That will be followed on Tuesday night by a hard mate, when the bolts and nuts will be completely torqued, firmly securing the orbiter in place. Just under nine and a half hours later, Endeavour was "soft mated" to the upper and lower attach points on the external tank. The orbiter was then slowly swung into the vertical and then a 450-foot (137-meter) crane lifted Endeavour up and over the partially constructed walls of the Oschin Air and Space Center. EDT or 0530 GMT on Tuesday) as two cranes slowly raised the 122-foot-long (37-meter) spacecraft off of its transporter. There, the same yellow sling that was used to lift Endeavour in NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) in Florida was attached to the vehicle one last time.Įndeavour left the ground at around 9:30 p.m. The external tank followed earlier this month.Īfter covering Endeavour in shrink wrap to protect its thermal blankets and tiles from being stained by the dust and dirt kicked up in a typical work site and moving it out of its display pavilion, the orbiter was driven the short distance to beside its future home on Friday (Jan. Under the oversight of Dennis Jenkins, a veteran of NASA's shuttle program, together with a team of his former colleagues, the science center's "Go for Stack" effort erected the two solid rocket boosters in a series of three lifts in July, November and December 2023. by way of the Panama Canal) and obtain two flight-proven solid rocket boosters from Northrop Grumman, but also raise the estimated $400 million needed for Endeavour's new home, a reality made possible by a long list of donors led by the Mr. To achieve that goal, the science center not only had to source NASA's last built-for-flight external tank (bringing it L.A. For the past 12 years, the iconic spacecraft had been exhibited raised off the floor on its wheels, but from the start the plan was to permanently showcase Endeavour in its vertical, launch-like configuration. (California Science Center)įirst proposed by the science center staff as an a pie-in-the-sky exhibit back in the 1990s, the path to erecting a space shuttle in Exposition Park began becoming a reality with NASA's decision to award Endeavour to the science center for display. "I think we all feel a huge sigh of relief knowing that the hardest part of this whole project and the thing that's never been done before on a site like this is now behind us." "It is just so exciting to have actually completed this and to see a 30-year dream fulfilled," said Jeffrey Rudolph, president and chief executive officer of the California Science Center, in an interview with collectSPACE. The stacking process, which was commonly done to prepare for launches when the shuttle program was active, was carried out this last time to erect Endeavour's display in the still under construction Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center at the California Science Center. 29-30), two large cranes carefully lifted NASA's retired winged orbiter Endeavour off a Los Angeles side street into the air and then lowered it onto an already-standing external tank with twin solid rocket boosters. Overnight Monday into the early hours of Tuesday (Jan. A complete space shuttle is standing upright for the first time in more than a decade.
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