One of Nasa's retired¹ space shuttles has made a dramatic flypast over the centre of the US capital on the way to its final resting place in a museum.

美国宇航局一架退役航天飞机在首都华盛顿中心上空做了一次引人注目的飞行，飞往它最终的休息地某博物馆。

Discovery flew over the monuments along the National Mall in Washington DC at about 10:00 EST (14:00 GMT).

Piggy-backing on a modified Boeing 747, Discovery was flying at an altitude of about 1,500ft (457m), Nasa said.

The shuttle programme ended in 2011. Discovery will be on show at the Air and Space Museum in Virginia.

After circling four times over the Washington Monument, and passing the National Mall over Capitol Hill, the shuttle landed at Dulles Airport, a few miles outside Washington DC.

From there it will be towed to the nearby Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, where it will be on permanent display.

During the flypast, onlookers² lined the roofs of the capital's buildings and the route to the airport, wanting to catch a glimpse of the shuttle.

Earlier, crowds of onlookers gathered along the Florida shoreline as dawn broke on Tuesday to see the shuttle take off from Kennedy Space Center.

Cheers broke out from the estimated 2,000-strong crowd as the aircraft left the runway, the Associated Press reported.

Dozens of former shuttle workers and Nasa veterans were reported to be among the onlookers.

Discovery then passed low over a packed beach and made one final turn back over the runway at the space complex before climbing towards a cruising altitude.

The aircraft's fuselage（机身） was illuminated³ by the early Florida sunshine for moments before it headed out of sight on its journey up the East Coast.