Los Angeles –
The two giant rocket motors needed to display the retired NASA space shuttle Endeavor as if it were about to take off arrived at a Los Angeles museum on Wednesday, completing a long journey from the Mojave Desert.
The 116-foot-long (35.3-meter) motor, which looks like a giant white cylinder, takes two days to get from the Mojave Air and Space Port to Exposition Park in Los Angeles, where the California Science Center’s Samuel Oshin Air and Space Center is being built. It was transported by truck. Built to display Endeavor.
The motor, donated by Northrop Grumman, is the largest component of the two solid rocket boosters that will be attached to the Space Shuttle’s external tank to help the main engines lift the orbiter off the launch pad.
Schoolchildren were among the hundreds of people who watched the move, the latest in years of preparation to make Endeavor a permanent, vertical display that looks as if it’s about to pop out.
The giant shuttle flew to Los Angeles International Airport aboard a NASA Boeing 747 in 2012, then inched its way through the city’s streets to the museum. The giant external tank arrived on a barge and sailed throughout Los Angeles as well.
Assembly of the shuttle’s “stack,” or booster, external tank, and orbiter, is expected to be completed before construction of the rest of the museum around it is completed.
Endeavor flew 25 missions before NASA’s 30-year space shuttle program ended in 2011.
