Before the age of vertically-landing rockets, the pinnacle of the space program’s reusable ambitions was the space shuttle. NASA‘s iconic re-entry vehicles once made an imposing presence when stacked on a launch platform with a fuel tank and two booster rockets.
That’s now a part of history but it isn’t going to be relegated to images and video. Space Shuttle Endeavour is set to become a display at the under-construction Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center. The remarkable bit about that? It’ll be stacked as though for launch.
A space shuttle at rest
Currently, Endeavour is on display at the California Science Center where it’s been since it retired from service in 2011. The current move, known as ‘Go for Stack’, will see the shuttle shifting places to the new Air and Space Center by the end of the year. It’ll take six months to get the site ready for the shuttle anyway.
This involves “…the installation of the aft skirts, on top of which the solid rocket motors will be stacked to form the solid rocket boosters. This will be followed by the move and lift of the external tank, ET-94”. Following that, Endeavour will be lifted and attached to the 20-story-high display. Construction will resume around the decommissioned launch vehicle, meaning it’ll be unavailable for a few years.
Once the new facility is complete, however, then “Endeavour will be the star attraction of the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center, a launchpad for creativity and innovation that will inspire future generations of scientists, engineers and explorers,” said California Science Center head Jeff Rudolph. It’ll join “multiple [science-based] hands-on exhibit galleries, special exhibitions, and IMAX movies” at the facility but will (literally) tower above them all.