rjn wrote:
"Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)" wrote:

Worst case scenario, there's only a couple of items that
positively have to be done by people (deploying landing
gear and pitot tubes).

The problem with this WCS however, is that if both
flight crew are incapacitated late in the mission,
odds are probably higher that everyone is,
and not just those specific two.

Right. This is a really low probability hypothetical here.

Those [pax] could be coached from the ground.

Take air data.

If they don't lose comms because they don't know how
to operate the radios and antennae.

The MSes (specifically MS2) are trained to do that. On a nominal flight
they don't need to anyway; the computers select the antennas automatically.

Recent discussions here suggested that there now
exist workarounds for full auto-land (most likely of an
unoccupied orbiter unsafe to re-enter with crew).
If so, the pax would be instructed to engage that gear,
sit back and enjoy the ride (or remain on station).

There is no workaround required for the actual flying of autoland, just
leave the DAP in AUTO and the vehicle will fly itself. The crew still
needs to perform some switch throws and button presses to deploy the air
data probes, lower the gear, etc. The "workaround" you've heard about
would hotwire those switches and buttons to allow them to be thrown
remotely. You would *not* do that if there were a crew onboard. Just
have them throw the switches at the right times. MS2 would know which
switches since that MS is the ascent/entry flight engineer anyway.

Having the MSes remain on station exposes them to a lot more risk and
means throwing away a perfectly good orbiter.

The basenote question, however, remains.
Is any sort of contingency training done on this?

No.