Word: autopilot
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...also disclosed the results of the intense investigation into why the Atlas-Centaur launch vehicle had sent the U.S. Mars orbiter, Mariner 8, plunging into the Atlantic only minutes after takeoff. The failure occurred, he said, when the rocket's autopilot circuitry was damaged by a surge of voltage. NASA officials believe that a recurrence of the problem can be avoided on Mariner 9, which they hope to launch by mid-June; after that Mars will not be in a favorable position for another two years...
...greatest promise in aerospace and defense work. The Army has already successfully tested a fluidic roll-rate control on its TIM (test instrumentation) missile; it is evaluating a fluidic navigational device developed by Martin Marietta Corp. for use by foot soldiers. Honeywell Inc. has developed and flown a fluidic autopilot. In less esoteric applications, the new technology is being used on New York Central locomotives, General Electric turbines and the machinery that manufactures Speidel watchbands...
...great goal of the airmen is to devise an automatic landing system that will work 100% of the time, whatever the weather, and eliminate the cause of more than half of all fatal crashes. The British are building a computerized autopilot that brings the plane right down to the deck; theoretically, it would fail only once in 1.25 billion landings, but even that is too much for U.S. airmen. Ultimately, computers will control all flight patterns, analyze the weather, and do much of the work in takeoffs and landings. The computers are not smarter than man; they simply solve...
...proper flight, there were other functions for the autopilot to perform before reaching this re-entry positioning. And since each stage was automatically linked in sequence with the others, he now knew that the earlier functions had been skipped, would not be performed by the autopilot. These included the precise positioning of his capsule for the firing of his retrorockets, the triggering of those rockets and the jettisoning of his retro-package. These functions would have to be controlled by hand...
...triggered his drogue parachute by hand at 40,000 ft. His main chute blossomed at 10,000-and he scored his bull's-eye landing off the Kearsarge. Capsule engineers, who constantly complain that astronauts would fly much better if they would just sit back and let their autopilots do the work, ruefully admitted that Cooper proved them wrong. Said an admiring Yardley: "Cooper was as good as any autopilot we ever...