Jan 11 1985
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Research at LaRC would improve teleoperation capabilities by gradually increasing the automation level of their teleoperation equipment, the Langley Researcher reported, as tests focused on the interface between the human operator and the remotely-controlled equipment using a direct-view station and a station where the operator controlled the action while viewing a TV monitor to assess performance loss as a result of the TV link.
Operators used a Unimation Puma manipulator to pick up a peg, depress switches with it, and insert it into a receptacle. In one test, operators individually moved each joint. In another, operators used resolved-rate control (controlling all joints at once, somewhat like the human arm) to move the end effector in attitude and translation in its own axis system.
Use of the smaller of two pegs and resolved-rate control significantly improved performance; however, there was no significant difference between viewing directly or through closed-circuit TV. Researchers would use these results to assess future incremental improvements to the teleoperator man/ machine interface. (LaRC Researcher, Jan 11/85, 2)
Observers had anticipated seeing the world's first man-made comet 72,000 miles above earth (over the Pacific Ocean west of Lima, Peru) the morning of December 27, 1984, the JPL Universe reported. Although clouds obscured viewing from official ground-observation sites, scientists called the artificial comet a success, marking another milestone in the active magnetospheric particle tracer explorers (AMPTE) program sponsored by the U.S., West Germany, and the United Kingdom. Mission goal was to inject, from a satellite tracer, ions of lithium and barium inside, outside, and just within the earth's magnetosphere (creating the comet appearance) and to detect and monitor these ions with two other satellites as the ions convected and diffused through the inner magnetosphere. Scientists hoped that this new data would improve understanding of the influence and mechanisms of interaction of the solar wind with earth's magnetosphere, including formation of the van Allen Belts.
A NASA Convair 990 reported a six-minute viewing; an Argentine Boeing 707 an eight-minute view. Overall intensity of the "comet" was lower than expected; the 12,000- to 20,000-km tail was somewhat shorter than expected. Experimenters withheld other canisters of chemicals aboard the German ion-release module (IRM) for AMPTE experiments later in the year.
GSFC managed the U.S. portion of the project; a JPL mission control team operated the charge composition explorer (CCE) spacecraft to observe the cloud. (JPL Universe, Jan 11/85, 1; GSFC News, Jan 85, 3)
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