![]() The 11-year exhibition, which was housed in the center's specially-built Samuel Oschin Pavilion, offered unmatched access to the spacecraft, as the public could not only walk around Endeavour, but also under it, as the vehicle was displayed in the horizontal atop raised mounts. ![]() The California Science Center in Los Angeles has exhibited OV-105, better known as the orbiter Endeavour, since Oct. It could be a few years before it is open to the public, given the construction schedule and additional time needed to install exhibits.- With the end of 2023 comes the end of an endeavor - or rather Endeavour - as the retired NASA space shuttle goes off public view for the next few years. 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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