Kelly retired from NASA's astronaut corps and the U.S. Kelly spoke from Tucson, Ariz., where he lives with wife and former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, adding that he hopes the pilots ferrying Endeavour across the country will pass over Tucson on its way west this week. "It's an amazing feat to stick something that heavy, 195,000 pounds, on top of another airplane and fly it through the air." It's a sight to see," said former astronaut Mark Kelly, who commanded Endeavour's last space mission, STS-134, in May and June 2011, in a NASA webcast. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed."It is something. Space Shuttle Endeavour Soars on Final Ferry Flight (Photos)Ĭopyright 2014, a TechMediaNetwork company. NASA's Space Shuttles: Where Are They Now? All rights reserved.Įndeavour and 747 Mated - Time-Lapse Video Instead, the center is setting aside smaller components of the historic tower for their museum exhibit, including at the science center.Ĭlick through to to watch a short NASA documentary about the Mate-Demate Device (MDD).įollow on Facebook and on Twitter at collectSPACE. "So, that was pretty much off the table." "The Mate-Demate Device isn't something you can move where there would be public access and it was not in the cards that we'd ever be able to allow public access out to it," Alan Brown, news chief at the NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center, told. ![]() In 2011, the California Science Center briefly evaluated moving the MDD to Los Angeles to be displayed along with the retired space shuttle Endeavour. "It was just too much (device) for what their requirements called for," Grimshaw said.Ī federally-mandated "recordation" effort documented the structure's design and history for future reference. ![]() Prior to the demolition beginning, Grimshaw and his team sought other uses for the Mate-Demate Device, including supporting NASA's next crewed spacecraft, Orion, and for use by the Air Force. The firm plans to recycle as much of the steel used in the structure as possible for future utilization. Pantano Demolition of Manteca, California, began dismantling the MDD on Aug. At Kennedy, any servicing tasks needed were completed in large hangars called the Orbiter Processing Facilities.Ī 25,000 square-foot hangar used with Armstrong's MDD is being repurposed for other projects at the center. The servicing platforms enabled access into the orbiters. "It was basically designed to raise and lower the orbiter, whereas ours was designed for servicing and preparing the orbiter for its ferry flight back to Florida." "The on at Kennedy was not built for servicing, so I don't believe it had side access panels," Grimshaw described. It lacked however, a key capability of the tower at Armstrong. The shuttle orbiters weighed about 85 tons (170,000 lbs.), less the mass of their mission payloads.Ī similar structure, also referred to as the MDD, stands at the end of the Shuttle Landing Facility at Kennedy Space Center. Operating together, the total lifting capacity of the three units topped out at 120 tons (240,000 pounds). Three large hoists were used to raise and lower the beam, each with a 50-ton (100,000-lbs.) lift capability. It was then used for a total of 54 space shuttle missions beginning with the first flight, Columbia's STS-1, in April 1981. Yet, at the same time, you just can't have facilities sitting around unused, wasting away." Ĭonstruction of the $1.7 million Mate-Demate Device was completed in 1976 in support of the approach and landing tests by the prototype shuttle Enterprise. "It's sad to see something like this go, especially because it has a lot of history," said George Grimshaw, the center's last shuttle landing and recovery manager, in an interview with. ![]() Now, three years after the shuttle program ended and six years since it last supported the turnaround of an orbiter landing at Edwards Air Force Base, the 110-foot (34 meters) structure is disappearing from the dry lake bed's skyline. ![]() The gantry-like, gray and red Mate-Demate Device (MDD) at the NASA Armstrong (formerly Dryden) Flight Research Center in southern California stood for four decades. The historic steel tower that for 30 years was used to mount NASA space shuttles atop jumbo jets to fly them cross-country after they landed in California is now being demolished.
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