[Barnes]

Originally Posted by Mccree

With the Shuttle program done what is NASA doing with the plane that carried the shuttle around?

Shuttle Carrier N911NA retired on February 8, 2012 after its final mission to the Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility in Palmdale, California, and will be used as a source of parts for NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA).[12]

Shuttle Carrier N905NA was used to ferry the retired Shuttles to their respective museums. It returned to the Dryden Flight Research Facility at Edwards Air Force Base in California after a short flight from Los Angeles International Airport on September 24, 2012. It was intended to join N911NA as a source of spare parts for NASA's SOFIA aircraft.[12][13] NASA engineers surveyed N905NA and determined that it had few parts usable for SOFIA, and 905 is now intended to be preserved and displayed in Houston. Three former NASA aircraft are on static display in the Houston area - two T-38s at the front entrance of Space Center Houston, and the former NASA KC-135 930 Vomit Comet. In 2013, the Space Center announced plans to display SCA 905 with the mockup shuttle Independence mounted on its back.[14] NASA 905 was erected on site at the space center, having been ferried in pieces from Ellington Field, and the replica shuttle was mounted in August 2014.[15] The display is scheduled to open in 2015.

Shuttle Carrier N911NA is being loaned out for display to the Joe Davies Heritage Airpark in Palmdale, Calif., beginning in September 2014.[16] The aircraft will remain a source of spare parts for the SOFIA program.