fisher@dvinci.DEC (Burns Fisher, MRO3-1/E13, DTN 231-4108) (12/17/84)
<into the mouths of the net go the words of angels>
> ...it was not until the sixth mission that the crew landed the shuttle
Nope, sorry. It was the reverse if not more...no one trusted the unproven
auto-land software to do something that the crew had demonstrated the ability
to do time and time again. On the first several missions, the computers
flew some of the reentry sequence with the crew manually entering "impulse"
inputs to measure the response characteristics of the shuttle. However the
crew took over entirely quite early; certainly before going around the heading
alignment circle. Then they went manual all the way to the ground. I believe
that the computers still made "recommendations" in the form of moving needles
on the flight director for the crew to match up with if they chose.
Some objectives on later flights were to test the autoland software closer and
closer to the ground. I know that they got the the point of allowing the
computer to take it down to just before the flair, but I never actually heard
that any crew to date has allowed autoland all the way to the ground. Does
anyone have further info?
For that matter, one of the early objectives was to accomplish a cross-wind
landing. I have never heard that that was actually accomplished either. Any
updates?
Burns Fisher
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