Enterprise's NYC homecoming reset

Space shuttle Enterprise's trip to New York City has been rescheduled for Wednesday, NASA managers said Monday.

The flight was tentatively set for Wednesday between 9:30 and 11:30 a.m., weather permitting. The large storm that blanketed the East Coast over the weekend has lingered, forcing NASA officials to delay a final decision on the flight until Tuesday morning.

Enterprise was supposed to be flown from Dulles International Airport near Washington to Kennedy Airport in Queens Monday, but NASA officials canceled the trip because of windy and rainy weather.

NASA's Boeing 747 shuttle carrier aircraft, with the Enterprise mounted on its back, will fly to New York City and pass over the Statue of Liberty and the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum before landing at Kennedy Airport.

After its arrival, Enterprise will be separated from the 747. It will be stored at Kennedy until June, when it will be placed on a barge and floated up the Hudson River to the Intrepid museum. A crane will lift Enterprise onto the flight deck of the Intrepid, where it will be on exhibit in a climate-controlled pavilion beginning this summer. The museum is at Pier 86, West 46th Street at 12th Avenue in Manhattan.

Enterprise was built as a test shuttle and was never configured to fly in space. However, it was the first shuttle to fly and helped launch the shuttle program 35 years ago, several years before the first shuttle in space, Columbia, blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center.

The Enterprise had been on display at the National Air and Space Museum annex in Northern Virginia.