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Astronaut Q&A
As NASA celebrates five years of continuous human presence aboard the International Space Station, former resident astronauts from Expedition crews who lived aboard the outpost held this recent question and answer session at the Johnson Space Center.

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Shuttle engine test
For the first time since Hurricane Katrina, NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi conducts a test-firing of a space shuttle main engine. The engine was run as part of a certification series on the Advanced Health Management System, which monitors engine performance.

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Edwards air show
Edwards Air Force Base hosted an open house and air show this past weekend. NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center demonstrated some of its specialized aircraft -- a highly modified NF-15B, a high-altitude ER-2, and F/A-18 and T-34. On the ground, a variety of specialized air and space vehicles were on display in the NASA exhibit, ranging from the Mars rovers to the 747 space shuttle carrier aircraft.

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ISS science 'suitcases'
Scientists eagerly examine suitcase-like packages, called the Materials International Space Station Experiments, or MISSEs, after return to Earth. The MISSE packages were flown outside the orbiting station to expose different materials to the space environments for study.

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Tracking hurricanes
This 2005 Atlantic hurricane season has a been a record-breaker. Satellite imagery since June 1 has been compiled into this movie to track the 21 named storms as they formed and traveled, many making landfall.

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Iceball among snowballs
CASSINI PHOTO RELEASE
Posted: October 31, 2005


Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Download larger image version here

 
The moon Enceladus seems to hover above the outer reaches of Saturn's B ring. Below and to the right of Enceladus, four faint bands lie in the center of the dark Cassini Division.

Recently, scientists have speculated that the particles that make up the dense B and A rings might be more like fluffy snowballs than hard ice cubes. The conclusion is based on temperature data obtained by the Cassini spacecraft.

Enceladus' diameter is 505 kilometers (314 miles). The icy moon is on the near side of the rings in this view.

This image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera at a distance of approximately 2.3 million kilometers (1.4 million miles) from Enceladus. The image scale is 14 kilometers (9 miles) per pixel on Enceladus.

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

STS-134 Patch

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The final planned flight of space shuttle Endeavour is symbolized in the official embroidered crew patch for STS-134. Available in our store!
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Final Shuttle Mission Patch

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The crew emblem for the final space shuttle mission is now available in our store. Get this piece of history!
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Apollo Collage
This beautiful one piece set features the Apollo program emblem surrounded by the individual mission logos.
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STS-133 Patch

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The final planned flight of space shuttle Discovery is symbolized in the official embroidered crew patch for STS-133. Available in our store!
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Anniversary Shuttle Patch

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This embroidered patch commemorates the 30th anniversary of the Space Shuttle Program. The design features the space shuttle Columbia's historic maiden flight of April 12, 1981.
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Mercury anniversary

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Celebrate the 50th anniversary of Alan Shephard's historic Mercury mission with this collectors' item, the official commemorative embroidered patch.
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Fallen Heroes Patch Collection
The official patches from Apollo 1, the shuttle Challenger and Columbia crews are available in the store.
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Gemini 12
Gemini 12: The NASA Mission Reports covers the voyage of James Lovell and Buzz Aldrin that capped the Gemini program's efforts to prove the technologies and techniques that would be needed for the Apollo Moon landings. Includes CD-ROM.
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