Enterprise Shuttle: NYC Residents Watch As Retired Spacecraft Flies Over City (LIVE UPDATES)

UPDATE: The Shuttle landed at JFK around 11:18 am EST.

The Space Shuttle Enterprise began its final flight at 9:39 EST this morning and landed at JFK airport around 11:18, after passing over New York City.

Enterprise, which was carried on the back of a modified 747, will soon be displayed in a permanent exhibition at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum on Manhattan's West Side. See live updates of the historic flight below.

To submit your own photos, click here. For videos of the flight, click here.

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Lady Liberty

Gulp. Lady Liberty never looked more proud.NASA/Bill Ingalls #Enterprise #SpotTheShuttle twitpic.com/9ee8y8

— beth beck (@bethbeck) April 27, 2012

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A View From NASA

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Nimoy

With @TheRealNimoy before the #OV101 landing at JFK yfrog.com/h0zafvuj

— Lori Garver (@Lori_Garver) April 27, 2012

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From HuffPost Roof

Awesome. From the HuffPost roof #spottheshuttleinstagr.am/p/J7aN9ECTcu/

— Rebecca Searles (@beccabigwords) April 27, 2012

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Home

Home. #SpotTheShuttle twitpic.com/9edoiz

— Timothy Meaney (@timothymeaney) April 27, 2012

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From Brooklyn

Another view of the shuttle Enterprise, shot from my roof in Greenpoint. #spottheshuttle #nasa flic.kr/p/bC9D7q

— Dmitry Gudkov (@gudphoto) April 27, 2012

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Boldly Going...

I got this exclusive picture of the #Enterprise riding piggyback to JFK airport in NYC twitter.com/HAL9000_/statu…

— HAL 9000 (@HAL9000_) April 27, 2012

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From One Broadway

Listening to @neiltyson on the CBS livefeed "It's showing off now!" (re: return flyby) Ha ha, very funny. #OV101 #spottheshuttle

— Jennifer (@Kittywink) April 27, 2012

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Showoff

Listening to @neiltyson on the CBS livefeed "It's showing off now!" (re: return flyby) Ha ha, very funny. #OV101 #spottheshuttle

— Jennifer (@Kittywink) April 27, 2012

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About To Land

Bovic 15 clear to land!!#SpotTheShuttle #OV101 #NASA905

— Nathan Moeller (@AstroN8) April 27, 2012

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Statue Of Liberty

#SpotTheShuttle here is another great shot of the #Enterprise passing the Statue of Liberty twitter.com/sclarvit/statu…

— Sam Clarvit (@sclarvit) April 27, 2012

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From 81st and Broadway

@DaveMosher: @kendrasnyder: The shuttle! From corner of 81st and Broadway. #spottheshuttle twitpic.com/9ede39 < awesome SHOW E VER!

— Bren (@BG_garden) April 27, 2012

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Skyline

Great shot of Shuttle Enterprise over NYC today (via @NBCNews) say.ly/FpF3aW4

— darren rovell (@darrenrovell) April 27, 2012

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NYC Editor's View

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NYC Stations Enterprise Coverage

All the NYC stations are playing #SpotTheShuttle this morning, some more successfully than others. instagr.am/p/J7VspoMd4a/

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) April 27, 2012

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Photo From Second Pass

“@AnthonyQuintano: #Shuttle #Enterprise makes a second pass. #ov101 #shuttlenbc #spottheshuttle #nyc #nj instagr.am/p/J7Vv-su399/”

— Karen M. Sieminskof (@KMSieminski) April 27, 2012

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Another Great Shot

The shuttle #Enterprise flies past #WTC in Lower Manhattan #NYC #shuttleHP #SpottheShuttle twitter.com/kerstinshamber…

— Kerstin Shamberg (@kerstinshamberg) April 27, 2012

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All Choked Up

#Enterprise landing in NY. I'm all choked up.

— Phil Lawrence (@prlawrence) April 27, 2012

All

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Landing

Scheduled to land at JFK any minute now.

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Waiting

HuffPost Science Associate Editor Travis doing what he does best: waiting around for the shuttle.

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Getting Closer!

The #Enterprise flying right by the @2tor office! #shuttle #nyc #nasa #spottheshuttle #shuttl@ 2tor(2.0) instagr.am/p/J7T0GCB4on/

— Harrison Kratz (@KratzPR) April 27, 2012

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Right Outside The Window

Right outside my window. Space suttle Enterprise. twitter.com/deeptib/status…

— Deepti Bhattarai (@deeptib) April 27, 2012

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There it is!

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Crowds Building At JFK Too

The crowds are gathering at JFK Airport to welcome #Enterprise #OV101 to NYC and to the @IntrepidMuseum  twitpic.com/9ecrw2

— NASA (@NASA) April 27, 2012

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Shuttle-Hungry Crowds Gather At Big Apple's Battery Park

Crowd is gathering in Battery Park to see the shuttle. #spottheshuttle kinda cold twitter.com/michaelrock/st…

— michael rock (@michaelrock) April 27, 2012

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'Spock' Watches The Enterprise Trek?

Wait, Leonard Nimoy is in NYC watching?How cool is that??#SpotTheShuttle #OV101 #NASA905

— Nathan Moeller (@AstroN8) April 27, 2012

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Enterprise's First Visit To NYC? Not Quite

This is cool -- #Enterprise has flown over NYC back in 1983! (Via @AP) #SpotTheShuttle #NASASocial yfrog.com/oe506yarj

— Brett Rosner (@Brosner85) April 27, 2012

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At The Intrepid

Crowds gathering on the Intrepid in anticipation of the Enterprise flypast. #spottheshuttle #intrepidshuttle #OV101 twitter.com/SpaceflightNow…

— Spaceflight Now (@SpaceflightNow) April 27, 2012

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We Have Liftoff

Enterprise and its carrier plane took off from Washington at 9:39 EST. Can't wait for it to get to NYC? Prepare with this map of the planned flyover path.

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More

Comments

[streettalk]

08:47 PM on 05/04/2012

good pics aol. lol god bless i can't write what i would have like to write because it would cause an uproar.

[JShankel]

05:54 PM on 05/01/2012

Fake.  You can tell by the pixels.

[TeddysRevenge]

05:40 PM on 04/29/2012

I found it kind of funny that the shuttle ended up in New York ...it should have went to the U.S. Air Force museum in Dayton, Ohio. Me thinks I smell rotten politics here. The two major American repositories for aeronautical and space technology history are based in Washington D.C. and in Dayton Ohio ...so we sent this one to New York (New Yourk?) ....hmmmm. I guess the Obama administration had to pay off some political debts ...you get the government you voted for, so is this a surprise? I don't think so.

[jsgaetano]

10:37 PM on 04/27/2012

Kind of funny the Shuttle program was retired piggy-backed on an airplane, since that was how it was originally designed to fly: from a launch vehicle. But all the geniuses thought it was "undignified" for the shuttle to use a launch vehicle... so the shuttle the scrapped the rocket program for need to have rockets strapped on to it. And the downfall of the US Space Program was thereby assured.

[ChemicalPulse]

08:02 PM on 04/27/2012

Two words: Bird strike. Isn't this spectacle a little dangerous to be pulled off so low over a densely populated area? Especially, with what happened in 09 over the NYC area, when a commercial jet hit a flock of geese. Birds tend to fly at low altitudes and this stunt was pulled off at a fairly low altitude, near water. Birds tend to linger near rivers, shore lines and other bodies of water. Flying very low over bird areas, the plane can strikes a bird or two & lose engine power. The plane may not have enough altitude to recover, especially with the added weight of the shuttle & can crash into buildings.

[ChemicalPulse]

07:38 PM on 04/27/2012

Doesn't this remind anyone of that April 27, 2009 "photo op", that caused people in the NYC area to freak out?

[jsgaetano]

10:38 PM on 04/27/2012

That was my first thought from the headlines. Photo ops using aircraft have a long and disasterous history.

[Canefighter]

06:50 PM on 04/27/2012

I have no problem with the current shuttle program ending. I do have a problem with the gutting of NASA thus having no chance of designing and running a new program to replace it.

[jsgaetano]

10:39 PM on 04/27/2012

I'm surprised the Teaklanners didn't fly it into an IRS building.

[envirolarry]

06:33 PM on 04/27/2012

And say BYE BYE to our space program. Thanks to Obama we are now hitching a ride with the Russians!

[keithatt7472]

06:51 PM on 04/27/2012

Actually George W. Bush issued the end of the shuttle on Jan. 14, 2004! I do not like Obama either, but the facts are the facts!!

[envirolarry]

07:07 PM on 04/27/2012

OK, I will believe you. But its been another 4 years now. and......?

[jsgaetano]

10:40 PM on 04/27/2012

Oops, your "smaller gubment" and "lower spending" claims aren't lining up with your talking points.

[abuckley23]

06:08 PM on 04/27/2012

That's adorable, the little shuttle's trying to the hump the big plane...

[davo6224]

06:03 PM on 04/27/2012

I sure would like to know why NYC got a shuttle when there is one in Washington DC at the Smithsonian, which is free. NASA said they wanted the shuttles to go to places where the number of people seeing them could be maximized. How many families can afford a trip to NYC? Plus cost of an adult ticket to the USS Intrepid is $24. The west coast got a shuttle, the south got a shuttle and the east got two shuttles. I personally was pulling for the National Museum of the Air Force at Wright Patterson AFB outside of Dayton, Ohio. The museum is in the midwest, its the largest single collection of military aircraft in the US (the shuttles were used for military missions), it specializies in restoring and preserving aircraft, it already has capsules from the Mercuy, Gemini and Appollo programs and is one of the most visited museums in the US. Like the Smithsonian, it is also free. The museum is getting a simulator, but I honestly believe someplace in the midwest should have had one of the actual shuttles.

[ProudToBeVeryLiberal]

06:08 PM on 04/27/2012

"I sure would like to know why NYC got a shuttle when there is one in Washington DC at the Smithsonian, which is free."

Guess what, it's the same one... Enterprise was moved from DC to NYC, while Discovery was given to the Smithsonian for the northern VA annex. I see no reason why DC should have TWO Shuttles.

[davo6224]

09:52 PM on 04/27/2012

I understand why they moved Enterprise out of DC, my question is the reasoning of sending it NYC, when they wanted to make them accessible to as many people as possible. It will cost people a lot of money to see it at the USS Intrepid, but it will cost a lot of money just to get to NYC. That makes seeing a shuttle cost prohibitive to a lot of families.

[keithatt7472]

06:59 PM on 04/27/2012

Their were only 3 shuttles left your math is a little fuzzy for me! Columbia, Challenger they bothe blew up, only 3 left Endevour, Discovery, and Atlantis, please correct me if I'm wrong! You said 1 in the South, 1 on the west coast, and 2 on the east coast????

[ProudToBeVeryLiberal]

07:05 PM on 04/27/2012

You're forgetting Enterprise. True that she never flew in space, but she's still a Shuttle.

[davo6224]

10:00 PM on 04/27/2012

Enterprise, which is the one in NYC, is the original shuttle. It did not make it flights into space, but was the first one built and used for all the initial testing. As mentioned by ProudToBeVeryLIberal, it was moved from DC to make room for Discovery. So there are two shuttles in the East (Enterprise and Discover), one on the west coast and one in the South (Endeavor and Discovery)..

[waunder]

05:41 PM on 04/27/2012

George and Dick had lots of extra money to spend. George and Dick spent lots of money and cut taxes. When George and Dick left office the cash drawer was empty. George and Dick need to go to jail !

[TheyCallMeLtKelso]

04:47 PM on 04/27/2012

What they don't tell you about is the mate/demate device that they have to transport and set up to get the shuttle on and off the 747SR.

[ProudToBeVeryLiberal]

05:58 PM on 04/27/2012

He he, I thought only people in my line of business knew about that...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMij5nMgcPY

[jsgaetano]

10:50 PM on 04/27/2012

That's definitely not something you'd just throw in the back of a pickup truck.

[Mark J Wagner]

04:37 PM on 04/27/2012

Since 1960's, my generation, that is, humanity is experiencing unprecended acceleration in terms of technology, social progress, and de facto, very dynamic process of bringing all human experiences closer together. In this instance, as we can see on above picture, we have another example of the great American achievement. This is the generation which future will recognize as great. Despite local conflicts, dramatic, and painful experiences, human race is able to maintain global peace. This is a truly remarkable story, we can be proud of, as a species, not to mention digital cellulose, on which above story is printed on, and distributed around the world. One more thought, America is proving its superiority not only by practical implementation of knowledge, but more importantly, by facilitation of talent, and vision in unified drive toward progress and self improvement
Mark J. Wagner

[al pambuena]

04:31 PM on 04/27/2012

too bad the obama administration, has reduced NASA, to community organizers, for the muslim world, to promote science, and spread the green energy scams, for the administrartion....NASA was once a great example of what america could do, but like many things over the past 3 years, it has gone by the curb, while obama stash, keeps getting larger.

[showme54]

04:41 PM on 04/27/2012

In 2004 Bush announced that the Shuttle Program would end in 2010. Just a matter of fact, Congress controls the purse strings and even after Obama requested raising NASA' s funding, it has been Congress that can cut the amount. As far as NASA's ongoing programs can be checked out at http://www.nasa.gov/

[RegLib2]

05:33 PM on 04/27/2012

In other words, you're a typical Fox viewer that knows absolutely nothing.