Space Shuttle Endeavour Finally Stands Upright as California Science Center Opens Its Long-Awaited New Home

LOS ANGELES — Space shuttle Endeavour is standing tall again. On Friday, the California Science Center opened its new Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center, where the retired orbiter is displayed upright in launch position.

Endeavour now stands nearly 200 feet tall, about 20 stories, mounted with its external fuel tank and twin solid rocket boosters as it appeared on the launch pad. The museum says it is the only place in the world where visitors can see a complete, authentic space shuttle system.

The 200,000-square-foot expansion in Exposition Park nearly doubles the Science Center's exhibit space. It includes 100 artifacts, among them rare aerospace objects, and 100 hands-on exhibits on science, technology and engineering.

A dream decades in the making

The opening followed a morning program and a 10 a.m. ribbon-cutting.

"The opening of the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center is the fulfillment of a decades-long dream to create one of the world's leading science centers," Science Center President Jeffrey Rudolph said at a preview event in October.

Lynda Oschin, chairperson of the Samuel Oschin Family Foundation, a lead donor, praised the vertical display. "The Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center, and Space Shuttle Endeavour's one-of-a-kind vertical display, is even better than I dreamed," she said.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom also praised the project during a preview.

From the streets of LA to the launch pad

Endeavour arrived in Los Angeles in 2012 after its final flight over California atop a NASA jumbo jet. It then made a famous 12-mile, 68-hour journey through the streets of Los Angeles and Inglewood to the Science Center, drawing huge crowds.

For more than a decade the shuttle was displayed horizontally in a temporary pavilion. Moving it into vertical launch configuration was a complex, six-month process of stacking each component.

A new photo exhibit, "Endeavour's Long Journey," opened Friday and documents the final flight, the road trip and the vertical installation.

What visitors can see

The center has three multilevel galleries: the Samuel Oschin Shuttle Gallery, the Korean Air Aviation Gallery and the Kent Kresa Space Gallery.

Visitors can view Endeavour from several angles and heights. An elevator carries guests to a glass platform above the orbiter's nose. One of the payload bay doors is open, showing cargo configured inside, a view normally available only to spacewalkers.

Other attractions include a 45-foot slide that simulates the flight path of an orbiter reentering the atmosphere and a high-fidelity cockpit where visitors can practice shuttle landings.

Free admission, reservations recommended

General admission to the Science Center remains free, but reservations for the new air and space center are strongly encouraged because of expected demand.

To celebrate opening weekend, the museum is hosting astronaut and space-related talks every half hour from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. through Sunday.

Endeavour flew 25 missions between 1992 and 2011, spending 299 days in space. It was built to replace Challenger, which was destroyed in 1986.