![]() "This is the first step in the six-month process of creating the world's only authentic ready-to-launch space shuttle stack in the Samuel Ocean Air and Space Center." "Today, with the installation of the two aft skirts, we commence 'Go For Stack,' the complex process of moving and lifting each of the space shuttle components into place for Endeavour's upcoming, inspiring 20-story vertical display," said Jeffrey Rudolph, president and chief executive officer of the California Science Center. Over the next six months, the skirts will serve as a foundation for the rest of the space shuttle to be assembled, concluding with the mating of the winged orbiter Endeavour. ![]() Instead, a truck-mounted crane hoisted the 7.5-foot-tall by 18-foot-wide (2.3 by 5.5 meter) aft skirts, one by one, from where they had been parked outside of the California Science Center in Los Angeles into the adjacent construction site where the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center will stand. This time though, the preparations were not for a launch into Earth orbit and occurred far away from NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) in Florida. On Thursday (July 20), the aft skirts for two solid rocket boosters were moved into place. The shuttle is due to go on display on October 30.- For the first time in 12 years, 3 months and 21 days, the stacking of a NASA space shuttle has begun again. The California Science Center plans to plant 1,000 new trees to replace those taken down for Endeavour’s road trip. The trip to the museum, which will take place along Los Angeles neighborhood roads, requires some 400 trees to be cut down and the temporary removal of hundreds of utility poles, street lights and traffic signals to accommodate the 175,000-pound (79,379-kg) winged spaceship. The shuttle will be taken off the carrier jet and moved to aUnited Airlines hangar to be prepared for transport next month to the California Science Center, about 12 miles from the airport. The final leg of the journey will take Endeavour on a tour over Los Angeles before the 747 jet touches down atLos Angeles International Airport around 11 a.m. On Friday Endeavour will be flown to northern California to pass by NASA’s Ames Research Center at Moffett Field and landmarks in and around San Francisco, Sacramento and other cities. The duo circled back around to the Kennedy Space Center to give workers and guests gathered at the runway a final glimpse of a shuttle in the sky.Īdditional low flyovers past NASA centers in Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas are planned, weather permitting, before the 747 lands at Ellington Field near the Johnson Space Center in Houston for the night.Įndeavour is due to depart Houston at dawn on Thursday, refuel at Biggs Army Airfield in El Paso, Texas, and head to NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base in California, where it will land for the night. That shuttle was not replaced.Įndeavour’s cross-country piggyback flight had been due to begin on Monday, but a cold front moving over Texas and into the Gulf of Mexico delayed its departure for two days.Īs the sun rose over the oceanside spaceport in Florida, the shuttle carrier jet took off through partly cloudy, pink-tinged skies and headed south for a farewell pass over the neighboring beachside communities. NASA lost a fourth shuttle, Columbia, in another fatal accident in 2003. ![]() Udvar-Hazy Center outside Washington.Ītlantis, which flew NASA’s 135th and final shuttle mission in July 2011, will be towed down the road to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in November. Discovery, NASA’s oldest surviving shuttle, is on display at theSmithsonian Institution’s Steven F. “It’s hard to believe it was 14 years ago,” said Kennedy Space Center director Bob Cabana, a former astronaut who commanded NASA’s first station assembly flight in 1998.Įndeavour is the second of NASA’s three surviving shuttles to be sent to a museum. ![]() Capital Gazette eNewspaper Home Page Close Menu ![]()
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