A carrier system called the Hitchhiker is being developed by NASA to bridge the gap between the limited capabilites of the Get Away Special (GAS) and the full support capabilities of the Spacelab. The Hitchhiker offers economy class flight for experiments which need little in the way of support services. The concept behind this carrier system is to use existing hardware in two basic configurations and to provide several sets of fixed service interfaces to the payload. One version of the Hitchhiker was designed to hang on the right side of the bay and the other to span the bay. Aside from cargo bay sill-level mounting positions for experiments, both Hitchhiker configurations provide modest power, command, and data management, and no active cooling services. The Hitchhiker is a payload of opportunity system utilizing the volume and weight remaining in the cargo bay after primary-payload needs are satisfied. Pointing and other time line requirements are limited to those established by the primary payload. The paper descibes the experiments of the first two Hitchhiker flights, together with future applications.


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    Title :

    Spacelab Hitchhiker, for rapid, low cost orbital resources


    Contributors:
    James, E. (author) / Lohman, R. L. (author)

    Publication date :

    1985-04-01


    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    No indication


    Language :

    English




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