Space shuttle Endeavour, atop a NASA 747, awaits final preparations for its journey to Los Angeles. (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times / September 16, 2012)

September 16, 2012, 6:24 p.m.

NASA has delayed the space shuttle Endeavours departure for Los Angeles by 24 hours because of a threat of stormy weather along its flight path, officials announced Sunday.

Endeavour, which is scheduled to arrive in Los Angeles on Thursday, will now take off around sunrise Tuesday. It will still arrive in L.A. on schedule its pit stop in Houston will be shortened to a day. Once it arrives, it will be driven through the streets of Los Angeles to its final destination, the California Science Center.

As it flies, the specially outfitted Boeing 747 aircraft carrying Endeavour will still pull some crowd-pleasing low flyovers along the Space Coast, including the Kennedy Space Center and the Patrick Air Force Base.

Though Endeavour has made 25 missions into space, its still the baby of the shuttle family. It was built to replace Challenger, which was destroyed when it exploded after launch in 1986.

[For the record, 6:25 p.m. Sept. 16: An earlier version of this post incorrectly said Endeavour was built to replace the shuttle Columbia.]

amina.khan@latimes.com

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NASA space shuttle Endeavour's L.A. flight delayed to Tuesday