With Endeavor attached to the top of a 747 jet, NASA made a series of low altitude flyovers around California to celebrate the shuttle’s accomplishments and retirement before landing and offloading the vehicle at LAX, a short distance but a long journey away from its final destination. On the NASA side, they had been stripping the Shuttle of the toxic and combustible fuel system used for the reaction control thrusters and explosive devices like hatch covers to make the vehicle safe for display at a museum. They ultimately settled on a 12 mile (or 19 kilometer) path that would pass through Inglewood and Leimert Park. The engineering team looked at numerous routes to get the Shuttle to its destination, evaluating the obstacles along the way. Exposition Park and the Science Center are just outside downtown Los Angeles. And this isn’t a sleepy part of the city either. 78 feet is wider than most two-lane city streets, and there are a lot of paths in Los Angeles that a Space Shuttle could never traverse. It also would face nearly countless obstacles on its journey, including trees, signs, traffic signals, and buildings. The Shuttle couldn’t fit through an underpass, which meant it would have to go over the 405, the only major freeway along its path. The most critical decision to be made was what route Endeavor would take through the streets of LA. So, the Science Center worked with a number of engineering firms in addition to their heavy transport contractor (many of whom offered their services pro bono) to carefully plan the operation. Transporting the shuttle through Los Angeles would not be a simple feat. It also weighs a lot, around 180,000 pounds (80,000 kg), about as much as a large aircraft. You see, Endeavor is about 122 feet (37 meters) long with a 78 foot (24 meter) wingspan, and with 58 feet (18 meters) to the top of the vertical stabilizer during transport. The application process leading up to the award and the planning and engineering that quickly followed were largely an exercise in logistics. In April 2011, NASA awarded Endeavour to the California Science Center, one of only four sites to receive a retired shuttle. The chilly late night departure from the hangar at LAX was the start of the transport, but Endeavour’s journey to Exposition Park really started more than a year beforehand. But, despite spending so much of its career nearly weightless, it was too heavy for a helicopter, and it couldn’t be dismantled without causing permanent damage to the heat tiles, so the Science Center decided to foot the roughly $10 million it would take to move the shuttle overland. Although Endeavour traveled into space 25 times, launched a number of satellites, visited Mir, helped assemble the International Space Station, and even repaired the Hubble Telescope, it was never designed to navigate the busy streets of an urban area. On today’s episode, we’re talking about the Space Shuttle Endeavor Transport project.Īs midnight approached on Octothe Space Shuttle Endeavour began its harrowing (if somewhat sluggish) journey from LAX airport to the California Science Center near downtown LA. I’m Grady, and this is Practical Engineering. This October marks the 10 year anniversary of the nearly 3-day trip, so let’s reminisce on this incredible feat and dive into what it took to get the orbiter safely to its final home. Endeavour’s 26th mission was a lot slower and a lot shorter than the previous 25, but it was still full of fascinating engineering challenges. But even though the orbiter was decommissioned after its final launch in 2011, it had one more mission to complete: a 12 mile (or 19 kilometer) trip through the streets of Los Angeles to be displayed in the California Science Center. Endeavour went on to fly 25 missions, spending nearly a year total in space and completing 4,671 trips around the earth. That first mission was a big one: the crew captured a wayward communications satellite stuck in the wrong orbit, attached a rocket stage, and launched it back into space in time to help broadcast the Barcelona Summer Olympics. In May of 1992, the Space Shuttle Endeavour launched to low earth orbit on its very first flight.
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