Super-Black Nano-Coating

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Super-Black Nano-Coating to Be Tested for the First Time in Space

An emerging super-black nanotechnology that promises to make spacecraft instruments more sensitive without enlarging their size will be tested for the first time on the International Space Station within a year.

The nano-based material is a thin, highly uniform coating of multi-walled nanotubes made of pure carbon about 10,000 times thinner than a strand of human hair. "Though tested extensively in ground-based laboratories, the material has never flown in space," said NASA Principal Investigator John Hagopian, an optics engineer at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who has pioneered the technology’s development. “The objective is to determine how well this coating survives the harsh space environment.”

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