The Last Flight of Discovery
- By Maggie Masetti
- April 18, 2012
- Comments Off on The Last Flight of Discovery
Today we said a bittersweet farewell to the space shuttle orbiter Discovery, as it headed off to retirement at the National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center atop a special 747.
On its way to Dulles Airport (where it landed just outside DC) from Kennedy Space Center (where it took off from), it made approximately 4 loops around the Washington, DC metro area. There are many spectacular pictures of it, many of them taken by people lucky enough to look up and see it. Check out the #spottheshuttle hash tag on twitter to see some of them.
The official photos from NASA HQ, many taken from the T-38 chase plane, are spectacular. The photo below is from that set.

Credit: NASA/Robert Markowitz
The shuttle did fly over NASA Goddard and was a beautiful if bittersweet sight. There is a Flickr group that has lots of photos taken by NASA Goddard folks. If you are one of them, consider adding your photos.
We’ll leave with you a couple of photos taken by friends from Goddard.

Credit: Tim Reichart

Credit: Richard Kelley
Or try Craig’s stereo image:

Credit: Craig Markwardt