#Nike Space Shuttle Endeavours install#
#Nike Space Shuttle Endeavours full#

Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. After that, it could be years before Endeavour will again be available for up-close viewing. Since Endeavour’s arrival at the center in 2012, the orbiter has been on display in the temporary Samuel Oschin Pavilion, essentially a warehouse, where it will be shown until Dec. The California Science Center Foundation is still raising funds for the last $50 million needed for the project. Once complete, the $400-million Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center will rise 20 stories tall. The rest of the museum will then be built around it. Cranes - the tallest of which will be about the height of Los Angeles City Hall - will raise Endeavour from its horizontal position to point vertically to the stars for its final display. The Endeavour orbiter will be installed no earlier than the last week of January. The external tank will be lifted into place no sooner than early January. The most dramatic installations will take place after the winter holidays. At liftoff, the white boosters were set underneath Endeavour’s wings and produced more than 80% of the lift.Ī child walks to the California Science Center in Exposition Park in Los Angeles, where the space shuttle is slowly being pieced together. It is likely to be installed in early December.Įach solid rocket motor makes up most of the length of the 149-foot solid rocket boosters. The forward skirt is particularly important as it will be the primary weight-bearing connection between the solid rocket boosters and the external tank.

#Nike Space Shuttle Endeavours install#

That will help workers install the tips of the rockets, known as the forward assembly, which includes the nose cone and forward skirt. Later, even more scaffolding will rise to the top of the 116-foot solid rocket motors. Read more: Space shuttle Endeavour preps for move to vertical landing in new museum The next step will be to build another 30 vertical feet of scaffolding to install external tank attach rings, which eventually will serve as a connection between the solid rocket motors and the giant orange external tank. 'The crew worked really well, did an excellent job and things came together effectively and quite quickly,' Rudolph said. With one successful installation under their belts, workers were even quicker Wednesday - beginning at 8 a.m. Instead, Tuesday's work began around 9 a.m. If the aft skirt and solid rocket motors didn't align correctly, every pin could've taken some banging and pounding to insert, and the installation of each rocket could've taken all day and into the night. Read more: Space shuttle Endeavour makes one more voyage to its final destination at a new space center

This week, workers put together scaffolding along the aft skirts so they could get where they needed to insert the connecting pins.

#Nike Space Shuttle Endeavours full#

There, the shuttle's full stack would've been assembled in one of the largest buildings by volume in the world, rising more than 50 stories and equipped with plenty of cranes and platforms from which to work.Īt the California Science Center, crews had to develop unique techniques for the installation. Typically, during the era of space shuttle flights, this procedure would've been done at NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The future home of Endeavour is under construction at the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center site. When completed, it will be arranged in a full stack configuration as if it were ready for launch.

This week's installations mark the latest milestone in the six-month mission to assemble the permanent exhibit for Endeavour, the last space shuttle orbiter ever built. At one point during the crane lift, the solid rocket motors could even be seen from the 110 Freeway. Visitors to the museum can now see the top of the rockets from outside the construction site. Read more: Space shuttle Endeavour's rockets roll into L.A. 'We've got two solid rocket motors standing tall in the new building now.' 'It felt great,' California Science Center President Jeffrey Rudolph said of the successful installation. Each pin is 1 inch in diameter and about 2 inches long. Crews were then able to place the 177 pins attaching each solid rocket motor to the base of the solid rocket booster, known as the aft skirt.