EYES ON THE SKIES.

Would you like to see a satellite in space? You can, thanks to kids who helped polish one until it was as bright as they are!

Kids all around the world polished small metal disks until they shone like mirrors. More than a thousand of these small mirrors will ride on a satellite called Starshine 3 when it is launched later this summer. They will make the satellite visible from earth.

"It's like a giant disco ball," says Kyle Butler, nine, a student at Bay Meadows Elementary School in Orlando, Florida. Bay Meadows is one of the schools that joined the Starshine 3 project. "It has really bright mirrors so when it goes up in space the sun will reflect on it and make it shine," Kyle says.

It meant lots of work for the kids, but it was worth it. "We put glass down and put green, gooey stuff on it. Then you take the mirror and you move it back and forth in a figure 8," says nine-year-old Brooke Behrmann. "It's kind of squishy."

The squishy stuff was a polishing compound, which little by little makes the mirrors more and more shiny.

That means people all over the world will be able to see the satellite when it passes over in the sky. "It looks like a star," says Bay Meadows student Kayla Peck, who is eight. "It's moving slow, not moving that fast."

The polishing project had to move slow, too, says Kayla. "The hardest part is being gentle so you don't scratch it a little. If you scratch it a tiny, tiny bit it ruins the whole project and you have to start all over."

But once the satellite is up in space, seeing it go by will be special. "I think it's amazing!" says Kevin Butler, seven. "When it goes up in space you'll be able to say, `I actually touched that satellite.'"

The project has been great for the students, says Austin Fite, nine. "You feel like you're a part of something important," he says. "We're learning about NASA, about space, and about solar flares." And in three years or so they'll learn about Earth's gravity and how our atmosphere (the air surrounding Earth) can drag a satellite back down.

Kids aren't the only ones who will learn from Starshine 3. The satellite will also beam back information to scientists who are studying the effect of the sun's radiation on Earth's atmosphere.

"When it comes down into the atmosphere, it burns up," says Keehyuk Kim. "The earth's gravity pulls it in."

But they can enjoy it until then, says Kayla. "It makes me feel excited to look up and remember what I did and my friends did, because we were part of a really special thing."

It Keeps on Going and Going and Going ...

Students at Bay Meadows won't give up on Starshine once it goes up. They'll practice spotting the satellite as it goes overhead. And over the next few years, the youngest kids in the project will progress from basic stuff like how to pick a good spotting position to more advanced work like figuring where and when to find the satellite based on its orbit and Earth's rotation. The Starshine 3 project is one that will grow with its participants.

A Little Dab

Brooke Behrmann and Dominic Kotwica prepare to polish a mirror for the satellite. The polishing compounds contain ground up industrial diamonds.

Grin and Flare It

Traveling on board the satellite will be "Christopher Williams," "Austin Fite," "Kyle Butler," "Zoya Ibrahim," and "Carlos Galletti," -- and the signatures of many other students, all scanned onto CD-rom launched with the satellite. Sorry, the actual kids have to stay on Earth.

True Grit

Ashley Gross shows what size 0 or 000 "grit" in the special grinding paper the kids used can accomplish. Right--before; left--after.

A Rub Club

Mirror polishing takes a lot of painstaking effort. Kids usually take turns of five minutes or so before letting someone else go to work.

There! Where?

The satellite will be visible as a short series of quick, unevenly-spaced flashes a few days to a few weeks apart. It orbits Earth every hour and a half, but as it travels, Earth spins, too. So the satellite isn't visible everywhere on every orbit. See page 5 to learn where to get information about when and how to spot all kinds of satellites.

Question: Why is twilight the best time to look for Starshine 3?

Answer: When Starshine 3 passes overhead just after the sun has gone down, the last few rays of daylight can make the satellite sparkle against the darkening sky, so it's much easier to see. The same thing happens at dawn.

This works for anything in Earth orbit, from Starshine 3 to the new International Space Station, to the space shuttle.

Check out the great Internet sites below to find out when these great sky-sights will be passing over your house.

Details

Launch Date: August 31, 2001

Place: Kodiak Launch Complex, Alaska

Vehicle: Athena I rocket

Size of satellite: About one meter in diameter, 88 kilograms(193 pounds)

Orbit: 500 kilometers (300 miles)

Equipment: Solar cells to turn sunlight into electricity for a radio transmitter that will beam down scientific measurements.