![]() ![]() This is the final time they’ll work together to lift and mate a space shuttle and is the last-ever planned space shuttle stack. But one fateful morning in 2011, he got a call from a NASA administrator in Florida awarding the California Science Center the space shuttle Endeavour. The California Science Center is fortunate to have a remarkable team of experts with decades of experience working with NASA and the shuttle program – some from the very first space shuttle launch in 1981. Space shuttle Endeavour flew 25 missions in space. The space shuttle’s arrival in California was a homecoming for Endeavour, which rolled off Rockwell International’s production line in Palmdale in 1991, replacing Challenger, which exploded. The 122-foot-long orbiter weighs 178,000 lbs. ![]() Photo by Jim SaboĮndeavour’s installation in the future Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center, a major expansion of the California Science Center, is the grand finale of the unprecedented Go for Stack process to create the world’s only authentic space shuttle system display. First liftoff Endeavour lifts off from Launch Pad 39B at NASAs Kennedy Space Center on May 7, 1992, beginning its first mission. ![]() Following the hard mate, the sling will be removed, and at that point the process will be complete. Work will continue tonight to finish the final “hard mate.” A hard mate occurs when the flight hardware bolts and nuts are completely torqued, firmly securing the orbiter in place. Beginning Monday, January 29 around 9:30 p.m., and lasting just under nine and a half hours, Endeavour’s “soft mate” is now complete. This marks the first time this process has been accomplished outside of a NASA or Air Force facility. NASAs youngest orbiter, born from a tragedy. Today the California Science Center reached another major milestone toward its future display of space shuttle Endeavour in ready-to-launch configuration with the successful lift of the space shuttle orbiter itself. Twenty years after exiting its assembly facility for its maiden mission, space shuttle Endeavour is poised on the launch pad to fly its final flight. ![]()
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