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From: jlg@lanl.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Re: Computer Shuttle Landing
Message-ID: <18025@lanl.ARPA>
Date: Fri, 14-Dec-84 13:21:40 EST
Article-I.D.: lanl.18025
Posted: Fri Dec 14 13:21:40 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 19-Dec-84 03:18:28 EST
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Sender: newsreader@lanl.ARPA
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Lines: 27

> 
> 
> I believe the answer is "yes".  I know that the on-board flight
> computers land the vehicle but I don't remember if they also inject
> the Shuttle into the re-entry path.  I also think that it wasn't
> until the sixth misssion that a pilot actually landed the craft
> manually.  Knowing NASA, it seems to me that they probably could land
> the Shuttle without human help for safety reasons if nothing else.


I remember it the other way around!  I don't think the computer was
allowed to control the whole landing sequence until the fifth or sixth
flight.  The reentry burn has traditionally been computer (or even
ground) controlled* but the actual landing of the shuttle is similar
enough to conventional aircraft that the final part of the landing
sequence is usually handled by the pilot.  Except for the Shuttle and
some carrier based aircraft I don't think that there are ANY aircraft
that are presently even capable of fully automated landing.  As I
remember, the Shuttle was landed manually for the first few flights in
order to more fully test the flight computer.  Each of the first few
flights remained under computer control until successively later times
in the reentry sequence, until the computer finally landed the craft
on its own.  Is there anyone out ther who actually KNOWS?

* - Remember the problems caused when the automatic controls failed on
    the Mercury flights and the pilot had to control the attitude for
    the reentry burn manually.