Enterprise shuttle heads for permanent home at Intrepid

  Eyewitness NewsNEW YORK (WABC) -- On Friday the space shuttle Enterprise prepared for the final leg of its journey this one not by air, but over water.

On Friday morning the shuttle was rolled out of its protective tent.

Then, on Saturday it will be loaded onto a barge to head for its permanent home at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum.

Sunday morning at 7:45 it is scheduled to be moved by tugboat and travel along the shoreline in Queens and Brooklyn.

Next, it will pass the Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge at 3:30, Coney Island at 4:19, and under the Verrazano Bridge at 5:34, before docking at the Weeks Marine Terminal in Port Elizabeth New Jersey at 6:00

On Tuesday morning the Enterprise will loop around the Statue of Liberty at 9:50, pass the World Trade Center site at 10:50, and arrive at the Intrepid at 11:30.

It will open to the public on July 19th.

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Shuttle Enterprise separated from 747 jet

NEW YORK (WABC) -- The shuttle Enterprise is one step closer to its final destination at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum.

Overnight, the shuttle was separated from a 747 aircraft at Kennedy Airport.

It was last month that the Enterprise arrived on that plane in New York City, in a thrilling flight over the city's major landmarks.

Beginning at 10 p.m. Saturday, engineers carefully moved the shuttle back to a storage hangar.

They used two cranes and a special wind restraint system to gently offload it from the 747 and onto a trailer.

NASA performed the operation Saturday night because the winds were less than 10 miles an hour.

The next step will come June 6th, when the Enterprise is moved onto a tugboat and carried around New York Harbor to the Intrepid.

The exhibit will open to the public July 19th.

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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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