Integrating Shuttle payloads

Abstract

The paper discusses the relationships that will develop among experimenters, mission managers, and operators when satellites, using equipment transported by the Space Shuttle, are constructed in space. Since these satellites do not have to be lifted and guided from the earth's surface, and since they are more accessible for maintenance, future hardware will be built to less demanding standards, which will permit a greater variety of research and more of it in terms of costs. Present and future interrelationships among management authority, interface documentation, accommodations allocation, experiment autonomy, and assembly and checkout are analyzed, so that less costly payload-integration procedures can be developed.