30, the shuttle will be on display in the science center’s Samuel Oschin Space Shuttle Endeavour Display Pavilion, embarking on its new mission to commemorate past achievements in space and educate and inspire future generations of explorers.Įndeavour completed 25 missions, spent 299 days in orbit, and orbited Earth 4,671 times while traveling 122,883,151 miles. Endeavour then will travel through Inglewood and Los Angeles city streets on a 12-mile journey from the airport to the science center, arriving in the evening on Oct. Endeavour completed a 12-mile journey from Los. Social media users are encouraged to share their Endeavour sightings using the hashtags #spottheshuttle and #OV105, Endeavour’s orbiter vehicle designation.Īfter arrival at LAX, Endeavour will be removed from the SCA and spend a few weeks at a United Airlines hangar undergoing preparations for transport and display. The crew carefully guides the space shuttle Endeavour into its new home at the California Science Center in Los Angeles on Sunday, October 14. Media representatives interested in obtaining credentials for Endeavour’s arrival at LAX Sept.
The aircraft also will conduct a flyover of many Los Angeles sites before landing about 11 a.m. 20, the SCA and Endeavour will take off from Dryden and perform a low-level flyover of northern California, passing near NASA’s Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., and various landmarks in multiple cities, including San Francisco and Sacramento. 19, the aircraft will depart Houston, make a refueling stop at Biggs Army Airfield in El Paso, Texas, and conduct low-level flyovers of White Sands Test Facility near Las Cruces, N.M., and NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base in California, before landing around mid-day at Dryden. Weather permitting, the SCA and Endeavour will stay at Ellington the remainder of Sept. As it arrives over the Texas Gulf Coast area, the SCA will perform low flyovers above various areas of Houston, Clear Lake and Galveston before landing at Ellington Field near NASA’s Johnson Space Center. The aircraft will fly west and conduct low flyovers of NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi and the agency’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. 17, the SCA and Endeavour will depart Kennedy’s Shuttle Landing Facility and perform a flyover of various areas of the Space Coast, including Kennedy, the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and Patrick Air Force Base.
If the ferry flight must be postponed for any reason, an additional advisory will be issued.Īt sunrise on Sept. Some planned flyovers or stopovers could be delayed or cancelled.
The exact timing and path of the ferry flight will depend on weather conditions and operational constraints. In cooperation with the Federal Aviation Administration, the SCA is scheduled to conduct low-level flyovers at about 1,500 feet above locations along the planned flight path. Under the terms of a Space Act Agreement with the science center, NASA will safely transport Endeavour to LAX for a planned arrival on Thursday, Sept. 11, 2011, NASA transferred title and ownership of Endeavour to the California Science Center in Los Angeles. 17, from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida headed to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). The newest addition to NASAs space shuttle fleet, Endeavour, arrives at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida atop the 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft on May 7, 1991. Project officials say this will be the world’s only display of an authentic, “ready-to-launch” space shuttle system.WASHINGTON – Space shuttle Endeavour, mounted atop NASA’s modified 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), will make the final ferry flight of the Space Shuttle Program era when it departs Monday, Sept. The six, triple-friction pendulum base isolators located beneath the space shuttle will allow for up to 30 inches of movement in a seismic event, according to Arup. To ensure stability and safety in an earthquake, the engineering team worked with ex-Boeing engineers from the space shuttle program and used a program called LS Dyna to run the structure through multiple earthquake scenarios. “The complication is that the exhibit is heavy and there are earthquakes in LA, so the ground is going to shake quite a bit and you have a 500,000-pound, 180-foot-tall exhibit moving around, experiencing lots of different forces and displacements, and the base it sits on has to be strong enough to keep it from rotating over,” she says. The seismic isolator pad is about 8 ft thick, 45 ft wide and 75 ft long and is built to support the entire weight of the 500,000-lb completed exhibit. When complete, the exhibit will stand 200 ft tall and weigh approximately 500,000 lb.Īmie Nulman, associate principal with Arup, says the most challenging aspect of this part of the project was forming the base that the afts sit on.