Discovery will replace Enterprise, a prototype orbiter on display at the museum that was used for atmospheric test flights in the 1970s.

Enterprise is being transferred to the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in New York City later this month.

Sisterships Endeavour and Atlantis will go on exhibit at the California Science Center in Los Angeles, and at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida, respectively, later this year.

"We need to preserve our history for future generations and send these off to museums to remember what we did," said former astronaut Steven Lindsey, the commander of the last Discovery crew who is now working with privately held Sierra Nevada Corp., one of several firms developing commercial space taxis for NASA and other customers.

"All the lessons learned from shuttle, we're using in the design of our spacecraft. We're updating the technologies, but the basic principles are the same. Every program builds on the previous program," Lindsey said.

The space shuttle Discovery, attached to a modified NASA 747 aircraft, takes off headed for it's final home at The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, April 17, 2012. [Photo/Agencies]

The space shuttle Discovery, attached to a modified NASA 747 aircraft, takes off headed for it's final home at The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia, from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, April 17, 2012. [Photo/Agencies]