Conference 7.286::space

677.0. "NASA and Honeywell conduct automated landing research" by 4347::GRIFFIN (Dave Griffin) Tue Nov 27 1990 23:30

11/26/90: NASA AND HONEYWELL CONDUCT AUTOMATED LANDING RESEARCH 

RELEASE: 90-153
 
     NASA's Langley Research Center, Hampton, Va., and 
Honeywell's Space Systems Group, Clearwater, Fla., have 
successfully concluded a joint flight research project that may 
improve automated landing capabilities in spacecraft and 
aircraft.
 
     During the flight tests performed over the last 2 months, 
NASA's Boeing 737 research airplane made 36 automated landings 
using a Honeywell integrated differential navigation system 
linked to the Global Positioning System (GPS).  GPS is a 
worldwide constellation of U.S. satellites that provides 
precision navigation information.
 
     The test data will form the basis for design of such systems 
in future spacecraft and will help researchers assess how risk 
can be reduced in automatic landings.  The results also will help 
determine the accuracy of GPS-aided navigation systems that could 
ensure safe automatic landings under various weather conditions. 
 
     Currently there are 15 GPS satellites, four to eight of 
which were in view during the NASA/Honeywell flight tests.  There 
will be 24 satellites in the GPS constellation when it is 
complete in 1993.
 
     Six days of flight tests from Oct. 23 to Nov. 14 accumulated 
25 hours of flight time.  Langley's Boeing 737 Transport Systems 
Research Vehicle (TSRV) was fitted with Honeywell's integrated 
Global Positioning Inertial Reference System/GPS Sensor Unit 
(GPSSU).  A ground station with a second GPSSU receiver located 
at Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Va., provided 
differential GPS corrections to the aircraft via VHF radio.  
During the tests, the TSRV made 111 landings, including 36 GPS-
aided automatic touchdowns.

     There are many potential space and commercial applications 
of this advanced technology.  In the space arena, the technology 
could provide an automatic landing capability to the next-
generation manned space transport vehicles that will be less 
demanding on the crew and require less training than the current 
Shuttle auto-landing system.  Unmanned space vehicles could 
return expensive engines and avionics that otherwise would be 
expended after a single mission.
 
     In commercial aviation, an automatic landing system based on 
differential GPS offers the potential for complete guidance:  
precision approaches from a variety of air traffic patterns, 
landing rollout and taxiing to the gate in poor visibility 
conditions. 
 
     This research and development effort is a cooperative 
project between Langley Research Center and Honeywell, Inc.  
Honeywell's efforts are led by its Space Systems Group with 
engineering support from its Systems and Research Center in 
Minneapolis and system hardware from its Commercial Flight 
Systems Group in Phoenix.
	- end -

Article: 1747
From: [email protected] (WILLIAM HARWOOD, UPI Science Writer)
Newsgroups: clari.tw.space,clari.news.military,clari.news.aviation
Subject: Automatic shuttle landing on tap in 1993
Date: 19 Nov 91 21:41:49 GMT
 
	CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (UPI) -- A 1993 shuttle flight will end
with a fully automatic, hands-off landing to test untried systems that
might be needed if the pilots are not up to the task after a
long-duration mission, officials said Tuesday. 

	The ``autoland'' touchdown will mark a significant first in
shuttle program history, putting the commander and co-pilot in a
backup role and givin of the limiting factors involved in keeping a
shuttle aloft up to 90 days is the physical condition of the crew
after prolonged exposure to weightlessness. 

	``Knowing what we know today about human physiology, we have
to assume the crew cannot land,'' he said. ``We may subsequently learn
that's wrong, but today I have to assume they cannot land. And I
should probably also assume they cannot back (up the automatic
system), either. '' 

	Autoland capability has been built into the shuttle's flight
control computer programs since the first mission in 1981. NASA
originally planned to test the autoland procedure in 1985, but it
ultimately was ruled out for technical reasons. 

	At present, a shuttle co-pilot must physically flip a switch
in the cockpit to lower the ship's landing gear. But the flight
computers are theoretically capable of handling all other aspects of
re-entry. 

	``We already have an autoland in the software and I've asked
the program to verify that in flight in '93,'' Lenoir said. ``While
what I have today has been certified, we just haven't used it. Let's
use it, learn about it, and then let's ask what kind of redundancy
would I need for it to back itself up.'' 

	Even with autoland fully enabled, the pilots would have to
deploy the gear and apply the brakes after touchdown. 

	``This will only land,'' Lenoir said. ``It won't roll me out
and apply brakes. I certainly would need brakes. Am I comfortable with
the crewman deploying the gear? Maybe, maybe not. That's the kind of
thing we're looking at.'' 

	It is a widely held belief that the only reason the shuttle
landing gear has to be manually deployed is that astronauts insisted
on having some physical control over the landing process. 

	Whether that is true or not is unclear. But the shuttle's
flight computers already fly the ship during launch and if autoland is
implemented, the phrase ``along for the ride'' would take on added
significance. 

	``My sense is it might be like a lot of things that are scary,
but after you've done them a few times and realize they're not so
scary they look better and better,'' Lenoir said. 

	``The hard thing is, if you're going to have your crew in the
loop either as a prime or as a backup, then you've got to keep them
proficient. And it's hard to do that by having them sit and watch
things happen.''