aCalculus

Hi! I have fun creating my own autopilots and avionics for Kerbal Space Program.

1. What tools/software do you use for visualizing rocket telemetry during launch? For analyzing after?

2. Are there any good open papers or books on designing avionics interfaces for human use?

3. Reliable systems are hard. What kind of software development processes do you have make this possible?

4. I'm guessing you don't have a single computer running the rocket for reliability reasons. If I recall correctly, SpaceX has said they do a Byzantine generals fault tolerant system with multiple computers. Airbus and Boeing airliners do multiple flight computers, each computer running the same program on multiple CPU architectures and checking the results. How do you guys handle this?

5. Unlike SpaceX's booster landing process which requires nutso math, from watching Blue Origin landing videos, it looks like your landing process is just "stop the rocket in the air, slide over until above pad, then lower down", which a kid could hack together with just PID controllers. Is it really that simple, or are you doing full on motion planning for the final landing? Either way, I like the room for correcting errors that your method provides.

6. I've heard that SpaceX, and other rocket companies, working hours are rough for engineers and families. Have any of you worked on a Saturday in the last month?

It's great to see your rockets fly. Keep up the good work!

I use KRPC, which lets me talk to KSP from my own programs running on different computers. This way I can have my flight control program written in python, running on another desktop. Similarly, I can have an android tablet running as a avionics mfd.