Shuttle Gets Piggyback Ride Home

Jul 02, 07:17 AM

Current Headlines: The Associated Press

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif.

A jumbo jet carrying the space shuttle Atlantis took off Sunday on a return trip to the shuttle's launch site at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

A modified Boeing 747 with the shuttle mounted on its back left from the Mojave Desert air base at 6:05 a.m. PDT, said Alan Brown , a spokesman at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base .

It landed at Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha, Neb. , Sunday afternoon, NASA spokeswoman Jennifer Tharpe said. NASA officials were monitoring the weather in Nebraska and in Florida and did not expect to take off until this morning, Tharpe said.

"We might just sit tight and remain overnight here and start again tomorrow," she said.

The jet also made a refueling stop in Amarillo, Texas , making a rare landing on a commercial runway.

NASA spokesman Bill Johnson had said earlier that the jet was not expected to arrive at Cape Canaveral until today, with the possibility of a Tuesday arrival if weather is bad.

Atlantis, carrying seven astronauts, landed June 22 after a 14- day mission to continue building the international space station.

Unfavorable weather at its Florida launch site forced it to divert its landing site.

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