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Space shuttle Discovery landed at Dulles airport on April 17 on the back of a 747 after a fly-around of much of the region. It’s now bound for the Smithsonian’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.
Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center
Discovery was the third Space Shuttle orbiter vehicle to fly in space. It entered service in 1984 and retired from spaceflight as the oldest and most accomplished orbiter, the champion of the shuttle fleet. Discovery flew on 39 Earth-orbital missions, spent a total of 365 days in space, and traveled almost 240 million kilometers (150 million miles)--more than the other orbiters. It shuttled 184 men and women into space and back, many of whom flew more than once, for a record-setting total crew count of 251.
Because Discovery flew every kind of mission the Space Shuttle was meant to fly, it embodies well the 30-year history of U.S. human spaceflight from 1981 to 2011. Named for renowned sailing ships of exploration, Discovery is preserved as intact as possible as it last flew in 2011 on the 133rd Space Shuttle mission.
NASA transferred Discovery to the Smithsonian in April 2012 after a delivery flight over the nation's capital.
Talk about lucky... I was in Orlando for Tech Ed and NASA was planning a launch on the last day of the conference. So, I drove over there and was very lucky to be able to catch a launch. This was taken right on the shore in the back yard of some guy's house, but there were a lot of people that "just showed up"... so we did, too!
Space shuttle Endeavour sits on display inside a temporary exhibit hall at the California Science Center in Los Angeles. A permanent exhibit, which will feature the orbiter in a vertical orientation as if if she was at the launch pad, is expected to open in 2017.
NASA Shuttle Bus- April 30th, 2014-
We live right outside of NASA here in Houston, They retired the 747 used to ferry the Space Shuttles after their flights. They retired the Jumbo Bus and hauled it in pieces to its final resting spot at the Space Museum on the NASA Grounds. They had to move all the pieces at night and it came right by my neighborhood last night! What an event They had everything shut down! It as quite a sight. It was stopped here for 30 minutes while utility companies moved overhead wires at an upcoming intersection, making for a great photo-op!
for the full story... go to www.chron.com/default/article/Clear-Lake-highway-set-to-c...
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- At NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, space shuttle Atlantis' main engines and solid rocket boosters ignite on Launch Pad 39A leaving behind a billow of steam and smoke as it lifts off past the tower on its STS-135 mission to the International Space Station. Atlantis with its crew of four; Commander Chris Ferguson, Pilot Doug Hurley, Mission Specialists Sandy Magnus and Rex Walheim, lifted off at 11:29 a.m. EDT on July 8, 2011 to deliver the Raffaello multi-purpose logistics module packed with supplies and spare parts for the International Space Station. Atlantis also will fly the Robotic Refueling Mission experiment that will investigate the potential for robotically refueling existing satellites in orbit. In addition, Atlantis will return with a failed ammonia pump module to help NASA better understand the failure mechanism and improve pump designs for future systems. STS-135 will be the 33rd flight of Atlantis, the 37th shuttle mission to the space station, and the 135th and final mission of NASA's Space Shuttle Program. For more information, visit www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/sts135.... Photo credit: NASA/Sandra Joseph and Kevin O'Connell