The Comet Nucleus Tour (CONTOUR) spacecraft left Maryland on April 23rd for Cape Canaveral, FL, site of its scheduled July 1 launch for the first detailed look into the heart of a comet.

Secured in an air-ride, climate-controlled shipping container, CONTOUR set out from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt where it spent the past eight weeks being baked, frozen, spun, shaken and probed in Goddard's test facilities, getting a dose of the conditions it will face during launch and in space.

Artist's concept of the CONTOUR satellite

CONTOUR arrived at Cape Canaveral/Kennedy Space Center today and was transported to the Spacecraft Assembly and Encapsulation Facility-2 (SAEF-2) in the KSC Industrial Area today to begin final launch preparations.

"Our spacecraft is ready and the team is anxious to start final preparations for launch," says CONTOUR Project Manager Mary C. Chiu, of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., which designed and built the 8-sided, 6-foot by 7-foot spacecraft.

After a predawn launch aboard a Boeing Delta II rocket, CONTOUR will encounter two very different comets as they zoom through the inner solar system. From as close as 60 miles (about 100 kilometers) away, the spacecraft will snap the sharpest pictures yet of a comet's nucleus, map the types of rock and ice on the surface and analyze the surrounding gas and dust.

Click here for the full press release.

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