Shuttle Endeavour takes final victory lap

ROUGH CUT - NO REPORTER NARRATION

The space shuttle Endeavour, took off on Friday from Edwards Air Force Base for a last airborne victory lap over California en route to its final frontier and retirement home - a science museum in Los Angeles.

Riding piggyback on a specially modified Boeing 747, the 75-ton winged spaceship departed at 8:17 a.m. (1517 GMT) on the final leg of its cross-country trip that started on Wednesday in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The scheduled departure was about an hour later than originally planned due to fog over the San Francisco Bay area.

The Boeing 747 with the shuttle took off into clear blue skies and circled back for a fly-over above Edwards, as spectators snapped pictures of Endeavour aloft one last time.

Friday's flight from Edwards, about 100 miles (160 km) north of Los Angeles in the Mojave Desert, will mark Endeavour's last ferry flight, and the final airborne journey for any of NASA's three surviving shuttles.