Flying the Space Shuttles to their New Homes

By Nancy Atkinson - April 09, 2012 06:05 PM UTC | Space Exploration

The now-retired space shuttle orbiters will soon be heading to their new museum homes. April 17, 2012 is the current date planned for a modified Boeing 747 to give a piggyback ride to shuttle Discovery to bring it from Kennedy Space Center to Washington Dulles International Airport, where it will then be towed to the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, located adjacent to the airport. Just how will this be done? The video above explains the procedure, and of course, this is not the first time a space shuttle has ridden atop the specially designed airplane. Every time a shuttle landed in Edwards Air Force Base in California (54 times) or New Mexico (once), it had to be transported back to Kennedy Space Center via an airplane.

If you are in the Washington DC area, there will be an arrival ceremony, currently planned for April 19.

See this link from the more information.

The special airplane, NASA 905, will then be paired up with the test space shuttle, Enterprise, which has been at the Smithsonian, but is now heading to Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York. The current date for that flight is April 23, but all the dates are dependent on the weather.

Later this year, probably September, the NASA 905 will bring shuttle Endeavour to Los Angeles to the California Science Center. The flight path has not yet been determined, but for those living in the mid-section of the US, be on the lookout for more information of flyovers and places where the shuttle will be stopping during its final flight.

Shuttle Atlantis will be displayed at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor's Complex in Florida.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com