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Smithsonian Magazine Online MRC 513, P.O. Box 37012 Washington, D.C. 20013 smithsonianmagazine@si.edu

Belgian WIngs: NASA retiring its shuttles to Smithsonian, museums in California, Florida, New York

Info provided by Dirk De Quick

NASA revealed Tuesday where its retired space shuttles will be given for public display. The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum will exhibit OV-103, better known as Discovery. Orbiter Atlantis, OV-104, will remain in Florida, where it will be exhibited by the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. NASA's fifth and youngest shuttle, Endeavour, OV-105, will be flown to Los Angeles and the California Science Center. Enterprise (OV-101), which never flew in space but was used for test landings, will also be given a new home, moving from the Smithsonian's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center (which will be where Discovery is displayed) to the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum, a converted aircraft carrier, in New York.

The decision to retire the space shuttles came in the wake of the 2003 loss of orbiter Columbia, NASA's first shuttle to fly in space, as it returned to Earth on its 28th mission. NASA lost the space shuttle Challenger, its second orbiter to fly, on an earlier flight in 1986 when that orbiter broke apart 73 seconds into its 10th launch.

NASA will rely on Russia's Soyuz spacecraft to bring its astronauts to and from the ISS until new vehicles are ready, targeted for 2016 or earlier.

Dirk

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