First look at the Space Shuttle Endeavor in its new L.A. home

People got their first look Wednesday at the space shuttle Endeavour in its new home at the California Science Center in Los Angeles’ Exposition Park in full upright launch position with solid rocket boosters, as if it were ready to blast off into space.

Now located in its own pavilion, nearly doubling the size of the previous science museum, the 20-story-high space shuttle display is the centerpiece of a new air and space wing that had been a dream for museum officials since before it even opened.

“I said, ‘Someday they’re going to retire the space shuttles,’ ” Jeffrey Rudolph, president and CEO of the California Science Center, recalled in an interview Wednesday. “We should get one.”

The new Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center that houses the shuttle won’t officially open to the public until Nov. 13, officials said, but they provided a preview Wednesday, signaling an end to construction on the huge new addition.

When it opens, the center will be the only place in the world where people can see a complete shuttle system with an orbiter that actually flew to and from space.

The Endeavour orbiter, named after a ship captained by James Cook in 1768, was largely built by Rockwell in Palmdale, with parts provided from many places. It launched in 1992 and completed 25 missions to and from space. It traveled some 223 million miles and docked at the International Space Station 12 times.

The five orbiters ultimately built by NASA were designed to be reusable spacecraft to ferry parts and provide repairs to various locations in space, including satellites and the Hubble Space Telescope. The astronauts who flew along would often do lengthy spacewalks on their repair missions. Endeavour’s final mission in May 2011 after the program was officially retired ferried spare parts to the International Space Station.

After it was retired, NASA held a competition to decide which museum should receive the Endeavour. The California Science Center won, and countless Southern Californians remember seeing its last flight into the region in September 2012 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, mounted atop NASA’s modified 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, as well as its subsequent road trip as it was carefully trucked to its new home in Exposition Park.

“Everybody in the city has a story about seeing it,” said Perry Roth-Johnson, curator of science and technology for the museum and one of the team members.

After arrival, the shuttle was originally displayed in a horizontal position to fascinated visitors, while construction began on the new 200,000-square-foot air and space center.

The biggest challenge in the project was the so-called stacking of the spacecraft — raising it to a vertical position 20 stories high and pairing it with two solid rocket boosters and a liquid fuel tank as it would have been when it was ready for launch.

The spacecraft was raised to its full height using “very big cranes” in 2023, Roth-Johnson said. Construction was completed on the concrete base of the new pavilion, and then the spacecraft, rocket boosters and fuel tank were carefully lowered inside before the dome-shaped steel roof was constructed around it.

Roth-Johnson recalled it took two days to move the fuel tank, because it was too windy the first day to safely position it.

Museum officials brought in NASA experts to help them with the task, and some continue to work on the project now. The entire project is estimated to cost $450 million, of which $410 million has already been raised.

When visitors arrive, they’ll be sequestered first in a small room where they’ll watch a five-minute film about the space shuttle program. During the final launch sequence in the film, the room fills with water vapor simulating clouds and fog from the launch. When the fog clears, there’s a dramatic reveal during which people can see that a set of wide doors has opened, displaying the Endeavor in its pavilion.

Inside, they’ll be able to see the vertical space display from various angles, including the ability to see inside the cargo hold, known as the payload deck. The very top displays the seemingly tiny windows used by the astronauts. The area was pressurized so that the astronauts could float around in their spacesuits, without needing extra oxygen, he said.

A glass elevator allows people to go up to see the top of the structure and down to the bottom, where they can walk underneath the engines.

On the shuttle’s exterior, people can see the gray heat shields that can take 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit, while the white shields can safeguard a mere 700 degrees.

In addition to the shuttle pavilion, the air museum will also include some 100 other historic items, including the 1902 Wright Glider that brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright used to achieve controlled flight, the Apollo-Soyuz command module on loan from the Smithsonian Institution, a life-size model of the Viking 1 landing vessel that was the first U.S. spacecraft to land on Mars and more.

The new museum wing will include hands-on activities, including the chance to slide down a 45-foot “toboggan slide” from space and an opportunity to enter the cockpit of a Korean Air commercial airliner

If you go:

• The California Science Center is located at 700 Exposition Park Drive, Los Angeles.
• The center and most of its exhibits — including the upcoming space exhibit space — are free to enter for all. Its mission is to educate all, especially children. Certain activities and parking are paid.
• There’s a cafe onsite as well as an IMAX theater (extra cost).
• Advance tickets are expected to be available for the space center in the fall. Museum members will have first priority. It’s expected to open on Nov. 13 after some soft openings earlier.