On the Tarmac

Technicians clad in protective suits check for any hazardous gases emanating from space shuttle Discovery moments after it rolled to a stop on the main runway at Edwards Air Force Base on Sept. 11. The checks are required before the crews move in for recovery operations.

Image Credit: NASA/Brian Soukup

A Day of Remembrance

Visible from space, a smoke plume rises from Manhattan after two planes crashed into the towers of the World Trade Center. This photo was taken of metropolitan New York City the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, from aboard the International Space Station. "Our prayers and thoughts go out to all the people there, and everywhere else," said Station Commander Frank Culbertson of Expedition 3, after the attacks.

Image Credit: NASA

100,000 Stars

Omega Centauri

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope snapped this panoramic view of a colorful assortment of 100,000 stars residing in the crowded core of a giant star cluster. This is one of the first images taken by the new Wide Field Camera 3 that was installed aboard Hubble in May 2009 during Servicing Mission 4, which can snap sharp images over a broad range of wavelengths.

Image Credit: NASA

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Working in a Vacuum

Credit: NASA

From the Nasa website's Image of the Day Gallery

Discovery spacewalker Danny Olivas at work during the STS-128 mission's first spacewalk. During the six-hour, 35-minute spacewalk, Olivas and astronaut Nicole Stott, removed an empty ammonia tank from the station's truss and temporarily stowed it on the station's robotic arm.

Olivas and Stott also retrieved the European Technology Exposure Facility and Materials International Space Station Experiment from the Columbus laboratory module and installed them on Discovery’s payload bay for return.

Beauty in the Night

Billows of smoke and steam rise above Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida alongside space shuttle Discovery as it races toward space on the STS-128 mission.

The STS-128 mission is the 30th International Space Station assembly flight and the 128th space shuttle flight. The 13-day mission will deliver more than 7 tons of supplies, science racks and equipment, as well as additional environmental hardware to sustain six crew members on the International Space Station. The equipment includes a freezer to store research samples, a new sleeping compartment and the COLBERT treadmill.

Image Credit: NASA/Sandra Joseph and Kevin O'Connell

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Spacewalk on NASA TV

NASA TV to air Tuesday's Space Station Spacewalk

HOUSTON -- NASA Television will provide live coverage of the March 10 spacewalk of Expedition 18 Commander Mike Fincke and Flight Engineer Yury Lonchakov. The pair will complete unfinished work from their December 2008 excursion outside the orbiting laboratory.

Spacewalk starts at 11:00 a.m. CST on NASA TV