The Pratt Whitney Rocketdyne main engines from the last missions of space shuttle Endeavour and Atlantis await shipment to NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi from the Engine Shop at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. In Mississippi the engines will be repurposed in NASA’s next generation heavy lift rocket, the Space Launch System (image credit: NASA).

Earthbound Shuttles: Discovery and Endeavour parked nose-to-nose at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where the decommissioned vehicles are being prepared for public display at museums in Virginia and California (image credit: NASA/Jim Grossmann).

The first-ever picture of a Space Shuttle docked at the International Space Station, taken by Italian Astronaut Paolo Nespoli on May 23rd, aboard the departing Soyuz TMA-20 from 220 miles above the Earth (photo via NASA).

Space Shuttle Endeavour returned from orbit for the last time at 2:35 AM ET, June 1st, 2011, in Cape Canaveral, FL (photo by NASA/Bill Ingalls).

The Space Shuttle Endeavour undocks from the International Space Station for its last return flight from orbit (photo from NASA).

NASA Astronaut Gregory Chamitoff pauses during EVA to take a wide-angle family portrait of Endeavour, Soyuz and the International Space Station. (photo via NASA Astronaut Ron Garan, Expedition 27/28)

The AMS-2, or Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, now successfully installed on the exterior of the International Space Station, after a flight to orbit in the Space Shuttle Endeavour. This instrument is billed as “the most sophisticated particle detector ever sent into space,” and is already at work, searching for evidence of dark matter. (photo from NASA)

NASA Astronaut Greg Chamitoff, on his way back to the airlock of the International Space Station. (photo by NASA Astronaut Ron Garan, Expedition 27/28)

Space Shuttle Endeavour, docked at the International Space Station. (photo by NASA Astronaut Ron Garan, Expedition 27/28)

Space Shuttle Endeavour, docked at the International Space Station on Friday. (photo by NASA, Expedition 27/28)

Space Shuttle Endeavour, on approach to the International Space Station earlier today high above the Rhine River (photo by NASA Astronaut Ron Garan, Expedition 27/28).

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The Space Shuttle Endeavour’s Final Launch seen from a commercial plane window, captured by Stefanie Gordon.