it was constructed in Littleton, Colorado, to Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral Florida. Of course, with the spacecraft being more than 18-feet wide and weighing over 6,000 pounds, this kind of “shipping” called for something more than a large box and a whole bunch of bubble wrap.
For example, to safeguard it along its journey from Colorado to Florida, GOES-16 had to be put in a special satellite shipping container and then loaded into a massive C-5 airplane!
To find out just what makes this shipping container so special (you know, besides having a multibillion dollar satellite inside it) -- and what’s involved in shipping a satellite across the country -- we checked with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Here's what we learned:
Prior to shipping, protective covers are placed over the instrument optical apertures and other sensitive satellite surfaces. Also, all of the deployable appendages are stowed against the body of the satellite so that they don’t move during handling. For shipping, the satellite is placed on a mobile pallet that has structural arms built to hold a tent made of protective bagging material so that it surrounds but does not touch the satellite. Once the bagging is installed, a 5-sided cover is lifted over the satellite and attached to the base of the pallet to form a solid box around the satellite. Then the satellite is transported to its destination via a cargo plane, such as the Air Force C-5 that brought GOES-16 from Colorado to Florida last summer.
To see photos of from GOES-16's journey from Colorado to Florida, visit the GOES-R.gov website.