Inside the Astrotech payload processing facility in Titusville, Florida, NASA's Tracking and Data Relay Satellite, or TDRS-L, spacecraft has been encapsulated in its payload fairing. It is being lifted by crane for mounting on a transporter for its trip to Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The TDRS-L satellite will be a part of the second of three next-generation spacecraft designed to ensure vital operational continuity for the NASA Space Network. Image Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett

TDRS-L is scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral's Space Launch Complex 41 atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket at 9:05 p.m. EST on January 23, 2014, the start of a 30-minute launch window. The current Tracking and Data Relay Satellite system consists of eight in-orbit satellites distributed to provide near continuous information relay contact with orbiting spacecraft ranging from the International Space Station and Hubble Space Telescope to the array of scientific observatories.

Engineers are enclosing NASA's TDRS-L satellite into a two-piece payload fairing today in a processing bay at the Astrotech facility in Titusville as the spacecraft continues preparations ahead of its January 23 launch. The fairing will protect the communications satellite from aerodynamic forces during the first few minutes of launch aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. The satellite and fairing will be rolled to Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Monday. The fairing and TDRS-L will be hoisted to the top of the rocket soon after arrival at the launch pad.