The space shuttle Endeavour will be lifted into place at its museum-exhibit home early Tuesday morning (Jan. 30), and you can watch the action live.
A 450-foot-tall (137 meters) crane will install Endeavour at its designated spot in the California Science Center “in a massive and technically challenging process that has never before been accomplished outside of a NASA or Air Force facility,” museum representatives said in a description of the event.
You can watch it live here at Space.com, courtesy of the California Science Center, or directly via the Los Angeles museum, beginning at 12:30 a.m. EST (0530 GMT). It’s unclear how long the lift will take.
Related: End of year, end of exhibit: Space shuttle Endeavour goes off view for a few years
Aerial view of External Tank-94 (ET-94) as it is suspended from a crane in front of the two solid rocket boosters it will be mated to as part of the space shuttle Endeavour exhibit in the California Science Center’s Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center. Photo taken on Jan. 12, 2024. (Image credit: California Science Center)The crane lift marks the culmination of “Go for Stack,” a six-month-long effort to get Endeavour, its two solid rocket boosters and its external fuel tank into their final vertical configuration, as they looked on launch day.
But that doesn’t mean you’ll be able to see the Endeavour display just yet.
“The future Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center is a major expansion of the California Science Center and will be Endeavour’s permanent home,” the museum’s description reads. “Construction is expected to continue for the next 18 months, followed by artifact and exhibit installation. An opening date has not yet been announced.”
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Endeavour, NASA’s youngest shuttle, flew 25 missions before the shuttle program was retired in 2011.
The agency’s other surviving space-flown shuttles, Discovery and Atlantis, are at the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia and the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida, respectively.
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Michael Wall is a Senior Space Writer with Space.com and joined the team in 2010. He primarily covers exoplanets, spaceflight and military space, but has been known to dabble in the space art beat. His book about the search for alien life, “Out There,” was published on Nov. 13, 2018. Before becoming a science writer, Michael worked as a herpetologist and wildlife biologist. He has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor’s degree from the University of Arizona, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz. To find out what his latest project is, you can follow Michael on Twitter.
Source : Space.com