Space shuttle ferry brings Endeavor over Clear Lake

NASA managers have postponed the ferry flight of space shuttle Endeavour to Wednesday, Sept. 19. 

The decision was made to ensure a safe flight for Endeavour and the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft. A low pressure front in the northern Gulf of Mexico is generating thunderstorms along the predicted flight path.

Managers will hold another weather briefing at 11 a.m. Tuesday. 

The route of photo-ops is in keeping with the final flights taken by the shuttle Enterprise, which flew by the Statue of Liberty on its way to a New York City museum, and the shuttle Discovery, which buzzed monuments in Washington, D.C., before landing at a Smithsonian annex at Dulles International Airport.

On its trip from Kennedy Space Center, Endeavour will also do fly-bys of NASA facilities that played big roles during the 30-year shuttle program.

Endeavour will leave Kennedy Space Center at sunrise Sept. 19, flying over Florida's Space Coast and then over NASA's Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Miss., and its Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans.

It will then fly over Houston, Clear Lake and Galveston in Texas before landing at Ellington Field near NASA's Johnson Space Center.

On Sept. 20 the shuttle will head to Biggs Army Airfield in El Paso for refueling and conduct low-level flyovers of White Sands Test Facility near Las Cruces, N.M.

About midday, Endeavour is expected to touch down at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards air base in the Mojave Desert, where it sometimes landed on its own after space missions.