Russian
Ukrainian |
According to
Essays on history of Computer Science and Technology in Ukraine" author Boris Malinovsky Translated from the Russian by Slava Gerovitch Apollo Guidance Computer Activities Page |
The development of automated systems for testing rockets and rocket complexes began at the Institute of Cybernetics of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences in the mid 1960s. A group of researchers from the Measurements Laboratory of the Rocket Engine Test Department of the Dnepropetrovsk Southern Machinery Construction Plant of the USSR Ministry of General Machinery Construction asked us to help automate the recording and processing of data from rocket engine tests. Tests were performed on a special stand. The rocket engine was firmly attached to a powerful base. After start-up numerous gauges that were attached to the engine sent signals to tens of arrow-pointer indicators, which occupied a whole wall in the laboratory. To record their measurements laboratory researchers had to take photographs of this wall at certain intervals. Later they studied the photographs, noted the positions of arrows on the indicators, and determined what signals were coming from the gauges during the tests. The subsequent processing of these measurements' results took weeks.
A year earlier Boris Malinovskii's department of the Institute