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NASA's 2007 budget
NASA Administrator Mike Griffin, along with his science, spaceflight, exploration and aeronautics chiefs, hold this news conference in Washington on February 6 to discuss the agency's proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2007. The budget would give NASA a slight increase in funding over 2006, but it features cuts in some projects to pay for funding shortfalls in the shuttle program.

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Suit tossed overboard
The Expedition 12 crew tosses overboard an old Russian spacesuit loaded with ham radio gear during a spacewalk outside the International Space Station. The eery view of the lifeless suit tumbling into the darkness of space was captured by station cameras.

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STS-95: John Glenn's return to space
The flight of shuttle Discovery in October 1998 captured the public's attention with the triumphant return to space by John Glenn. The legendary astronaut became the first American to orbit the Earth some 36 years earlier. His 9-day shuttle mission focused on science experiments about aging. This post-flight presentation of highlights from the STS-95 mission is narrated by the astronauts.

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Launch of New Horizons
The New Horizons spacecraft begins a voyage across the solar system to explore Pluto and beyond with its successful launch January 19 aboard a Lockheed Martin Atlas 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

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Cassini looks at dim duo
CASSINI PHOTO RELEASE
Posted: February 14, 2006


Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
 
This close pairing of Janus and Epimetheus shows the two moons at "high phase," meaning that only a thin sliver of sunlit terrain is visible on each moon. Portions of each are also lit feebly by reflected light from Saturn.

Here, Janus (181 kilometers, or 113 miles across) is at top and Epimetheus (116 kilometers, or 72 miles across) is below.

The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera at a distance of approximately 479,000 kilometers (298,000 miles) from Janus and 455,000 kilometers (283,000 miles) from Epimetheus. The image scale is about 3 kilometers (2 miles) per pixel on both moons.

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.