SURVEYOR LUNAR LANDER

The three-legged Surveyor spacecraft was built by Hughes Aircraft Company, Space Systems Division, and directed by JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) for NASA. Surveyor, launched by the Atlas/Centaur vehicle from Cape Kennedy, was the first unmanned spacecraft to soft-land on the lunar surface. The flight from launch to landing is nominally 62 hours. Its instruments photographed the surface of the moon and the rocks in its landing vicinity and then sent TV pictures back to earth. Its soil mechanics/surface sampler scraped the lunar surface and analyzed its composition. The Surveyor missions were to demonstrate the feasibility of soft-landing an unmanned spacecraft with scientific instruments on the lunar surface in order to expand man’s knowledge of the moon. Surveyor paved the way for soft-landing a manned vehicle on the lunar surface. It selected the Apollo corridor, an area where Apollo could land.

I was the Assistant Manager of the Guidance and Trajectory Analysis Department where we developed all the trajectories to fly to the moon. Additionally I was in charge of the Lift-Off and Translation Experiment known as the Hopper where Surveyor was made to hop on the moon, even though the spacecraft was not designed to do so, a first for the space program.

THE APOLLO PROGRAM

The Apollo spacecraft was developed by North American Aviation for NASA after President John F. Kennedy had made it a national priority to put an American on the moon within a decade.

The Apollo mission was to soft-land a man on the moon and safely return him to earth.
The purpose of the Apollo Mission Simulator (AMS) was to train astronauts to perform the various tasks needed to fly the Apollo mission. To provide meaningful training for the astronauts, the AMS needed to simulate the space capsule in all aspects; to be an exact replica of the spacecraft itself. With the exception of simulating zero and high-G gravity effects, it had to have complete fidelity.

I had several management positions on the Apollo program. As head of the AMS technical management, I was responsible for establishing specifications and requirements, monitoring the subcontractor’s analysis and design implementation, coordinating with NASA and the astronauts assigned to the AMS. As AMS Project Manager, I identified problems of missing spacecraft design data needed for the AMS design. Since the spacecraft and AMS were designed simultaneously I had to resolve these issues.

Neil Armstrong was the only astronaut assigned to the AMS. We had numerous meetings, reviews, and working sessions with Neil, some conducted in my office. Extremely intelligent and dedicated, Neil did a great job and made America proud.

As head of Apollo timelines development, I was responsible for developing timelines for each specific Apollo mission. It entailed identifying in detail each task, its duration and the appropriate sequence that each astronaut had to perform during a specific Apollo mission.

DEFENSE SATELLITES

As Spacecraft and Software Analysis Department Manager, and Assistant Systems Laboratory Manager at Hughes Aircraft Company, I was responsible for the analysis of the spacecraft subsystems, and the development of all the equations, algorithms, and software to control and maintain the spacecraft on orbit. That included such complex functions as orbit determination, attitude control, pointing, and electrical power management. I headed a group of highly qualified analysts and PhDs who’d worked closely with software specialists to develop these computer programs. Additionally, I was responsible for trajectory verification for launch vehicle integration.

GAMMA RAY OBSERVATORY

At TRW, I was the Program Manager for the Gamma Ray Observatory (GRO) proposal. The proposal I managed won the competition and we received a study contract to design the spacecraft and to integrate the various Gamma Ray detection instruments, some of which were the size of a VW car and required a very large spacecraft. Only the Shuttle could put this GRO large spacecraft into an earth orbit. After the study ended, NASA awarded a hardware contract to TRW and I was responsible for successfully negotiating a one hundred million dollar contract for building the GRO spacecraft. A large sum of money in the early 1980s, it did not include the gamma ray detection instruments provided by the Government.

The Gamma Rays, being highly energetic, could be presumed to have been generated during the big bang, the creation of the universe.

LASER CROSS-LINK

The objective of the laser-cross link was to enable one satellite to communicate with another. From a mission point of view, the laser cross-link would provide a serious improvement in security. It would allow each satellite to communicate and dump data to the other without involving an earth station. The security advantage for the defense satellite used to detect missile launches and relay the information to the Department of Defense as part of an early warning system is of tremendous importance. No laser had been used for that purpose before.

I was the Project Manager at TRW for the Laser Cross-Link being developed under contract to McDonnell Douglas for a defense satellite program.