Students at South Hancock Elementary School in Bay St. Louis, Miss., gather around Orbie the Astronaut on May 19 as teacher Sarah Ladner affixes a nameplate to the Stennis Space Center mascot. Members of the third-grade class won a contest to name the inflatable astronaut. Some 20 schools in Louisiana and Mississippi participated in the contest.

Spacey Casey, left, and NASA Aeronautics' mascot Orville the Flying Squirrel, right, pose for photos with guests during the White House Easter Egg Roll, Monday, April 10, 2023, on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington. Photo Credit: (NASA/Keegan Barber)

Spacey Casey, left, and NASA Aeronautics' mascot Orville the Flying Squirrel, right, pose for photos with guests during the White House Easter Egg Roll, Monday, April 10, 2023, on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington. Photo Credit: (NASA/Keegan Barber)

The bronze statue of the goat mascot for Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) named "Gompei" is seen wearing a staff t-shirt for the "TouchTomorrow" education and outreach event that was held in tandem with the NASA-WPI Sample Return Robot Centennial Challenge on Saturday, June 16, 2012 in Worcester, Mass. The challenge tasked robotic teams to build autonomous robots that can identify, collect and return samples. NASA needs autonomous robotic capability for future planetary exploration. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver and NASA Chief Technologist Mason Peck stop to look at the bronze statue of the goat mascot for Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) named "Gompei" that is wearing a staff t-shirt for the "TouchTomorrow" education and outreach event that was held in tandem with the NASA-WPI Sample Return Robot Centennial Challenge on Saturday, June 16, 2012 in Worcester, Mass. The challenge tasked robotic teams to build autonomous robots that can identify, collect and return samples. NASA needs autonomous robotic capability for future planetary exploration. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

IMAGE CREATIONS OF BUCKEYE BEAR THE AVON EAST ELEMENTARY SCHOOL MASCOT FOR THE STS104 SHUTTLE MISSION

At the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, Expedition 57 crewmembers Nick Hague of NASA (left) and Alexey Ovchinin of Roscosmos (right) hold up toy mascots Oct. 6 during final fit check activities prior to launch. The mascots will be mounted over their heads in the Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft to serve as “zero-G” indicators when they launch Oct. 11 for a six-month mission on the International Space Station...NASA/Victor Zelentsov.

The Capitals mascot Slapshot is seen at a White House Halloween themed event titled, “Hallo-READ!” on Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024 on the south lawn of the White House in Washington. Photo Credit: (NASA/Aubrey Gemignani)

SPARKY THE FIRE DOG, MASCOT FOR THE NATIONAL FIRE PROTECTION ASSOCIATION, TEAMS UP WITH PATRICK SCHEUERMANN AT THE MARSHALL CENTER SEPT. 26 TO PROMOTE THE NATIONWIDE FIRE PREVENTION WEEK CAMPAIGN, “WORKING SMOKE ALARMS SAVE LIVES: TEST YOURS EVERY MONTH!”-

STS028-06-031 (August 1989) --- Astronaut Richard N. Richards, pilot, is captured with a 35mm camera at the pilot's station on the flight deck of the space shuttle Columbia during the STS-28 flight. Nearby is a tiger. Richards is an alumnus of the University of Missouri, whose mascot is a tiger.

Stennis Space Center mascot Orbie is presented to students during outreach activities at Lillie Burney Elementary School in Hattiesburg, Miss. NASA senior staff members from Stennis Space Center visited the school Jan. 27, 2012, for a morning of activities and outreach to students and school officials.

Stennis Space Center mascot Orbie is presented to students during outreach activities at Lillie Burney Elementary School in Hattiesburg, Miss. NASA senior staff members from Stennis Space Center visited the school Jan. 27, 2012, for a morning of activities and outreach to students and school officials.

Comprised of students from Cocoa Beach, Rockledge, Viera and Space Coast high schools, the robotics group known as the "Pink Team," chose the phoenix as its mascot for the 2016 season. The group, its mentors and support personnel celebrated a successful season near the Shuttle Landing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center on April 5.

The Stennis Space Center mascot, Orbie, participated in the Stennis Farmer's Market spring celebration April 24, 2012. The market marked its move to a new onsite location and its six-month anniversary with a spring celebration event that included door prizes, vendor discounts and entertainment by local musicians and dance groups.

At the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, Expedition 37/38 Soyuz Commander Oleg Kotov (second from left) holds a toy cat mascot during a pre-launch news conference Sept. 6 as his crewmates, Flight Engineer Michael Hopkins of NASA (far left) and Flight Engineer Sergey Ryazanskiy (second from the right) look on. Also participating in the news conference was the head of the Cosmonaut Training Center, Sergei Krikalev (far right). The mascot will be mounted inside the crew’s Soyuz TMA-10M spacecraft over Kotov’s head as a “zero-g indicator” once the crew launches. Their launch to the International Space Station is set for Sept. 26, Kazakh time, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. NASA/Stephanie Stoll

Minamitane elementary school girls pose for a photo in front of a sign featuring the town's mascot "Chuta-kun", Sunday, Feb. 23, 2014, Tanegashima Island, Japan. The Chuta-kun mascot rides a rocket and has guns on the side of his helmet to show the areas history as the site of the first known contact of Europe and the Japanese, in 1543 and the introduction of the gun. A Japanese H-IIA rocket carrying the NASA-Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory is planned for launch from the space center on Feb. 28, 2014. Once launched, the GPM spacecraft will collect information that unifies data from an international network of existing and future satellites to map global rainfall and snowfall every three hours. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

The Cleveland Guardians mascot, Slider and Astronaut Stephen Bowen and Snoopy participate in meet and greets with the public at the Great Lakes Science Center. A total solar eclipse swept across a narrow portion of the North American continent from Mexico’s Pacific coast to the Atlantic coast of Newfoundland, Canada. A partial solar eclipse was visible across the entire North American continent along with parts of Central America and Europe.

The Cleveland Guardians mascot, Slider poses with solar eclipse glasses at the Total Solar Eclipse Fest at the Great Lakes Science Center April 6, 2024. A total solar eclipse swept across a narrow portion of the North American continent from Mexico’s Pacific coast to the Atlantic coast of Newfoundland, Canada. A partial solar eclipse was visible across the entire North American continent along with parts of Central America and Europe.

The Cleveland Guardians mascot, Slider poses in front of the NASA sign at the Total Solar Eclipse Fest at the Great Lakes Science Center April 6, 2024. A total solar eclipse swept across a narrow portion of the North American continent from Mexico’s Pacific coast to the Atlantic coast of Newfoundland, Canada. A partial solar eclipse was visible across the entire North American continent along with parts of Central America and Europe.

iss063e030657 (June 18, 2020) --- A U.S. spacesuit is pictured in the Quest airlock of the International Space Station ahead of a pair of spacewalks that astronauts Chris Cassidy and Behnken will conduct to upgrade orbital lab power systems. A pair of plush-doll mascots, (from left) Tremor and Little Earth, delivered aboard the first two SpaceX Crew Dragon vehicles are posed floating in front of the spacesuit.

S84-40082 (August 1984) --- These five astronauts are scheduled to fly aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery on Mission STS-51A for NASA. The mission is scheduled for early November 1984. Astronaut Frederick H. (Rick) Hauck, seated, is crew commander. Astronaut David M. Walker, pilot, stands next to the Eagle, 51-A mascot. Others on the back row, left-to-right, are astronauts Dale A. Gardner, Anna L. Fisher and Joseph P. Allen IV, all mission specialists.

Romeo Durscher from Stanford, CA, who goes by @RomeoCH on Twitter, tweets with his Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) mascot named "Camilla" by his side during the NASA STS-133 mission tweetup on Monday, Nov., 1, 2010 at the NASA Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. NASA Tweetups provide @NASA followers with the opportunity to go behind-the-scenes at NASA facilities and events and speak with scientists, engineers, astronauts and managers. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

NASA senior staff members from John C. Stennis Space Center traveled to Children's Hospital in New Orleans on Feb. 4 for a morning of educational outreach, offering interactive demonstrations and activities for children. Staff members offered cryogenic demonstrations, informative and interactive exhibits and a chance for children to take photos 'wearing' a space suit. Children also had a chance to interact with Stennis' astronaut mascot.

The south polar residual cap is constantly changing as carbon dioxide sublimates from steep slopes, enlarging pits, and condenses on flat areas, filling pits. Sometimes the strange landscape produces something that looks familiar, like the mascot of a certain peanut company, who recently died in a commercial, and was "creamated" according to "Saturday Night Live." At least, he still has Mars. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA24617

Astronaut Jessica Watkins and the Cleveland Guardians mascot, Slider pose together at Total Solar Eclipse Fest at the Great Lakes Science Center on April 6, 2024. A total solar eclipse swept across a narrow portion of the North American continent from Mexico’s Pacific coast to the Atlantic coast of Newfoundland, Canada. A partial solar eclipse was visible across the entire North American continent along with parts of Central America and Europe.

The Cleveland Guardians mascot, Slider and Astronaut Stephen Bowen view the solar eclipse at the Total Solar Eclipse Fest at the Great Lakes Science Center on April 6, 2024. A total solar eclipse swept across a narrow portion of the North American continent from Mexico’s Pacific coast to the Atlantic coast of Newfoundland, Canada. A partial solar eclipse was visible across the entire North American continent along with parts of Central America and Europe.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – A robotic mascot moves among participants during NASA's Lunabotics Mining Competition at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida. The competition challenges university students to build machines that can collect soil such as the material found on the moon. Working inside the Caterpillar LunArena, the robotic craft dig soil that simulates lunar material. The event is judged by a machine's abilities to collect the soil, its design and operation, size, dust tolerance and its level of autonomy. Photo credit: NASA/Glenn Benson

51A-13-028 (12 Nov 1984) --- The five-member crew celebrates a successful mission. The reference to the eagle has to do with the Discovery crew’s mascot, which appeared both in its crew portrait and insignia. L-R (front row) astronauts David M. Walker, Anna Lee Fisher and Joseph P. Allen; (back row) Dale A. Gardner and Frederick H. (Rick) Hauck.

The astronaut mascot holds the 6 collectable postcards designed for the Total Eclipse Fest at the Great Lakes Science Center in Cleveland, OH on April 6, 2024. A total solar eclipse swept across a narrow portion of the North American continent from Mexico’s Pacific coast to the Atlantic coast of Newfoundland, Canada. A partial solar eclipse was visible across the entire North American continent along with parts of Central America and Europe.

The Cleveland Guardians mascot, Slider poses in front of the NASA sign at the Total Solar Eclipse Fest at the Great Lakes Science Center April 6, 2024. A total solar eclipse swept across a narrow portion of the North American continent from Mexico’s Pacific coast to the Atlantic coast of Newfoundland, Canada. A partial solar eclipse was visible across the entire North American continent along with parts of Central America and Europe.

jsc2018e025588 - At the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, Expedition 55 crewmember Oleg Artemyev of Roscosmos (center) holds a toy bear March 16 during Soyuz final fit check activities. The toy is one of several “zero gravity” mascots that will hang over the crew’s heads in the Soyuz during the vehicle’s ascent to orbit. Flanking Artemyev are his crewmates, Ricky Arnold of NASA (left) and Drew Feustel of NASA (right), who will launch March 21 on the Soyuz MS-08 spacecraft for a five-month mission on the International Space Station...NASA/Victor Zelentsov.

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. - A closeup of the team mascot of the Central Florida robotic team “Voltage” at the 2004 Florida Regional FIRST competition, held at the University of Central Florida. Among the 41 teams competing from Canada, Brazil, Great Britain and the United States is the KSC-sponsored “Pink” team. FIRST is a nonprofit organization, For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, that sponsors the event pitting robots against each other in an athletic-style competition. The FIRST robotics competition is designed to provide students with a hands-on, inside look at engineering and other professional careers, pairing high school students with engineer mentors and corporations.

0687: At the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, Expedition 40/41 Soyuz Commander Max Suraev of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos, center) plays with a toy giraffe at the crew’s pre-launch news conference May 8 while his crewmates, Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency (left) and Reid Wiseman of NASA (right) look on. The giraffe, which belongs to Wiseman’s daughter, will fly as a “zero-G” mascot above the heads of the crew in the Soyuz TMA-13M spacecraft when they launch May 29, Kazakh time, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for a 5 ½ month mission on the International Space Station. NASA/Stephanie Stoll

0704: At the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Star City, Russia, Expedition 40/41 Flight Engineer Reid Wiseman of NASA listens to a reporter’s question May 8 during a pre-launch news conference. Near him is a toy giraffe belonging to his daughter that will fly as a “zero-G” mascot above the heads of the crew in the Soyuz TMA-13M spacecraft when Wiseman, Flight Engineer Alexander Gerst of the European Space Agency and Soyuz Commander Max Suraev of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) launch May 29, Kazakh time, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for a 5 ½ month mission on the International Space Station. NASA/Stephanie Stoll

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. - The team mascot of the Central Florida robotic team “Voltage” greets Center Director Jim Kennedy during a match at the 2004 Florida Regional FIRST competition, held at the University of Central Florida. Among the 41 teams competing from Canada, Brazil, Great Britain and the United States is the KSC-sponsored “Pink” team. FIRST is a nonprofit organization, For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, that sponsors the event pitting robots against each other in an athletic-style competition. The FIRST robotics competition is designed to provide students with a hands-on, inside look at engineering and other professional careers, pairing high school students with engineer mentors and corporations.

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLA. - Expedition 6 cosmonaut Nikolai Budarin (center) holds a mini-mascot during a break in emergency egress practice from the 195-foot level of the Fixed Service Structure on Launch Pad 39A. Behind him are STS-113 Pilot Paul Lockhart (left) and Commander James Wetherbee. Expedition 6 will be replacing Expedition 5 on the International Space Station. The 16th assembly flight to the International Space Station, STS-113 will carry the Port 1 (P1) truss aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour. The mission is scheduled to launch Nov. 10, 2002.

iss069e085315 (Aug. 31, 2023) --- Expedition 69 Flight Engineers Sultan Alneyadi of UAE (United Arab Emirates) and Andreas Mogensen of ESA (European Space Agency) pose for a portrait together aboard the International Space Station's Columbus laboratory module. Alneyadi holds a stuffed doll, Suhail, he carried with him aboard the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour spacecraft. Mogensen shows off a plush three-toed sloth doll he carried aboard the SpaceX Dragon Endurance during his ride to space. The dolls are not just mascots but also gravity indicators to show they have reached space.

jsc2017e043083 (April 13, 2017) --- At the Cosmonaut Hotel crew quarters in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, Expedition 51 crewmembers Fyodor Yurchikhin of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos, left) and Jack Fischer of NASA (right) display commemorative items April 13 that will be used as “zero-G” mascot indicators in the Soyuz MS-04 descent module over their heads during launch and their ascent to orbit. Yurchikhin is holding several toys from his children and Fischer is holding an emblem of the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, where his daughter, Sariah was treated. Fischer and Yurchikhin will liftoff April 20 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on the Soyuz MS-04 spacecraft for a four and a half month mission on the International Space Station. NASA/Victor Zelentsov

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Doug Lenhardt, Kennedy Space Center's Exploration Flight Test-1, or EFT-1, mission integration manager, and the San Diego Padres mascot wave at the crowds at Petco Field in San Diego, California before the start of the baseball game. The Orion boilerplate test vehicle is on display in the stadium. The boilerplate test vehicle is being prepared for an EFT-1 pre-transportation test. The Ground Systems Development and Operations Program will run the test at the U.S. Naval Base San Diego to simulate retrieval and transportation procedures for Orion after it splashes down in the ocean and is retrieved for return to land and ground transportation back to Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Orion is the exploration spacecraft designed to carry astronauts to destinations not yet explored by humans, including an asteroid and Mars. It will have emergency abort capability, sustain the crew during space travel and provide safe re-entry from deep space return velocities. The first unpiloted test flight of the Orion is scheduled to launch later this year atop a Delta IV rocket and in 2017 on NASA’s Space Launch System rocket. For more information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/orion. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – The San Diego Padres' mascot checks out NASA's Orion boilerplate test vehicle inside Petco Park in San Diego, California. The boilerplate test vehicle is being prepared for an Exploration Flight Test-1, or EFT-1, pre-transportation test. The Ground Systems Development and Operations Program will run the test at the U.S. Naval Base San Diego to simulate retrieval and transportation procedures for Orion after it splashes down in the ocean and is retrieved for return to land and ground transportation back to Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Orion is the exploration spacecraft designed to carry astronauts to destinations not yet explored by humans, including an asteroid and Mars. It will have emergency abort capability, sustain the crew during space travel and provide safe re-entry from deep space return velocities. The first unpiloted test flight of the Orion is scheduled to launch later this year atop a Delta IV rocket and in 2017 on NASA’s Space Launch System rocket. For more information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/orion. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett