Space Shuttle Discovery

For more than a month this spring, we had a crane posted at Dulles Airport near Chantilly, VA to prepare for the arrival of the Space Shuttle Discovery. We hoisted support equipment on site and helped to assemble the shuttle rigging device. Although this job required a lot of down time, being on site to watch this special lift was an exciting experience.

NASA uses a specially-designed rigging device to hoist the shuttle on to and off of the plane that transported it from the Kennedy Space Center. The shuttle arrived at Dulles Airport on April 17, 2012. From there, the space shuttle was transported to the Smithsonian Institute's Udvar-Hazy National Air and Space Museum in Chantilly, VA on April 19, 2012.