NASA High Efficiency Megawatt Motor, HEMM

STS102-E-5235 (17 March 2001) --- Astronaut Paul W. Richards, mission specialist, totes a clip board and a notebook as he passes through a hatchway. Richards, along with his STS-102 crew mates, joined the International Space Station (ISS) crew members in moving supplies. The image was recorded with a digital still camera.

Tim Larson, Stardust NExT Project Manager, speaks during a news briefing, Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2011, at NASA Headquarters in Washington. On Feb. 14, 2011 NASA's Stardust-NExT (New Exploration of Tempel 1) mission will encounter Comet Tempel 1, providing a unique opportunity to measure the dust properties which will also provide a comparison between two observations of a single comet, Tempel 1, taken before and after a single orbital pass around the sun. Photo Credit: (NASA/Paul E. Alers)

Joe Ververka, Stardust NExT Principal Investigator, from Cornell University, speaks during a news briefing, Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2011, at NASA Headquarters in Washington. On Feb. 14, 2011 NASA's Stardust-NExT (New Exploration of Tempel 1) mission will encounter Comet Tempel 1, providing a unique opportunity to measure the dust properties which will also provide a comparison between two observations of a single comet, Tempel 1, taken before and after a single orbital pass around the sun. Photo Credit: (NASA/Paul E. Alers)

Steve Chesley, Stardust NExT co-investigator, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, holds up a model of Comet Tempel 1 during a news briefing, Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2011, at NASA Headquarters in Washington. On Feb. 14, 2011 NASA's Stardust-NExT (New Exploration of Tempel 1) mission will encounter Comet Tempel 1, providing a unique opportunity to measure the dust properties which will also provide a comparison between two observations of a single comet, Tempel 1, taken before and after a single orbital pass around the sun. Photo Credit: (NASA/Paul E. Alers)

Former Apolo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, right, passes the baton to second guest conductor Ted Kennedy III as conductor Emil de Cou looks on while the Space Philharmonic plays on during a program commemorating Human Spaceflight and the Kennedy Legacy, Wednesday, May 25, 2011, in the concert hall at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington. The event marked the 50th Anniversary of President John F. Kennedy's Special Message to the Congress on Urgent National Needs in which he stated "landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth". Photo Credit: (NASA/Paul E. Alers)

Pete Schultz, Stardust NExT co-investigator, from Brown University, speaks during a news briefing, Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2011, at NASA Headquarters in Washington. On Feb. 14, 2011 NASA's Stardust-NExT (New Exploration of Tempel 1) mission will encounter Comet Tempel 1, providing a unique opportunity to measure the dust properties which will also provide a comparison between two observations of a single comet, Tempel 1, taken before and after a single orbital pass around the sun. Photo Credit: (NASA/Paul E. Alers)

NASA Twitter followers from left; Leigh Checkman (@liprap), Barbara Nixon (@BarbaraNixon), and Beth Schaefer (@boonbeth), hold up signs just before the Astrovan, carrying the STS-134 crew out to launch pad 39a passed by, early Monday, May 16, 2011, at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. During the 16-day mission, Endeavour, with Commander Mark Kelly, Pilot Gregory H. Johnson, Mission Specialists Michael Fincke, Greg Chamitoff, Andrew Feustel and European Space Agency astronaut Robert Vittori will deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) and spare parts including two S-band communications antennas, a high-pressure gas tank and additional spare parts for Dextre. Photo Credit: (NASA/Paul E. Alers)

In July 2015, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft sent home the first close-up pictures of Pluto and its moons. Using actual New Horizons data and digital elevation models of Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, mission scientists created flyover movies that offer spectacular new perspectives of the many unusual features that were discovered and which have reshaped our views of the Pluto system -- from a vantage point even closer than a ride on New Horizons itself. The flight over Charon begins high over the hemisphere New Horizons saw on its closest approach, then descends over the deep, wide canyon of Serenity Chasma. The view moves north, passing over Dorothy Gale crater and the dark polar hood of Mordor Macula. The flight then turns back south, covering the northern terrain of Oz Terra before ending over the relatively flat equatorial plains of Vulcan Planum and the "moated mountains" of Clarke Montes. (Note that all feature names are informal.) The topographic relief is exaggerated by a factor of 2 to 3 in these movies to emphasize topography; the surface colors have also been enhanced to bring out detail. Digital mapping and rendering were performed by Paul Schenk and John Blackwell of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston. A video is available at https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA21864

In July 2015, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft sent home the first close-up pictures of Pluto and its moons. Using actual New Horizons data and digital elevation models of Pluto and its largest moon, Charon, mission scientists created flyover movies that offer spectacular new perspectives of the many unusual features that were discovered and which have reshaped our views of the Pluto system -- from a vantage point even closer than a ride on New Horizons itself. The dramatic Pluto flyover begins over the highlands to the southwest of the great expanse of nitrogen ice plain informally named Sputnik Planitia. (Note that all feature names in the Pluto system are informal.) The viewer first passes over the western margin of Sputnik, where it borders the dark, cratered terrain of Cthulhu Macula, with the blocky mountain ranges located within the planitia seen on the right. The tour moves north past the rugged and fractured highlands of Voyager Terra and then turns southward over Pioneer Terra, which exhibits deep and wide pits, before concluding over the bladed terrain of Tartarus Dorsa in the far east of the encounter hemisphere. The topographic relief is exaggerated by a factor of 2 to 3 in these movies to emphasize topography; the surface colors have also been enhanced to bring out detail. Digital mapping and rendering were performed by Paul Schenk and John Blackwell of the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston. A video can be viewed at https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA21863