![]() On top of the aft skirts – which weigh about 13,000 pounds – will be two solid rocket motors, which are being donated by Northrop Grumman and are being transported from Mojave to the science center sometime in October. Over the next six months or so, different parts of the shuttle’s full stack will be delicately placed and secured. Once the position of the skirts are verified, they will be bolted down to the slab with four hold-down studs each. “Anything beyond that will make the rest of the space shuttle stacking process impossible,” he said. The margin of error for attaching the skirt is one-tenth of an inch, the width of a nickel. Jeff Rudolph, president and CEO of the California Science Center, said arranging the shuttle in a vertical position, as if ready to be launched into space, is a technically challenging process. It took roughly two hours to move both skirts to the 1,800-ton concrete slab. The entire weight of the space shuttle’s full stack will rest on what’s known as the aft skirts, the lowest part of the twin solid rocket boosters, which will support the weight of the entire space shuttle stack. Workers lifted the base of the shuttle’s full stack, over the partially built walls of the future Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center, before placing it down onto a concrete slab that is supported with six seismic isolators. The move to the new space center is taking place in phases. In 2012, the Endeavour captivated people across California as it flew past the Golden Gate Bridge and Hollywood sign atop a Boeing 747, before it underwent a three-day trek on land over the 405 Freeway and across the streets of Los Angeles and Inglewood to its home at the California Science Center. ![]() The new location will give guests views from multiple platforms, including from beneath the orbiter’s three main engines as well as from above, looking through a glass floor directly at its nose.Įndeavour flew 25 missions, with its first mission in 1992 and its last in 2011. ![]() All four elements combined are called a shuttle’s full stack. The famed spacecraft that has been on horizontal display at the science center is in the process of moving to a permanent location in what will be the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center, where the vehicle will be mounted in a vertical position, along with the solid rocket boosters and an orange external tank, making it look like it’s ready to launch. LOS ANGELES – The space shuttle Endeavour began the first part of its journey to its final resting place Thursday, an effort more than a decade in the making after arriving at the California Science Center museum in 2012.
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