ES-MCAT Mirror Shipping Crate

The Orbital Debris Program Office (ODPO) at NASA Johnson Space Center operates and maintains the 1.3-m ES-MCAT telescope at Ascension Island Auxiliary Airfield (AAF). The primary objective of the ES-MCAT mission is to extend observations of orbital debris in geosynchronous orbit (GEO) to smaller/fainter objects than can be tracked by the Department of Defense (DoD). The current mirror coating has suffered rapid degradation due to a combination of environmental effects. Therefore, the mirror needs to be recoated as soon as possible and earlier than expected due to the poor quality of the coating that was previously applied. After the mirror has been recoated by Viavi Solutions, it needs to be shipped back to Ascension Island. The original shipping container degraded severely upon arrival at