Heads Up New York! Your Chance to See a Shuttle Flying Through the Skies

People in the Northeast will have another chance tomorrow to spot a space shuttle flying atop a 747 airplane.  This time it is space shuttle Enterprise, enroute from Washington, DC to New York City between 9:30 and 11:30 am ET.

Enterprise never flew into space.  Instead it was used for atmospheric drop tests before the first shuttles were launched to orbit.   It was transferred to the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum in 1985 and has been on display near Dulles International Airport since then.  Its home since 2003 has been the Smithsonian’s Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles, but it lost its spot to space shuttle Discovery, an orbiter that has actually been to space.  

Discovery arrived last week and it is time for Enterprise to go to its new home at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in New York City.   Enterprise is scheduled to be flown atop a shuttle carrier aircraft between 9:30 and 11:30 am tomorrow morning (April 27).  After flying over landmarks like the Statue of Liberty, it will land at JFK Airport.  It will later be placed on a barge for transport along the Hudson River to the Intrepid museum and placed on the deck of the Intrepid, an aircraft carrier used to recover Mercury and Gemini crews in the 1960s.