After years of preparation, a team of Georgia Tech researchers and students will watch their small satellite leave Earth and begin its mission to the moon.
SpaceX will launch Lunar Flashlight on Wednesday from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The Georgia Tech team will then pivot to its role as mission control.
Fourteen operators, including six undergraduate students and eight graduate students, will staff the control center inside of a small lab in Atlanta.
The team will check the satellite’s systems, run through scheduled propulsion burns and set it on its path to the moon.
It will take the satellite about three months to reach its science-gathering orbit.
