KSC-2011-7155

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – In the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, workers lower the cage containing an Approach and Landing Test Assembly (ALTA) pod over the rear of space shuttle Endeavour. The ALTA pod is being attached to the site once housing the orbital maneuvering system (OMS) pod. The demonstration test is being conducted to ensure the center’s equipment will fit into the hangar at the National Air and Space Museum when installing an ALTA pod on shuttle Enterprise. The pod must be reinstalled on a shuttle for transport on a 747 carrier aircraft. The simulation also tests procedures and timelines necessary to carry out the process. The work is part of the Space Shuttle Program’s transition and retirement processing. Enterprise, which was not equipped for space flight, was built as a test vehicle to demonstrate that the orbiter could fly in the atmosphere and land like an airplane. In 1985, Enterprise was ferried from the Kennedy Space Center to Dulles Airport, Washington, D.C., and became the property of the Smithsonian Institute. Enterprise will be moved from the Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va. to the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in New York. For more information, visit http:__www.nasa.gov_shuttle. Photo credit: NASA_Jim Grossmann