Shuttle Enterprise arrives in New York City

  Eyewitness NewsNEW YORK (WABC) -- The space shuttle Enterprise arrived in New York City on Friday morning, treating residents and visitors to a remarkable sight in the sky.

CLICK HERE TO SEE VIEWER PHOTOS OF THE ENTERPRISE OVER NEW YORK CITY

Enterprise zoomed around the city, riding piggyback on top of a modified jumbo jet. Its trip included flyovers over parts of the city and landmarks including the Statue of Liberty and the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum on Manhattan's west side.

As the shuttle passed Manhattan, people gathered on rooftops to gawk. It was chased through the air by a NASA plane, and in the Hudson River by numerous ferries and other boats.

The shuttle had been scheduled to arrive earlier in the week, but NASA pushed it back because of bad weather.

The Enterprise is being brought to the city where it has a new permanent home waiting at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum. While the Enterprise did not have the capability of heading to space, it served as a research and training model for other shuttles. What NASA learned from The Enterprise forced design changes on the shuttles that did achieve orbit. For the last thirty years, she has sat in the Smithsonian Museum.

The Enterprise departed from Washington DC's Dulles International Airport on the back of a NASA Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA) shortly after 9:30 a.m., the same way it and its sister shuttles have made their way around the country during the decades of the Space Shuttle Program.

The flight landed at JFK Airport shortly before 11:30 a.m.

The shuttle will be moved by barge to the Intrepid museum for public display in June. The museum is at a decommissioned aircraft carrier moored off Manhattan. It's been making room for the shuttle on its flight deck. It's scheduled to open to the public in mid-July.

CLICK HERE TO SEE PHOTOS OF ENTERPRISE AND THE INTREPID

ONLINE: Click here for a look at the space shuttles and their transition from space travel to museums at NASA.gov

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Some time off planned for last space shuttle crew

A photo provided by NASA shows the space shuttle Atlantis on launch pad 39a of the NASA Kennedy Space Center shortly after the rotating service structure was rolled back, Sunday, Nov. 15, 2009, Cape Canaveral, Fla.. Atlantis is scheduled to launch at 2:28p.m. EST, Monday, Nov. 16, 2009. (AP Photo / NASA, Bill Ingalls))

  By MARCIA DUNNCAPE CANAVERAL, FL -- After nearly a week in orbit, the astronauts on NASA's last space shuttle flight will get some time off.

The crew of four will squeeze in a little more cargo hauling at the International Space Station on Thursday morning, then kick back and relax. The six station residents will enjoy some down time as well.

Several tons of food, clothes and other supplies were delivered by space shuttle Atlantis. All that needs to be hand-carried into the space station. The cargo carrier will be filled back up with old station equipment and trash for return to Earth next week.

Atlantis will leave the space station next week and head home to Florida. It's the last flight for NASA's 30-year shuttle program.

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NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/shuttle

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NASA clears space shuttle damage, says gouge OK

  CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA says the gash in space shuttle Endeavour's belly poses no safety concern.

Experts on the ground reviewed 3-D images of the launch damage captured Saturday morning by the astronauts.

They determined the gouge is too shallow to be of concern, and late Saturday afternoon, mission managers cleared the shuttle for return to Earth on June 1.

Images show the gouge to be 3 inches by 2.4 inches, and less than an inch deep.

Several other areas of damage were discovered in Endeavour's heat shield, but only this one gouge warranted a further look.

Before the six shuttle astronauts went to sleep, they were informed everything was looking positive.

The good news was announced a bit later by mission management team leader LeRoy Cain.

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Shuttle Endeavour arrives at space station

  By MARCIA DUNNCAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Endeavour and its six astronauts showed up at the International Space Station on Wednesday with the most expensive payload ever carried by a shuttle, a $2 billion magnetic device that scientists hope will unravel the mysteries of the cosmos.

The two orbiting crews will attach the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer to the space station Thursday.

Endeavour - making its final journey and the next-to-last flight of NASA's shuttle era - docked with the space station as the two vessels soared more than 200 miles above the planet, near Chile.

Commander Mark Kelly steered Endeavour in for the slightly early linkup. He is married to wounded Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who attended the shuttle launch Monday. Giffords was shot in the head Jan. 8 during an assassination attempt that also killed six people and injured 12 others at a political event in Tucson, Ariz.

The space station crew rang the ship's bell to mark Endeavour's arrival. It is the 12th and final visit by Endeavour to the space station; after this mission, the baby of NASA's shuttle fleet will be decommissioned and sent to a museum in Los Angeles.

Atlantis will carry out the final shuttle trip in July.

Kelly and his crew will spend nearly two weeks at the space station. Their main job is to install the 7-ton Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, an international collaboration representing 16 countries and led by Nobel-winning physicist Samuel Ting of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

At the heart of the spectrometer is a 3-foot, doughnut-shaped magnet. The instrument will seek out invisible dark matter as well as antimatter; whether any of this is found or not, the results will help explain what the universe is made of and how it formed.

As soon as the spectrometer is installed, it immediately should begin collecting data. Ting expects to start receiving data within an hour or two.

The AMS will remain anchored to the space station for the rest of its life. The outpost will continue to operate until at least 2020.

Endeavour's crew also will unload spare parts for the space station and carry out four spacewalks, the first one scheduled for Friday.

For now, 12 astronauts are aboard the shuttle-station complex.

On Monday, three of the six space station residents will climb into their Russian Soyuz capsule and return to Earth after a five-month stay. Endeavour's two-week launch delay resulted in the mission interruption.

NASA will continue to rely on Russia to transport U.S. astronauts back and forth to the space station for the foreseeable future. The space agency wants private companies in America to take over this operation, hopefully within a few years.

The Obama administration wants NASA focusing on interplanetary travel, once the shuttles are retired.

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US Rep. Giffords picks wake-up song for shuttle

  By SETH BORENSTEINCAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- After a poignant wake-up song requested by wounded U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords for her astronaut husband, Endeavour and the two other space shuttles each marked milestones Tuesday for the retiring fleet.

In its first full work day in space for its last flight, Endeavour's commander Mark Kelly and his crew conducted their final post-launch inspection for damage to the shuttle heat shield - a routine procedure started after the 2003 Columbia disaster. Initial results "looked really good" for NASA's youngest shuttle, lead flight director Gary Horlacher said Tuesday.

Back at the Kennedy Space Center launch site, Atlantis, which will fly the final shuttle mission of the 30-year program, moved for the last time from its hangar to the massive Vehicle Assembly Building. And Discovery, which flew its last mission in February, had some of its remaining toxic fuel drained from its smaller engines. It will go to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum hangar outside of Washington's Dulles Airport.

In orbit, Endeavour was catching up to the International Space Station, aiming for a 6:16 a.m. EDT Wednesday docking. Endeavour's day started with the traditional music wake-up call. The song: "Beautiful Day" by U2.

It's the same song Giffords picked for Mark Kelly in 2006 when they were just dating. But this time the message-of-hope lyrics seemed to have a special meaning given her recovery from a gunshot wound to the head Jan. 8 in Arizona. U2's Bono, who came up with the lyrics, has said the song is about a man who has lost everything but finds joy in what he still has.

This time the song was from Giffords and Kelly's two daughters.

"It's good to be waking up in space again," Kelly radioed back to Earth. "I want to thank Gabby, Claudia and Claire for that great wake-up song. It's always good to hear U2 and 'Beautiful Day' in space."

Giffords, a three-term Democratic congresswoman from Arizona, has recovered enough from the shooting to twice fly to from Houston to Florida for launch attempts. When Endeavour's five Americans and one Italian got off the ground on Monday, she watched in private from a wheelchair on the roof of the launch control center and remarked, "good stuff, good stuff," according to her staff.

Most of Tuesday was spent looking for - and initially not seeing any - damage to the shuttle's delicate heat shield from launch. On Monday, NASA officials said initial photographs show only a couple of small bits of insulating foam came off the fuel tank during the crucial phase of liftoff. It was heat shield damage from foam that shed during launch that led to the fatal 2003 break up of Columbia during its return to Earth.

Endeavour is on a 16-day mission - the second to last space shuttle flight and last for Endeavour. Its main mission is to attach to the space station a $2 billion physics experiment: a giant magnet that looks for antimatter and dark energy.

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