Spacecraft Design for Manual Control

Abstract:
The use of the Cooper-Harper rating scale to evaluate spacecraft handling qualities has been standard practice for many years. NASA procedural requirements for human-rating of spacecraft specify manual control capabilities and satisfactory ratings of handling qualities using the Cooper-Harper scale. However, unlike aircraft, little formal guidance exists to aid the spacecraft designer in achieving these satisfactory ratings once the design is sufficiently mature to allow formal handling evaluations. By that time it is often too late in the design process to make significant changes without incurring excessive cost and schedule impacts. Most research into spacecraft handling qualities has tended to focus on evaluation of specific point designs rather than the development of general purpose design guidelines.

This presentation gives an overview of manual control generally and a newly developed framework for development of specific design requirements to account for satisfactory handling qualities early in the spacecraft design process.

About the Speaker:
Dr. John Osborn-Hoff has over twenty years of experience working in the NASA manned spacecraft community as a flight controller, instructor, and engineer. His spacecraft development assignments have included work on Space Launch Initiative, Orbital Space Plane, Orion, Ares-1, Space Launch System, Exploration Upper Stage, Commercial Crew, and Human Landing System programs and projects, primarily focused on design integration, GN&C, and manual piloting.

He earned a doctorate in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in 2018 with dissertation research focused on spacecraft design requirements to achieve satisfactory handling qualities.