Aegis Aerospace

MISSE Platform (Space Testing as a Service)

Aegis Aerospace owns and operates the external MISSE platform, permanently installed on the ISS truss near the solar arrays (ELC 2, Site 3) for external orbital testing of a wide range of technologies. MISSE provides exposure to all four directional faces: forward-facing (Ram), aft-facing (Wake), Earth-facing (Nadir), and space-facing (Zenith). Each directional face provides an opportunity for external orbital testing in a unique microgravity environment.

Customers include large and small companies, federal agencies, non-profit organizations, academic institutions, and private individuals. With a roughly six-month cadence of launches and experiment returns, customers can rapidly advance the readiness level of their powered or passive technology at an affordable price. Examples of what customers have tested on MISSE include materials, solar cells, electronic circuits, powered systems, and even biologics such as algae and seeds. The MISSE testing environment is external to the ISS habitable modules and consists of exposure to:

• Atomic oxygen
• Radiation
• Vacuum
• Microgravity
• Extreme temperatures
• Micrometeoroid impacts
• Unfiltered ultraviolet

If direct exposure to the space environment is not needed, then experiments can also fly under the MISSE exposure decks protected from atomic oxygen and UV.

Standard MISSE Services:

• Experiment/technology integration and de-integration
• Contamination protection
• Temperature data
• Solar angle data
• Contamination monitoring
• Orbital parameters
• ISS orientation in its orbit
• Monthly photographs

Additional Services:

In addition to the standard services, MISSE offers capabilities that enable testing of virtually any type of technology.  Optional MISSE services include:

• Up to 75W of 28V DC power
• Ethernet, USB, CAN, and RS-422 data connection
• Solar Cell Test Bed connection (provides current vs. voltage curves)
• UV intensity data
• Atomic oxygen data
• Ionizing radiation data

ISS-certified hardware:

• Materials International Space Station Experiment (MISSE) Flight Facility
• MISSE Transfer Trays
• MISSE Sample Carriers