Space Shuttle Discovery will have Company at New Home in Smithsonian

After a flight from the Kennedy Space Center to its new home at the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Washington Dulles International Airport, the Space Shuttle Discovery will have the new Orion Spacecraft as a neighbor, at least temporarily.

Shuttle Discovery arrived at the airport in Washington yesterday, after a flight atop its shuttle carrier aircraft (SCA), a highly modified boeing 747. It will now be moved into place for display at the nearby Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. At the museum, along side shuttle Discovery, will be a full-scale test version of the Orion spacecraft according to NASA.

The space agency has announced that the Orion Spacecraft is just one of several NASA-sponsored exhibits that will appear alongside space shuttle Discovery at the museum. The Shuttle is scheduled to be installed in the museum on Thursday after completing the de-mating process from the SCA.

Other planned exhibits will showcase the International Space Station, a solar telescope, a planetary spacesuit, an inflatable Mars Science Laboratory rover and many hands-on educational activities.

The Orion test vehicle, to be displayed fron April 19-22, was used in the Pad Abort-1 Test in 2010, which saw the successful flight of Orion’s launch abort system. NASA has indicated that Engineers, officials and NASA spokespeople will be on-site and available to speak with media and the public.

The first space-bound Orion capsule, which will launch on Exploration Flight Test-1, an uncrewed launch planned for 2014, is currently under construction by the agency at the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. This test will see Orion travel farther into space than any human spacecraft has gone in more than 40 years.