09.28.05

Lindsay Crouch
(Phone: 757/864-3189, 757/870-6912, mobile)
RELEASE: 05-062

MISSE 'SUITCASES' RETURN HOME - MEDIA INVITED TO VIEW GRAND OPENING



The wait is over for the Materials International Space Station 
Experiment (MISSE) team - their valuable suitcases are almost home.



On Oct. 3, two MISSE suitcases will be opened for the first time since 
arriving back on Earth from their three-year stay in space. The 
project’s principal investigators and technicians will open these two 
Passive Experiment Containers (PECs) in a clean room at NASA’s 
Langley Research Center, Hampton, Va., and will begin a packed week 
of inspecting the material samples.



Media are invited to attend the grand opening of MISSEs 1 and 2, along 
with a discussion with William Kinard, MISSE principal investigator, 
Oct. 3 at NASA Langley. Media will also have the opportunity to enter 
the clean room for an up-close look at the samples. Media interested 
in attending should contact Jennifer Trinkle at 864-9266 by 10 a.m. 
Oct. 3, to arrange for entry on to the Center.



Astronaut Steve Robinson, a former NASA Langley employee, retrieved 
and returned two suitcases holding valuable materials for the MISSE 
project during a spacewalk on the Shuttle Discovery’s mission 
Saturday, July 30. These two suitcases had been attached to the 
International Space Station (ISS) since STS-105 delivered them in 
2001. A new MISSE, MISSE 5, was attached to the ISS for its stay in 
space during an STS-114 spacewalk on Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2005.



Once MISSEs 1 and 2 are opened and studied at NASA Langley by the 
project’s principal investigators, the materials will be transferred 
to the NASA centers from which they originated.



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.



The MISSE Project is funded jointly by NASA and the Department of 
Defense (DOD). The Langley Research Center manages the MISSE project. 
Other NASA 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.



DOD partners are Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, Calif.; Air Force 
Office of Scientific Research, Arlington, Va.; and 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 more information on the MISSE project, visit:



http://misse1.larc.nasa.gov



For more information on research at NASA, visit:



www.nasa.gov

	
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