Atlantis on Return Flight

Atlantis on Return Flight

Space Shuttle Atlantis is carried by one of NASA's modified 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft over California's high desert after leaving NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base on a ferry flight back to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. (NASA Photo / Jim Ross)

Space Shuttle Atlantis has begun its ferry flight back to Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Mounted atop its modified 747 carrier aircraft, it took off from Edwards Air Force Base at 8:06 a.m. PDT Monday on the first leg of its cross-country trip to Biggs Army Air Field at El Paso, Texas.Following a two-hour, 16-minute flight, the 747-shuttle combo touched down at Biggs at 10:22 a.m. PDT (11:22 a.m. MDT). The craft, along with flight crews and other personnel that flew ahead in a NASA C-9 pathfinder aircraft, will stay at Biggs overnight and then continue on Tuesday morning on the second leg of Atlantis' ferry flight to Kennedy. The ferry flight, flown during daylight hours only and in precipitation-free weather, will necessitate several stopovers for fueling en route and is expected to take at least two days to complete. The piggyback pair should arrive back at Kennedy late Tuesday afternoon at the earliest.Atlantis landed at Edwards Air Force Base May 24 at the conclusion of the Hubble Space Telescope servicing mission after being diverted from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida due to poor weather conditions there. Atlantis' landing at Edwards was the 53rd shuttle mission to conclude with a landing at Edwards.
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