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Space shuttle Endeavour finishes 16-day mission

(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-12-01 08:19

NASA employees work on tracking cameras near the Shuttle Landing Facility before the landing of the space shuttle Endeavour was cancelled due to bad weather at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida November 30, 2008. NASA rerouted the space shuttle Endeavour to land in California on Sunday after it skipped landing at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida because of bad weather. [Agencies]

Returning home from a six-month mission was former space station resident Gregory Chamitoff, who had rocketed away from the planet at the end of May.

The space shuttle's journey, short by comparison, spanned 6.6 million miles (11 million kilometers) and 250 orbits of Earth.

NASA always prefers to land the space shuttles at their home base in Florida. It takes about a week and costs $1.8 million to transport a shuttle from California to Florida, atop a modified jumbo jet.

The astronauts also had been rooting for a Florida touchdown; that's where their families were waiting.

As Endeavour soared over Houston, home to Mission Control, Ferguson could see all the bad weather in Florida.

"I think you made a good call," he radioed.

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