What do you do when your star attraction — a retired space shuttle — remains hidden and out of public view for the next few years? If you’re the California Science Center, you land another spacecraft.
The Los Angeles museum and educational center announced the addition of a SpaceX Dragon capsule to its collection on Monday, June 24. The flying cargo vehicle will be on display alongside NASA’s space shuttle Endeavor in the science center’s new Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center when the building is completed. Until then, the capsule will be available to view as part of the “Works in Progress” gallery, which is now open to the public.
“As we watch the exciting progress of the new Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center being built around the space shuttle stack, we celebrate our journey in the Work in Progress gallery, which showcases new works while reflecting on the incredible accomplishments that have brought us to today,” said Jeffrey Rudolph, president and CEO of the California Science Center. in his statement.
The Dragon on display was the eighth production model of the 14 first-generation cargo vehicles SpaceX has built to carry supplies to the International Space Station. The capsule was the first Dragon to launch into orbit and subsequently land on Earth three times, logging almost 99 days on commercial resupply services (CRS) missions contracted by NASA.
The science center’s Dragon was first launched on SpaceX’s sixth (CRS-6) flight in 2015; this flight was carrying, among other cargo, a commercially designed Italian espresso machine and 20 live mice that were tested and examined by the Expedition 43 crew on the space station. . Equipped with a new heat shield, the capsule then flew again in 2017, this time bringing an experiment in germinating and malting Budweiser barley among its CRS-13 cargo for the station’s Expedition 53 and 54 crews.
Dragon made its third and final flight in 2019, delivering a new docking adapter for commercial spacecraft, a biofabrication facility for 3D printing organ-like tissues, materials research for Goodyear Tires, an Adidas soccer ball prototype, and a Nickelodeon. “Slime in Space” educational outreach payload as part of the CRS-18 mission supporting Expedition 60 and 61 crews.
Displayed next to Dragon in the new gallery is the Rocket Lab Electron, a small orbital-class launch vehicle of the same type that successfully lifted off on Thursday, June 21, on the company’s 50th mission. The 60-foot-tall (18 m) rocket is powered by 10 Rutherford engines designed and 3D printed in Long Beach, California.
Electron, along with Dragon, will help represent the commercial sector’s contributions to space exploration at the Oschin Air and Space Center.
The “Work in Progress” exhibit also includes a large wall projection showing the construction of the new center, which will be the permanent home of the space shuttle Endeavor and 100 other aerospace artifacts when completed in the next few years. The mural exhibit is enhanced by an architectural model of the building and artist renderings of the large galleries that will be part of the 200,000-square-foot (18,600-square-meter) space in the science center’s $400 million addition.
Also playing in the room is a time-lapse movie detailing the six-month process of lifting Endeavour and installing it at its future facility to create the world’s only original space shuttle stack in its “ready for launch” position. Since the completion of “Go For Stack” in January, the entire shuttle stack has been covered in plastic, scaffolding and wood panels, protecting it as the building is built around and on top of it. The frame, or “diagrid,” that will give the air and space center a sweeping shape into the sky has also begun to be installed.
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Visitors touring the Work in Progress gallery will also find many favorite pieces from the former Samuel Oschin Endeavor Pavilion, where the winged orbiter was previously on display from 2012 until late last year. Guests can now re-experience an interactive video tour of Endeavor’s interior and watch an original space shuttle main engine.
Also on display is an exhibition of more than 80 photographs depicting Endeavour’s last ferry flight over California and its 68-hour journey through the streets of Los Angeles 12 years ago.
The California Science Center is now the third facility where the public can view the SpaceX Dragon capsule, joining the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida and the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. SpaceX also has a flying Dragon on display at its Hawthorne, California, headquarters.
One of the first stages of the three Falcon 9 rockets that launched Dragon is also on public display at the California Science Center. The booster that lifted off on CRS-13 is on outdoor display at the Houston Space Center in Texas.
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