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Endeavour's Landing In LA Deferred To Friday

Evie Liu |
September 20, 2012 | 4:57 p.m. PDT

Staff Reporter

Space Shuttle Endeavour at Ellington Field in Houston, TX for stop over from Kennedy Space Center to Los Angeles, CA. (Creative Commons)
Space Shuttle Endeavour at Ellington Field in Houston, TX for stop over from Kennedy Space Center to Los Angeles, CA. (Creative Commons)

The scheduled flight of the retired space shuttle Endeavour to Los Angeles was postponed again.

The decision of delaying the departure of Endeavour from Monday to Wednesday was made by NASA in consideration of a low pressure weather and possible thunderstorm, which may threaten the safe flight of during its first leg from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to Houston. The estimated landing time at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) would be on Friday at about 11 a.m. PDT (2 p.m. EDT), one day later than the original plan for Thursday. 

Before its final arrival in LA, the shuttle is scheduled for several flyovers and stopovers across Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico and Northern California atop a modified Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA). The retired orbiter will settle down in its new home at California Science Center (CSC) for permanent display.    

There will be a welcome ceremony at LAX to embrace the arrival of the retired orbiter in LA before it is removed from the jumbo SCA. On Oct. 12 the spacecraft will ride on a wheeled transporter and leave LAX for a two-day, 12-mile road trip to CSC. Public will be able to visit the Samuel Oschin Space Shuttle Endeavour Display Pavillion at CSC and have a glimpse at the honored space shuttle from Oct. 30.  

Endeavour - the replacement for the destroyed Challenger shuttle - made its debut in 1992 and flew 25 times before it was retired. It logged 123 million miles in space and circled Earth nearly 4,700 times. Following the retirement of Discovery, Enterprise and Atlantis, Endeavour’s final delivery marks the end of the 30-year-long shuttle era.

The shuttle took off this morning after sunrise from Ellington Field in Houston, the Space City, on its final trip to California.

 

Reach the reporter Evie Liu here.



 

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