NASA and Microsoft's Virtual Earth team developed the online experience with hundreds of photographs and Microsoft's photo imaging technology called Photosynth.

Using a click-and-drag interface, viewers can zoom in to see details of the space station's modules and solar arrays or zoom out for a more global view of the complex.

"Photosynth brings the public closer to our spaceflight equipment and hardware," said Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for Space Operations at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

"The space station pictures are not simulations or graphic representations but actual images taken recently by astronauts while in orbit. Although you're not flying 220 miles above the Earth at 17,500 miles an hour, it allows you to navigate and view amazing details of the real station as though you were there."

The software uses photographs from standard digital cameras to construct a 3-D view that can be navigated and explored online.

"This stunning collection of photographs using Microsoft's Photosynth interactive 3-D imaging technology provides people around the world with an exciting new way to explore the space station and learn about NASA's upcoming Mars Science Laboratory mission," said S. Pete Worden, director of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif.

"This collaboration with Microsoft offers the public the opportunity to participate in future exploration using this innovative technology."

The Mars rover imagery gives viewers an opportunity to preview the hardware of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory, currently being assembled for launch to the Red Planet in 2011.

NASA astronaut Sandra Magnus took the internal images of the space station during the 129 days she lived aboard the complex. She photographed the station's exterior while aboard the space shuttle Discovery, which flew her back to Earth in March.

The rover images were taken of a full-scale model in a Mars-simulation testing area at JPL. Photosynth has multiple potential benefits for NASA. Engineers can use it to examine hardware, and astronauts can use it for space station familiarization training.

Photosynth software allows the combination of up to thousands of regular digital photos of a scene to present a detailed 3-D model of a subject, giving viewers the sensation of smoothly gliding around the scene from every angle.

A collection can be constructed using photos from a single source or multiple sources. The NASA Photosynth collection also includes shuttle Endeavour preparing for its STS-118 mission in August 2008.

related report
ISS 20th Expedition Crew Announced At Russia's Star City
A committee at Russia's space training center, Star City, have announced the crew line up for the 20th Expedition to the International Space Station (ISS), a RIA Novosti correspondent said on Thursday.

The 20th Expedition marks the start of six-member crews being based on the ISS. All five of the international partner agencies - from the U.S., Japan, Russia, Europe and Canada - will be represented on the orbital station for the first time.

The crew, comprising flight engineer Frank De Winne from the European Space Agency, Robert Thirsk from the Canadian Space Agency and Russia's Roman Romanenko, will lift off from the Baikonur space center in Kazakhstan on board a Soyuz TMA-15 launch vehicle on May 27.

The astronauts will join the current Expedition 19 crew, comprising Russian Commander Gennady Padalka, U.S. Flight Engineer Michael Barratt, and Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata.

During the upcoming 180-day mission, the six-member crew will receive and unload three Russian Progress craft and a Japanese HTV-1 space freighter, conduct two spacewalks and carry out a series of scientific experiments.

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