The boosters were moved into place in early December. A crane will lift it into vertical position alongside two 149-foot tall standing solid rocket boosters. The tank will likely be in place late Thursday or early Friday. when a transporter, which is self-propelled, is set in motion for a two-hour journey past the the Science Center building and the Exposition Park Rose Garden to its home in the new Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center, which is under construction. This external tank is the only external tank left from the space shuttle program that was built for flight but not flown." "And that also is interesting from the fact of it's the only one in the world. "Not only weights and distances and lengths and diameters, but what you have to do to move it around to get past obstructions and whatnot," said Larry Clark, a retired space shuttle engineer. It could be a few years before it is open to the public, given the construction schedule and additional time needed to install exhibits.Get Southern California news, weather forecasts and entertainment stories to your inbox. Once the shuttle full stack is in place, the rest of the museum will be built around it. Such “diagrids” have been used in other tall buildings, including the 46-story Hearst Tower in New York City, the iconic 40-story ovular Gherkin skyscraper in London and a section of the egg-shaped London City Hall. It will feature a a diagonal grid developed by engineering firm Arup and covered by a stainless-steel facade. To keep views unobstructed, the building has been engineered with no vertical supports except its walls. The full-stack configuration is so tall that the new museum will rise 20 stories to make room for it. For 11 years, Endeavour was displayed in a temporary hangar, the Samuel Oschin Pavilion, as the museum worked on a permanent home. When the shuttle was stacked with its external tank and solid rocket boosters at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the assembly was done inside NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building - one of the largest by volume in the world, rising more than 50 stories and equipped with plenty of cranes and platforms from which to work.Ī veteran of 25 space trips from 1992 to 2011, Endeavour made its last flight in 2012, ending a cross-country journey at Los Angeles International Airport before undertaking a three-day trek along city streets to the California Science Center. “This has never been done like this before, with cranes and outside and at a construction site,” he said. “Wind and wings don’t go well on a crane,” Rudolph said. “And then the challenge is actually bringing the orbiter - ‘capturing it’ - at the three attach points.”īecause Endeavour is essentially a glider with a massive wingspan, it’ll be difficult to guide it down if there are strong winds. “There are a few places where there’s some challenging parts in the lowering of it because of the tight fit with the wings and vertical stabilizer,” he said. With the Endeavour orbiter - the last space shuttle ever built - crews will need to maneuver an object with a 78-foot wingspan and get “everything absolutely level and aligned properly, and extremely gently,” Rudolph said. The tank is so large that, as it was lowered, there was less than an inch of space between it and the solid rocket boosters. There are different challenges lifting the shuttle than the external tank, which was completed earlier this month. Nothing should change after that until the museum opens the payload bay doors in a few years when Endeavour is ready for public display, Rudolph said. California Space shuttle Endeavour makes one more voyage to its final destination at a new space centerĪfter being on display at the California Science Center for more than a decade, the Endeavor began it’s final move to a new center as it’s permanent home.
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