Inside the Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne engine shop is attached to the space shuttle main engine horizontal installer.

Inside the Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne engine shop at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, one of the three replica shuttle main engines (RSMEs) created for space shuttle Discovery is attached to the space shuttle main engine horizontal installer.

The replica engines will be transported from the engine shop to the processing facility for installation on Discovery in January 2012. The work is part of the Space Shuttle Program’s transition and retirement processing of shuttle Discovery. Discovery is being prepared for display at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va. For more information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/shuttle. Photo credit: NASA/Dimitri Gerondidakis