Space Shuttle Endeavour lands at LAX

Endeavour, sitting on top of NASA's Shuttle Carrier Aircraft or SCA, lands at Los Angeles International Airport on September 21, 2012 in Los Angeles, California. / Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

(CBS News) Space Shuttle Endeavour finished its tour of California Friday afternoon, landing at Los Angeles International Airport after a four-day cross-country journey than began in Florida and will end in October with a street parade through Los Angeles to the California Science Center.

Endeavour's final flight was on the back of NASA's Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, a Boeing 747 specially modified to support the spacecraft's weight. The pair flew over several California sites including the state capital of Sacramento, San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, and Disneyland.

A spectator takes a photo of the Space Shuttle Endavour as it flies on top of a modified 747 jumbo jet over the Golden Gate Bridge.

/ Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

The spacecraft also paid tribute to NASA with fly-overs of the space agency's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena and Vandenberg Air Force Base, which has long served as a launch site for NASA and military satellites.

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Endeavour's farewell tour

Endeavour is NASA's youngest space shuttle and is the only orbiter to go on public display in California, the birthplace of the U.S. shuttle fleet. The orbiters were built at a facility in Palmdale, Calif., and occasionally returned for service overhauls during NASA's 30-year space shuttle program.

NASA built Endeavour as a replacement for the orbiter lost in the tragic Challenger shuttle disaster of January 1986, which killed seven astronauts. Endeavour made its first flight in 1992 and was retired in June 2011 after completing its final mission. In all, the launched 25 space missions and flew nearly 123 million miles during its spaceflight career.