Man or machine, the navigator of a spacecraft traveling toward a distant planet has a delicate problem: when there is no gravitation, there can be no sense of direction. In three-dimensional space, it is impossible even to tell which way is up unless sights can be taken on a pair of reference points. But how to find those two landmarks? The easily sighted sun may glaze as usual, but the familiar earth quickly fades into a background of dim, average celestial bodies.
One promising answer to the problem has been produced for the Air Force by General Precision Aerospace of...
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