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MDF

Facility

Original archive entry. The text, images and links below are kept as they were written.

Manipulator Development Facility. Simulator at Houston to train astronauts in use of the RMS (Remote Manipulator System), the shuttle robot arm. It included a full-sized mockup of the 16-m-long arm suspended by wires to simulate weightlessness, a full sized cargo bay, and helium-buoyed balloons representing shuttle payloads with their grappling fixtures.