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STS-121 program perspective
A comprehensive series of press briefings for space shuttle Discovery's upcoming STS-121 begins with a program overview conference by Wayne Hale, NASA's manager of the shuttle program, and Kirk Shireman, the deputy program manager of the International Space Station. The two men discuss the significance of Discovery's mission to their respective programs. The briefing was held June 8 at the Johnson Space Center.

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Exploration work
NASA officials unveil the plan to distribute work in the Constellation Program for robotic and human moon and Mars exploration. This address to agency employees on June 5 was given by Administrator Mike Griffin, Associate Administrator for the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate Scott Horowitz and Constellation Program Manager Jeff Hanley.

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A moon's telltale tail
CASSINI PHOTO RELEASE
Posted: June 12, 2006


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

 
The plumes of Enceladus continue to gush icy particles into Saturn orbit, making this little moon one of a select group of geologically active bodies in the solar system.

Enceladus (505 kilometers, or 314 miles across) is seen here against the night side of Saturn. The extended exposure time used to image the plumes also makes the southern hemisphere, illuminated by ring-shine, appear bright.

The image was acquired in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera at a distance of approximately 2.1 million kilometers (1.3 million miles) from Enceladus and 2.3 million kilometers (1.5 million miles) from Saturn. The image was taken at a Sun-Enceladus-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 159 degrees. Image scale is 13 kilometers (8 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.