Project Starshine

Stars are shining at St Agnes School in Headingley, Leeds, and this has nothing to do with the Oscars! Our stars are our pupils and thanks to the interest of one of our parents, Ian Jones, we have experienced life on the space shuttle in a very real way, and are now involved in polishing mirrors which will be sent to NASA where they will be mounted on a giant disco ball satellite - Starshine 4 to be launched from the shuttle early next year (Click on the picture to see Starshine 2 being launched from the shuttle last year).

In our Space Shuttle project a mock-up of ground control was created in the classroom with children using computers and video links to experience at first hand the kinds of tasks which astronauts have to perform; donning gardening gloves and building a model out of Duplo (following instructions from mission control from behind a screen gave the 5-7 year olds a real sense of how difficult it is to carry out repairs on the Hubble Space Telescope.

Now for our part in Project Starshine, we are in the final stages of polishing three mirrors, a very technical task which requires a high degree of skill and concentration. The surface of the mirrors will be flat to about 1 micron (or 1 millionth of a metre).

Being involved in this world-wide project has led to contacts with schools in other countries broadening our horizons in a way that no text books can. Our young pupils have proved equal to the task and demonstrated that life and learning in a school can encompass the world and beyond!

Sue McMeeking (Headteacher) Pictures of our project

Twinkle twinkle little star...

The idea is beautifully simple. The children grind and polish three small aluminium mirrors. Two are sent off to the Starshine headquarters in America to be integrated into the satellite, and one is kept by the school as a momentum. In all, one thousand mirrors will be fitted to the aluminium sphere.

The satellite will be catapulted out of the space shuttle into orbit around the earth. As it catches the sun's rays, it will send a dazzling display of light dancing over the earth.

Our challenge is to make a 1" diameter mirror that is bright and flat enough that we can see it reflect the sun from one thousand miles away! It needs to have a surface which is flat to within a few wavelengths of light - 1 or 2 microns!

The kit that we received from Project Starshine contains all the materials we need. We just have to follow the instructions, be very careful and polish and polish and polish!

All the children in year 1 and 2 have taken part, and they have signed their names on a certificate which will be scanned onto a CDROM, placed inside the satellite and launched into space!

We are looking forward to seeing our satellite in orbit as it passes overhead.

One of our starshine mirrors part way through the first polishing phase. You can see that it is already quite reflective.

Eventually the orbit of the Starshine satellite will decay and it will fall back to earth and burn up on re-entry. In second part of the project, everyone has the chance to join in and help the scientists determine the rate of decay of the orbit in the very rarefied atmosphere at the edge of space.

Members of Class 1 and 2 with Ian Jones trying to dazzle us with their shiny mirrors.

By looking for the satellite in the night sky and timing its position and flash rate, members of the public have the opportunity to report their sightings so the scientists can perform their calculations.

This is the second space project in which the children at St Agnes have participated during the last few weeks. At the beginning of March we followed the progress of the Space Shuttle Columbia on its mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope.