Posted on behalf of Adam Mann.

After collectively traveling nearly 600 million km over the last 30 years, the four remaining vehicles of the US Space Shuttle fleet now know their final resting places.

Space Shuttle Atlantis will remain at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Merritt Island, Florida; Endeavor will head to the California Science Center in Los Angeles, California; Discovery will go to the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC. As well, Enterprise—a flight test vehicle that never flew in space and is currently on display in the Smithsonian’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles International Airport in Washington DC—will travel to the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in New York City.

Officials at the recipient museums are delighted at the results. “I’m thrilled,” says Valerie Neal, curator of Shuttle-era human spaceflight at the National Air and Space museum, who has advocated for more than three years to have Discovery at the Smithsonian. “It’s a wonderful mix of exhilaration, excitement, and relief,” she adds.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden announced the decision at KSC during a commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the first space shuttle flight on 12 April. The day also marks the 50th anniversary of Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becoming the first human being in space. The ceremony included a video of the space shuttle’s history narrated by William Shatner and a direct address from six floating astronauts aboard the International Space Station.

Perhaps overwhelmed by the historicity of the moment, Bolden was visibly choking up during several parts of his speech, particularly when mentioning the loss of the two shuttle crews during the Challenger and Columbia disasters in 1986 and 2003, respectively.

After he announced that Atlantis would go to KSC, the crowd at the event—mostly consisting of shuttle engineers and technicians—broke into wild applause and gave the administrator a standing ovation. “I guess I got something right today!” said Bolden in response.

With 21 sites vying to become the final homes of the four available shuttles, competition was stiff. Elected officials from states with large NASA facilities, such as Texas, Florida, Ohio, and California, lobbied heavily for the vehicles. As recently as yesterday, Bolden, on whose shoulders the decision rested, stated during a US Senate appropriations hearing for the Commerce, Science, and Justice subcommittee in Washington DC that he had not yet made a final determination.

Not everyone is pleased following the announcement. Senator Sherrod Brown (Democrat, Ohio) has already spearheaded a request to the US Government Accountability Office, asking them to investigate how NASA decided to distribute the shuttle fleet. Ohio is home to the National Museum of the US Air Force in Dayton, which was allocated $14 million to help pay for delivery of Space Shuttle Atlantis in President Barack Obama’s 2012 Air Force budget request.

The institutions receiving shuttles will also need to sort out how to finance their new acquisitions. Other than for Enterprise, which is already on display, NASA estimates that it will cost $28.8 million apiece for preparation and delivery of each shuttle. The agency and the museums will now have to work together to figure out how each recipient will handle bringing each vehicle in, says Neal.

“This announcement is just the beginning of a long logistical planning process,” she says.