Endeavour's cockpit comes alive one more time


Climb aboard the space shuttle Endeavour, the flight deck displays powered up and buttons glowing just like her astronaut crews saw as they circled the planet, a living spaceship taking hardware and humans to and from Earth orbit safely 25 times.

As the final orbiter built over two decades ago, Endeavour's spaceflight career spanned 19 years, logging 122,883,151 miles traveled, 4,677 orbits of the planet and 299 days spent aloft.

Her final mission concluded on June 1, 2011, touching down in the predawn darkness at the Kennedy Space Center after delivering a sophisticated particle physics experiment to the International Space Station to probe the origins of our universe.

Today, the orbiter is being safed, the hazards and toxics are being removed so the spaceplane can go on public display at an educational center for children in Los Angeles beginning this fall.

The following photo gallery was taken during one of the rare opportunities for the media to enter the shuttle, capturing the realistic view that the men and women who flew aboard Endeavour once witnessed.

See our coverage of Endeavour's final mission.

Photo credit: Ben Cooper/Spaceflight Now

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TAKE A LOOK AROUND THE MIDDECK >

Expedition 29 Patch
Space models