Most surface property values contained in this Appendix are courtesy of NASA/ GSFC. ^[*] Properties for materials marked with an asterisk ^[*], however, are design values used by a particular program and are not from the NASA reference.

Unless otherwise noted, values are for beginning-of-life. For some surfaces, degraded values are shown for various periods of time on orbit. Because degradation rates are highly dependent on orbit altitude and the amount of contamination a surface experiences on a particular satellite, reported degraded values should be considered as rough estimates only. Chapter 4 contains extensive data on the degradation of optical solar reflectors and other materials.

Although all values shown are believed to be representative of those used for thermal design analyses in the industry, no guarantee of their validity is implied. In cases where a thermal design is sensitive to any of these parameters, surface optical property measurements and/or a solar-thermal balance test of the thermal design must be conducted to verify flight performance.