Discovery Will Bring MISSE 'Suitcases' Back to Earth

Lindsay Crouch
NASA Langley Research Center
(Phone: 757/864-3189)

08.02.05
RELEASE: 05-046

Discovery Will Bring MISSE 'Suitcases' Back to Earth

NASA's Space Shuttle Discovery marked the long-awaited Return to Flight,
while also returning something else - two suitcases holding valuable
materials for the Materials International Space Station Experiment (MISSE).

These two suitcases, called Passive Experiment Containers (PECs), had been
attached to the International Space Station (ISS) since STS-104 delivered
them in 2001. During a spacewalk, or Extravehicular Activity (EVA), on
Saturday, July 30, MISSEs 1 and 2 were retrieved from the ISS.

MISSE 5 will be attached for its stay in space tomorrow during an EVA,
Wednesday, Aug. 3.
"It's always exciting to see the things that come back down from space,"
said William Kinard, MISSE chief scientist. "There are always surprises. The
real value and benefit in these experiments is seeing what you didn't
originally expect."
The only way to test how different materials will perform in space is to
test them in that environment. Laboratories can simulate just one or two
space environmental factors at a time. The research from MISSE will provide
the insight needed to develop materials for future spacecraft and will also
help researchers make materials and coatings that will last longer on Earth.

Once MISSEs 1 and 2 are brought back to Earth, they will be returned to
NASA's Langley Research Center, Hampton, Va., where they will be opened and
studied in a clean room by the project's principal investigators. After this
initial examination, the materials will be transferred to the NASA centers
from which they originated.

The Langley Research Center manages the MISSE project. Other partners
include NASA's Glenn Research Center, Cleveland; Goddard Space Flight
Center, Greenbelt, Md.; Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.; Johnson
Space Center, Houston; and Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.

Industry partners include the Boeing Company, Chicago; Hughes Aircraft
Company, Torrance, Calif.; Lockheed Martin, Bethesda, Md.; Loral, Seabrook,
Md.; Rockwell International, Richardson, Texas; and TRW, Redondo Beach,
Calif.
Department of Defense partners are Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo,
Calif.; Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Arlington, Va.; and Air
Force Research Lab, Dayton, Ohio.

For detailed information about NASA's Return to Flight, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/returntoflight

For more information on the MISSE project, visit:
http://misse1.larc.nasa.gov

NASA TV will broadcast the MISSE 5 deployment on Flight Day 9 of Discovery's
mission, Aug. 3. NASA TV is carried by MPEG-2 digital signal accessed via
satellite AMC-6, at 72 degrees west longitude, transponder 17C, 4040 MHz,
vertical polarization. It's available in Alaska and Hawaii in analog through
Return to Flight on AMC-7, at 137 degrees west longitude, Transponder 18, at
4060 MHz, vertical polarization, audio at 6.8 MHz.

For information about NASA TV on the Web, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/ntv

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Jacques :-)

www.spacepatches.info