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Bad weather is delaying the transfer of the shuttle Endeavour from Florida to California where it will be put on show, the US space agency said on Sunday.
Endeavour, which completed its final mission last year, was scheduled to leave the Kennedy Space Center on the back of a modified Boeing 747 yesterday but inclement conditions along the flight path pushed the departure to today, Nasa said in a statement.
When it does make the trip, the shuttle - which flew more than 185mn km (115mn miles) in its two-decade career - will make several stops and flyovers before arriving at Los Angeles’ LAX airport on Thursday.
After spending a few weeks at a United Airlines hangar there, the shuttle will be transferred to the California Space Center where it will go on display on October 30.
After the space agency Nasa brought an end to the 30-year shuttle programme last year, major US cities battled for the right to house one of the spacecraft.
Endeavour’s trip to Los Angeles is a homecoming of sorts. It was built in Palmdale, north of Los Angeles, as a replacement for the space shuttle Challenger.
Endeavour has embarked on some spectacular journeys in its 20-year-career. On its launch mission in 1992, the spacecraft’s crew snared and redeployed a stranded satellite, and the next year it serviced the Hubble Space Telescope.
