A FIXED-BASE VISUAL-SIMULATOR STUDY OF PILOT CONTROL OF ORBITAL DOCKING OF ATTITUDE-STABILIZED VEHICLES

摘要

A study has been made on a fixed-base simulator of the ability of human pilots to perform the final docking between a manned spacecraft and an orbiting tank by using only visual cues for guidance. Both vehicles were assumed attitude stabilized. The pilot was given translational control of the manned spacecraft by means of simple on-off reaction jets. The information display symbolized a docking mechanism that consisted of a square grappling bracket on the spacecraft and a spherical ball coupler on the orbiting tank. In the simulator, a painted target and a light spot projected on a cylindrical screen represented the grap¬pling bracket and ball coupler, respectively.nThe results of the investigation showed that, for most of the simulator flights, the pilots performed the docking maneuver with the following accuracies at contact:n(1) Vertical and lateral displacements of coupling mechanism of 1 inch or lessn(2) Longitudinal contact velocities less than 0.1 ft/secn(3) Residual vertical and lateral velocities of 0.04 ft/sec or less.