NASA’s retired space shuttle Endeavor was carefully hoisted late Monday to connect to its giant external fuel tank and two solid rocket boosters at the Los Angeles Museum, where it will be put on special display as if it is about to take off. .
A giant crane began carefully lifting the 122-foot-long, 78-foot wingspan orbiter into the partially constructed Samuel Oshin Air and Space Center at the California Science Center in Exposition Park.
Buildings around Endeavor are expected to be completed before the exhibit opens to the public.
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The 20-story display stands on a 1,800-ton concrete slab supported by six so-called seismic isolation devices to protect Endeavor from earthquakes.
All parts of the vertical launch configuration are authentic components of the shuttle system, including the flight-certified rust-colored external tank.
Endeavor flew 25 missions from 1992 until 2011, when NASA’s shuttle program ended.
Space Shuttle Endeavor is seen being installed on the site of the future Samuel Oshin Air and Space Center in Los Angeles on January 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)
The shuttle created a spectacle in 2012 when it flew aboard NASA’s Boeing 747 to Los Angeles International Airport, then inched its way through narrow city streets toward Exposition Park. External tanks arrived by barge and similarly navigated the city.
The shuttle was initially displayed horizontally in a temporary exhibition hall. The groundbreaking ceremony for the Aerospace Center was held in 2022, the 11th anniversary of Endeavor’s final return from space.
The process of assembling the shuttle system into a vertical configuration was called “Go for Stack,” an informal term meaning assembling rocket components for launch.
Work began in July with the precision installation of the lower segment of the side booster, known as the aft skirt, for the first time outside a NASA facility. In use, the booster is attached to an external tank to assist the shuttle’s main engines in takeoff.
The 116-foot-long rocket motor was trucked from the Mojave Desert to Los Angeles in October and installed the following month.
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NASA has operated a total of five shuttles in space. Shuttle Challenger and its crew were lost in a launch accident on January 28, 1986. The Columbia and its crew went missing on February 1, 2003, while returning from orbit. The retired shuttles Atlantis and Discovery and the test ship Enterprise, which never went into space, are on display around the country.
Atlantis is located at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and is displayed as if in orbit, with its payload door open and its robotic arm extended. Discovery rests on its landing gear at the National Air and Space Museum’s Stephen F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia.
Enterprise, which was ejected from the carrier’s aircraft for entry and landing tests, is on display at the Intrepid Museum in New York.
