Aboard shuttle Endeavour one final time

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.
See larger image

Two middeck seats are bolted down in front of the sealed airlock hatch.
See larger image

Ladders are available on both sides of middeck to climb upstairs.
See larger image

The area in front of the seats was the real estate for flying middeck lockers on shuttle missions.
See larger image

Welcome aboard the flight deck!
See larger image

The commander's seat is on the left and the pilot's on the right.
See larger image

An up-close view of the commander's area.
See larger image

The drag chute jettison buttons for ditching the chute as the shuttle rolls to a stop.
See larger image

Here's a view from the commander's seat looking over to the pilot's.
See larger image

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.
See larger image

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.
See larger image

The aft flight deck where commanders flew rendezvouses and the robotic arm was controlled.
See larger image

The television monitors displayed payload bay camera video.
See larger image

The astronauts had overhead windows and rear-facing windows.
See larger image

Gazing into the payload bay of Endeavour.
See larger image

The Ku-band antenna used for rendezvous radar and high-speed communications on the left.
See larger image

The 60-foot-long bay carried major elements of the space station and science payloads.
See larger image

See larger image