The transition of GTDS to the Unix workstation environment

Abstract

Future Flight Dynamics systems should take advantage of the possibilities provided by current and future generations of low-cost, high performance workstation computing environments with Graphical User Interface. The port of the existing mainframe Flight Dynamics systems to the workstation environment offers an economic approach for combining the tremendous engineering heritage that has been encapsulated in these systems with the advantages of the new computing environments. This paper will describe the successful transition of the Draper Laboratory R&D version of GTDS (Goddard Trajectory Determination System) from the IBM Mainframe to the Unix workstation environment. The approach will be a mix of historical timeline notes, descriptions of the technical problems overcome, and descriptions of associated SQA (software quality assurance) issues