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In Japan, the largest material exposure program “SM/MPAC&SEED (Service Module/ Micro-Particles Capturer and Space Environment Exposure Device) Experiment” has been completed. This program is quite ambitious among the other Japanese materials exposure tests; 3 sets of samples have been exposed for 1, 2 and 3 years in orbit in order to discover the fluence dependence of the material responses. We have learned a lot of lessons from this program. Based on the lessons learned, the “Advanced Material Exposure Test Working Group” has been established by the Committee on Space Utilization in 2007. This working group discussed the current problems of the material exposure program (flight tests) and proposed the future direction of the experimental methodologies. In this presentation, problems and new challenges discussed in this working group will be discussed., ISTS Special Issue: Selected papers from the 27th International Symposium on Space Technology and Science

Thermal control materials such as white paints and germanium-coated polyimide film were evaluated with respect to their space environmental tolerance for materials selection of the Dual-frequency Precipitation Radar of the Global Precipitation Measurement satellite (GPM/DPR). Though peeling off and cracking occurred in one paint material during the thermal shock test, other paints showed good tolerance against thermal shock, atomic oxygen, and ultraviolet ray irradiation. Germanium coating on polyimide film was also verified as high atomic oxygen tolerant barrier. Comparing different thickness germanium coatings, it seems that a 1000 angstrom Germanium film has fewer defects and risk of AO undercutting than a 525 angstrom Germanium film.