July 11, 2005

Katherine K. Martin
Media Relations Office
216-433-2406
Katherine.Martin@nasa.gov

RELEASE: 05-025

NASA GLENN CONTRIBUTES TO STS-114

When the Space Shuttle Discovery lifts off this week, hundreds of
researchers at NASA's Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, will feel
part of the team that helped make the Shuttle a safer vehicle.

Through a two-year extensive testing and analysis effort, Glenn

researchers have worked to help prepare Discovery for the agency's
Return to Flight. The areas of research include:

Ballistic impact testing

Main landing gear door environmental seals compression optimization

Refractory metallic overwrap concept as a potential method for large

area on-orbit repair

Actuator gear testing to determine nature of wear and fretting damage

Reinforced Carbon-Carbon degradation testing to gain deeper

understanding of how Shuttle wing leading edge and nose cap degrade
with each mission cycle

Protuberance Air Load (PAL) ramp air flow testing in the 8 X 6 Foot
Wind Tunnel at Glenn

Small area repair concept development, including sealants, adhesives

and gaskets

The Chief of Glenn's Space Operations Division, Angel M. Otero, said,

"NASA as a whole has come to appreciate Glenn's expertise in
mechanisms, gears, lubrication, high temperature materials and impact
testing and modeling. We have been working in these areas for the
last 45 years to the benefit of the Agency. As a result of the
Columbia accident, our capabilities were called upon again."

In addition, STS-114 will be carrying a payload that includes two

different types of experiments that were developed at Glenn. As part
of the third of three spacewalks during the mission, Materials
International Space Station Experiment (MISSE) 1 and 2 will be
replaced with MISSE 5. MISSE is a series of experiments designed to
investigate the effects of long-term exposure of materials to the
harsh environment of space.

"There are seven different types of experiments and a total of 86

material samples on MISSE 1 and 2, in addition to the Polymer Erosion
and Contamination Experiment conducted in collaboration with students
from Hathaway Brown School, Shaker Heights, Ohio," said Kim de Groh,
senior research engineer in Glenn's Electro-Physics Branch and one of
the principal investigators for MISSE. The material samples will be
returned to NASA's Langley Research Center, Hampton, Va., where they
will be opened in a clean room and contents distributed to the
researchers for study.

Discovery will transport MISSE 5 to the ISS, where after attachment on

the ISS exterior, the experiments in it will be exposed to the space
environment. MISSE 5 contains three different types of experiments
designed by Glenn, with a total of 85 samples of materials, which
will return to Earth on a future Shuttle mission.

Another experiment in which Glenn has had a role is the Forward

Technology Solar Cell Experiment (FTSCE), built as part of MISSE 5.
FTSCE is a collaborative effort between Glenn, the Naval Research
Laboratory and the U.S. Naval Academy. The purpose of this experiment
is to place current and future generation space solar cells into
orbit where they will be characterized and validated. Glenn engineers
created a hybrid solar cell that will be tested in a space
environment for the first time. They are also coordinating with other
solar cell manufacturers to provide four other solar cell
technologies to FTSCE.

Glenn also designed and built the electronics and wrote the software
that will measure the solar cell performance on MISSE 5. The
electronics package will take solar cell measurements on command or
autonomously, based on the sun's position, the temperature and the
time. The electronics have been designed to withstand the temperature
extremes and radiation environment of low earth orbit.

For more information on Glenn's Return to Flight activities, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/projects/RTF_summary.html

For more information on MISSE 1 and 2, visit:

http://misse1.larc.nasa.gov

For more information on MISSE 5, visit:

http://powerweb.grc.nasa.gov/pvsee/experiments/misse5web.htm

-end-