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If you haven't yet polished your Starshine 2 mirror, time is growing very short. Please, please get started on it right away. We need your mirrors to be able to cover the surface of the satellite. However, please read the following information before you start: Some schools been having problems with one or both of their mirror blanks. They have not been able to polish the outer portion of the face of the mirror to a shiny condition, because it was incorrectly machined down to a slightly lower level than the central portion of the mirror. The solution to the problem is as follows: After you have ground your mirror on the "0" grit emery paper for about two minutes, wash the mirror off, dry it and look at it. If you see a narrow annular ring on the outer edge of the face of the mirror that looks different from the rest of the face, keep grinding vigorously on the "0" grit emery paper for an extra 30 minutes, until you can no longer see that annular ring. Then proceed with the second grinding step and the two polishing steps in the normal manner, as described in the instructions. Please don't wait till you get to the polishing stage to try to correct the problem; you won't be able to remove enough metal that way. You need to handle it in the first grinding step. Incidentally, we've now received our 1000th application for a Starshine 2 mirror polishing kit, so that's it! No more applications will be accepted for the Starshine 2 mission! The final kit was shipped out on Saturday, November 11. Your polished mirrors must be in the mail back to the Aerospace Development Center in Jacksonville, AL by November 30, 2000. We apologize again for the huge delay in getting the kits to you, but you should still have time to get your mirror back by the deadline if you get right on it. It only takes a couple of class periods to do the grinding, polishing and final inspection. Good luck with it! The first 858 mirrors that are received by the deadline will be flown on Starshine 2 aboard Endeavor on its STS-108 mission to the International Space Station on or about October 4, 2001. Keep an eye on this web site for an announcement about the forthcoming Starshine 3 mission.
Gil Moore
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