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Full Coverage: Udvar-Hazy Space Hangar
Article index:
Exclusive: Astronaut jetpack flies again
October 26, 2004 -- The propulsion backpack that made the world's first untethered spacewalk possible, flew again today - if only with the help of cranes and wires.
Click on thumbnails to enlarge
More photographs below.
In advance of its public opening on November 1st, the McDonnell Space Hangar at the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, added one more exhibit to its wide collection of space history artifacts: the Manned Maneuvering Unit.
The "MMU" was first flown in space by astronaut Bruce McCandless in February 1984, followed in short order by his STS-41B crewmate Robert Stewart. In total, the MMU was used by six astronauts on three missions, the latter two to facilitate the capture and repair of satellites.
Designed to fit over an astronaut's life support backpack, the MMU used gaseous nitrogen fed through 24 nozzles to control movement. To maneuver, controls were located at the end of the device's two arms, which in turn could be adjusted to fit different astronauts' reaches.
The Smithsonian took possession of MMU Number 3, the same unit used by McCandless, from NASA in 1998. It sat in storage until today's installation at the Udvar-Hazy.
A custom mannequin and replica spacesuit were built for the suspended exhibit, which hangs over the Enterprise shuttle. The MMU is displayed at an angle reminiscent of a pose captured of McCandless flying detached, over the Earth's horizon.
Click on thumbnails to enlarge
Smithsonian opens space history hangar
October 20, 2004 -- Visitors to the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center will get their first chance to explore its newly filled space hangar when it opens on Monday, November 1.
Although the Udvar-Hazy in Chantilly, VA, opened last December, the 53,000-square-foot James S. McDonnell Space Hangar was inaccessible because of the needed restoration of its centerpiece, space shuttle Enterprise. With that project now complete, hundreds of additional artifacts have been installed in the exhibition hall, from a 69-foot floor-to-ceiling Redstone missile to tiny "Anita," a spider carried on Skylab for web formation experiments.
The hangar and its holdings illustrate space exploration history as organized around four main themes: rocketry and missiles; human spaceflight; application satellites; and space science.
"The James S. McDonnell Space Hangar at the Udvar-Hazy Center gives us the chance to share much more of our vast collection as we present the story of space exploration in richer detail," museum director Gen. J.R. "Jack" Dailey said.
A total of 113 large space artifacts are housed in the hangar. The biggest and heaviest, including Enterprise, an instrument ring segment of a Saturn V rocket that was never built and a Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) are displayed at ground level. An array of cruise missiles, satellites and space telescopes hangs from above.
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| LEFT: Gemini TTV-1 paraglider capsule with an inflatable wing; RIGHT: flotation collar and uprighting balloons used by Apollo 11; |
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| LEFT: inside view of a segment of a Saturn V instrumentation unit; RIGHT: prototype spacesuits both from the past and for the future; |
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| LEFT: Enterprise, sans leading edge panels now being used by NASA for return to flight studies; RIGHT: Shuttle Radar Topography Mission payload flown aboard Endeavour in 2000; |
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| LEFT: full-scale engineering prototype of Mars Pathfinder lander; RIGHT: Spartan 201 satellite, used during five shuttle missions; |
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| LEFT: Pegasus, the first aircraft-launched rocket booster to carry satellites into space; RIGHT: a Space Shuttle Main Engine; |
The hangar features two elevated overlooks that allow visitors to study suspended artifacts straight-on and ground-level displays from above.
More than 500 smaller artifacts are exhibited in cases throughout the hangar including advanced spacesuit prototypes; research crystals formed in orbit; sounding rocket payloads; space-themed toys from the 1950s and 1960s and even borscht in tubes, prepared for Soviet cosmonauts.
The oldest artifact in the hangar, the Ritchey Grinding Machine, dates back to the 1890s, when it was used to craft a 60-inch mirror for an observatory telescope in Wisconsin. The newest artifact is an engineering model created by U.S. Naval Academy midshipmen as they developed the PCSat communications satellite launched in 2001 and still in orbit.
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| LEFT: a Gemini paraglider research vehicle for potential ground landings; RIGHT: ACES launch and reentry shuttle pressure suit; |
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| LEFT: a human-sized, NASA-built android built for spacesuit tests; RIGHT: optical and computer equipment for Apollo and the shuttle; |
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| LEFT: U.S.- and Russian-packaged food and crew items for space; RIGHT: space-themed toys and products from the 1950s-1960s; |
Many of the objects now in the space hangar had been in storage for decades. A portion was previewed over the past months in the Udvar-Hazy Center's aviation hangar.
The museum's space collection is built on an agreement that gives the Smithsonian first option to acquire any equipment used and then retired by NASA. The collection includes all but one retired American spacecraft that flew humans and returned safely to Earth; every spacesuit used to walk on the Moon and backups or engineering models of nearly every major American satellite or probe.
Space artifacts from other nations have been donated by individuals and governments or are displayed on loan.
Other unique artifacts now or soon-to-be exhibited in the McDonnell Space Hangar include:
- the manned maneuvering unit used for the first-ever untethered spacewalk
- a film return capsule from the last Corona satellite spy mission over the U.S.S.R.
- a form-fitting centrifuge seat made exclusively for Mercury astronaut John Glenn
The hangar is named for aerospace pioneer James S. McDonnell, whose company built a number of pioneering aircraft and both the Mercury and Gemini spacecraft, flown by the first American astronauts.
The museum plans to install additional artifacts in the hangar over the next few years.
Since its opening, the Udvar-Hazy Center has attracted more than 1.5 million visitors, making it the most popular museum site in Virginia.
For additional photographs of artifacts now on display in the McDonnell Space Hangar, see our article 'Twas three days before opening... from the opening of the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in December 2003. |
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