Old NASA simulated Lunar Landings

[Graham2001]

Back when I was more active with NASSP I searched out NASA reports covering planned and simulated missions, to give possible ideas for addon scenarios, I was just looking over the Virtual AGC page and found one that was created in the 1970s as part of an ongoing effort to improve the AGC software.

I've not yet identified the landing site yet (If anyone can help reading this I will be grateful.)

The AGC software used for the landing was 'Zerlina 56' an experimental version of the AGC software (Dating from slightly before Apollo 14) that had a number of features that didn't ultimately make it into the 'main tree' of LM AGC software.

https://archive.org/details/zerlinalunarland00done

As I relocate the other documents with simulated mission details I will post them here.

 

[indy91]

These simulation documents are all from Don Eyles, who wrote the descent guidance software. There are a bunch of them that have been scanned for the Virtual AGC project. This particular sim document has no further information on the erasable memory load, so I can't really derive where it landed. Zerlina is an awesome LGC software version with some features that never made it into Luminary, the main LGC software branch. The program listing for Zerlina is also available: https://www.ibiblio.org/apollo/listings/Zerlina56/MAIN.agc.html

And we can run it in NASSP: [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PP-LzofxsKA"]Project Apollo NASSP 8.0 Alpha - Landing near Tycho crater with Zerlina 56 - YouTube[/ame] Just landing near Tycho crater because it was a nice challenge to set that up, haha.

It's quite experimental and there isn't really a mission scenario set up to run Zerlina in NASSP right now, but it definitely can be done, as you can see in the video.

 

[Graham2001]

A pity the landing site is not locatable. I hope that the NASSP documentation will include advice on the use of the non-standard features in 'Zerlina 56' just in case people decide to use it for say, Apollo 20...

---------- Post added 07-13-19 at 03:19 PM ---------- Previous post was 07-12-19 at 08:59 PM ----------

Just found a memo covering simulated Fra Mauro landings carried out using a precursor (Revision 154) to the Apollo 14 version of Luminary (Revision 178) and the 16th & 17th revisions of Zerlina. It looks to be close to, but not identical with the Apollo 14 landing point (I need to sort out the selenographic coordinates and remember how to convert a 360 degree number into coordinates East or West...)

The document (Luminary Memo #144: Variable Sequencer Tests) is linked below, if anyone beats me to sorting out the location, I will not be angry.

https://www.ibiblio.org/apollo/Documents/LUM144_text.pdf

 

[Graham2001]

A small update on checking the landing coordinates in that Luminary Memo. I've spent a rather frustrating day trying to figure out how to enter map coordinates in Google Moon. I'm going to have to start digging out all my old Lunar surface maps and do this the old fashioned way.

 

[indy91]

Looks like the Apollo 14 landing coordinates (3.64530°S 17.47136°W) to me. The memo you linked has coordinates like "LAT: -3.6159°, LONG: 342.45595°", which is a bit off, but seems pretty close. Zerlina was developed in the same timeframe, so that would make sense.

 

[Graham2001]

I need help with this, I have been unable to figure out how to convert the second coordinate "LONG: 342.45595°" into degrees East or degrees West, I know there is a proceedure to follow, but I cannot remember it and Google is no help this time.

 

[GLS]

I need help with this, I have been unable to figure out how to convert the second coordinate "LONG: 342.45595°" into degrees East or degrees West, I know there is a proceedure to follow, but I cannot remember it and Google is no help this time.

I think indy91 is correct above. You start moving east with increasing latitude, and at 180º you can either continue to 360º and don't bother with an east/west indication, or you reset to -180º and go down to 0º, and are now in the west.
So 342º is also 360-342 = 18º W.