SPACE SHUTTLE ENDEAVOUR FERRIED OUT FROM CALIFORNIA.

Byline: - Daily News

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE - Space shuttle Endeavour left Edwards Air Force Base atop a Boeing 747 at daybreak Friday on the first leg of a flight back to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a NASA spokesman said.

The flight left at 5:35 a.m. and landed three hours and eight minutes later at Altus Air Force Base in Oklahoma for refueling, said Alan Brown of NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards.

``It left here without a hitch,'' Brown said.

The flight took off three minutes before sunrise from Edwards' main runway over Rosamond Dry Lake, then curved south over the Lancaster-Palmdale area.

For security reasons, NASA withheld prior information on when the ferry-flight would take off. The agency also would not say when the flight would depart Altus.

Endeavour had landed at Edwards on June 19 after it was diverted from Florida because of bad weather.

NASA prefers to land shuttles at the Kennedy Space Center to avoid an estimated $1 million in extra cost to fly them back across the country.

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(color in AV edition only) A 747 aircraft ferries the space shuttle Endeavour on the first leg of its return to Florida's Kennedy Space Center, departing Edwards AFB early Friday.