Shuttle Discovery: Final Flight Over D.C. | National Geographic

NASA’s space shuttle Discovery made its
final flight to a permanent resting
place near Washington DC viewed by
thousands of onlookers as it made a
historic flyover in the skies above the
nation’s capital it is the first veteran
space shuttle to be delivered to a
museum with partly sunny skies as part
of its flight path
the orbiter flew over the National Mall
near the Washington Monument as it has
before discovery piggybacked aboard a
retrofitted 747 for the flight it was
loaded up at Kennedy Space Center last
week for its final journey NASA has
maintained two 747s for this Duty known
as the Shuttle Carrier aircraft or SCA
the Boeing jet liners were originally
built for commercial use at Kennedy the
orbiters are hoisted by what is called
the mate demate device which mates them
to the 747 s for transport flights even
though the commercial jets are stripped
on the inside to reduce weight nASA says
with the added tonnage of the shuttle on
top and the drag it creates in the air
the 747 uses double the fuel per hour
than the same 747 flying solo
shuttle discovery’s new home is the
National Air and Space Museum at Dulles
International Airport in Northern
Virginia discovery touched down at the
end of its final journey after flying 39
space missions over nearly 30 years its
last mission to space was in 2011 to the
International Space Station the shuttle
enterprise will be on display in New
York City the Shuttle Endeavor in Los
Angeles and shuttle Atlantis at the
Kennedy Space Center in Florida