small pay loads not necessarily directly associated with the mission. These are the Get-Away Special canisters and Hitchhiker G structures and both will be discussed in the following section. 3.3 Space Shuttle Launch of Small Payloads Even though launch opportunities for large pay loads on the Space Shuttle are very rare, and will become more so during launch of Space Station Freedom, the Shuttle does offer a large number of flight opportunities for very small secondary payloads, although the waiting list is on the order of years. These secondary pay loads are defined as follows: 3.3.1 Get-Away Special Canister (GAS Can) These small pay load accommodations are well known and several are flown on nearly every Shuttle mission. The standard GAS can is a sealed pressure vessel (although it can be evacuated if required) which is secured to either side of the Orbiter payload bay using a GAS beam structure. In the simplest version, the GAS does not have any power, cooling or data interfaces with the Shuttle (Figure 3.3-1). The only possible interaction is by an astronaut switching the experiment on or off. [13] Other principal features of the standard GAS Cans include, Pay load Mass Dimensions Sizes 90 kg 0.5 m dia. x 0.71 m 45 kg 0.5 m dia. x 0.355 m Costs approx. $20,000 for the large GAS Can
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTU5NjU0Mg==