From Reuters:
Aug 19, 2005 ? EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, California (Reuters) - The space shuttle Discovery began the return journey to its Florida home port from its landing site in California on Friday, riding piggyback on top of a modified Boeing 747 jumbo jet.
Discovery on August 9 completed NASA's first shuttle mission since its sister ship, Columbia, blew apart over Texas in February 2003, but had to land at Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert because of thunderstorms at Cape Canaveral.
NASA prefers to use its main landing site in Florida to save time and the roughly $1 million it costs to prepare the shuttle and transport it across the country. A shuttle was last carried on top of the modified jumbo back to Kennedy Space Center in June 2002.
The U.S. space agency said on Thursday that the next shuttle mission to the International Space Station is unlikely to occur until next March ? a six-month delay ? while engineers try to find out why insulating foam fell off Discovery's external fuel tank during its July 26 liftoff.
Falling foam doomed Columbia when it knocked a hole in its wing at launch. During the space craft's re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere, superheated atmospheric gases tore into the gap and ripped Columbia apart, killing all seven crew.
Discovery's return to Florida was expected to take two days. At least two stops were planned during the 2,200-mile (3,540-km) cross-country trek ? one in Oklahoma and another in Louisiana.
The 100-ton shuttle and its jet carrier fly at about 15,000 feet ? about half the altitude of commercial jet traffic.
"That's due to the amount of fuel the 747 can take on due to the heavy orbiter on its back," said NASA spokesman Kyle Herring.