Big Entrance

Space Shuttle Discovery wows Washington as it moves into its new home at the Smithsonian

Almost home: Discovery coming in over Chantilly, Virginia.

All over Washington D.C. yesterday morning, cameras were clicking, texters were OMG’ing, and fingers were pointing at the town’s newest celebrity: Space Shuttle Discovery, which flew in from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center to go on permanent display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center near Dulles airport, starting Thursday. Follow us on Twitter (@airspacemag) as we report on the day’s festivities.

If you missed Discovery and its carrier aircraft as they flew wide circles over the metro area for about an hour, you can see pictures here and here. New Yorkers will get to see a similar show when shuttle Enterprise arrives on Monday, April 23 at its new home at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum.

This clip from the Smithsonian Channel explains why all the fuss.

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