Digital attitude control of the Skylab and Apollo/Soyuz orbital assemblies

The present work examines some extensions of the digital autopilot (DAP) capability as programmed in the Apollo Command and Service Module (CSM) onboard computer. Design activity undertaken for a thrust vector control DAP to control a proposed main engine deorbit burn of CSM while still docked to the Orbital Workshop is discussed. The design, implementation, and testing of a reaction control system DAP for the docked Skylab configuration are described along with its adaptation to control of the Apollo/Soyuz docked configuration.