GEDI was successfully launched on Dec 5th from Cape Canaveral, Florida in the Dragon capsule of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and subsequently installed in its new home on the Japanese Experiment Module-Exposed Facility on Dec 13th. Due to various issues on-board the International Space Station, the initiation of commissioning was essentially delayed until Jan 2nd. Since that time GEDI has moved ahead towards commissioning which should be completed in February. Once out of the commissioning phase, GEDI will begin collecting planned science data. These early data will be used to refine science calibration efforts leading to operational production of GEDI data products.

GEDI commissioning is led by GEDI mission engineers and scientists at the NASA Goddard Science and Planetary Operations Control Center (SPOCC). Mission execution is led by the GEDI Mission Operations Center (MOC), and science calibration and validation activities occur at the GEDI Science Operations Center (SOC), both of which are housed within the SPOCC.

To date, GEDI achievements on the road to commissioning include: all GEDI subsystems are powered up, other than the Pointing Control Mechanism (which begins testing soon); all 8 laser beams are returning waveforms; laser pulses are consistent with pre-launch performance, and noise performance is good with all channels; laser boresight alignment for all three lasers are good and well within field of view.