Author Topic: Solid rocket booster parts on the move for Endeavour exhibit  (Read 23812 times)

Offline collectSPACE

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Shuttling space artifacts: booster parts bound for Endeavour exhibit
http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-121216a-srb-delivery-endeavour-california.html

The pieces are coming together for the towering, launch-pad-like display of NASA's retired space shuttle Endeavour.

Three large parts from two solid rocket boosters are now on a cross country road trip in preparation for the planned 2019 exhibit at the California Science Center in Los Angeles.

The components, two 7.5-foot-tall (2.3 meter) aft skirts that each sat at the base of a booster, and a 10-foot-tall (3 m) frustum that sat below the nose cap at the top, were loaded onto trucks at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida last Tuesday (Dec. 6) and are slated to arrive at the space agency's Armstrong Flight Research Center in southern California later this week, on (or about) Thursday (Dec. 15).

There, the skirts and frustum will join other solid rocket motor segments delivered in August 2012. They will be held in storage until they are needed to assemble the vertical stack for the space shuttle Endeavour at the California Science Center's new Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center in Los Angeles' Exposition Park.

Offline collectSPACE

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Space shuttle Endeavour exhibit gains two flight-worthy solid rocket boosters
http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-011017a-shuttle-endeavour-boosters-donation.html

The space shuttle Endeavour exhibit at the California Science Center is getting a "boost" in the form of two very large, flight-worthy additions.

Orbital ATK and NASA are donating a pair of solid rocket boosters for the Los Angeles museum's vertical display of the retired orbiter. The two boosters, together with NASA's last existing built-for-flight external tank, will be mounted to Endeavour in the Science Center's new Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center, creating the world's only fully-authentic exhibit of a space shuttle in its launch configuration.


Photo: A pair of flight-worthy solid rocket boosters, like these two seen in 2010 for the last mission of the space shuttle Endeavour, are being donated by Orbital ATK and NASA to the California Science Center for Endeavour's vertical display. (NASA/Ben Cooper)

Offline catdlr

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Space shuttle Endeavour exhibit gains two flight-worthy solid rocket boosters


YES!!!  Great news.  Now I feel much better having these.
Tony De La Rosa, ...I'm no Feline Dealer!! I move mountains.  but I'm better known for "I think it's highly sexual." Japanese to English Translation.

Offline IanThePineapple

We should sneak in at night and light the SRBs off (JK, I know they're inactive)

Offline Bubbinski

I didn't realize there were flight worthy Shuttle SRB's left, I'd thought everything had been repurposed for SLS by now (i.e. steel cases). What were the showstoppers preventing that set of boosters plus ET-94 from being used for an STS-136? (Presumably with Endeavour?)

In any case I am going to LA and will pay another visit to Endeavour when this exhibit opens (2018? 2019?).
« Last Edit: 01/11/2017 03:33 am by Bubbinski »
I'll even excitedly look forward to "flags and footprints" and suborbital missions. Just fly...somewhere.

Online Chris Bergin

Orbital ATK AND NASA DONATE SHUTTLE BOOSTERS TO CALIFORNIA SCIENCE CENTER

Boosters to be Part of Only Existing Full Stack of the Space Shuttle on Display

Dulles, Virginia, 28 March 2017 – Orbital ATK (NYSE: OA), a global leader in aerospace and defense technologies, and NASA have donated a set of flight-worthy solid rocket boosters from the Space Shuttle Program to the California Science Center to display with a full-up exhibit of the Endeavour orbiter and external tank.

“We take great pride in our 30-plus years of participation in the Space Shuttle Program,” said Charlie Precourt, Vice President and General Manager of Orbital ATK’s Propulsion Systems Division. “We’re pleased and honored that we can contribute hardware to this amazing exhibit at the California Science Center.”

The California Science Center Foundation’s goal for this exhibit is to preserve and display the only existing full stack of genuine solid rocket boosters, orbiter, and external tank for Endeavour’s ultimate display in a vertical position in the future Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center.

After NASA awarded the last existing flight worthy external tank (ET-94) to the Science Center Foundation in 2015, it became evident it would be critical to have a flight-worthy set of solid rocket boosters, not only for authenticity but also for seismic structural safety. Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center Project Director Dennis Jenkins made the request to Orbital ATK.

The booster cases that Orbital ATK is giving to the California Science Center have flown on 74 space shuttle flights and have been part of 32 ground tests. One case is new.

“As for the non-motor parts of the booster, we sourced a set of flight-worthy aft skirts and frustums from NASA surplus and a set of forward skirts that were used for tests for NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) Program that are currently in Utah at Orbital ATK,” said Jenkins. “Orbital ATK and NASA are providing most of the smaller parts, like booster separation motors, from surplus.”

Construction on the space shuttle exhibit is expected to begin in the summer of 2017.
« Last Edit: 03/29/2017 03:15 pm by jacqmans »
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Offline ChrisGebhardt

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I didn't realize there were flight worthy Shuttle SRB's left, I'd thought everything had been repurposed for SLS by now (i.e. steel cases). What were the showstoppers preventing that set of boosters plus ET-94 from being used for an STS-136? (Presumably with Endeavour?)

In any case I am going to LA and will pay another visit to Endeavour when this exhibit opens (2018? 2019?).

Funding for the flight itself; casting of the SRB prop segments (which wasn't done); massive effort to convert ET-94 with all post-Columbia safety upgrades; time; effort; desire to move on from Shuttle quickly.

Offline collectSPACE

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The booster cases that Orbital ATK is giving to the California Science Center have flown on 74 space shuttle flights and have been part of 32 ground tests. One case is new.

Orbital ATK updated these statistics after they put out the release. Officially, it is 81 space shuttle flights and 32 ground tests. Two cases were not used.

For the two boosters' full flight history, see the graphic posted here.
« Last Edit: 03/29/2017 04:09 pm by collectSPACE »

Offline collectSPACE

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Shuttle-used rockets roll into California to stand up Endeavour exhibit
http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-091120a-endeavour-solid-rocket-boosters-mojave.html

Two rocket boosters made from parts that launched on more than 80 space shuttle missions are now parked outside of Los Angeles, having moved a step closer to standing up the display of a retired NASA orbiter.

The twin solid rocket motors, which Northrop Grumman pledged to donate for the California Science Center's exhibit of the space shuttle Endeavour in 2017, were delivered over the past couple of weeks to the Mojave Air and Space Port, where they are being temporarily held in outdoor storage. The inert motor cases, which Northrop Grumman described as being "structurally representative" of the solid rocket boosters used during NASA's space shuttle program, were trucked in from the company's Promontory, Utah test facility after being prepared for their exhibit.

"We are excited to share a piece of our more than 30-year legacy with future generations to help inspire a new era of explorers," Charlie Precourt, Northrop Grumman's vice president for propulsion systems and a former space shuttle commander, said in a statement.


Photos credit: California Science Center/Perry Roth Johnson

Offline DaveJes1979

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The new exhibit building for Endeavour looks like it will be amazing.  Haven't heard any news on this in years.

Offline Hog

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I didn't realize there were flight worthy Shuttle SRB's left, I'd thought everything had been repurposed for SLS by now (i.e. steel cases). What were the showstoppers preventing that set of boosters plus ET-94 from being used for an STS-136? (Presumably with Endeavour?)

In any case I am going to LA and will pay another visit to Endeavour when this exhibit opens (2018? 2019?).
There's the 80 segments for SLS and apparently there's more segments that fell outside the specs for reuse eg. out of round.
Paul

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