SEATTLE, Feb. 5, 2024—On Feb. 15 the Museum will begin the world’s only exclusive crew compartment and cockpit tours of the NASA Space Shuttle Full Fuselage Trainer (FFT). The experiences will be offered on the third Saturday and Sunday each month, with four additional tours on President’s Day. The FFT was built and used by NASA to train every shuttle crew member for their missions, and the 1-hour crew compartment tour is an experience only offered at The Museum of Flight.
Participants will learn about the history and operation of the space shuttle orbiters and gain an understanding of what it was like to be shuttle astronaut in ways that can only be appreciated by being in their environment.
The Space Shuttle Crew Compartment Experience is available four times a day every third weekend of the month, and is limited to six people aged 12 and up. Participants under 15 must be accompanied by an adult. Regular Museum admission is required; reservations/advanced purchase recommended.
$40 General Admission/$30 Museum Member.
NASA Space Shuttle Full Fuselage Trainer
NASA’s 30-year space shuttle program ended in 2011, and the Space Shuttle Full Fuselage Trainer has been on exhibit at the Museum since 2013. The FFT is a full-scale mockup of the space shuttle orbiter, minus the wings, and was the only shuttle trainer built by NASA that included the fuselage. It was used for general familiarization training, emergency egress training, and training for certain functions such as galley operation, payload bay systems, and lighting. It also served as a test bed for upgrades to the shuttle fleet. Built at NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) in the 1970s, it was the oldest mockup in the Space Vehicle Mockup Facility (SVMF).
The SVMF was located inside Building 9 of JSC in Houston, Texas. It housed several space shuttle mockups, including the FFT, as well as mockups of every major pressurized module on the International Space Station. While many of the systems in the SVMF mockups are flight-like, they do not contain what are generally known as simulators (as used to train pilots). Instead, the FFT and other trainers in the SVMF were used for astronaut training in housekeeping, in-flight maintenance, stowage familiarity, ingress/egress, etc.
It typically took at least a year and sometimes longer for astronauts to train, depending on the objectives of the mission. Each crew spent up to 100 hours training in the SVMF in more than 20 separate classes. It took a versatile team comprising a variety of skills and experience to develop, maintain, and operate the SVMF. Specialists such as designers, engineers, project managers, electronic technicians, and shop technicians were used to create the accurate mockups to train astronauts, test systems and procedures, and conduct training.
Images: FFT cockpit looking forward. FFT cockpit looking aft with views of a rocket booster hovering in the left window and a half-scale mockup of the Hubble Space Telescope in the right window. The nose of the FFT showing the crew hatch that tour participants will use to enter the Shuttle Trainer. Ted Huetter/The Museum of Flight.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact:
Ted Huetter/Senior Public Relations Manager
T: 206.768.7105 C: 206.455.5360 Email: thuetter@museumofflight.org
