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We're running as hard as we can, but we're still way behind our originally planned schedule for shipping mirror-polishing kits. Our all-volunteer team is having unexpected difficulties in making optical inspection flats. We apologize most sincerely for all the inconvenience this is causing, but please don't give up on us. If necessary, we think we can extend the mirror return date beyond November 30 by a few weeks. We won't leave anybody out of the mission, just because we were late in getting the kits to you. It will help us a lot if the schools that have already finished polishing their mirrors will send their now-unneeded optical inspection flats to Rick Cannon, Aerospace Development Center, 700 Pelham Road North, Room 102, Jacksonville State University, Jacksonville, Alabama 36265. He'll put them in the kits that are still to be mailed out. We now have over 800 schools signed up for the 856 mirrors we need to cover the outside of the Starshine 2 satellite, and the applications are still pouring in. However, we'll keep accepting applications up to 1000, since unfortunately some schools won't send their mirrors back to us, if you can believe that. So, if your school would still like to sign up for the program, or you know of another school that might be interested, this is your last chance. Click here to bring up the STARSHINE SCHOOL PARTICIPATION FORM, fill it out and send it in as soon as possible. Use your TAB key or your mouse to move from place to place in the form. Don't use your ENTER key, or you'll send the uncompleted form in before you're ready. Just to let you know how the Starshine 2 satellite is coming along, its structural design and new spin system successfully passed a Critical Design Review at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC on October 4, 2000. That design will be presented to NASA in a Technical Interchange Meeting at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD on October 18, 2000. The meeting will be hosted by Dr. Ruthan Lewis, the mission manager for the MACH-1 (Multiple Application Customized Hitchhiker-1) pallet on which Starshine's canister will be mounted. The meeting will be attended by all the groups who will be flying experiments aboard that pallet on the STS-108 mission in October of 2001.
Gil Moore
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