#GLASS COCKPIT SOFTWARE#

The NASA-led glass cockpit design was tested in ground simulators and demonstration flights in the NASA 737 flying laboratory. In the meantime, NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia was working with industry partners to develop a concept for a fully electronic glass cockpit flight display system. They were designed in the 60s, built in the 70s and by the mid-80s the companies that built those meters had gone out of business, so when a meter failed it would have be taken out, replaced with another and then repaired.'īy the 1970s though, CRT screens in some commercial cockpits were replacing a few of the dials, gauges and instruments. 'The other instruments were actually mechanical airplane cockpit meters and we had a lot of problems with the meters. 'Previous displays were old green screens - with no graphics and very few capabilities,' Uyematsu said. The new 'glass' instruments gave the cockpit a unique appearance, which suggested its common name, 'glass cockpit.' Nine flat-panel screens are located in the forward cockpit and two in the aft cockpit. MEDS replaced several cathode ray (CRT) tube displays, gauges and electromechanical displays with 11 active matrix liquid crystal flat-panel, full-color displays in the shuttle cockpit. One of the most remarkable changes was the installation of the Multi-function Electronic Display System (MEDS). So Uyematsu was well-prepared when the time came for the orbiters to be upgraded.Ītlantis was the first orbiter to undergo numerous modifications during a 10-month major overhaul in 1998. There's always something new every day,' he said. 'You never quit learning, especially out here.

#GLASS COCKPIT SOFTWARE#

Uyematsu worked on flight system software and hardware, worked with the launch teams in Kennedy's firing rooms and on the orbiter gaining a remarkable amount of experience. 'The program was slowing down by '86 or '87, so in '88 I came here (to Kennedy) and actually got the job I always wanted and have been here ever since.' Photo credit: NASAĪfter college, Uyematsu worked with a submarine missile program out of Cape Canaveral. Image: Space shuttle Discovery heads to space after lifting off from Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida to begin its final flight to the International Space Station on the STS-133 mission. of 2003, a technician tests a monitor on the console of the newly installed 'glass cockpit' or MEDS.

Image: During Discovery's Orbiter Major Modifications period in Aug. 2005, a United Space Alliance technician works on the flight deck of Endeavour in Orbiter Processingįacility-2 as the spacecraft undergoes major modifications, which included installation of the the state-of-the-art 'glass Image: In April of 1999, STS-101 Commander James Halsell (left) and STS-98 Commander Ken Cockrell (right) pause for a photo while looking over the recently installed MEDS in Atlantis' cockpit. Image: A new full-color, flat panel MEDS, is shown in the cockpit of Atlantis after the spacecraft returned from its modification period in Palmdale, Calif. Subsystem (MEDS) or 'glass cockpit.' Photo credit: NASA/KSC for its Orbiter Maintenance Down Period and installation of the new Multifunction Electronic Display 11, 1997, Atlantis atop the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft at Kennedy, was prepared for its ferry flight to and with the moon landings, it was the first time I got to stay up all night to watch TV.' 'I remember Apollo 8 going around the moon and getting up at night and going outside with binoculars trying to look to see if I could see anything. 'I was old enough, around 8 or 9, to remember Apollo 8 and Apollo 13 and I thought that was the neatest thing I've ever seen,' Uyematsu said. And Roy Uyematsu, staff engineer with United Space Alliance's Data Processing System group, was there when it happened.įor 22 years Uyematsu has worked on the shuttle flight crew computers - a dream job for him since he was a youngster. But the time came when upgrades needed to be made to make the orbiters safer and easier to fly.

Computers have been an integral part of NASA's space shuttles since its conception.

Glass cockpit