Well today was a big day for Space Shuttle Endeavour, the final space shuttle built and veteran of 25 spaceflights. This morning at 5 am EDT, Endeavour began her final move out of the Vehicle Assembly Building to the Shuttle Landing Facility.
At 7:20 am, Endeavour reached the Mate-Demate Device. The MDD is the lifting structure that NASA uses to place/remove an orbiter from the top of a SCA.
At 9:30 am, ground crews dropped the yellow sling that will be used to hoist Endeavour as high as 60 feet off the ground.
At 10:00 am, the front of Endeavour was hooked up to the sling, and her front wheels were hoisted off the ground.
By 10:20 am, Endeavour was completely hooked up and began being hoisted 60 feet in the air. That was the final time Space Shuttle Endeavour's landing gear will ever touch Kennedy Space Center property.
At 10:59 am, Space Shuttle Endeavour's landing gear was retracted.
By 11:45 am, Endeavour was 60 feet in the air.
At 12:50 pm, the SCA was towed under Endeavour.
At 3:00 pm, soft-mate was achieved. That concludes work for today. Hard-mate will be achieved tomorrow, and the duo will back out of the Mate-Demate Device Sunday Morning.
Now, here is the entire process through pictures. Enjoy.
If you only see a couple pictures, it's because a lot of them didn't load.
MUCH more pictures to come!
