Slideshow: Discovery takes victory lap before landing at Smithsonian

This is awesome! Slideshow: Discovery takes victory lap before landing at Smithsonian: via @ee_times

CHANTILLY, Va. – After logging 39 flights and nearly a year orbiting the Earth, space shuttle Discovery ended its epic career with an around-the-Beltway tour of the nation’s capital before landing at its final destination near Dulles International Airport on Tuesday (April 17). The Smithsonian’s Air & Space Museum annex will now prepare Discovery for permanent display at the museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center here. A modified Boeing 747 carrying Discovery piggy-back style from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida buzzed the museum annex twice during its low-altitude farewell tour of the Washington area before touching down at Dulles to the cheers of thousands of onlookers. It was a glorious end for Discovery, the workhorse of NASA’s shuttle fleet, the spacecraft that launched the Hubble Space Telescope, ferried 77-year-old John Glenn back into space in 1998 and twice returned the U...

Full article: http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4371199/Slideshow...