Discovery Processing Under Way

Technicians working at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center in California are processing the shuttle after its landing Friday at Edwards Air Force Base, which is adjacent to Dryden. The workers are a mix of about 50 who work at Dryden, 65 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida who are stationed there for landing operation and another 160 from Kennedy who arrive at Dryden a couple days after the shuttle lands. Dryden is equipped with a permanent Mate/De-Mate structure that hosts the shuttle’s post-landing operations before it is used to hoist the shuttle onto the top of a modified 747 for the ferry flight back to Kennedy.