Space Shuttle Discovery
Space Shuttle Discovery_NASA's most-flown space plane — will take one last flight this week, but will never leave the planet again. The shuttle's final mission is a piggyback ride atop a jumbo jet so Discovery can take its place as a space icon at the Smithsonian Institution.
The shuttle is due to leave its Florida home for good early Tuesday (April 17), when the modified Boeing 747 jet carrying Discovery will leave NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral en route for Dulles International Airport. If all goes well, the shuttle will arrive in Washington, D.C., later that day and roll into its oversize display case (actually a museum hangar) on Thursday at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, part of Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum.