Endeavour makes final flight

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LOS ANGELES, Sept. 21 (UPI) -- The space shuttle Endeavour landed Friday at Los Angeles International Airport after a cross-country goodbye tour, NASA said.

Endeavour departed Edwards Air Force Base in California Friday morning on a flyover of northern California and the Los Angeles basin. Scores of people flocked to viewing sites across the region to see the shuttle on its final flight, the Los Angeles Times said.

Suggested viewing locations included the California State Capitol, Disneyland, Griffith Observatory, Los Angeles City Hall, the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific and Malibu beach.

The shuttle, which was being carried by a specially modified Boeing 747, will be kept in a hangar at Los Angeles International Airport until Oct. 12 when it will be transported across the city to the California Science Center.

The space shuttle's cross-country ferry flight began Wednesday when it departed from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. After a stopover Wednesday night in Houston, it passed over Tucson and landed Thursday afternoon at Edwards.

Endeavour, named after a ship chartered to traverse the South Pacific in 1768 and captained by 18th-century explorer James Cook, was completed in 1991. The shuttle flew 25 times, traveling more than 122,000 miles and accumulating 299 days in space, NASA said.