Mar 7 1985
From The Space Library
NASA announced plans to deploy for the first time two small experimental satellites from Get Away Special (GAS) containers mounted in the cargo bay of the Space Shuttle orbiter Challenger during the STS 5I-B mission scheduled for launch in late April. Under the GAS program, NASA would deploy for $10,000 each the Global Low Orbiting Message Relay Satellite (GLOMR) and the Northern Utah Satellite (NUSAT) in hopes of establishing an inexpensive way to deploy small satellites during routine Space Shuttle operations.
Clarke Prouty, technical liaison officer for the GAS program at Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), said the GAS containers had been upgraded with ejection systems for the 51-B mission and that GSFC had developed a motorized door (full diameter motorized door assembly) for the can similar to the one first flown on the seventh Space Shuttle mission, which would allow the GAS payload to be exposed to space. The door assembly permitted GAS container insulation before and after satellite deployment and provided a means for keeping the satellite in the container in case of malfunction. GSFC had also adapted the spacecraft separation system used in the Delta rocket program for the GAS ejection systems.
The GLOMR satellite, designed and built by Defense Systems Inc. was a data relay, communications spacecraft that was expected to remain in orbit for about a year. The NUSAT, designed, built, and tested by Weber State College, Ogden, Utah, in coordination with the Federal Aviation Administration, was an air traffic control radar system calibrator that would measure antenna patterns for ground-based radars operating in the U.S. and member countries of the International Civil Aviation Organization.
NASA would first launch the NUSAT, then the GLOMR, at the end of Spacelab 3 science activities on the sixth day of the seven-day 51-B mission. Independent user ground stations would operate the satellites following deployment.
The GAS program was available to anyone wishing to fly a small (for containment in 21/2- by 5-ft area) scientific research and development experiment. The Space Shuttle had flown 29 GAS containers, including those for materials processing, life sciences, biology, seed and crystal growth, and cosmic radiation. (NASA Release 85-35)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
