Space shuttle Endeavour will make a refueling stop in El Paso next week on its way to its final destination in California. (Times file photo)

The space shuttle Endeavour, riding on a carrier aircraft, will make a refueling stop in El Paso before flying low over the White Sands area and Las Cruces next week during the historic final shuttle ferry flight across the country, NASA officials said.

The shuttle's flight on Sept. 19 over the El Paso-Las Cruces region is part of the farewell ferry flight for the space shuttle program.

Endeavour will ride piggyback on a modified 747 flying over NASA facilities on a

The El Paso region has a long history with the space shuttle program, including the landing of the space shuttle Columbia on the Alkali Flats at White Sands Space Harbor in 1982.

Over the decades, thousands of El Pasoans got to view space shuttles making travel stops at Biggs Army Airfield.

"I'm kind of sad to see the fleet being retired," said Richard Lopez, a former NASA electrical engineer who sits on the board of Insights El Paso Science Center.

Lopez plans to try to get a glimpse of the shuttle when it flies over El Paso in what he described as a bitter-sweet end

The space shuttles "sure were workhorses," said Lopez, who worked for NASA for 25 years in Houston and White Sands. "They provided a lot of flights with a lot of good work from the crews. Now, we will rely on rockets going up with the Russians."

The shuttle's final cross-country flight will begin at sunrise Monday when the shuttle departs from the Kennedy Space Center.

Originally posted here:

Space shuttle Endeavour stops in El Paso next week