The shuttle made its final flight on the back of a modified 747 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to Virginia’s Dulles International Airport today. At 9:48 a.m. EDT it flew over the airport at about 300 feet and then went around Washington, D.C., for about an hour and 15 minutes.

Discovery landed at 11:05 a.m. April 17, on runway 1R. The plane then taxied to a stop in an area called Apron W, which has been set up as a construction site to work on the 83-ton shuttle and de-mate it from the 747. The pilot, Jeff Moultrie, and co-pilot, Bill Rieke, will be greeted by officials from NASA and the Smithsonian and U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood. The shuttle will remain at the airport to be prepared for its final journey Thursday morning when it is towed to the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center.

The official transfer of the shuttle from NASA to the Smithsonian will take place at the Udvar-Hazy Center at 11 a.m. Thursday with 15 of Discovery’s 32 commanders on the stage. The keynote address will be given by former Senator and astronaut John Glenn, who, at age 77, was the oldest member of a Discovery crew. The ceremony is free and open to the public.

Discovery will be the backdrop of the ceremony, and it will remain outdoors until 5:30 p.m. when it is scheduled to be towed into its new permanent home, the James S. McDonnell Space Hanger of the Udvar-Hazy Center.

Related posts:

1. Discovery ready to fly to Smithsonian’s Steven Udvar Hazy Center in Dulles, Va.
2. Shuttle “Discovery” transferred to Smithsonian by NASA
3. Space shuttle Discovery to be added to National Air and Space Museum collection

A local television news crew brought the meteorite to the Smithsonian for verification and Natural History Museum Collections Manager Linda Welzenbach identified it as a stony chrondite meteorite weighing about two-thirds of a pound. “It’s ordinary because 85 to 90 percent of everything that falls is this type of meteorite,” Welzenbach told the Baltimore Sun newspaper. “It has a light gray interior with little, tiny iron, nickel metal particles.” The meteorite is covered with a black fusion crust that was created as its exterior melted from the heat generated by friction with the Earth’s atmosphere.

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1. Old Woman Meteorite
2. Nakhla meteorite
3. Video: Take a glimpse into the Smithsonian’s new meteorite storage facility