EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE,
Calif. (AP) -- A jumbo jet carrying the space shuttle Atlantis took off Sunday
on a return trip to the shuttle's launch site at Kennedy Space Center in
Florida.
A modified Boeing 747 with
the shuttle
mounted on its back left from the Mojave Desert air base at 6:05 a.m. PDT,
said Alan Brown, a spokesman at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards
Air Force Base.
The jet made a planned stop
at Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha, Neb., Sunday afternoon for refueling and
to check the connection between it and the shuttle, NASA spokeswoman Jennifer
Tharpe said. NASA officials were monitoring the weather in Nebraska and in
Florida and will not take off until Monday morning at the earliest, NASA
spokeswoman Jennifer Tharpe said.
Atlantis could still make
it to Cape Canaveral on Monday, Tharpe said. Managers will decide how to
proceed at a 6 a.m. meeting.
Earlier Sunday, the jet
made a refueling stop in Amarillo, Texas, making a rare landing on a commercial
runway.
NASA spokesman Bill Johnson
had said earlier that the jet was not expected to arrive at Cape Canaveral
until at least Monday, with the possibility of a Tuesday arrival if weather is
bad.
Atlantis, carrying seven
astronauts, landed
June 22 after a 14-day
mission to continue building the international space station.
Unfavorable weather at its
Florida launch site forced it to divert to its alternate landing site in
California.
NASA prefers to land
shuttles in Florida to avoid the cost of transporting them back on a
cross-country flight.
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