![]() Then, ET-94, the massive orange external fuel tank visible just outside of the current Endeavour exhibition, will be placed into pit. ![]() Next up will be the 116-foot-fall solid rocket motors, followed by the 27-foot-tall forward assemblies that top them. Dubbed “Go for Stack,” the installation kicked off with a pair of 8-foot-tall aft skirts that were trucked over to the construction site and then lifted and lowered via crane into their permanent position at the base of the under-construction building. On Thursday, the museum began the six-month-long process of assembling all of these pieces. But the California Science Center has much bigger plans for the retired NASA spacecraft: the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center, a free-to-visit expansion that’ll assemble Endeavour, an orange external fuel tank and a pair of solid rocket boosters in a vertical, ready-to-launch position-the only configuration of its kind in the world. Like stumbling upon a giant’s shoes, these aft skirts tease the staggering size of what will eventually fill them.Īfter 123 million miles logged around the Earth, Space Shuttle Endeavour has been on public display for the past decade inside a temporary tent at the Exposition Park museum. ![]() But after the aft skirts-the conical bases of space shuttle-launching rocket boosters-have been lowered into a pit of concrete and dirt at the California Science Center, it doesn’t take much imagination to start seeing the rest of the picture. While suspended in the air, the 18-foot-wide, 13,000-pound metal rings don’t look like much. Photograph: Michael Juliano for Time Out Photograph: Michael Juliano for Time Out (The shuttle itself will finally follow after it goes off display at the start of 2024.) While the public isn’t allowed to peer into the construction pit, you can catch a glimpse of the rockets towering above the concrete walls-but you’ll have to be quick, as they’ll soon be encased in scaffolding for protection. This won’t even be the highest point of the completed shuttle stack: The cone-shaped forward assemblies, which are currently visible just across from the stack, will soon be placed on top of the motors, and then the orange-red external fuel tank between them. Photograph: Michael Juliano for Time Out Photograph: Michael Juliano for Time Out Photograph: Michael Juliano for Time Out We had a chance to step into the construction site later that week to photograph the two 116-foot long boosters-and the scale is absolutely staggering. On November 7, the museum lifted a pair of solid rocket motors into the future Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center and then secured them to the previously placed aft skirts (which you can read more about below). UPDATE: As we enter the final two months of Space Shuttle Endeavour’s current horizontal display, the California Science Center has continued its “Go for Stack” process, which will assemble the ship vertically, with two towering additions.
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