Space Shuttle Endeavour has landed at its final destination at the California Science Center.
The shuttle, previously part of a horizontal display at the Science Center in Exposition Park, was hoisted into the air and gently nestled into launch-ready position alongside two booster rockets and an external fuel tank, adding the final piece to a one-of-its-kind exhibit at the California Science Center.
"This is an incredible day," said Alyson Goodall, senior vice president at the California Science Center. "We've been working toward this for decades. You're seeing the full shuttle stack that we've been dreaming of. It's really awe inspiring, and we can't wait for it to open to the public."
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Endeavour made the short but slow move last week from that location to the doorstep of the Science Center's new 200,000-square-foot Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center, which is still under construction.
On Monday two cranes lifted the shuttle 200 to 300 feet over the Oschin Center walls, then lowered the craft into position between the boosters and next to a 65,000-pound external fuel tank known as ET-94. Those components, part of the launch-ready configuration, were moved earlier.
Before the heavy lift, Endeavour was fitted with a sling-type device attached to the crane. Two tuning-fork shaped devices acted as a lifting sling-- one at the front, one at the back of the shuttle. Two cranes thenl hoisted the lifting sling and shuttle into the air.
"Very slowly, we will lower the back part of the shuttle, remove the back crane, and then we'll have the entire shuttle on one cable point," said curator Dr. Kenneth Phillips. "We'll lift it over and attach it to the waiting external tank."
The highly technical move continued for several hours.
Endeavour's final flight comes 13 years after its retirement. The Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center will nearly double the Science Center's educational exhibition space and include three multi-level galleries, themed for air, space and shuttle.
Endeavour had been on display horizontally at the Science Center for more than a decade after its spectacular arrival in Los Angeles on the back of an airliner. When the project is complete, Endeavour will be the only launch-ready display of a former NASA space shuttle in the world.
An opening date for the $400 million center has not yet been determined.
Endeavour flew 25 missions between 1992 and 2011, when NASA’s shuttle program ended.
The shuttle was flown to Los Angeles International Airport in 2012 on the back of a NASA Boeing 747. That spectacle in the sky was followed by a slow move through tight city streets to Exposition Park. The external tank arrived by barge and made a similar crawl to the Science Center.
The “Go for Stack" assembly began in July with installation of the bottom segments of the side boosters, known as aft skirts, for the first time outside of a NASA facility. In use, the boosters would be attached to the external tank to help the shuttle's main engines lift off.
The 116-foot-long (35.3-meter-long) rocket motors were trucked to Los Angeles from the Mojave Desert in October and installed the following month.
In all, NASA operated five shuttles in space. Shuttle Challenger was lost and its crew of seven died in a launch accident Jan. 28, 1986. Columbia broke apart during reentry on Feb. 1, 2003, killing all seven on board. Retired shuttles Atlantis and Discovery and the test ship Enterprise, which did not go to space, are on display across the country.
Atlantis is at Kennedy Space Center, Florida, where it is displayed as if in orbit with its payload doors open and robotic arm extended. Discovery rests on its landing gear at the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia.
Enterprise, which was released from a carrier aircraft for approach and landing tests, is displayed at the Intrepid Museum in New York.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
