VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- At Vandenberg Air Force Base's Astrotech processing facility in California, technicians working on NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, spacecraft place the first half of the clampband on the test payload attach fitting. The satellite will survey the entire sky at infrared wavelengths, creating a cosmic clearinghouse of hundreds of millions of objects, which will be catalogued, providing a vast storehouse of knowledge about the solar system, the Milky Way, and the universe. Launch is scheduled no earlier than Dec. 7. Photo credit: NASA/Doug Kolkow KSC-2009-4850