It took roughly two hours to move both skirts to the 1,800-ton concrete slab. The total weight of the space shuttle will depend on the length of the mission, the amount of fuel and the amount of payload that the space shuttle carries.
The empty space shuttle weighs 165,000 pounds. According to NASA, each shuttle had a gross liftoff weight (system stack) of 4.5 million pounds, and could travel at an estimated 17,500mph. Project officials say this will be the world’s only display of an authentic, “ready-to-launch” space shuttle system. Orbit 115 to 400 statute miles Velocity 17,321 mph weight varied depending on payloads and on board consumables. The entire weight of the space shuttle’s full stack will rest on what’s known as the aft skirts, the lowest part of the twin solid rocket boosters, which will support the weight of the entire space shuttle stack. The space shuttle at takeoff weighs 4.5 million pounds or 2,041 tons if we take into account all its parts. The six, triple-friction pendulum base isolators located beneath the space shuttle will allow for up to 30 inches of movement in a seismic event, according to Arup. To ensure stability and safety in an earthquake, the engineering team worked with ex-Boeing engineers from the space shuttle program and used a program called LS Dyna to run the structure through multiple earthquake scenarios. “The complication is that the exhibit is heavy and there are earthquakes in LA, so the ground is going to shake quite a bit and you have a 500,000-pound, 180-foot-tall exhibit moving around, experiencing lots of different forces and displacements, and the base it sits on has to be strong enough to keep it from rotating over,” she says.
The seismic isolator pad is about 8 ft thick, 45 ft wide and 75 ft long and is built to support the entire weight of the 500,000-lb completed exhibit. Endeavour is the youngest member of NASAs. When complete, the exhibit will stand 200 ft tall and weigh approximately 500,000 lb.Īmie Nulman, associate principal with Arup, says the most challenging aspect of this part of the project was forming the base that the afts sit on. Of the three remaining space-flown space shuttles, Endeavour is the youngest, Built primarily from leftover components the orbiter was made to be a replacement for the shuttle Challenger that was lost in 1986. Here are a few interesting facts about Endeavour as the orbiter prepares to blast into space for the last time: 1.