spacetoday.net: Discovery flown to Washington

Posted: Wed, Apr 18, 2012, 7:53 AM ET (1153 GMT)
Discovery and 747 over DC (NASA)

The space shuttle Discovery made its final trip on Tuesday, flown on its 747 carrier aircraft from the Kennedy Space Center to Washington to be put on display at the National Air and Space Museum. The 747 carrying Discovery took off from the Shuttle Landing Facility at KSC at around 7 am EDT (1100 GMT) and landed at Dulles International Airport in the Virginia suburbs of Washington four hours later. During the flight the plane made flybys of KSC and nearby beaches, and also made several passes over the Washington area before landing. Discovery, the oldest of the three remaining flight orbiters, will be put on display at the museum's Udvar-Hazy Center adjacent to the airport. The center currently hosts Enterprise, which will be flown to New York next week to join the collection of the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum in Manhattan later this year.