The future museum display of NASA's retired space shuttle Endeavour took a giant step upwards on Tuesday (Nov. 7), as cranes lifted the first of two solid rocket motors into the vertical at the California Science Center in Los Angeles.
The stacking procedure — standing the booster atop its previously placed aft skirt inside the construction site for the science center's new Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center — was the first major lift in a three-part series that will result in the world's only vertical exhibit of an authentic space shuttle. Tuesday's lift of the solid rocket motor (SRM) was both reminiscent of something NASA has done more than 140 times before and, at the same time, a first in history.
Take for example, the pair of solid rocket boosters that NASA is now beginning to stack for its Artemis 2 mission, the first launch to send humans to the moon in more than 50 years. That lift has many complexities, but it is being done within the walls of the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, just like every other pair of boosters to fly.
Related: Facts about Endeavour, NASA's youngest space shuttle
