The team will have sophisticated optical systems stationed on the ground near Daytona Beach and for the first time ever on board a ship, the Freedom Star. The Freedom Star and its sister ship, Liberty Star, which were built to recover space shuttle solid rocket boosters, will also track the spacecraft during the mission using NASA diagnostic radar systems. Both ships will be off the coast of the northeastern United States. They are home ported at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station adjacent to Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

“This ship-based imaging capability is unique,” said NASA Langley Principal Investigator Tom Horvath. “NASA did not possess a shipboard gyro-stabilized tracker with the large aperture/long focal length optics coupled to state-of-the-art detectors.”

The team tested the new optical system on the Freedom Star during a day sail from Cape Canaveral. They checked out the ship’s communications system, the NASA diagnostic radar, and kineto tracking mount to confirm that these systems are ready to support the mission. “They work together sort of like synchronized swimmers,” said project manager Melinda Cagle from NASA Langley.

The day sail also gave the SCIFLI team a chance to gain experience operating at sea by performing maintenance on the system, confirming communications links, and confirming the design of the mounting system and environmental enclosure.