Orbiting Carbon Observatory 3 Move

A transportation container carrying NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory 3, or OCO-3, payload sits at the Space Station Processing Facility high bay at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida bearing a warning sign of low oxygen levels from an active GN2 (gaseous nitrogen that creates a dry atmosphere) purge prior to its move to the SpaceX facility on March 18, 2019. The OCO-3 payload will be stowed in the trunk of SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft and will launch aboard a Falcon 9 rocket on the company’s 17th Commercial Resupply Services mission to the International Space Station. Launch is scheduled for April 25, 2019, from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Once the payload reaches the station, it will be removed from Dragon and robotically installed on the exterior of the orbiting laboratory’s Japanese Experiment Module Exposed Facility Unit, where it will measure and map carbon dioxide from space to provide further understanding of the relationship between carbon and climate.

A transportation container carrying NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory 3, or OCO-3, payload sits at the Space Station Processing Facility high bay at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida bearing a warning sign of low oxygen levels from an active GN2 (gaseous nitrogen that creates a dry atmosphere) purge prior to its move to the SpaceX facility on March 18, 2019. The OCO-3 payload will be stowed in the trunk of SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft and will launch aboard a Falcon 9 rocket on the company’s 17th Commercial Resupply Services mission to the International Space Station. Launch is scheduled for April 25, 2019, from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Once the payload reaches the station, it will be removed from Dragon and robotically installed on the exterior of the orbiting laboratory’s Japanese Experiment Module Exposed Facility Unit, where it will measure and map carbon dioxide from space to provide further understanding of the relationship between carbon and climate.