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last space shuttle servicing mission was in May 2009.

Papers describing discoveries in nearly every field of astronomy and cosmology have been published based on data gathered by the Hubble Space Telescope.

conducted by scientists in more than 35 countries

most papers written by researchers in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France, and Spain

Hubble's top five most referenced papers are on

The search for distant supernovas used to characterize dark energy

The precise measurement of the universe's rate of expansion

The apparent link between galaxy mass and central black hole mass

Early galaxy formation in the Hubble Deep Field

The evolutionary models for low-mass stars and brown dwarfs

10,000th Hubble science paper

announces the discovery of the faintest supernova ever associated with a cosmic explosion called a long-duration gamma-ray burst, which spews high-energy radiation into space when a star dies

The first science paper based on Hubble data came about six months after the telescope's launch

a paper on observations of the center of galaxy NGC 7457, where scientists suspected a huge black hole lurked

Submitters should introduce themselves and mention their location

Elsewhere on the rover is the autograph of the 14-year-old girl from Kansas who gave Curiosity its name

millions of digital signatures from members of the public who signed up through NASA

NASA's Mars program leaders round out the autographs on the plate

It's on the rover in the front left corner

it will be visible and that at some point will be photographed on Mars by Curiosity's camera-topped mast

"When we made the request to the White House for permission to launch, we took this along with us and said, 'Oh by the way, if you sign this we will stick it on the rover.'"

Clara Ma, who won NASA's naming contest with the suggestion of "Curiosity," signed the rover in 2009

As part of her prize, she was invited to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, where in June 2009 she donned a "bunny suit" to step into a clean room and sign her name on the rover

Silicon chips attached to Curiosity's deck bear the digital signatures of people who submitted their names through NASA's website for going to Mars aboard the rover. Each chip is about the size of a dime

More than 1.24 million names were submitted online

etched into silicon using an electron-beam machine used for fabricating micro-devices at JPL

more than 20,000 visitors to locations of work on the rover at JPL and Kennedy Space Center wrote their names on pages, which were scanned and reproduced at microscopic scale on another chip

As Curiosity drives over the martian terrain, the groves in each wheel will form a string of 'dash' and 'dot' imprints — morse code that will spell out "J-P-L."

NASA has billed New Horizons as the fastest spacecraft ever launched from Earth

But the Tombaughs' two children, Annette and Alden, should get to see what New Horizons discovers. They'll be the mission team's guests of honor when the probe makes its closest approach to Pluto in July 2015

unmanned 2014 EFT-1 mission will blast Orion into space aboard a Delta 4-Heavy rocket. The capsule will orbit Earth twice while climbing to an altitude of several thousand miles, then rocket back in a high-speed plunge to validate its heat shield and other systems.

Artist's rendering of the Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle on a deep space mission.CREDIT: NASA

Acoustic testing

recent acoustic testing of the Orion crew module/launch abort system structure involved hundreds of sensors planted throughout the hardware.

subjected it to the flight environment

chamber gets up to 150 decibels…like a rifle shot right next to your ear. It's pretty loud. All that sound…it's like a really loud rock concert

Huge heat shield

underside of Orion's crew module is the heat shield

measuring 16.5 feet (5 m) in diameter

Thermal Protection System advances heritage materials from the NASA's space shuttle and Apollo programs to create a next-generation system that can withstand the extreme environments of piloted deep space missions.

The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission features Curiosity, the largest and most advanced rover ever sent to the Red Planet

The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) mission, scheduled to launch in late 2013, will orbit Mars and is devoted to understanding the Red Planet's upper atmosphere

help determine what caused the Martian atmosphere—and water— to be lost to space, making the climate increasingly inhospitable for life.

Mass 900 kg (2,000 lb)[

Power Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG)

the general public had an opportunity to rank nine finalist names through a public poll on the NASA website

Curiosity was selected, which was submitted by a sixth-grader, Clara Ma, from Kansas in an essay contest

10 ft (3.0 m) in length

radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs), as used by the successful Mars landers Viking 1 and Viking 2 in 1976

Radioisotope power systems are generators that produce electricity from the natural decay of plutonium-238, which is a non-fissile isotope of plutonium used in power systems for NASA spacecraft. Heat given off by the natural decay of this isotope is converted into electricity, providing constant power during all seasons and through the day and night, and waste heat can be used via pipes to warm systems, freeing electrical power for the operation of the vehicle and instruments

designed to produce 125 watts of electrical power from about 2000 watts of thermal power at the start of the mission

lifetime of 14 years, electrical power output is down to 100 watts

"Rover Compute Element" (RCE), contain radiation hardened memory to tolerate the extreme radiation environment from space and to safeguard against power-off cycles

256 kB of EEPROM, 256 MB of DRAM, and 2 GB of flash memory

Curiosity’s purpose is to search for evidence of habitats that could ever have supported microbial life on Mars

determine whether the ingredients of life exist on Mars today in the form of organic molecules

The nuclear power source will significantly enhance the driving range, scientific capability and working lifetime of the six wheeled rover compared to other solar powered landed surface explorers

The science payload weighs ten times more than any prior Mars rover mission.

hopefully — the power to operate for at least another decade

The move was a little risky

backup roll thrusters were previously unused

been idle and out in the harsh environment of space for 32 years

Voyager 2 will save about 11.8 watts of electric power by turning off the heater that kept the hydrazine fuel to the primary thrusters warm

Voyager 1 and 2 are each equipped with six sets, or pairs, of thrusters to control the pitch, yaw and roll motions of the spacecraft. With this latest command, both spacecraft are now using all three sets of their backup thrusters

The primary roll thrusters now turned off fired more than 318,000 times. Voyager 1 changed to the backup for this same component after 353,000 pulses in 2004

energy generated by Voyager 2′s Plutonium 238 nuclear power source continues to decline, and is now down to about 270 watts from the 470 watts being produced when the spacecraft launched in 1977

at the rate of decay, the Voyager spacecraft won’t have sufficient electric power to its instruments sometime by the mid-2020′s.

Using solar power for a spacecraft traveling beyond Jupiter is impractical

This latest tune-up will hopefully get Voyager 2 a little farther while she’s still able to communicate with Earth