Color and Luminance Analysis of the Space Shuttle Multifunction Display Units(MDUs)

The purpose of this evaluation is to measure and analyze the colors that can be shown on the Multifunction Display Units (MDUs) of the Space Shuttle cockpit. The evaluation was conducted in the JSC Avionics Engineering Laboratory (JAEL) in building 16A at NASA Johnson Space Center. The JAEL contains a suite of 11 MDUs, each of which can be configured to show colors based on input values of the MDU red, green and blue (RGB) channels. Each of the channels has a range of 0 to 15. For example, bright green is produced by setting RGB to 0,15,0, and orange is produced by setting RGB to 15,4,0. The Cockpit Avionics Upgrade (CAU) program has specified the RGB settings for 14 different colors in the Display Design document (Rev A, 29 June 2001). The analysis in this report may help the CAU program determine better RGB settings for the colors.