THEMIS stands for "Time History of Events and Macroscale Interaction during Substorms".

The Space Shuttle is exclusively launched from NASA Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island, Florida.

The Space Shuttle was designed under the direction of Maxime Faget, who also oversaw the development of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo spacecraft.  It was designed to carry the largest military and commercial satellite to orbit.

In 1995 the space shuttle Atlantis successfully docked at the Russian space station Mir, bringing the two great space programs closer together in an era of cooperation that stood in marked contrast to the early days of the space race.

On April 12, 1981, John Young and Robert Crippen launched the space shuttle program by piloting Columbia to space and returning successfully two days later.

While in orbit, the space shuttle circles the planet at some 17,500 miles (28,000 kilometers) an hour, which means that the crew sees a sunrise or sunset every 45 minutes.

NASA's space shuttle is unlike any other spacecraft ever built. The craft was designed to streak into space as a rocket but return as a glider, utilizing an aerodynamic winged shape to descend through the atmosphere and touch down on a runway much like a commercial airplane.

Before construction of the Stennis Space Center began, five small communities (Gainesville, Logtown, Napoleon, Santa Rosa and Westonia) with 700 families were relocated. Remnants of the communities, including city streets and a one-room school house, still exist within the facility.

Stennis Space Center is also home to Navy Special Boat Team 22 and NAVSCIATTS (Naval Small Craft Instruction and Technical Training School).

The Stennis Space Center test area (officially known as the Fee Area) is surrounded by a 125,000 acres (506 km2) acoustical buffer zone.

The visitor center for the Stennis Space Center is known as StenniSphere. Exhibits focus on the the activities of NASA, space, space exploration, science, geography, weather and more. Visitors 18 and over must present a photo ID.

Stennis Space Center has been renamed several times, becoming the Mississippi Test Facility in 1965, the National Space Technology Laboratories in 1974, and taking its present name in 1988 in order to honor the late Mississippi Senator John C. Stennis for his unwavering support of the national space program.

Happy Valentine's Day from NASA INSPIRE!

The Deep Impact mission was finished with the visit to comet Tempel 1. But the spacecraft still had plenty of maneuvering fuel left, so NASA approved a second mission, called Epoxi, that included a visit to a second comet. Three years ago, the mission had to shift course when the comet it was aiming for, Comet Boethin, could not be found. The backup target was Hartley 2.

On its recent trip by comet Hartley 2, the Deep Impact spacecraft took the first pictures of, and flew through, a storm of fluffy particles of water ice being spewed out by carbon dioxide jets coming from the rough ends of the comet.

The flyby of Hartley 2 on Nov. 4, 2010, was only the fifth comet ever to have a spacecraft fly close enough to take images. It is also the first time in history that two comets have been imaged with the same instruments and same spatial resolution.

Cost of EPOXI extended mission: $42 million, for operations from 2007 to end of project at the end of fiscal year 2011.

The name EPOXI is a combination of the names for the two extended mission components: the extrasolar planet observations, called Extrasolar Planet Observations and Characterization (EPOCh), and the flyby of comet Hartley 2, called the Deep Impact Extended Investigation (DIXI).

EPOXI is the name for the supplemental mission of NASA’s Deep Impact spacecraft. The mission uses the flyby spacecraft that is part of the Deep Impact flight system.

Cassini-Huygens is a joint NASA/ESA/ASI mission. NASA’s Cassini spacecraft continues to orbit Saturn, making an extensive survey of the ringed planet and its moons.

Gravity-assists from two swing-bys of Venus and one of Earth provide the equivalent of 68 040 kilograms of rocket fuel.

Cassini-Huygens is the largest interplanetary spacecraft ever built.

The Cassini/Huygens spacecraft arrived at Saturn in July 2004. Cassini is still in operation, orbiting around Saturn. The Huygens probe landed on Titan on 14 January 2005.

Aeronautical engineers are employed by national companies including Boeing, General Electric, Lockheed Martin and Cessna, and government agencies including NASA.

Cassini/Huygens was launched October 15, 1997, on a Titan-IVB/Centaur from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Aeronautical engineering is an engineering branch that involves designing, producing and maintaining aircraft.

The ESA Huygens probe was the first to land on a world in the outer Solar System - on the surface of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon. Data from Cassini and Huygens may offer clues about how life began on Earth.