Ten days after descending from space to a California landing, the space shuttle Discovery made yet another landing on Monday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, atop a modified jumbo jet.

The touchdown at the shuttle fleet’s home base came at the end of a two-day, cross country flight from Edwards AFB in California. Discovery had to land at the Edwards backup site when it returned from the international space station on Sept. 11, due to stormy weather at the Kennedy Space Center’s runway.

The shuttle was prepared and mounted piggyback fashion on NASA’s Boeing 747 airplane. The shuttle-jet combo took off from Edwards early Sunday and made refueling stopovers in Forth Worth, Texas, and Barksdale AFB in Louisiana. The final three-hour leg of the trip came in Monday morning. NASA estimates the cost of such ferry trips at $1.8 million.

During its two-week mission to the space station, Discovery brought up tons of experiments, supplies and equipment including a treadmill. The mission also featured a crew exchange, as well as three spacewalks to replace a coolant tank and install other equipment on the station’s exterior.

Discovery will now be readied for its next launch, scheduled for March 18 2010. The flight is one of six missions NASA hopes to send to the space station before the shuttle fleet is retired.