Space Shuttle Discovery takes last ride on Shuttle Carrier Aircraft

Space shuttle Discovery’s ride to retirement, NASA’s modified Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA).

Update

This was one of the last flights either Shuttle Carrier Aircraft ever made. Discovery was delivered to the Smithsonian’s Udvar-Hazy Center in April 2012, and with the Shuttle programme over, the two 747s that had ferried orbiters across the United States for three decades had no remaining work.

Both survive on public display:

• NASA 905, a former American Airlines 747-100, is at Space Center Houston, with a full-size shuttle replica mounted on its back — so the pairing can still be seen as it flew.
• NASA 911, a former Japan Air Lines 747-100SR, is at the Joe Davies Heritage Airpark in Palmdale, California.

That NASA 911 was an SR is a good detail: it began as a high-density domestic airliner built for Japanese trunk routes, with a structure reinforced for far more takeoffs and landings than a normal 747 — and ended up carrying spacecraft.