In Houston, Endeavour and its carrier plane landed at Ellington Field, which NASA uses as a base for its T-38 astronaut training jets. national anthem and other patriotic songs blared over a loudspeaker. In Houston, a crowd of onlookers were shown eagerly awaiting Endeavour's arrival as the U.S. The shuttle soared over NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi (where shuttle engines were tested) and the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans (which built the shuttle external tanks) before arriving in Houston, the home of Johnson Space Center, which houses the agency's astronaut training and mission control centers. Hundreds of onlookers gave Endeavour a final farewell from the Kennedy Space Center, with thousands more watching the shuttle's departure across the Space Coast, NASA officials said in a broadcast. During its career, Endeavour launched on 25 missions and flew 122.8 million miles (197 million kilometers) during its spaceflight career. The shuttle was built as a replacement for Challenger, the orbiter that was destroyed in a tragic fatal accident just after launch in January 1986. Navy last year and hopes to watch Endeavour parade through the streets of Los Angeles next month on its way to the California Science Center.Įndeavour is NASA's youngest space shuttle and made its first flight in 1992. Kelly retired from NASA's astronaut corps and the U.S. Kelly spoke from Tucson, Ariz., where he lives with wife and former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, adding that he hopes the pilots ferrying Endeavour across the country will pass over Tucson on its way west this week. "It's an amazing feat to stick something that heavy, 195,000 pounds, on top of another airplane and fly it through the air." Īttorney general’s dilemma: Whether to indict a former president It's a sight to see," said former astronaut Mark Kelly, who commanded Endeavour's last space mission, STS-134, in May and June 2011, in a NASA webcast. They flew a victory lap over Florida's Space Coast before turning west for the trip to Houston. Since NASA's 30-year space shuttle program retired last year, this is NASA's final space shuttle ferry flight across the United States.Įndeavour took off atop its carrier plane, called the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., at about 7:22 a.m.
21), but only after a cross-country farewell tour of sorts. The shuttle is expected to arrive in California on Friday (Sept. 19) for a one-day stopover while en route to its new museum home in California.Įndeavour landed in Houston while riding piggyback atop a modified Boeing 747 jumbo jet to end the first leg of its three-day journey to Los Angeles, where the retired space shuttle will ultimately be transformed into a museum exhibit at the California Science Center. The space shuttle Endeavour landed in Houston today (Sept.
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