AFRL Materials Experiments Fly on Endeavour, Return on Discovery Published Nov. 30, 2011 By Dr. Tracy Medrano, AFRL/RD Directed Energy KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE, New Mexico -- On 16 May 2011, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Endeavour space shuttle carried Air Force Research Laboratory materials on International Space Station Experiment - 8 (MISSE-8) to the International Space Station (ISS). AFRL researchers designed, built and are flying one of the eight experiments to gain a better understanding of how common space materials age, degrade and change in low earth orbit. After two years in space, AFRL scientists will analyze how the optical characteristics of the materials changed. AFRL scientists completed the seventh in a series of materials-related experiments when Space Shuttle Discovery MISSE-7 returned to Earth on 1 June 2011 after 18 months in space. There is currently very limited data on how the optical characteristics of materials change while on-orbit in space. Most existing space effects data is collected via vacuum testing on the ground. The data collected in this experiment will provide truth data to compare to predicted results to enhance our understanding of space effects on the optical characteristics of materials. AFRL and space mission partners use this information for a variety of reasons, including being able to more accurately identify space objects from optical imagery.