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From what I remember, the requirement was that the guidance system had
to be able to handle finding multiple sets of the first two stars in the
series.  Nothing happened (other than rotating the vehicle for
temperature and guidance reasons) until all three stars were located.

Each set of mission planners had the wonderful job of locating and
defining the star sets.  And as you would surmise, they would normally
choose initial stars like Sirius or Betelgeuse.  Normally, what would
happen is that after the star set was located, then IUS would then turn
to the heading needed for the mission end state.

When we put this together, it was an interesting approach - we were
trying to solve the problem of doing deep space navigation by allowing a
set of onboard computers determine their position as well as the next
step to be taken (change heading, burn or coast) without having detailed
control from the ground.

It worked.  Maybe not the best solution - but the end result was
something that worked.

derrick

   

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