Engineering and development problems of Spacelab

A development status report on the Spacelab project is presented with coverage of early planning phases, elaboration of the soft mockup and hard mockup, various project milestones, accounts of deliverable hardware, and engineering and planning constraints on various Spacelab subsystems. While technologies under consideration have been frozen for time and cost considerations, changes allowable to accommodate user requirements, cost cutting, and Shuttle Orbiter requirements are indicated. Hardware compatibility with Orbiter, pallet redesigns, a new instrument pointing system, and variant system development integration configurations are dealt with.