1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:07,370 \h Music. 2 00:00:07,370 --> 00:00:11,710 \h Before the Solar Dynamics Observatory is allowed to turn its instruments on the sun, 3 00:00:11,710 --> 00:00:15,090 \h technicians spent months making sure it is up to the task. 4 00:00:15,090 --> 00:00:19,260 \h SDO, as the mission is known, arrived in Florida on July 9, 2009, 5 00:00:19,260 --> 00:00:23,060 \h after its construction at Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. 6 00:00:23,060 --> 00:00:27,850 \h Once inside the large clean room at the Astrotech processing facility near Kennedy Space Center, 7 00:00:27,850 --> 00:00:31,940 \h technicians carefully unpacked the spacecraft from its protective carrier. 8 00:00:31,940 --> 00:00:37,650 \h After initial testing and processing, the workers deployed SDO's equipment to make sure it would work in space. 9 00:00:37,650 --> 00:00:40,550 \h First, the high-gain antenna: Once the mission begins, 10 00:00:40,550 --> 00:00:46,700 \h SDO will shoot hi-res images of the sun and relay the data instantly to a ground station in New Mexico. 11 00:00:46,700 --> 00:00:50,240 \h Next, the technicians deployed the SDO's twin solar panels that will be called on to 12 00:00:50,240 --> 00:00:52,880 \h power the craft during its mission. 13 00:00:52,880 --> 00:01:00,040 \h At Launch Complex-41, SDO was hoisted to the top of a waiting Atlas V rocket on Jan. 26, 2010,