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NASA Gives Atlantis To Kennedy Space Center

CAPE CANAVERAL (CBS4) - When the space shuttle Atlantis completes its final mission this summer, it will be retired to its permanent home at the Kennedy Space Center.

On Tuesday NASA announced that Endeavour will go to the California Science Center in Los Angeles and Discovery will be given to the Smithsonian Institution.

Enterprise, a prototype shuttle used for test flights more than three decades ago will be sent to the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in New York. Enterprise has been on display at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington.

The shuttle program is winding down with only two more flights left.

Twenty-one museums and centers around the country had put in bids for the spaceships.

The announcement came on the 30th anniversary of the first space shuttle flight.

(©2011 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

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