Paper Session I-B - Young NASA Personnel Performing Hands-on Operations on Flight Hardware - A History of Experiment Integration

Paper Session I-B - Young NASA Personnel Performing Hands-on Operations on Flight Hardware - A History of Experiment Integration

Radisson Resort at the Port, Salon I

In the early 1980’s, NASA was preparing to launch the first Space Shuttle to begin a new era in USA Spaceflight. At the same time new hardware called “Payloads”, that would be taken into space aboard the Shuttle, were being developed. These Payloads contained a multitude of science experiments from all over the world. Many would be contained in a laboratory called "Spacelab", which was being developed by NASA and the European Space Agency. How would these Payloads be prepared for launch? A concept of allowing NASA personnel to perform the job, that normally a contractor would perform, was reintroduced. Instead of overseeing a contractor, NASA would perform the engineering function him/herself and get his/her own hands dirty. So was created the “Level IV – Experiment Integration” organization at Kennedy Space Center. Many young NASA personnel, most of them right out of college, would be responsible for preparing domestic and foreign multi-million-dollar experiments for space flight. This paper tells the story of that unique group, how it was a major player in the success of the Spacelab and Science programs, where some of those people are today, and how knowledge gained by that group of people is being used for current & future space flight activities.