PILOTING THE CEV

NASA's Astronaut Office is leading a Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) cockpit team to define all CEV piloting elements, including a greater software-based automated operating philos- ophy than on any previous U.S. manned spacecraft.

The cockpit team, based at the Johnson Space Center (JSC), is refining concepts for instrumentation, computer displays, stowage and myriad habitability issues for the CEV Crew Module (CM) that by 2014 will be the command post for astronauts transiting to the International Space Station and then returning to the Moon about 2018.

The JSC group will continue to lead cockpit design even after either the Lockheed Martin team or Northrop Grumman/Boeing team is selected as CEV prime contractor in August because the cockpit design will remain a NASA responsibility during the CEV development.

Active NASA astronauts and engineers are not yet using contractor simulated cockpit mockups and avionics, other than to answer questions under restrictive procurement regulations. Both contractors have such mockups and system facilities already at JSC or other contractor team sites.

NASA has, however, built its own rudimentary CEV simulators and cockpit mockups that are not electrically active. These facilities are being used to define initial CEV man-machine relationships to guide how CEV systems are monitored, how the vehicle will be flown and where items will be stowed (see p. 49).

The Command Module must be able to carry up to six astronauts to the ISS, or four astronauts on lunar missions, and land them safely on Earth after a planned reentry or unplanned launch abort.

The CM cockpit design is one of the more challenging aspects of the CEV program, says Jeff Fox, cockpit team manager for the CEV Project Office at the Johnson Space Center here. It is inherently tied to every system in both the CM and Service Module (SM) and every aspect of flight operations. Likewise, many factors key to the cockpit design also affect other CEV system designs.

Flying six people in pressure suits along with space mission stowage in the relatively small CM capsule is a huge challenge in itself. One not so small operational detail is that all those people are going to need a toilet, also a part of CM cockpit definition.

Although the CM will be about 40% bigger than the old Apollo Command Module from an outer-mold-line perspective, the CEV cockpit will have to support up to double the Apollo crew complement for station trips and an added fourth crewmember for lunar missions.