14 DAY TRIAL // The NASA Shuttle Carrier Aircraft 905, the only SCA still in active duty, is scheduled to carry out its last official mission this September, when the space shuttle Endeavour is scheduled to be transported from the Kennedy Space Center, in Florida, to California.
The orbiter is to be permanently displayed at the California Science Center, near Los Angeles. The only way for it to get there is to be attached to the SCA 905. Preparations for transport will begin at the KSC Orbiter Processing Facility 2 (OPF-2) soon.
The Los Angeles Times reports that the shuttle will be delivered to the L.A. International Airport. Once there, it will have to be transported to its final resting place on the crowded streets of the metropolis, at excruciatingly slow speeds – about 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) per hour.
While traffic jams are very likely to occur as the shuttle is being moved, the procession will enable many people to get a final glimpse of Endeavour before it is placed inside its special exhibition center.
The shuttle flew between May 1992 and May 2011, and successfully completed 25 flights to space during this interval. NASA commissioned it after the January 1986 disaster that saw the shuttle Challenger destroyed shortly after launch, all astronauts lost.
Endeavour's final flight was the STS-134 mission to the International Space Station, carried out between May 16 and June 1, 2011. During this interval, the orbiter delivered the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer-2 (AMS-2) instrument, thus completing the US portion of the orbital outpost.
Endeavour is the last shuttle to fly out of Florida. Atlantis will remain at the KSC and will be exposed at the newly refurbished Visitor Center here. Discovery has been recently flown to the Washington Dulles International Airport, in Virginia, Space reports.
It is currently housed at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, where it occupies the exhibition slot that belonged to the test shuttle Enterprise for years. The latter was delivered to New York City on April 27, also aboard SCA 905.
Enterprise will be displayed aboard the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, a converted aircraft carrier that is docked to Manhattan's Pier 86. Once Endeavour is moved to California and Atlantis installed at the KSC Visitor Center, the Space Shuttle Program will be over.