NASA's Gravity Probe B spacecraft was shipped to Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., in preparation for its planned April 17 launch aboard a Delta 2 rocket, NASA announced. The launch of the satellite, designed to test Einstein's theory of relativity and first proposed in 1962, has been delayed multiple times. The most recent delay was due to an improperly wired component that could have interfered with the experiment. The component, called the Experiment Control Unit, has been fixed and reinstalled, and the spacecraft now is in NASA's Payload Processing Facility at Vandenberg for testing. Gravity Probe B's solar panels are scheduled to be reattached in mid-March. The spacecraft, built by Lockheed Martin Space Systems, will be mated to its Boeing-built Delta 2 rocket April 1, NASA said.
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