Towards a better mirror

Abstract

Telesat's Getaway Special competition was designed to promote interest in space among high school students in Canada. The winning entry proposed the manufacture of mirrors in microgravity and to compare the optical properties of these mirrors with similar ones made on Earth. Telesat engineers designed and built the experiment which flew on the Atlantic shuttle on November 27, 1985. This paper outlines the design evolution, its implementation, the manufacture and test of the GAS and the results of the experiment.