GAS Verification Payload - From concept through flight

The GAS Verification Payload (GVP), successfully flown on STS-3, was the forerunner of the Get Away Special class of payloads. Intended to provide GAS experiments with flight environmental information, it also served to shape out the GAS support systems and establish areas of programmatic understanding between the GSFC, JSC, and KSC. Originally envisaged as using a sounding rocket build-it, test-it, fly-it approach with minimum paperwork, this naivete dissipated when faced with the manned space flight world of JSC. What evolved was an understanding by both disciplines that safety and reliability could be achieved at lower cost without compromise.