Space Shuttle Endeavour, having earlier completed a 16-day mission that improved the International Space Station, finally made it back home to Kennedy Space Center, riding piggyback atop a modified Boeing 747 jumbo jet.

Ordinarily, Endeavour would have returned directly to Kennedy on its own, coming through reentry and back to a landing as a giant unpowered glider.

But bad weather at Kennedy forced the space shuttle orbiter vehicle to divert its landing to the Dryden center at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., where the crew of seven astronauts wrapped up the 16-day STS-126 Mission.

That meant NASA had to hoist the shuttle on top of the 747, essentially an airborne tow truck hauling the orbiter vehicle back to Kennedy, where the shuttle had lifted off Nov. 14. For NASA, that was an unwelcome expense that would have been avoided, save for the notoriously fickle Florida weather.

During the mission, Endeavour crew members added new living quarters, galley equipment and a urine recycling system that produces drinking water all needed to permit a doubling of the space station crew to six, from the three-person capacity now.

As well, the crew ventured into the void, conducting four spacewalks to repair a balky rotating joint that now can align immense solar panels with the sun, so the panels generate maximum electricity for the space station.

The crew also did some heavy lifting, shoving seven tons of new gear and supplies from a logistics module into the space station, and then offloading well over a ton of items from the station into the shuttle for return to Earth.

During the mission, the crew added new living, cooking and exercise facilities to the space station. They also performed four spacewalks to service the joints in the station’s truss that turn the power-producing solar arrays.

By the time Endeavour left the station Nov. 28, it had spent almost 12 days at the complex.

The next shuttle mission is STS-119, targeted for launch on Feb. 12 on a flight to install the fourth set of solar arrays on the International Space Station