WIKIARCHIVES.SPACE

Both a fixed Stiffleg Derrick and a large mobile crane were used to hoist Space Shuttle Columbia into the air for mounting on NASA's modified 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft for a ferry flight back to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida after Columbia made the only landing of the 135-mission Space Shuttle Program at Northrup Strip at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico on March 30, 1982. Two months later, President Ronald Reagan signed legislation renaming the Northrup Strip area as White Sands Space Harbor.