Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) team members bow at the Ebisu Shrine, the first shrine in a traditional San-ja Mairi, or Three Shrine Pilgrimage, where the team prays on Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2014 for a successful launch, Tanegashima Island, Japan. A Japanese H-IIA rocket carrying the NASA-JAXA, Global Precipitation Measurement Core Observatory is planned for launch from the space center on Feb. 28, 2014, local time (Feb. 27 EST). Once launched, the GPM spacecraft will collect information that unifies data from an international network of existing and future satellites to map global rainfall and snowfall every three hours.

Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls