We have been waiting 5,518 days to finally be able to say this: our Space Shuttle, OV-001, has finally gotten its budget for a temporary building and the move into that temporary building approved! We’ll finally begin the process of restoring her for public display in October!!!





OV-001 was built in April 1972, she predates Enterprise by at least two years, so she is /the/ first Space Shuttle ever built. 1:1 in size, she is made from wood and plastic, and was used extensively till 1999 for payload fit checks and verifying upgrades in an age without CAD.

By the way, JPL being JPL, they assembled the supersonic parachute with colors that spell out in a 10-bit pattern the motto of JPL, "Dare mighty things", along with lat/lon coordinates for where JPL is on Earth.

Because it's JPL, and they do things like this, because that's JPL.

https://twitter.com/FrenchTech_paf/status/1363992051734478852

This isn't the first time JPL has done something cheeky. The original wheel designs for Curiosity had "JPL" built into the tread. NASA said, "We have a no branding policy, we can't have the JPL logo being imprinted everywhere you drive on Mars. Remove it."

What seriously blows my mind about the Descent Stage and Sky Crane system: YOU CANNOT ACTUALLY PHYSICALLY TEST THE WHOLE SYSTEM ON EARTH. It's /Mars-only/, it only works there.

Over a decade after design and 2 for 2 on use, this is the first time we've seen it all at work.

https://twitter.com/NASAPersevere/status/1363929492138254340

You can test the parachute by launching it to the fringes of the Earth's atmosphere. You can test the cables, and test the mobility deploy in a lab. You can test the radar and terrain navigation systems on a plane/helicopter. But you CANNOT test the system as a whole all at once.

Well then. uquiz.com/quiz/cIapQL/an…

https://twitter.com/PrincessofParty/status/1363702465074356224

I finally got a chance to say it.