Welcome to California Atlantis!

May 24, 2009

After traveling around the Earth for 13 days, notching up 5.3 million miles, I'm sure the seven crew of Atlantis were a little frustrated at having to postpone their return to Florida due to bad weather. But Florida's loss is California's gain when mission control decided use the back-up option of landing at Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert.

For more on the STS-125 Hubble servicing mission check out Shuttle Crew Over the Moon at Hubble Success.

I thought we'd seen the last shuttle landing at Edwards when Discovery used the base as a backup landing strip late last year after the space station STS-126 mission, so this is a bonus.

Edwards is only two hours north from where I live, so I'm feeling itchy I should have made the effort to welcome in Atlantis this morning. Looking out the window, the shuttle will be enjoying some classic SoCal sunshine right about now.

But you know what this means don't you? We get to see some more 747-Shuttle piggyback action when NASA authorizes the mother of all cross-country taxi services! I thought we'd seen the last of that too.

Welcome to California Atlantis, we're very excited to have you visit!

Update (10:45am PST):

The STS-125 astronauts are walking around and beneath space shuttle Atlantis, taking a last look at the vehicle that served them well in orbit and brought them safely home to Edwards Air Force Base in California this morning. --NASA archives

Source: NASA