Space shuttles docked with Russia’s Mir space station nine. Counted together, the space shuttles have carried 355 people, flown over 500 million miles, and spent over 1,300 days in orbit. 'For more than six decades, men and women have gathered in this Los Angeles County town to make the dreams of tomorrow a reality - inventing the future and starting America's journey to the stars,' resident Gerald Blackburn wrote in the book 'Downey's Aerospace History 1947-1999.' 'The story of the site's aerospace history extends from North American Aviation's tenancy in 1947 to the site closure in 1999 when engineers and scientists designed and developed the aerospace technology that took man to the moon and established a permanent presence in space. Five different orbiters flew into space as part of the program Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour for a total of 135 missions. 'It is truly a national treasure.'ĭowney has a rich aerospace history, with Rockwell International employing more than 30,000 aerospace workers at its peak during the 1960s. 'This will be the first, last and only time a space shuttle will travel through urban, public city streets,' science center officials said.

The shuttle will eventually land at LAX, where it will remain in a United Airlines hangar until it is moved 12 miles through city streets to its final home at the California Science Center next month. Plans could change due to weather and security concerns, officials warned. From there, it will head west to San Francisco before coming down to Southern California. The space shuttle is scheduled to fly over much of the Los Angeles region Friday, including over Long Beach, Palmdale, Disneyland, Universal Studios and Venice Beach.Īccording to the California Science Center, the shuttle will begin its California tour at about 7:15 a.m., when it zooms past Palmdale and heads north to Sacramento. Space Shuttle Endeavour atop NASA's Shuttle Carrier Aircraft flew over many Los Angeles area landmarks on its final ferry flight Sept. The Space Shuttle Endeavour on its Final Flight.It circled the desert over our house and did a low sweep over Dryden, then to points north and eventually arr. 'As of right now we have been told to look for it - that's the plan for right now.' 'Staff and council have been working really hard to make this happen,' Guerra said. Guerra announced the news on his Twitter account Wednesday. Lucille Roybal-Allard and NASA this week that the shuttle will fly over the Columbia Memorial Space Center in Downey on Friday, Sept. The Space Shuttle Endeavor flew over the Bay Area on Friday, September 21, 2012, in San Francisco, Calif. Its crew featured the first African-American woman to fly in space (Mae Jemison), the shuttle's first Japanese astronaut (Mamoru Mohri) and the first married couple to fly on the same space mission (Mark Lee and Jan Davis).DOWNEY - The space shuttle Endeavour may fly over Downey for a final goodbye Friday morning.Ĭity officials received word from Rep. 'Endeavour sort of bookends the International Space Station assembly,' Pearlman said.Įndeavour's second flight, the STS-47 mission back in 1992, broke new ground sociologically. Logged 123million miles in space and circled Earth nearly 4,700 times. On its STS-134 mission, Endeavour will make another significant contribution to the ISS, delivering the final big piece yet to be added to the station from the American side - the $1.5 billion Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer physics experiment. Endeavour was built as a replacement for Challenger, which exploded shortly after takeoff in 1986. 'By attaching Unity, it became a space station, and an international one at that,' Pearlman told. This mission took the first American component of the station - the Unity node, the passageway that connects the working and living modules - to space and joined it to the Russian Zarya module, which was already in orbit. The International Space Station can date its birth to Endeavour's STS-88 mission in December 1998.

While Endeavour debuted a fair amount of new gear - it was the first shuttle to use a drag parachute during landing, for example, and it featured advanced avionics systems - much of the orbiter was built from spare parts. Endeavour was built on the cheap - sort of

Endeavour, was commanded by Britain's James Cook on his epic 18th-century voyage of discovery in the South Pacific (hence the orbiter's British spelling).ģ. Bush announced the winning name in May 1989. The kids were given some guidance - the name had to be based on a historic oceangoing research or exploration vessel. In 1988, NASA staged a national competition among elementary and secondary school students to hang a name on the new shuttle. Friday's launch will initiate Endeavour's 25th space mission.Įndeavour is the only shuttle to have been named by children. Congress authorized the construction of Endeavour - NASA's fifth spacegoing shuttle - in 1987, and the orbiter first blasted off in 1992.

Space shuttle endeavour fly over ca