50 Years or So Ago

About 50 years back I spent time designing a tracking system for the X-15. The system tracked Polaris and then as the aircraft was in flight above the atmosphere we scanned down tracking Polaris and measuring various wavelengths to determine absorption. This allowed us for the first time to determine aerosol density and at the same time by tracking Polaris to update gyro drift for better position accuracy.

Back then we had rather crude electronics and a real time environment. No Apps, just a great team to work with.