The aft section of the shuttle. Shuttles have 22 miles of wiring. By the end of July 2011 Shuttle OV-95 was to have been stripped of wiring and the avionics laboratory, SAIL, junked.
Everything on the shuttles that flew in space was mirrored and identical to the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory, except the coverings. All wire on OV-95 was exposed. Using SAIL, NASA could run all sorts of flight simulations, including an abort on launch, which was the sequence being run as the final test on the afternoon of July 1, 2011. In this sequence, the shuttle was allowed to slow cresting at 300,000 feet before flipping on its back, slowing until it was moving identical to the speed of the earth, and then reapproaching and landing back the KSC.
The wiring show here is in the aft of the shuttle, just in front of the engines.
OV-95 always “flew” in the NASA Johnson Space Center laboratory, never in space.
[…] OV-95 = SAIL The Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory Shuttle This was the first shuttle to “fly” although it never flew in space. OV-95 was an exact mechanical replica of the other shuttles and used both to test systems and to fly (on the ground in tandem) beginning with a shuttle lift-off. SAIL was located in Houston. When STS-135 landed, it was broken up, the wiring re-cycled and the remainder discarded. […]