California Science Center

The California Science Center is a state-owned science museum in Los Angeles, California, established in 1951 as the California Museum of Science and Industry, serving as the West Coast's primary public space science education institution. The Center houses Space Shuttle Endeavour (OV-105) — the youngest of NASA's operational shuttle fleet — displayed as the world's only Space Shuttle in vertical launch configuration, standing upright on its original external tank and solid rocket boosters, replicating the configuration in which it sat on Launch Pad 39A before each of its 25 missions.

Endeavour's permanent display in the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center (opened 2022 in a dedicated pavilion) required a multi-year engineering achievement: transporting the 78,000-pound orbiter through Los Angeles city streets in October 2012 — a two-day journey watched by hundreds of thousands of spectators — and subsequently mating it at the museum site with its 66,000-pound external tank (the only full ET never flown) and two Reusable Solid Rocket Boosters.

This vertical stack assembly is a first for any shuttle location; the other orbiter displays (Discovery at Dulles, Atlantis at KSC Visitor Complex, Enterprise at the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum in New York) are all displayed horizontally.

The Science Center also displays Space Shuttle Main Engines, space suits, and dozens of aerospace artifacts alongside interactive science exhibits spanning life sciences, ecosystems, and world of life galleries. The facility operates adjacent to the Exposition Park campus near USC in downtown Los Angeles, serving over two million annual visitors.