Engineering Our Way to the Moon: Untold Apollo Stories - Paperback

by Richard Boudreau (Author)

A TRW engineers untold story of an extensive two- year NASA activity that established how the many parts of the Apollo ground and onboard Guidance, Navigation and Control systems were used in flying to the moon.Called Apollo Mission Techniques, they provided coordinated guidance for the many individuals involved in systems & software development, pre-flight planning, flight simulations and real time flight operations.For historical context, Soviet moon landing programs are described.Also included - the author's personal adventures back then.Plus: -The Space Race - how and why it started, our embarrassing early efforts-The Soviet programs - their successes, failures, and many "firsts" - all described. After "glasnost" we now know it was a real race to the moon.-The American programs - how Gemini data priority problems led to TRW's Mission Techniques effort for NASA - before the tragic Apollo fire.-How Bill Tindall and his "Tindallgrams" continued that TRW activity to produce a trajectory control baseline for all moon landing flights.-The Germans in Huntsville - how Von Braun's team launched America's first satellite, then developed Apollo booster rockets using new systems management methods and "all up" testing per Air Force ICBM programs.-How a TRW Vice President joined NASA and became the single individual most responsible for the success of the Apollo program.TRW during this period was a leading aerospace company - best known for its development of high technology satellites and its pioneering systems engineering/systems management work for the Air Force.The TDRSS project for example: TRW designed and developed four geo-synchronous altitude satellites and a single ground station that provide near constant communication links between the ground and other lower orbiting space vehicles - International Space Station, etc., replacing the many ground stations that had previously provided only brief, intermittent coverage.In 2002 Northrop Grumman purchased TRW, now a key part of Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems.