Session
Technical Session V: New Mission Concepts
Abstract
U.S. high school and middle school students are building and polishing a spherical, mirrored Starshine spacecraft for launch by NASA into a 51.6 degree, 390 km (220 NM), circular orbit from a Space Shuttle Hitchhiker canister in December of 1998. Following the spacecraft's ejection into an independent orbit, sunlight reflected from its 220 mirrors will be visually observed during pre-dawn and post-sunset twilight intervals by international students during its planned six-month orbital lifetime in a project designed to teach these students how to measure the density of Earth's atmosphere at Space Station altitudes. The project is being cosponsored by the Rocky Mountain NASA Space Grant Consortium and the NASA Headquarters Department of Education.
STARSHINE: Student Tracked Atmospheric Research Satellite for Heuristic International Networking Experiment
U.S. high school and middle school students are building and polishing a spherical, mirrored Starshine spacecraft for launch by NASA into a 51.6 degree, 390 km (220 NM), circular orbit from a Space Shuttle Hitchhiker canister in December of 1998. Following the spacecraft's ejection into an independent orbit, sunlight reflected from its 220 mirrors will be visually observed during pre-dawn and post-sunset twilight intervals by international students during its planned six-month orbital lifetime in a project designed to teach these students how to measure the density of Earth's atmosphere at Space Station altitudes. The project is being cosponsored by the Rocky Mountain NASA Space Grant Consortium and the NASA Headquarters Department of Education.
