BOOM TIME SHUTTLE MISSION ENDS AT EDWARDS WITH A BANG.

Byline: Jim Skeen Staff Writer

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE - Chased away from Florida by rain and wind, space shuttle Endeavour wrapped up an 11 1/2-day mission to the International Space Station with a landing Tuesday under sunny skies at Edwards Air Force Base.

With its arrival announced by twin sonic booms, Endeavour glided over Southern California and landed on Edwards' main runway at 9:11 a.m. with a few hundred people looking on.

NASA opted to land Endeavour and its seven-member crew at Edwards because weather was poor at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and was not expected to improve any time soon.

``It's great to be back,'' said mission commander Kent Rominger just seconds before he piloted Endeavour to its landing.

News of the pending arrival of Endeavour sent many last-minute spectators scrambling out to Edwards for a look-see. One of them was Michael Landsman, owner of a West Hollywood limousine service, who was awakened by a phone call from a friend telling him to get on the road right away.

``If I would have hit one more red light or more traffic on the freeway I would have missed it,'' said Landsman, who got out of his limousine just in time to see the shuttle touch down. ``I heard it was like a falling brick and it was. It's a beautiful brick.''

Landsman's friend, Charles Price of Studio City, was in his car heading to work when he heard on the radio that the landing was imminent. Price called his boss to say he was going to Edwards instead of coming to work. His boss had just one comment - ``take pictures.''

Price arrived about a half-hour before the landing, joining a crowd of about 300 that had gathered at the hillside viewing area above NASA Dryden Flight Research Center.

``It was brief and exciting - more exciting than I thought it would be,'' Price said.

The two friends marveled at their good timing.

``That's one of the great things about L.A. Not everybody can wake up and go see a space shuttle land,'' Landsman said.

NASA prefers to land shuttles at Florida in order to save the estimated $1 million cost to ferry an orbiter across the country. However, because of weather, NASA has had to end three of its past four missions at Edwards.

During the mission, Endeavour's crew installed a robotic arm called Canadarm2 on the International Space Station. The Canadian-built robotic arm is more than 57 feet long and is longer, stronger and more flexible than the shuttle's robotic arm.

The arm, capable of handling more than 10 tons, is part of the Mobile Servicing System, which will be used to help build, operate and maintain the space station.

The $896 million Mobile Servicing System will be able to handle large components of the station and yet have a sensitive-enough touch to handle small payloads such as batteries, power supplies and computers and operate tools such as wrenches and socket extensions.

Endeavour's crew also delivered nine experiments to the space station, including experiments examining plant growth and space radiation.

NASA officials have described Endeavour's crew as its most internationally diverse with astronauts coming from the United States, Canada, Russia and Italy. In addition to Rominger, a U.S. Navy captain, Endeavour's crew was composed of pilot Jeff Ashby, also a Navy captain; mission specialist Chris Hadfield, a captain in the Canadian Air Force; mission specialist John Phillips, a former U.S. Navy pilot; mission specialist Scott Paraznski; mission specialist Umberto Guidoni from the European Space Agency; and mission specialist Yuri Lonchakov, a Russian astronaut.

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(1 -- 4 -- color; 1 -- 3 ran in AV edition only; 4 -- color in AV only) The space shuttle Endeavour, in sequence from right to left and then above, makes its descent at Edwards Air Force Base just after 9 a.m. Tuesday.

Gene Blevins/Special to the Daily News