NASA’s PACE spacecraft has successfully arrived at the Astrotech Space Operations facility near the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, after its journey from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Technicians and engineers were on hand to prepare ground equipment for offloading and processing before fueling and final encapsulation. The spacecraft is targeted to launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in early 2024, from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

PACE, which stands for Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, and ocean Ecosystem, will help clarify how the ocean and atmosphere exchange carbon dioxide, improve upon NASA’s 20-plus years of global satellite observations of ocean biology and atmospheric aerosols, and continue key measurements related to air quality and climate.

The project is managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, with the agency’s Launch Services Program based at Kennedy Space Center responsible for managing launch service for the PACE mission. The content of this article has been reviewed according to Science X’s editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content’s credibility: fact-checked, trusted source