Engineers moved space shuttle Endeavor’s external fuel tank through Exposition Park to the soon-to-be Air and Space Center after being on display at the California Science Center for a decade. Anastassia Olmos reports for the NBC4 News on Jan. 10, 2024.
An enormous piece of the new space shuttle Endeavour display at the California Science Center will slowly slide into place.
The next phase of an effort to move the shuttle into an upright launch position at the California Science Center in Exposition Park begins Wednesday when the shuttles giant external fuel tank is moved about 1,000 feet into a vertical position. The move is part of a plan to position the shuttle as it would look if ready for launch.
The tank known as ET-97 will take time to move due in part to its size and heft -- 154 feet long, 27.5 feet in diameter and weighing 65,000 pounds. ET-94 is the last known flight-qualified external shuttle tank in existence.
Get top local stories in Southern California delivered to you every morning. Sign up for NBC LA's News Headlines newsletter.
"Not only weights and distances and lengths and diameters, but what you have to do to move it around to get past obstructions and whatnot," said Larry Clark, a retired space shuttle engineer. "And that also is interesting from the fact of it's the only one in the world. This external tank is the only external tank left from the space shuttle program that was built for flight but not flown."
The process will begin around 10 a.m. when a transporter, which is self-propelled, is set in motion for a two-hour journey past the the Science Center building and the Exposition Park Rose Garden to its home in the new Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center, which is under construction.
The tank will likely be in place late Thursday or early Friday. A crane will lift it into vertical position alongside two 149-foot tall standing solid rocket boosters. The boosters were moved into place in early December.
Aft skirts, rocket motors and a forward assembly also will be part of the vertical shuttle display.
Once the external fuel tank is moved into the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center, Endeavour itself will be the only component that will need to be added. Details about how that will happen were not immediately available, but Science Center officials said the move will likely happen in the coming weeks.
The shuttle, which has been on display for about a decade, has a wrapping around it in preparation for the move. It hasn't been on public display since the end of 2023 due to the "Go For Stack" move.
The shuttle launch display will be the centerpiece of the 200,000-square-foot Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center. The building will include three multi-level galleries, themed for air, space and shuttle. The new building will also house an events and exhibit center that will house large-scale rotating exhibitions.
An opening date for the new $400 million center has not yet been determined.
