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7 'Great Locations' To See Space Shuttle Discovery Fly By On Tuesday

Discovery is sitting atop NASA's 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, which will fly the shuttle from Florida to Virginia.
Roberto Gonzalez
/
Getty Images
Discovery is sitting atop NASA's 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, which will fly the shuttle from Florida to Virginia.

For those who will be in the Washington, D.C., area Tuesday morning and would like to see space shuttle Discovery on the "fly-in" to its retirement home outside the nation's capital, the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum recommends being in one of these seven "great locations" before 10 a.m. ET:

District of Columbia

-- "The National Mall, including Memorial Bridge, the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument and the east end.

-- "Hains Point at East Potomac Park, south of the Jefferson Memorial and the 14th Street Bridge.

-- "The Southwest Waterfront Park.

Virginia

-- "Long Bridge Park, located at 475 Long Bridge Dr. in Arlington.

-- "Old Town Alexandria waterfront.

-- "Gravelly Point, just off the George Washington Parkway, near National Airport.

Maryland

-- "National Harbor, just off the Woodrow Wilson Bridge in Prince George's County, Md. Follow Beltway exits."

Discovery, catching a ride atop a jumbo jet, is due to fly over the D.C. area between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. It will be low enough to put on quite a show, weather-permitting (the forecast is calling for "partly cloudy" skies at that hour and temperatures in the mid-60s). The shuttle is traveling from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to the Smithsonian's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, adjacent to Dulles International Airport in Chantilly, Va.

NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce had much more about Discovery's last trip, and those of the other now-retired shuttles, on All Things Considered.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Mark Memmott is NPR's supervising senior editor for Standards & Practices. In that role, he's a resource for NPR's journalists – helping them raise the right questions as they do their work and uphold the organization's standards.