Here in the Bay Area, the Space Shuttle Endeavour did a victory lap, passing over Sacramento, the Golden Gate and many other Bay Area locations. Pixar Animation Studios is in Emeryville, quite close to the Bay Bridge, so I thought we had a pretty good chance of getting a good view. Sadly, all my good camera gear was stolen in our recent burglary, so all I had was my trusty iPad. I positioned myself along with lots of others out in the soccer field, and we caught this (not particularly amazing, but still impressive) view of Endeavour and it’s chase plane heading out toward the Golden Gate.

Fellow Pixarian Chris Walker was apparently at the Alameda Air Station with a better camera, and got much better results.

Endeavour was constructed as the replacement for the Challenger, and flew 25 missions into space, amassing 299 days of flight time in orbit. While digging around, I found this rare glimpse of it docked with the International Space Station, photographed from a departing Soyuz capsule.

Endeavour will find it’s final rest at the California Science Center in Exposition Park in Los Angeles. I’ll have to go have a closer look when it’s installed. Very cool.