Display Prospects on Vertical Landing

Abstract

In the final approach of vertical landing, the pilot of the vehicle cannot check the target point directly. The monitor display should project the target point with a camera. However, by using only the monitor display, the pilot cannot perform optimal vertical landing, because of the lack of various numerical information and prospects on the vehicle motion. We suppose the several types of future vehicle that can perform vertical landing: Luna Landing Vehicle in CEV (Crew Exploration Vehicle) project, SSTO (Single Stage to Orbit) transportation system such as DC-X by Scaled Composites and a kind of RSTS (Reusable Space Transportation System) by ISAS of JAXA, and VTOL (Vertical Take-Off and Landing) airplane. In order to assistance to the maneuver at vertical landing, display system should project the most optimal trajectory for landing and other candidates. Such prospective trajectories are displayed with the enhanced viewing projection composed by the numerical data as 3-Dimension Computer Graphics. This paper shows a prototype of such display system for vertical landing.