Space shuttle endeavour speed
Once Endeavour is aimed toward the stars, the shorter crane will be disconnected. The shorter crane will lift the tail of the spacecraft while the taller crane lifts its nose. From there, two cranes will be on hand: an 11-story, 400-ton hydraulic crane next to Endeavour’s tail and a 40-story crawler crane, probably weighing 900 to 1,000 tons, next to the orbiter’s nose. Once at the building site, Endeavour will be attached to a sling - a large metal frame that will support it as it’s hoisted from a horizontal to a vertical position. The bulk of the structure - the steel diagrid - will be built later.Ĭalifornia Space shuttle Endeavour inches closer to completion of final exhibitĪs if they were performing delicate surgery, a crew inside the California Science Center museum hoisted a 3,000-pound portable space lab and storage pod inside the space shuttle Endeavour’s huge cargo bay Thursday, reuniting the retired orbiter with a piece of equipment it used on some missions over its two decades of flight. The move will be tricky: At one point, Endeavour will need to be jacked up 4 or 5 feet - to avoid striking a building - moved and then jacked back down for the rest of the journey.įinally, Endeavour will be parked at the new building, which by then will consist only of a concrete wall about four stories above ground. In a procession that will take as much as a day, Endeavour will be moved east on State Drive, past the Exposition Park Rose Garden, and be parked next to its new museum home, just west of the California African American Museum. Workers will use self-propelled modular transporters, similar to those used in 2012 when Endeavour was moved from Los Angeles International Airport to the museum. It’ll be parked there for a couple of days as crews prepare equipment to move it to the eastern edge of the science center. It’ll first be rolled onto the lawn just north of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and south of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. The same month, Endeavour will be moved from its temporary hangar, on the western edge of the California Science Center. The most dramatic part of installation will come as early as January when the 66,000-pound, 154-foot long external tank - the last of its kind in existence - will be rolled out and hoisted by cranes into a vertical position. In a dramatic finale that could come as early as January, cranes - the tallest of which will be about the height of City Hall - will raise the spacecraft from its horizontal position to point vertically for its final display, where the rest of the museum will then be built around it. It could be years before Endeavour will again be available for up-close viewing to museum guests. 31 before the shuttle is carefully moved to the new building site. It also marks the countdown for Endeavour to conclude its exhibition in a horizontal position, which will end Dec. Thursday’s announcement comes about a year after ground was broken on the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center. Even a slight misalignment could cause major problems later on - making it impossible to connect the solid rocket boosters to the external tank, and the external tank to Endeavour. “You could arguably say the most critical piece to put in because they determine how everything else works,” said Dennis Jenkins, project director for the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center. Eventually, all half-million pounds of the full stack - including the shuttle Endeavour and a giant orange external tank - will rest on the base of the solid rocket boosters, bolted to the ground by eight supersized, superalloy fasteners that are 9 feet long and weigh 500 to 600 pounds. It’ll be the first of many delicate maneuvers conducted over roughly six months (if the weather cooperates). Workers will use a 300-ton crane to lower the bottom sections of the twin solid rocket boosters, which are 10,000 pounds apiece and roughly 9 feet tall, to the freshly built lowest section of the partly constructed $400-million Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center. To get ready for the grand move, the state-run museum announced Thursday that crews will begin the installation of the base of the shuttle’s full stack on July 20. After more than a decade on display at the California Science Center, the space shuttle Endeavour will begin the final trek to its permanent home at a new Los Angeles building in the coming months.