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Soyuz TMA-9 docking
The Russian Soyuz TMA-9 space capsule carrying the Expedition 14 resident crew and space tourist Anousheh Ansari safely docks to the International Space Station's Zvezda service module.

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Expedition 14 launch
This extended duration movie follows the Soyuz rocket from the final countdown through arrival in orbit with the Expedition 14 crew. The video shows the three-stage rocket's ascent from Baikonur Cosmodrome and includes views of Mike Lopez-Alegria, Mikhail Tyurin and Anousheh Ansari from cameras inside the capsule.

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Mission of Expedition 14
The voyage of Expedition 14 aboard the International Space Station is expected to see major construction activities for the outpost. Learn more about the mission in this narrated mission preview movie.

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Helene's close-up
CASSINI PHOTO RELEASE
Posted: September 30, 2006


Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
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This set of images exposes details on small and crumpled-looking Helene. Large portions of this Trojan moon of Dione appear to have been blasted away by impacts.

Cassini passed within 50,000 kilometers (31,000 miles) of Helene (32 kilometers, or 20 miles across) when these images were acquired. The views were obtained over the course of an hour, and are presented here in reverse order (i.e., the leftmost image was taken latest).

The images were taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow-angle camera. As presented here, the views were acquired at distances ranging from 62,000 to 51,000 kilometers (39,000 to 32,000 miles) from Helene and at a Sun-Helene-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 111 to 120 degrees. Image scale is 375 to 300 meters (1,230 to 984 feet) per pixel, from left to right.

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.