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A development and test approach for an electro-optics and tracking beam control system is described. The objective is to verify and test the performance of the Space Shuttle based Starlab experiment. Starlab will provide an on-orbit demonstration of acquisition, tracking and pointing (ATP) dynamics. This paper presents the test used to measure performance with laboratory testing of the computerized system. The Starlab Pointing Control System incorporates an advanced flight computer design. This computer intermeshes analog control loops of its mirror controlling servos. Digitally derived transformation relationships are introduced to the analog channels with solid state multiplying digital analog converters (MDACs). The control system distributes commands to a two-axis pointing gimbal and fast servo mirrors to control a line of sight that is dependent on measurements made with focal plane detectors responding to space object radiation. An approach to the system hardware and software testing has been developed. The tests include verification of optical tracking, including space object imagery and the beam control mirror servos. Flight computer software is incorporated into the computer to allow functional checkout of its algorithms. In addition, a special hardware/software test set has been developed to provide the hardware flight computer system with an emulated hardware and flight dynamic environment. The test set is a special purpose hardware system supported by an external computer for supplying an emulated interface of the Starlab actuators, sensors, and effective geometric line of sight conditions corresponding closely to the physical environment of a Starlab mission. Its primary purpose is to check out the flight computer system. Its secondary purpose is to perform 'system test' and mission simulations of the pointing control system. These tests are used to validate experiment design and support laboratory hardware integration
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