Goodbye space shuttle carrier—and thank you for being awesome

You are look at the arcsecond of the two Boeing 747 space birdie carriersbeing taken to its rest situation at the Joe Davies Heritage Airpark , in Palmdale , California . After two decades ferry the space shuttles across the body politic , the two legendary aircraft are now retired .

Over the next 20 years , it made 66 flight with a shuttle atop its fuselage , include 17 missions in which it ferried shuttles from NASA ’s Dryden ( now Armstrong ) Flight Research Center after landings at Edwards Air Force Base to the Kennedy Space Center on Florida ’s east coastline . Upon its retirement on Feb. 8 , 2012 , it had amassed 33,004 trajectory hour over its 38 - year flight career .

Here are a few shots and a video of one of the coolest airplanes to ever vanish the sky .