Space shuttle Endeavour takes to the sky for start of last cross-country trip

Space shuttle Endeavour flies over the skyline of New Orleans, on Sept. 19.

The space shuttle Endeavour leaves Kennedy Space Center for the last time in Florida, on the morning of Sept. 19. Endeavour, attached to a NASA modified 747 aircraft, is on the first leg of its trip to the California Science Center museum where it will be put on display. Endeavour was to leave the space center on Sept. 17 but was delayed because of bad weather between Florida and Texas, where it will make its first stop before heading to California.

Scott Rush, left, photographs space shuttle Endeavour atop the shuttle aircraft carrier after it landed on Sept. 19 at Ellington Field in Houston.

Space.com reports-- Houston, we have a space shuttle. The space shuttle Endeavour landed in Houston on Wednesday for a one-day stopover while en route to its new museum home in California. Endeavour landed at Ellington Field 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 shuttle is expected to arrive in California on Friday, but only after a cross-country farewell tour of sorts. Since NASA's 30-year space shuttle program retired last year, this is NASA's final space shuttle ferry flight across the United States. 

Space shuttle Endeavour atop a modified jumbo jet makes its departure from the Kennedy Space Center, on Sept. 19, in Cape Canaveral, Fla.

Jorgen and Ruth Sabinsky watch the fly-over of the space shuttle Endeavour atop NASA's Shuttle Carrier Aircraft on Sept. 19 in Cocoa Beach, Fla. This is the final ferry flight scheduled in the Space Shuttle Program era.

Space shuttle Endeavour flies over Ellington Field atop the shuttle aircraft carrier on Sept. 19, in Houston.