Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!decwrl!ames!skipper!shafer From: shafer@skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov (Mary Shafer) Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle Subject: Re: Nasa select video and the Shuttle globe display Message-ID: Date: 9 Apr 91 04:01:07 GMT References: <51323@apple.Apple.COM> <1991Apr9.021214.10369@nlm.nih.gov> Sender: shafer@skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov Organization: NASA Dryden, Edwards AFB, CA Lines: 42 In-reply-to: sandro@nlm.nih.gov's message of 9 Apr 91 02:12:14 GMT In article <1991Apr9.021214.10369@nlm.nih.gov> sandro@nlm.nih.gov (Michael D'Alessandro) writes: Along similar lines, I wonder if anyone could take a minute to explain all the symbols on the NASA shuttle globe display. First, have you noticed that the Shuttle is belly up? That's how it usually flies, belly out. You can also tell if the payload bay doors are open or closed. I certainly understand the shuttle groundtrack lines drawn on the display - but what are some of the other symbols - such as the large circles drawn on the globe - are these groundstations and their communications range to the shuttle? Also - what are all the numbers I see at the top of the screen? The circles are ground station's coverage and you can also see TDRS satellite coverage. (Well, you can see TDRSS on the color maps that they send us here, so I think you can see it on the display, but it may be faint.) The numbers are local times, altitude, rev. number, elapsed time, etc. I've never been able to read them clearly enough to care. Someone asked about the software to do this. Forget it. You can probably get something that looks much the same, but NASA doesn't make much of this sort of thing available. It's one-off, probably highly machine-dependent, and excrably documented. We have a lot of that kind of display software around here and we're certainly not about to hand it out to the public at large. (Of course, it's a good question whether the public at large really wants it :-) If, however, you have a burning passion for NASA software, I know where you can get a lovely package for determining the stability and control derivatives. Tested on the Shuttle, works like a charm, the standard in the Free World (and maybe the rest of it, too), documented. Of course, this assumes that you have an instrumented vehicle to use it on and an S&C engineer to make sure the answers are related, however vaguely, to the physics of the problem. The catch is, if you know enough to want this, you probably already have it. -- Mary Shafer shafer@skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov ames!skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov!shafer NASA Ames Dryden Flight Research Facility, Edwards, CA Of course I don't speak for NASA "A MiG at your six is better than no MiG at all"--Unknown US fighter pilot