California IN BRIEF : EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE : Atlantis Begins Trip Back to Space Center

The space shuttle Atlantis hitched a ride aboard a modified jumbo jet for a two-day flight back to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. With Atlantis mounted atop its fuselage, NASA’s Boeing 747 shuttle carrier took off from this Air Force base in the Mojave Desert at 7:42 a.m. The aircraft headed for a refueling stop at Sheppard Air Force Base near Wichita Falls, Tex., and an overnight stay at Columbus Air Force Base in Mississippi. The final leg of the trip to Kennedy Space Center was to be flown today. Atlantis circled the Earth 109 times and logged 2.9 million miles during a seven-day mission that ended with a Dec. 1 landing on the dry lake bed at Edwards. The shuttle successfully deployed a $300-million satellite to provide early warning of enemy missile attacks, space launches and nuclear explosions.