The ASC-15 was a digital computer developed by International Business Machines (IBM) for use on the Titan II

Titan (rocket family)

Titan was a family of U.S. expendable rockets used between 1959 and 2005. A total of 368 rockets of this family were launched, including all the Project Gemini manned flights of the mid-1960s...

 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). It was subsequently modified and used on the Titan III

Titan III

The Titan IIIC was a space booster used by the United States Air Force. It was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, FL., and Vandenberg Air Force Base, CA. It was planned to be used as a launch vehicle in the cancelled Dyna-Soar and Manned Orbiting Laboratory programs...

 and Saturn I Block II launch vehicles. Its principal function on these rockets was to make navigation calculations using data from inertial sensor systems. It also performed readiness checks before launch. It was a digital serial processor using fixed-point data with 27-bit words. The storage was a drum memory

Drum memory

Drum memory is a magnetic data storage device and was an early form of computer memory widely used in the 1950s and into the 1960s, invented by Gustav Tauschek in 1932 in Austria....

. Electronic circuits were welded encapsulated modules, consisting of discrete resistor

Resistor

A linear resistor is a linear, passive two-terminal electrical component that implements electrical resistance as a circuit element.The current through a resistor is in direct proportion to the voltage across the resistor's terminals. Thus, the ratio of the voltage applied across a resistor's...

s, transistor

Transistor

A transistor is a semiconductor device used to amplify and switch electronic signals and power. It is composed of a semiconductor material with at least three terminals for connection to an external circuit. A voltage or current applied to one pair of the transistor's terminals changes the current...

s, capacitor

Capacitor

A capacitor is a passive two-terminal electrical component used to store energy in an electric field. The forms of practical capacitors vary widely, but all contain at least two electrical conductors separated by a dielectric ; for example, one common construction consists of metal foils separated...

s, and other components welded together and encapsulated in a foam material. It was manufactured in the IBM plant at Owego

Owego (town), New York

Owego is a town in Tioga County, New York, USA. The population was 20,365 at the 2000 census. The name is derived from the Iroquois word Ahwaga, meaning where the valley widens....

, NY.

ASC-15 for Titan II

The first inertial guidance system for the Titan II was built by AC Spark Plug, and included an inertial measurement unit based in designs from Draper Labs at MIT and the ASC-15 computer designed and built by IBM in Owego, NY. The first Titan II missile carrying this system was launched 16 March 1962. Acquiring spares for this system became difficult, and the Air Force decided to replace it with a new system. The AC Spark Plug system, including the ASC-15, was replaced by the Delco Electronics Universal Space Guidance System (USGS) on operational Titan II missiles starting in January 1978. The guidance computer in the USGS was the Magic 352, made by Delco.

The ASC-15 was built on an aluminum frame about 1.5x1.5x1 feet. The sides, top and bottom were covered by pieces of laminated plastic, covered with gold-plated aluminum foil. These covers were slightly convex and ribbed for stiffness. Inside the covers were fifty-two logic sticks, each containing four welded encapsulated modules. These surrounded a bell frame housing a drum memory. See Figure 2.

The drum was a thin-walled stainless steel cylinder 3 inches long and 4.5 inches in diameter covered with a magnetic nickel-cobalt alloy. It was driven by a synchronous motor at 6,000 rpm. The drum had 70 tracks, of which 58 were used and 12 were spare. These tracks were used as follows:

NO. TRACKS	USE OF TRACKS
34	Instruction tracks
7	Constants
8	Target data
2	Data for temporary storage
5	Revolvers for extra fast access storage
2	Timing tracks

The capacity of a track was 1,728 bits. Instruction words were 9-bits long, and data was stored in 27-bit words.

Coincident with 58 tracks were 67 read heads and 13 write heads. While the drum was spinning at 6,000 rpm, the heads floated above the surface of the drum on a thin layer of air. When the drum was spinning up or slowing down, the heads were raised off the drum by camshafts rotated by a chain that was driven by a motor on top of the drum housing, to avoid scoring the magnetic surface. See Figure 3.

ASC-15 for Titan III

The Titan III

Titan III

The Titan IIIC was a space booster used by the United States Air Force. It was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, FL., and Vandenberg Air Force Base, CA. It was planned to be used as a launch vehicle in the cancelled Dyna-Soar and Manned Orbiting Laboratory programs...

 was a space launch vehicle based on the Titan II ICBM. The ASC-15 was kept as the vehicle guidance computer, but the drum was lengthened slightly to provide 78 usable tracks, an increase of 20 over the drum used in the Titan II. The memory held 9,792 instructions (51 tracks) and 1,152 constants (18 tracks). The speed was the same as for the Titan II: 100 revolutions/second × 64 words/revolution × 27 bits/word = 172.8 kilobits/second. The time for an addition operation was 156 µs

Microsecond

A microsecond is an SI unit of time equal to one millionth of a second. Its symbol is µs.A microsecond is equal to 1000 nanoseconds or 1/1000 millisecond...

; for a multiplication, 1,875 µs

Microsecond

A microsecond is an SI unit of time equal to one millionth of a second. Its symbol is µs.A microsecond is equal to 1000 nanoseconds or 1/1000 millisecond...

; and for a division, 7,968 µs

Microsecond

A microsecond is an SI unit of time equal to one millionth of a second. Its symbol is µs.A microsecond is equal to 1000 nanoseconds or 1/1000 millisecond...

.

ASC-15 for Saturn I

No guidance computer was used for Saturn I Block I (missions SA-1, 2, 3 and 4). The guidance system for SA-2 is shown in Figure 4. The pitch program was provided by a cam device located in the Servo Loop Amplifier Box. The sequence of events was controlled by a program device that was also used on Jupiter missiles. This was a 6-track tape recorder that sent pulses to a set of relays (the flight sequencer) to activate and deactivate various circuits in a precisely timed sequence.

The ASC-15 was first flown on SA-5, the first Saturn I Block II vehicle and the first to achieve orbit. It was a passenger on this mission, not guiding the vehicle but generating test data for later evaluation. The active guidance system on SA-5 was similar to that of earlier flights. The passenger system was the ASC-15 and the ST-124 inertial platform

ST-124-M3 inertial platform

The ST-124-M3 is a device for measuring acceleration and attitude of the Saturn V launch vehicle. It was carried by the Saturn V Instrument Unit, a , section of the Saturn V that fit between the third stage and the Apollo spacecraft...

. Guidance was open loop; that is guidance commands were functions only of time. SA-5 also saw the introduction of the Instrument Unit

Saturn V Instrument Unit

The Saturn V Instrument Unit is a ring-shaped structure fitted to the top of the Saturn V rocket's third stage and the Saturn IB's second stage . It was immediately below the SLA panels that contained the Lunar Module. The Instrument Unit contains the guidance system for the Saturn V rocket...

.

On SA-6, while open loop ST-90S guidance was used for the first stage (S-I), after separation the ST-124 and ASC-15 used path adaptive guidance (closed loop) to control the second stage (S-IV). The SA-6 guidance system is shown in Figure 5. The effectiveness of the path adaptive guidance was demonstrated inadvertently when premature shutdown of S-IV engine number eight had virtually no effect on the vehicle trajectory.

The arrangement of the ST-90S and ST-124 systems (including the ASC-15 guidance computer) on SA-6 is shown in Figure 6. This is version 1 of the Instrument Unit, which flew on SA-5, 6, and 7.

On SA-7 the ST-124 system guided the firing of both stages. The guidance and control system for SA-7 is shown in Figure 7. The digital computer is the ASC-15. It replaced both the cam device that contained the S-I tilt program for earlier missions. and the program device that controlled the sequence of events on those missions.

The next mission flown after SA-7 was SA-9. It carried a new version of the Instrument Unit, one that was unpressurized and 2 foot (0.6096 m) shorter than version 1. Version 2 flew on the remaining Saturn I missions (SA-8, 9, and 10), and is shown under construction at MSFC in Figure 8. Figure 9 is a blowup of this image, showing the dummy ASC-15 and dummy ST-124.

External links

• “Titan II missile computer. " IBM Archives: Space flight chronology.
• Martin H. Weik. "A Third Survey of Domestic Electronic Digital Computing Systems" Ballistic Research Laboratories, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland Report No. 1115, March 1961. Pages 58-59. This page includes a link to an image of a welded encapsulated module. It says also that ASC 15 stands for Advance System Controller Model 15.