One of the most significant decisions coming out of the AS-278 computer program review with the Apollo Spacecraft Program Manager on September 15 and 16, was his absolute assurance that the spacecraft computer memory would not be augmented for the AS-503 or AS-504 flights. Accordingly, all program development should proceed on that basis for those…
Month: October 1966
More on Program Development
On October 5th, we had the second of our weekly all day program development plan meetings at MIT. Most of our attention was given to the open items on the AS-278 program which I will discuss later, but first I would like to pass on some general comments regarding the work at MIT. Based on…
Procedure for orbiting Apollo Spacecraft Computer Program schedule information
In our (MSC) attempt to establish the most meaningful flight development schedule for Apollo including, as it must, adjustments to conform with the continually varying mission constraints as well as providing backup missions for contingency situations, many people have legitimate need to know the effect of their ideas and proposals on the readiness of the…
Program Development Plans are coming!!
September 29th shall probably go down in history, at least in my diary, as the day of a major breakthrough at MIT. On that date we had an all day meeting attended by all key MIT management personnel involved in spacecraft computer program development. I expect it to be the first of similar weekly sessions…
Altitude and velocity limits imposed by the spacecraft computer programs on the AS-503 mission.
As you know, we are currently figuring on using the AS-278 spacecraft computer programs for AS-503. Ed Copps called me the other day to state that the orbital integration routines in the AS-278 program are scaled such that they will only work for altitudes less than about 5,400 nautical miles above the surface of the…
Cursory definition of Spacecraft Computer Program capabilities currently planned for AS-503 and AS-504
One of the possible actions which has been identified to help our spacecraft computer program development schedule is to fly the AS-503 mission with the AS-278 programs. I have indicated in previous memoranda that in order to do this we would probably have to add several routines to the AS-278 program to make it applicable…
LGC program requirements and mission constraints on alternate mission AS-278B
Following our AS-206 spacecraft computer program status review at MIT pm October 6th, we launched into a discussion of the AS-278B mission and its demands on the guidance system. This alternate mission, you recall, is one in which the LM and command module are launched separately followed by a CSM active rendezvous. The LM would…
AS-206 LGC program status
On October 6th at MIT, we held a review of the AS-206 computer program which they have romantically christened “Sunburst”. Our primary objectives were twofold; first, to make certain that the formulation of the program was consistent with the way we intend to fly the mission, and second, to determine the current status of the…
Another AGC program development report
Just got back from the northlands and couldn’t resist sending out another note, although I really don’t have much to report. The program development planning at MIT seems to be progressing nicely. We did pick up a couple of items that require attention; e.g.,…
Verification of LGC when powered-up in space
The other day at MIT, when we were discussing the alternate mission AS-278B, the question came up of how the astronaut assures himself that the contents of the erasable memory is as it should be when he first powers-up the computer in space. Since there seemed to be some confusion or uncertainty at MIT, I…