Astronaut manual EVA guidance: An operational procedure

The exact, unperturbed, two-body equations of motion of an astronaut about the center of the earth are derived for an orbiting coordinate system. These equations are used as the equations of the astronauts motion relative to the space shuttle, which is located at the coordinate origin. A non-pictorial display scheme is developed for use with an interactive computer simulation which uses the above mentioned equations of relative motion. A method of plotting a field of nominal intercept paths is presented along with a procedure for using such a plot as a guidance aid. Simulations using this procedure are described. An appendix contains the description of a light weight, non-mechanical range estimation aid.