The redesign involved substitution of aluminum lithium for the existing aluminum alloy, thus taking advantage of the greater strength per unit of weight characteristic of the new material.

Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon containing less than 2 per cent of carbon and 1 per cent of manganese (and small amounts of silicon, phosphorous, sulphur and oxygen).

The Crystal Growth of Solid Solution Semiconductors Experiment, using the Advanced Automated Directional Solidification Furnace on its first mission, successfully grew a crystal of mercury cadmium telluride alloy, a semiconductor, to study the physics of additive thermal and composition driven convection during crystal growth.