phil@titan.rice.edu (William LeFebvre) (04/07/89)
In article <2108@botter.cs.vu.nl> wallagh@cs.vu.nl () writes: >I've an other question about the Space shuttle. >Last summer I visited (briefly) Houston Mission Control, and there >I was showed around in the mission-control room. > >2 Things where very surprising: >a). It's much much smaller than you expect it to be (from TV). They probably use a wide angle lens in the TV cameras. The cabin of the shuttle is also smaller than it seems on TV because of wide angle lenses. It really is quite small, but then microgravity enables you to use space more effectively. >b). The equipment looks very oldfashioned. >My question is: Why? The tourguide said: Because there no need for >newer equipment. The consoles are the same ones that were used for Apollo. Really! They are completely reconfigurable and the budget managers probably saw no need to throw away "perfectly useful" equipment. They are in the process of exploring new console setups. There is a room behind the front control room (FCR, MOCR, Mission Control: take your pick)---behind the room that is behind the big screens, in fact---called the "Test(?) Flight Control Room" or TFCR (I don't remember offhand what the "T" stands for). In this room there are several different working prototype consoles set up for experimentation and evaluation. They include color workstations (Suns and Masscomps) installed in a console (in place of the old video display terminals). So they are exploring upgrades. There is resistance, however. All the console displays are driven by the Mission Operations Computer (MOC), which is some sort of IBM behemoth (well, almost all---I think FIDO gets some stuff straight from the satellite for super-accurate telemetry readings). This computer processes all the real time data and makes it available via a large assortment of displays (the console operators choose which displays they want to see). Some of the people who have been around there awhile believe that this is the only way to do real time displays. They don't believe that a "puny little" mini or microcomputer has sufficient power to display data in real time. Mainframe mentality. So they are opposed to using anything like the Real Time Display System (RTDS) mentioned in another posting. There also tends to be the feeling that the current displays are the only way to look at the data. The "we've always done it that way" philosophy. Sigh. The Masscomps that sit next to the consoles in the FCR are used for just about everything except real time display. They can use them to format and send commands up to the shuttle, they can use them to configure their own consoles, and they can use them to process what they call "Near Real Time data": you request to see data from time X to time Y with granularity Z, the masscomp will fetch it from the "NRT" machine and display it in a form that you want. It's "near" real time because you can only fetch data that has already come down and been processed. You can't fetch it in real time. The real neat thing about RTDS is that it takes the raw data off the satellite, throws away what it doesn't need and makes the necessary data available for display on just about anything you want: Mac, Masscomp, Sun, whatever. The machine that's actually doing the real time crunching is an ADDS 100. The idea (if I recall correctly) is that one ADDS 100 will be used per display (or maybe per discipline) and the centralized MOC will no longer be necessary. >I don't believe that. Personally I think it's to show to all the >poeple that NASA has not enough money to even make a modern control- >room (and thus: give NASA more money). >Just for publicity. > >What do you think about that? I think you're grasping at straws. By the way: all around the main mission control room are Mission Planning and Support Rooms (MPSR). Each room holds more consoles like the ones in the FCR and more flight controllers work back there to support the ones working in the front. So the controllers you see on TV aren't the only ones working the flight. How do I know all this? My wife works in one of the MPSR rooms. Whoops! My secret is out. Oh well. William LeFebvre Department of Computer Science Rice University <phil@Rice.edu>