Mercruiser Commander Remote Control Manual

A discussion of the detailed operationalsupport provided during the MA-7 mission, including prelaunch,launch, flight, and recovery phases, is presented. Since the launchvehicle countdown and prelaunch phase was nearly identical to thatfor MA-6, this activity is given minor emphasis. The launch phaseproceeded almost perfectly, with only a last-minute hold for weather.Powered flight was normal, and the Mercury spacecraft was insertedinto a nominal orbit with exceptional precision. The flight wassatisfactorily monitored by the ground stations of the MercuryNetwork, and their activities are presented chronologically. No majorflight discrepancies were evident during the orbital phase until justprior to retrofire, when it was discovered that the automatic controlsystem was not operating properly. The astronaut was instructed byground personnel to effect a manual retrofire maneuver. Radartracking data subsequent to this maneuver indicated that thespacecraft would land 250 nautical miles downrange of the plannedlanding point. Following contingency recovery procedures, theastronaut was recovered by helicopter some 3 hours after landing, andthe spacecraft was retrieved by a recovery destroyer approximately 3hours later.

In the present paper, the flight control andrecovery operations for the MA-7 mission will be discussed in detail.Since the launch support procedure was discussed in the MA-6 flightreport (ref.1),it will be only discussed briefly. Some small changes from the MA-6operational support were made, most of which were associated with thedevelopment of appropriate support procedures for the future missionsof longer duration. Network support is discussed in detail inpaper 2. Based on previous experience, it was found that thetotal recovery support used for MA-6 could be slightly reduced forMA-7. The flight plan was basically the same as that for the MA-6mission with two significant differences: the astronaut was given agreater amount of manual-control tasks to perform; and a large numberof experiments were to be accomplished.

Download File 🔥 https://bltlly.com/2y1JHD 🔥

Upon contact with Hawaii at the end of thethird orbit, the astronaut was instructed to begin hispreretrosequence check list and to revert from his present manualcontrol mode to the automatic mode in preparation for retrosequence.The retrosequence check list was started but when the astronautreturned to automatic control, he reported having trouble with thissystem and, as a result, was unable to complete the list. The capsulecommunicator at Hawaii continued transmitting the remainder of thepreretrosequence check list after loss of telemetry contact, and mostof the transmission was received by the astronaut. However, theground was unable to confirm that it had been received because of thelimited UHF range of the spacecraft. From both astronaut reports andtelemetry readouts during the periods in which the astronaut wasusing automatic control over remote sited during the mission, itappeared that no major difficulty was experienced while using thissystem. The astronaut reported the automatic stabilization andcontrol system (ASCS) to be performing satisfactorily on severaloccasions. Although some differences between horizon scanner outputsand the spacecraft attitudes had been noted, they were not consideredto be any reason for concern because of the control configuration atthe time. Therefore, the failure of the ASCS system to maintainproper attitudes when engaged by the astronaut over Hawaii wasunexpected. When voice communications were established with theCalifornia station, the astronaut continued to have problems on ASCSand, with advice from the capsule communicator, elected to performthe retrofire maneuver using manual control. During this period theastronaut used a combination of window reference, periscope, andattitude displays. be457b7860