For those readers in southern California, expect to hear the famous double boom later this morning. It looks like NASA has decided to bring the Orbiter down at Edwards, due to weather in Florida. They can't stay up another day.

If anyone wants to see it, you still have time to drive up from LA. Security is much higher than it used to be, but I think you can still view it from the east side of the lake, coming in from Boron. Take binoculars.

[Update about five till eleven AM]

Just heard it. It was pretty good overpressure--it was like someone pounding on the windows. It made me jump.

[Update at 3:40 PM PDT]

Here's a live report from a correspondent at Edwards (I've deleted her name because I don't know if she wants me to use it), but who says that blogs don't do reporting?

It was a really pretty landing, too. The sun angle (or something) allowed me to pick it up quite far out; usually I only see it when the boom tells me it's overhead. I lost it going away from me coming off the HAC but picked it up again on long final. The funny thing is that when I first saw it, the carbon-carbon nosecap was very shiny and bright and the tiles weren't. On consideration, I might have been seeing reflection from the windscreens, not the nosecap.

The drag made the usual noise, of course, which is really only audible over here at Dryden on final. The mains put out the normal puff of smoke, the drogue popped out in the classic manner, and it nosed over before it vanished behind the Air Force buildings. Before they got the drogues, we hardly ever saw it settle onto the nose gear.

It was a perfect, very calm day here. Yesterday had been very windy and gusty but today the so-called wind was mostly thermal effect.

For those who are acronym impaired, HAC is the Heading Alignment Circle. One of those TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms) that engineers love, but that the public often finds befuddling. I'm sure she would have spelled it out herself if she knew that I'd publish it here.

[Thursday update]

Mary Shafer (who says it's fine to use her name--she's a Dryden employee, but doesn't speak for them), has a follow-up report for those interested.

I'm glad you published it. It was truly a beautiful day and a beautiful landing. I'm always so impressed by having a spaceship land right here, where I work, that it's hard to think of anything else for the rest of the day.

By the way, the towing of the Orbiter was well underway at 16:15, when I left work a little late. It looks very odd to see the Orbiter with the GFE attached, the equipment with the big hoses that fit on the rear, going down the taxiway. I can't quite put my finger on what looks so odd, except that the GFE looks like it's backing up to keep up and the Orbiter somehow looks smaller. The latter is probably because the ground isn't perfectly level and I couldn't see the tug or the landing gear. The visibility up here isn't perfect right now because there are two big chaparral fires sending smoke that makes the usual wind-borne dust seem minor.

Did I say that spotting the Orbiter is made more difficult because it's either black, as on reentry and rolling into the HAC, or white, as on rolling out of the HAC or on final? If you don't know which color to look for, scanning the sky, even using the radar dishes for reference, is more difficult. Both colors are hard to see.

The STA (Shuttle Training Aircraft) trailed the Orbiter in on final, giving a good reference for the size of both. The STA had been up flying (simulated) touch-and-goes for quite some time. I say "simulated" because they fly it so that the pilot is at the same eye height as the Orbiter, meaning that the STA is really flying a low approach and just simulating the actual touchdown. Watching the STA practice, which is mostly to check winds and turbulence, gives the viewer a good idea of what the final approach looks like and where the Orbiter will actually land; when I have escorted photographers I have told them this so that they will have an easier time of finding the Orbiter in their viewfinders. On the first landing of Endeavor, with the drogue, we were all deceived, as the Orbiter pilot landed quite a bit longer than the STA had been practicing.

I was wondering what the heck that was.