The final flight of the Space Shuttle - spotted even from space!

Endeavour leaving Florida after a flypast of the truly huge Vertical Assembly Building

This week saw the very last flight of a Space Shuttle. Not a flight in space, but on the back of NASA's customised 747 transporter. Endeavour has been on an extended trip from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida to California, where it will be on permanent exhibition at the California Science Centre.

The other shuttles Enterprise, Atlantis and Discovery have already been retired to various lucky museums around the US. Except for Challenger and Columbia of course, which were destroyed in flight in 1986 and 2003 respectively, with the loss of both crews.

These flights got a huge reception in cities along the flightpath, with many thousands turning out to see each of the shuttles in the air for one last time - possibly more even than saw the launches themselves? The Endeavour flight even got snapped from space! Wired report that that the Digital Globe satellite caught it over the White Sands Missile Range.

The blue "shadow" is caused by the satellite taking two consecutive photos - one panchromatic and one colour, meaning a slight lag for fast-moving objects. Here's the actual shadow further away:

Emily Lakdawalla of the Planetary Society posted this video of the flight taking off from Edwards Air Force Base on the final leg of the transfer, and she has a 3D version on her blog if you have some red/green 3D glasses:

This awesome closeup photo was posted to Twitter by one of the lucky NASA Social participants - sorry not sure who, but it came via @CatherineQ.

Here they got to go inside the transporter - pretty much nothing in there but empty!

Endeavour will go on display in the vertical launch configuration in a custom-built 20-storey building! Must be one huge museum... Emily posted these pictures of the replica solid rocket boosters that will be attached to the main fuel tank:

Endeavour is currently demounted from the now useless and therefore retired 747 transporter and is in a hanger awaiting one last mega photobombing as it gets towed through the streets of Los Angeles. This part has caused some discontent in LA - several hundred mature street trees had to be felled to fit the shuttle through the least-impact route. But after the last shuttle getting a road haul send-off was damaged on a bridge, you can understand NASA's caution. Even retired, Endeavour is valued at some $3 billion...

The transfer and display setup involve huge costs in their own right - some $200 million! The CSC has apparently raised half of this already, according to space.com, with donors of $1000 or more getting souvenir flight patches that travelled on Endeavour's last "flight".

Here's the view from NASA's chase plane as the flight buzzes Hollywood and LA: