Oct 5 1979
From The Space Library
Space News for this day. (1MB PDF)
for proposals to design a 25-kilowatt power system to provide supplemental solar power for long-duration Shuttle missions or support free-flying payloads. In early spring of 1980 NASA would award two or more parallel contracts at $1 million each for studies to be completed within 12 months.
Development would begin in 1982; the system would fly its first mission in 1984-1985 attached to a Shuttle orbiter carrying a Spacelab, to provide additional power and attitude and heat control. The power system on this mission would carry an experiments pallet and would be left in space (after the orbiter completed its mission) to power the long-duration experiments riding on the pallet. Luther E. Powell, MSFC project manager, said the power system would be forerunner of future large systems in space, such as service platforms and other unmanned large space structures. (MSFC Release 79-103)
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