ce.
Image to right: MISSE 5 sits in a clean room at NASA Langley Research Center before traveling to the International Space Station aboard STS-114.
Credit: NASA/Jeff Caplan
The grounding of the shuttle following the Shuttle Columbia’s STS-107 mission delayed these plans. With their extended stay in space, MISSEs 1 and 2 provided the three-year data and MISSEs 3 and 4 will provide the one-year data. Because of this adjustment, the launch delay of STS-114 had no negative effect on the data return. During the Shuttle Discovery mission (STS-114), MISSE 5 was transported to the ISS. MISSEs 3 and 4 will be transported to the ISS on STS-121.
Image to right: Nancy Gloss, of Nancy’s Calico Patch, Newport News, Va., assisted Langley Research Center researchers in sewing materials together for attachment in MISSE Passive Experiment Containers.
Credit: NASA/Jeff Caplan
The suitcases used to transport and expose the MISSE test specimens in space are called Passive Experiment Containers (PECs). The PECs, which are clamped to the exterior of the ISS by astronauts during a spacewalk for the space exposures of the test specimens, were originally developed and used by NASA’s Langley Research Center, Hampton, Va., for ISS Phase I Risk Mitigation Program experiments conducted on the Russian Mir space station.
Once the suitcases have been retrieved, the material samples are tested to see if they still have the unique properties needed to complete space missions. MISSEs have active and passive detectors to monitor the exposure environments that are needed for the post retrieval analysis of the specimens. The active detectors give a time-history reading, or a reading of what happened to the materials at certain points in time.
Image to right: An astronaut is shown next to an open MISSE "suitcase," attached to the International Space Station (ISS). The "suitcases," or Passive Experiment Containers, are non-intrusive to the ISS.
The passive detectors report a cumulative measure of the following environments that the test specimens are exposed to:
MISSE 5 has a telemeter and the performance of the test specimens will be transmitted to Earth during the mission. When the MISSE 5 telemeter is not transmitting data, it will be used by amateur radio operators as a relay station.
Image to right: An astronaut finishes attaching a MISSE Passive Experiment Container to the exterior of the International Space Station (ISS). Shuttle Discovery’s STS-114 mission transported MISSE 5 to the ISS and retrieved MISSEs 1 and 2, which spent more than three years on the exterior of the ISS.
The MISSE project will also provide educational opportunities for students. MISSEs 3 and 4 will fly approximately 8 million basil seeds that will be given to children for science experiments to stimulate interest in space science.
Participants in MISSE
The MISSE Project is funded jointly by NASA and the DOD. NASA’s Langley Research Center manages the MISSE project. Other partners include NASA’s Glenn Research Center, Cleveland; Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.; Johnson Space Center, Houston; the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.; and Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
DOD partners are the Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, Calif.; Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Arlington, Va.; and the Air Force Research Lab, Dayton, Ohio.
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.
For information on NASA Langley Research Center, see:
For more information on MISSE, see:
For more information on NASA, see: