14 DAY TRIAL // Engineers at the NASA Kennedy Space Center (KSC) have powered down the electrical systems on space shuttle Endeavour for the last time, as the vehicle is being prepared for delivery to its new home.
The spacecraft – currently located in the KSC Orbiter Processing Facility-2 (OPF-2) – is scheduled to be flown to the California Science Center, in Los Angeles, this September. It will complete the journey aboard the only remaining NASA Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), 905.
Endeavour's final power-down was completed at 9:58 am EDT (1358 GMT) on May 11, 20 years and 25 missions after it entered active service. Now that this milestone was reached, engineers can move ahead with their work, preparing the shuttle for public exhibition.
Some of the orbiter's million moving parts will be recycled, and used for other missions, whereas its toxic chemicals will be disposed of as safely as possible. The Space Launch System (SLS) rocket NASA is currently developing is the most likely spacecraft to reuse shuttle components, Space reports.