Aboard shuttle Endeavour one final time

BY JUSTIN RAY
SPACEFLIGHT NOW

Posted: August 8, 2012


Gaining one last glimpse inside the crew module of space shuttle Endeavour where astronauts lived and worked on 25 missions, Spaceflight Now's Justin Ray climbed aboard the spacecraft this week.

The ship will be sealed up in the coming days to enter storage in the Vehicle Assembly Building beginning Aug. 16 to await the planned Sept. 17 departure from Kennedy Space Center atop the modified Boeing 747 carrier aircraft bound for her new home at the California Science Center in Los Angeles, an institution know for its education credentials and hands-on learning facilities geared to schoolchildren.

This gallery of images looks around the two-level crew compartment, where you can see a pair of mission specialist seats on the middeck and upstairs at the controls on the flight deck where the ship was flown most recently by commander Mark Kelly and pilot Greg Johnson last year.

See our coverage from Endeavour's final mission.

Photo credit: Justin Ray/Spaceflight Now


Welcome aboard the good ship Endeavour!


Through the open hatch, take the ladder up to the flight deck or turn left for the middeck.
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Two middeck seats are bolted down in front of the sealed airlock hatch.
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Ladders are available on both sides of middeck to climb upstairs.
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The area in front of the seats was the real estate for flying middeck lockers on shuttle missions.
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Welcome aboard the flight deck!
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The commander's seat is on the left and the pilot's on the right.
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An up-close view of the commander's area.
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The drag chute jettison buttons for ditching the chute as the shuttle rolls to a stop.
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Here's a view from the commander's seat looking over to the pilot's.
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These are manual shutdown buttons for the space shuttle main engines.


The center console provided reach for either crew member to flip switches and buttons.
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The crew had the ability to manually separate the solid rockets and external tank.


The approximate view that a mission specialist would have from the aft-right seat.
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The aft flight deck where commanders flew rendezvouses and the robotic arm was controlled.
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The television monitors displayed payload bay camera video.
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The astronauts had overhead windows and rear-facing windows.
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Gazing into the payload bay of Endeavour.
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The Ku-band antenna used for rendezvous radar and high-speed communications on the left.
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The 60-foot-long bay carried major elements of the space station and science payloads.
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Expedition 29 Patch
Space models