keithley@apple.com (Craig J. Keithley) (04/09/91)
I've watched the Nasa select video on my local cable station, and seen a shuttle/globe display from time to time. The display shows the shuttle's position, attitude, and path. The globe is full color, with lines indicating the range of ground communications, etc. I'd like to find that program! :-) I'll take source code! Does anyone know if that program is publicly available? Preferably from an FTP site. I realize that the shuttle's attitude and position are probably derived from telemetry, but I could probably modify the program to use the previously given orbital elements. Thanks, Craig Keithley keithley@apple.com
sandro@nlm.nih.gov (Michael D'Alessandro) (04/09/91)
Along similar lines, I wonder if anyone could take a minute to explain all the symbols on the NASA shuttle globe display. I certainly understand the shuttle groundtrack lines drawn on the display - but what are some of the other symbols - such as the large circles drawn on the globe - are these groundstations and their communications range to the shuttle? Also - what are all the numbers I see at the top of the screen? Michael -- Michael D'Alessandro, M.D. The Lister Hill National Center for Biomedical Communications Educational Technology Branch The National Library of Medicine sandro@lhc.nlm.nih.gov
shafer@skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov (Mary Shafer) (04/09/91)
In article <1991Apr9.021214.10369@nlm.nih.gov> sandro@nlm.nih.gov (Michael D'Alessandro) writes:
Along similar lines, I wonder if anyone could take a minute to explain
all the symbols on the NASA shuttle globe display.
First, have you noticed that the Shuttle is belly up? That's how it usually
flies, belly out. You can also tell if the payload bay doors are
open or closed.
I certainly understand the shuttle groundtrack lines drawn on the display -
but what are some of the other symbols - such as the large circles drawn on
the globe - are these groundstations and their communications range to the
shuttle? Also - what are all the numbers I see at the top of the screen?
The circles are ground station's coverage and you can also see TDRS
satellite coverage. (Well, you can see TDRSS on the color maps that
they send us here, so I think you can see it on the display, but it
may be faint.) The numbers are local times, altitude, rev. number,
elapsed time, etc. I've never been able to read them clearly enough
to care.
Someone asked about the software to do this. Forget it. You can
probably get something that looks much the same, but NASA doesn't make
much of this sort of thing available. It's one-off, probably highly
machine-dependent, and excrably documented. We have a lot of that
kind of display software around here and we're certainly not about to
hand it out to the public at large. (Of course, it's a good question
whether the public at large really wants it :-)
If, however, you have a burning passion for NASA software, I know where
you can get a lovely package for determining the stability and control
derivatives. Tested on the Shuttle, works like a charm, the standard
in the Free World (and maybe the rest of it, too), documented. Of
course, this assumes that you have an instrumented vehicle to use it
on and an S&C engineer to make sure the answers are related, however
vaguely, to the physics of the problem. The catch is, if you know
enough to want this, you probably already have it.
--
Mary Shafer shafer@skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov ames!skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov!shafer
NASA Ames Dryden Flight Research Facility, Edwards, CA
Of course I don't speak for NASA
"A MiG at your six is better than no MiG at all"--Unknown US fighter pilotrmo5292@summa.tamu.edu (O'LEARY, RICHARD MICHAEL) (04/09/91)
A simple question.....has anyone (or would anyone) videotaped some of the NASA Select feed? I'd love a copy of a tape, just to check out what its like and to show to ppl in our dept. Being sans satellite dish leaves one high and dry when it comes to this stuff. If there's a kind soul who'd like to help out, drop me an e-mail. Merci beaucoup, y'all. -- D ******************************************************************************** Dick O'Leary rmo5292@tamsigma.bitnet Unite, Dignite, Travail rmo5292@sigma.tamu.edu Dept. of Geophysics Texas A&M University 77843-3114 (409)690-0871 ********************************************************************************
shafer@skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov (Mary Shafer) (04/10/91)
In article <SHAFER.91Apr8210107@skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov> shafer@skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov (Mary Shafer) writes:
:>I certainly understand the shuttle groundtrack lines drawn on the display -
:>but what are some of the other symbols - such as the large circles drawn on
:>the globe - are these groundstations and their communications range to the
:>shuttle? Also - what are all the numbers I see at the top of the screen?
:The circles are ground station's coverage and you can also see TDRS
:satellite coverage. (Well, you can see TDRSS on the color maps that
:they send us here, so I think you can see it on the display, but it
:may be faint.)
You can see where TDRSS isn't, I noticed this morning. There's a
lens-shaped area that obscures India and areas to the north and
south. That's where there's no TDRSS coverage.
My map has the various TDRS boundaries drawn in but that's not on
the display.
--
Mary Shafer shafer@skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov ames!skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov!shafer
NASA Ames Dryden Flight Research Facility, Edwards, CA
Of course I don't speak for NASA
"A MiG at your six is better than no MiG at all"--Unknown US fighter pilot