The California Science Center provided the first public view of Space Shuttle Endeavour in its permanent home Wednesday and announced an opening date for its future air and space museum.
The Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center will open to the public Nov. 13, according to the science center.
Officials said the exhibit will be the only place in the world where visitors can view a complete, authentic space shuttle system in launch position. The display features the flown orbiter Endeavour attached to a pair of real solid rocket boosters and ET-94, the last remaining flight-qualified external tank.
The unveiling took place Wednesday morning at the California Science Center in Exposition Park, where Endeavour is displayed inside the Samuel Oschin Shuttle Gallery, the centerpiece of the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center.
The shuttle stack stands nearly 200 feet tall, allowing visitors to walk beneath the orbiter’s main engines, view its open payload bay and ascend to elevated viewing platforms overlooking the spacecraft, according to officials.
Construction of the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center was completed in April, nearly four years after groundbreaking on the project in June 2022. The 200,000-square-foot addition nearly doubles the Science Center’s exhibit space and will house more than 100 aerospace artifacts and hands-on exhibits focused on aviation and space exploration, officials said.
In addition to the shuttle gallery, the facility will include the Korean Air Aviation Gallery and the Kent Kresa Space Gallery.
“Through the development of the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center, the California Science Center is fulfilling a decades-long dream,” President and CEO of the California Science Center Jeffrey N. Rudolph said in announcing completion of the building in April. “This amazing project significantly expands our ability to accomplish our mission, to stimulate curiosity and inspire science learning in everyone, on a scale and with an impact unlike anything in our history.”
He added that the facility “will stand as an enduring source of inspiration for generations of scientists, engineers and explorers.”
The facility was designed around the unprecedented vertical display of Endeavour, according to project architect Ted Hyman of ZGF Architects.
“At the outset of this project we challenged ourselves to achieve something that has never been done before: to design the only place in the world for the public to see a space shuttle in launch position,” Hyman said when construction was completed.
Endeavour was lifted into its permanent vertical configuration in 2024 following a six-month assembly process known as “Go for Stack.” The orbiter, which flew 25 NASA missions between 1992 and 2011, has been on public display at the Science Center since arriving in Los Angeles in 2012.