Home

ORBITER User Manual - Orbiter Space Flight Simulator

1. 73 14 7 Map 75 14 8 Align orbital plane 79 14 9 Synchronise orbit 81 14 10 RCS Attitude 82 14 11 Transfer 84 14 12 Ascent profile custom MFD mode 87 15 SPACECRAFT CONTROLS 89 15 1 Main retro and hover engines 89 15 2 Attitude thrusters 90 16 RADIO NAVIGATION AIDS 92 17 BASIC FLIGHT MANOEUVRES
2. 23 5 QUICKSTART 24 6 THE HELP SYSTEM 31 7 KEYBOARD INTERFACE 32 7 1 General 32 7 2 Spacecraft controls 33 7 3 External camera views 34 7 4 Internal cockpit view 35 7 5 MFD control 35 7 6 Menu selections 35 8 JOYSTICK INTERFACE 36 9 MOUSE INTERFACE 37 10 SPACECRAFT CLASSES
3. 116 21 3 Mission 3 De orbit from Mir 117 22 VISUAL HELPERS 119 22 1 Planetarium mode 119 22 2 Force vectors 120 22 3 Coordinate axes 122 23 DEMO MODE 123 APPENDIX A MFD QUICK REFERENCE 124 APPENDIX B SOLAR SYSTEM CONSTANTS AND PARAMETERS 128 B 1 Astrodynamic constants and parameters 128 B 2 Planetary mean orbits J2000 128 B 3 Planetary orbital element centennial rates 129 B 4 Planets Selected physical parameters 129 B 5 Rotation eleme
4. 10 3 3 Installation 10 3 4 Uninstall 11 4 BEFORE YOU START THE LAUNCHPAD 12 4 1 Scenarios tab 12 4 2 Parameters tab 14 4 3 Visual effects tab 15 4 4 Modules tab 19 4 5 Video tab 20 4 6 Joystick tab 21 4 7 Extra tab 22 4 8 About Orbiter tab
5. 38 10 1 Delta glider 38 10 2 Shuttle A 38 10 3 Shuttle PB PTV 40 10 4 Dragonfly 40 ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 3 10 5 Space Shuttle Atlantis 41 10 6 International Space Station ISS 44 10 7 Space Station MIR 44 10 8 Lunar Wheel Station 45 10 9 Hubble Space Telescope 46 10 10 LDEF Satellite 47 11 OBJECT
6. 107 19 2 Terminal MFD 108 19 3 Run a script with a scenario 108 19 4 Call a command or script via the API 108 20 EXTRA FUNCTIONALITY 109 20 1 Scenario editor 109 20 2 External MFDs 109 20 3 Performance meter 110 20 4 Remote vessel control 111 20 5 Flight data monitor 111 21 FLIGHT CHECKLISTS 113 21 1 Mission 1 Delta glider to ISS 113 21 2 Mission 2 ISS to Mir transfer
7. 1 arccos r Mean anomaly ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 133 E e E M sin Mean longitude M L True longitude l Orbit period 3 2 a T ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 134 Appendix D Terms of Use The ORBITER software documentation and the content on the ORBITER website is copyright 2000 2010 by Martin Schweiger ORBITER is not in the public domain it is the intellectual property of Martin Schweiger D 1 Orbiter Freeware License The licensor of Orbiter grants you a limited non exclusive license to use copy and distribute Orbiter downloadable from orbit medphys ucl ac uk without fee for per sonal educational charity and other non commercial use You agree to comply with the following conditions You will not modify any of the binary codes of the Orbiter software in any way If you publish a library module for Orbiter that uses undocumented features of the orbiter programming interface or links to the orbiter core in an undocumented way you must state this in the documentation for the module and advise users of potential incompatibility of the module with future Orbiter versions You will not sell Orbiter or any parts of it or charge others for use of it either for profit or merely to recover your media and distribution costs whether as a stand alone product as part of a compilation or anthology or included in a separate software package wi
8. 56 13 3 Engine information display 56 13 4 Navigation mode indicators controls 57 13 5 Surface HUD mode 58 13 6 Orbit HUD mode 58 13 7 Docking HUD mode 58 14 MULTIFUNCTIONAL DISPLAY MODES 59 14 1 COM NAV receiver setup 61 14 2 Orbit 63 14 3 VOR VTOL 67 14 4 Horizontal Situation Indicator 68 14 5 Docking 70 14 6 Surface
9. ORBITER Space Flight Simulator 2010 Edition User Manual ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 2 ORBITER User Manual Copyright c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 25 August 2010 Orbiter home orbit medphys ucl ac uk or www orbitersim com Contents 1 INTRODUCTION 5 1 1 About Orbiter 6 1 2 About this manual 6 1 3 Orbiter on the web 7 1 4 Finding more help 7 1 5 Getting started 8 2 WHAT IS NEW IN ORBITER 2010 9 3 INSTALLATION 10 3 1 Hardware requirements 10 3 2 Download
10. off rotational translational The indicator buttons can be clicked with the mouse to change the RCS mode Trim setting Displays the current setting of the trim control if available Trim ming allows to adjust the flight characteristics during atmospheric flight HUD mode RCS indicators controls Fuel status kg Main engine force N Hover engine force N Trim control setting Fuel engine displays and controls For more information about engines and spacecraft control see Section 15 13 4 Navigation mode indicators controls The navigation mode indicators are shown as a row of buttons at the bottom edge of the generic cockpit view window They display any active navigation sequences such as prograde orientation or kill rotation The buttons can be clicked with the mouse to select or deselect modes Note that some spacecraft types may not support all or any navigation modes The navigation mode indicators are not shown if the HUD is deactivated mode shortcut action KILLROT Num kill any vessel rotation auto terminates HORLVL keep vessel level with local horizon PROGRD align vessel with orbital velocity vector RETRGRD align vessel with negative orbital velocity vector NML align vessel with normal of orbital plane NML align vessel with negative normal of orbital plane HOLDALT hold altitude hover function All navigation mode except HOLDALT make use of the RCS
11. ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 80 MFD control layout MFD display components The MFD display shows a schematic orbit indicating the directions of the ascending AN and descending DN nodes of the intersection of the current orbit with the tar get orbit as well as our current position P along the orbit The angular distances from the current position to the next AN and DN passages are shown on the left range 0 360 Also shown is the time to the next node passage Tn Readouts for the relative inclination between the current and target orbits RInc and the rate of change of the relative inclination dRInc dt Rate help with timing the alignment burn Finally the estimated burn times required to align the orbit with the target plane are listed assuming a main engine burn at full thrust perpendicular to the orbital plane Note that the required velocity change Delta V and thus the burn time depends on the orbital velocity and may therefore be different at the ascending and descending nodes if the orbit is not circular The MFD shows the burn times both for the as cending TthA and descending nodes ThtD Select target object target object curr inclination current longitu de of asc node rel inclination rate of change angles to next asc desc node time to node predicted thrust times target inclination target longitude of asc node schematic orbit
12. ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 102 Since rotational alignment is not enforced at present you can simply ignore the rota tion of the station and fly straight in ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 103 18 Flight recorder You can record and play back your Orbiter si mulation sessions with the built in flight re corder feature To access the recorder during a simulation open the Flight recorder player dialog with You can now select a name for the recorded scenario By default the re cording will be stored under the current scena rio name Then press the REC button to begin recording the flight to disc Press the STOP button to turn the recorder off again You can also start and stop the recorder directly from the simulation with the keyboard shortcut An active recorder is indicated by a Record box in the simulation window Some additional recorder options can be ac cessed by pressing the button These in clude Record time acceleration this option records any changes in time compres sion during the recording During playback the user has then the option to set time compression automatically from the recorded data Sampling in system time steps If ticked the intervals between recorded data samples are determined in system time otherwise in simulation time In system time sampling is less dense during time compression This allows to reduce the size of the d
13. button Your glider will now orient itself perpendicular to the orbital plane When the Engage engines indicator in the Align MFD begins to flash engage full main engines The relative orbit inclination RInc should start to drop Ter ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 117 minate the burn when the Kill thrust indicator appears and the inclination reaches its minimum This is a very long burn about 900 seconds so you may want to fast forward but do not miss the end of the burn You probably won t be able to sufficiently reduce the inclination less than 0 5 in a single burn Repeat the process at the AN ascending node point Remember that the glider must be oriented in the opposite direction for this burn by clicking the Orbit Normal button Once the orbital planes are aligned you need to plot a rendezvous trajectory using the Sync Orbit MFD The procedure is the same as in the previous mission Tune your NAV1 receiver to MIR s transponder frequency at 132 10 and NAV2 to the IDS frequency of Dock 1 at 135 00 Once the sync maneuver is complete switch the HUD to Docking mode and switch one of the MFD displays to Docking SEL Docking Slave both HUD and MFD to NAV1 Proceed with the docking maneuver to Mir in the same way as you did for docking at the ISS in the previous mission Don t forget to open the nose cone before mak ing contact 21 3 Mis
14. e Eccentricity i Inclination Longitude of ascending node argument of periapsis true anomaly C 1 Calculating elements from state vectors Let r and v be the cartesian position and velocity vectors of an orbiting object in coordinates of a reference frame with respect to which the elements of the orbit are to be calculated e g geocentric equatorial for an orbit around Earth or heliocentric ec liptic for an orbit around the Sun We assume a right handed system with the x axis pointing towards the vernal equinox or other reference direction and the z axis pointing upwards Compute the following auxiliary vectors v v r r r e h z n v r h 1 0 2v h h v r v r v r v r v r v r x y x y y x x z z x y z z y where h is a vector perpendicular to the orbital plane n points towards the ascending node the z component of n is zero and e is the eccentricity vector pointing towards the periapsis with GM G is the gravitational constant and M is the mass of the central body neglecting the mass of the orbiter Semi major axis E a 2 with 2 2 r v E Eccentricity e e or 2 2 2 1 Eh e Inclination arccos h zh i Longitude of ascending node arccos n xn if 0 y n then 2 ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 132 is the angle between reference di
15. orbits The ejection burn should take place with the Sun in opposition on the planet s dark side so that the ship s orbital velocity is added to the planetary velocity This is the case when the source ship direction indicator is pointing away from the Sun Immediately before the ejection burn switch the source orbit to your ship so that Dv can be estimated 14 12 Ascent profile custom MFD mode This MFD mode is only available if the Custom MFD plugin is activated in the Modules section of the Launchpad dialog The ascent profile records a number of spacecraft parameters and displays them in graphs on the MFD The following are recorded Altitude as a function of time Pitch angle as a function of altitude ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 88 Radial velocity as a function of altitude Tangential velocity as a function of altitude Ascent profile MFD mode pages 1 and 2 Key options Switch display page Set altitude range Set radial velocity range Set tangential velocity range Parameters are sampled at 5 second intervals A total of 200 samples are stored and cycled By default axis ranges are adjusted automatically but manual range setting is possible Circular orbit insertion In the tangential velocity graph Vtan a gray line indicates the orbital velocity for a circular orbit as a function of altitude If the vessel s tangential velocity crosses thi
16. 103 kg empty 11 0 103 kg 100 fuel Length 14 8 m Width 7 2 m Height 5 6 m Propulsion system RCS mounted in 3 pods left right aft total 16 thrusters Thrust rating 1 0 kN per thruster Isp 4 0 104 m s vacuum 10 5 Space Shuttle Atlantis Space Shuttle Atlantis represents the only real spacecraft in the basic Orbiter distri bution but there are many more available as addons Its flight characteristics are less forgiving than fictional models like the Delta glider and just reaching orbit is a challenge The Atlantis orbiter features a working payload bay with remote manipulator system Canadarm so you can simulate the deployment or even recapture of satellites or the shipment of resupplies to the International Space Station The model now also features a virtual cockpit with working MFD instruments and head up display a working payload bay and remote manipulator arm as well as MMU support Operation procedures and implementation details are provided in separate docu ments Doc Atlantis and Doc Atlantis_MMU_Sat_30 Below are a few simplified checklists for launch docking and payload operation Launch Fire main engines at 100 ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 42 SRBs are ignited automatically when main engines reach 95 SRBs are not con trolled manually Once ignited they cannot be shut off During launch attitude is controlled via SRB thrust vectoring
17. Epoch J2000 2000 January 1 5 Planet mean a AU e i deg deg deg L deg Mercury 0 38709893 0 20563069 7 00487 48 33167 77 45645 252 25084 Venus 0 72333199 0 00677323 3 39471 76 68069 131 53298 181 97973 Earth 1 00000011 0 01671022 0 00005 11 26064 102 94719 100 46435 Mars 1 52366231 0 09341233 1 85061 49 57854 336 04084 355 45332 ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 129 Jupiter 5 20336301 0 04839266 1 30530 100 55615 14 75385 34 40438 Saturn 9 53707032 0 05415060 2 48446 113 71504 92 43194 49 94432 Uranus 19 19126393 0 04716771 0 76986 74 22988 170 96424 313 23218 Neptune 30 06896348 0 00858587 1 76917 131 72169 44 97135 304 88003 Pluto 39 48168677 0 24880766 17 14175 110 30347 224 06676 238 92881 Table 4 Planetary mean orbits B 3 Planetary orbital element centennial rates for the mean elements given above Planet rate a AU Cy e 1 Cy i Cy Cy Cy L Cy Mercury 0 00000066 0 00002527 23 51 446 30 573 57 538101628 29 Venus 0 00000092 0 00004938 2 86 996 89 108 80 210664136 06 Earth 0 00000005 0 00003804 46 94 18228 25 1198 28 129597740 63 Mars 0 00007221 0 00011902 25 47 1020 19 1560 78 68905103 78 Jupiter 0 00060737 0 00012880 4 15 1217 17 839 93 10925078 35 Saturn 0 00301530 0 00036762 6 11 1591 05 1948 89 4401052 95 Uranus 0 001
18. Help from the main menu The help system provides information about MFD modes and optionally a descrip tion of the current scenario or the currently active spacecraft Many in game dialog boxes provide context sensitive help To activate the relevant help pages click the button in the title bar of the dialog box The help system is currently still under de velopment Not all scenarios and vessels currently support context sensitive help The system can be extended by adding ad ditional scenario and vessel help pages and add on developers are encouraged to use the help system to provide user friendly information about their spacecraft or to in clude documented tutorial scenarios that illustrate the features of their plug ins Scenario info Vessel info Table of contents Help page Context sensitive help ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 32 7 Keyboard interface This section describes the default Orbiter keyboard functions Please note that the key assignments are customizable by editing the keymap dat file in the orbiter direc tory and that therefore the keyboard controls for your Orbiter installation may be different The key assignment reference in this section and the rest of the manual refers to the keyboard layout shown in the figure below For other layouts e g language specific the key labels may be different The relevant criterion for key functions in Orbiter is the positio
19. Roll shuttle for re quired heading and decrease pitch during ascent for required orbit insertion SRBs separate automatically at T 2 06min In an emergency SRBs can be jetti soned manually with Ascent continues with Orbiter main engines Throttle down as required for 3g max acceleration Tank separates at T 8 58min alt 110km when empty or manually with After tank separation orbiter switches to OMS orbital maneuvering system us ing internal tanks for final orbit insertion Attitude thrusters RCS reaction control system are activated Docking The orbiter carries a docking attachment in the cargo bay 3D model and textures Michael Grosberg Don Gallagher orbiter and Damir Gulesich ET SRB Original module code Martin Schweiger Original grappling RMS and MMU extensions Robert Conley Module code extensions David Hopkins and Douglas Beachy The virtual cockpit from the com mander s seat ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 43 Open cargo bay doors before docking Docking direction is in orbiter s y direction up The Docking MFD must be interpreted accordingly RMS manipulation and grappling The shuttle carries a mechanical manipulator arm in the cargo bay which can be used for releasing and recapturing satellites MMU control etc The arm can be used in orbit once the cargo doors have been fully opened To bring up the RMS control dialog
20. and altitude in metres e g Earth 80 62 28 62 15 Click Ap ply to jump to the selected location You can also directly use the current camera location in ground observer mode by clicking Current The longitude latitude and altitude are then entered automatically You can move the observer location by pressing and the observer al titude by pressing and The speed at which the observer moves can be adjusted with the Panning speed slider in the dialog box in the range from 0 1 to 104 m s There are two ways to select the camera orientation If the Target lock box in the di alog is ticked the camera is always automatically pointing towards the current cam era target If the box is not ticked the camera direction can be modified manually by pressing See also Section Planets in OrbiterConfig pdf on how to add new observer sites to a planet definition file In external views a display of target parameters can be toggled by pressing 12 3 Selecting the field of view The camera aperture defines the visible field of view FOV It can be adjusted in a similar way to the zoom function of a camera lens To set the aperture select the FOV tab in the Camera dialog The supported range is be tween 10 and 90 Orbiter defines the field of view as the vertical aperture between the top and bottom edge of the simulation win dow The most natural aperture depends on the size of the simulation window on yo
21. if available The frequency is listed in the station s information sheet ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 100 Slave the Docking MFD and Docking HUD to that NAV receiver and respectively If not done already synchronise relative velocity by turning the ship until it is aligned with the relative velocity marker and fire main thrusters until velocity value V approaches zero Rotate the ship to face the station marker At a range of approx 10 km tune a NAV receiver to the IDS Instrument Docking System frequency of the designated docking port if available Slave Docking MFD and Docking HUD to that receiver if applicable This will display orienta tion and direction information in the MFD and a visual representation of the ap proach path in the HUD rectangles Move towards the approach path rectangle furthest away from the station and hold Align the ship s heading with the flight path direction using the X indicator in the MFD Align the ship s position on the approach path using the indicator in the MFD Switch attitude thrusters to linear mode for this Align the ship s rotation along its longitudinal axis using the arrow indicator in the MFD Approach the station by engaging main thrusters briefly During approach correct your position continuously using linear attitude thrusters Slow down approach speed to less than 0 1m s before intercept
22. mouse over the window If unticked the focus is switched in normal Windows style by clicking the window ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 15 Stars The parameters in this group the number and brightness of background stars dis played on the celestial sphere Orbiter uses the Hipparcos star catalogue with more than 105 entries The apparent magnitude is a logarithmic scale describing the brightness of a star as seen from Earth The brightest star except for the sun Sirius has an apparent mag nitude of mv 1 5 The faintest stars visible without instruments are approximately of magnitude mv 6 Using a higher magnitude value for the max brightness setting will render stars brighter Using a higher magnitude for the min brightness setting will increase the number of faint stars rendered Increasing the min brightness level will make faint stars look brighter Using logarithmic mapping will increase the contrast between bright and faint stars to a more realistic level Instruments Transparent MFD Make the onscreen multifunctional displays transparent This provides a better view of the 3D environment but makes it more difficult to read the instruments MFD refresh Time in seconds between MFD updates Shorter intervals pro vide smoother updates but may degrade performance Some built in MFD modes such as the Surface and HSI modes define a lower limit for the update frequency Panel scale
23. 93 17 1 Surface flight 93 17 2 Launching into orbit 93 17 3 Changing the orbit 94 17 4 Rotating the orbital plane 95 17 5 Synchronising orbits 97 17 6 Landing runway approach 98 17 7 Docking 99 ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 4 18 FLIGHT RECORDER 103 18 1 Playback event editor 105 19 SCRIPT INTERFACE 107 19 1 Console window
24. Cockpit view scroll instrument panel if applicable External view rotate view direction ground observer mode only ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 37 9 Mouse interface Spacecraft instrument panels can be operated by the mouse Most buttons switches and dials are activated by pressing the left mouse button Some elements like multi way dials may respond to both left and right mouse buttons In generic cockpit view the buttons around the two multifunctional displays MFDs can be operated with the mouse In external camera modes the mouse wheel control if available can be used to move the camera towards or away from the view target The mouse wheel acts like the and keys In internal 2 D panel cockpit views the mouse wheel can be used to zoom the panel view in and out if the native resolution of the panel is higher than the size of the si mulation window not supported for legacy panel implementations The camera direction can be rotated by holding down the right mouse button and dragging the mouse This works both in external and cockpit views The mouse can of course also be used to select and manipulate dialog controls NEW ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 38 10 Spacecraft classes The following standard spacecraft types are currently available in the Orbiter stan dard distribution Many more can be downloaded as add ons See the Orbiter web site for a list of add on
25. In MFD mode selection in combination with a mode key selects that mode see Section 14 lt func gt In standard display mode in combination with a mode specific func tion key activates that function see Section 14 For control of specific multifunctional display MFD modes see Section 14 or the quick reference in Appendix A 7 6 Menu selections Move to previous item in the list Move to next item in the list Display sub list for selected item if available Go back to the parent list from a sub list Select current item and close list Cancel list ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 36 8 Joystick interface A joystick can be used to operate the attitude and main thrusters of the user con trolled spacecraft manually Action Effect Push stick left or right Rotate around vessel s longitudinal axis bank Push stick forward or back ward Rotate around vessel s transversal axis pitch Operate rudder control or Push stick left or right while holding joystick button 2 Rotate around vessel s vertical axis yaw Operate throttle control Controls main thruster settings This is similar to the Num and Num keyboard controls but it affects only the main thrusters not the retro thrusters Direction controller coolie hat Cockpit view rotate view direction External view rotate camera around the observed object Direction contoller joystick button 2
26. angle will turn you into a shooting star For now we are not concerned with such fine detail Turn prograde again and wait for your altitude to drop As you enter the lower part of the atmosphere friction will cause your velocity to decrease rapidly Reentries are usually performed with a high angle of attack AOA about 40 for the Space Shuttle Once your aerodynamic control surfaces become responsive again you can turn off the RCS system Your glider has now turned back into an aircraft You have probably ended up a long way from your launch point at the KSC Re entering towards a specified landing point requires some practice in timing the ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 30 deorbit burn and the reentry flight path We ll leave this for a later mission For now simply look for a dry patch to land your glider This completes your first orbital excursion You are now ready to try more advanced missions Try the Launch to docking with the ISS flight described in section 21 First you might want to learn a bit more about orbital maneuvers and docking procedures in section 17 ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 31 6 The help system From the Orbiter Launchpad you can get a description of the different dialog box options by pressing the Help button in the bottom right corner During the simulation you can open the Orbiter help window by pressing or by selecting
27. as soon as apoapsis distance reaches 1000km planet radius e g 7370km for Earth Use Orbit MFD mode to monitor this Wait until you reach apoapsis Turn ship prograde and engage main thrusters Kill thrusters as soon as periapsis equals apoapsis and eccentricity is back to 0 initial orbit transfer orbits A P r2 r1 a1 target orbit a2 initial orbit A P r2 r1 target orbit a1 a2 Moving into a higher orbit involves prograde acceleration at P and A periapsis and apoapsis of the transfer orbit Conversely moving from the higher to the lower or bit requires retrograde acceleration at A and P Case 2 Rotate the argument of periapsis of an elliptic orbit i e rotate the orbital el lipse in its plane Wait until you reach periapsis Turn ship retrograde and engage main thrusters until orbit is circular eccentric ity 0 Wait until you reach the desired new periapsis position Turn ship prograde and engage main thrusters until original eccentricity and apoapsis distances are re established 17 4 Rotating the orbital plane When trying to rendezvous with another object in orbit the required orbit changes can often be simplified by splitting them into two separate phases a plane change that rotates the plane of the current orbit into that of the target and further in plane operations that only require the application of thrust in the plane of the orbit Once you are in
28. can Add annotations which appear on the simulation window at particular times dur ing the replay Change camera positions Modify the time compression applied during the playback However you can not modify the recorded simulation itself such as changing vessel trajectories engine burn times animations etc To access the Playback editor start a previously recorded scenario then open the playback dialog with and click the Playback editor button This will open the playback editor dialog box Event list The top part of the dialog box contains the event list for the scenario Initially this may be empty or contain some event tags that were inserted during the original re cording Each line of the list represents an event Each event contains a time stamp simulation time since the start of the playback in seconds an event tag defining the type of event and event type specific parameters The current simulation time is indicated by a blinking line lt lt lt lt As the playback progresses the current time marker is moving through the event list Sometimes it may be useful to pause a playback in the simulation window to have more time for editing the event list Adding a new event Events are always added at the current simulation time that is at the position of the time marker You can however later edit the time stamps of events to move them to a different time First select an event type
29. can be run in unsupervised environments To start the simulation paused Tick the Start paused box to pause the simulation on start You can resume the si mulation by pressing To save your own scenarios After exiting a simulation session click the Save current button to save the current simulation state in a new scenario file For setting up custom simulation scenarios see also the Scenario Editor Manual ScenarioEditor pdf To clear quicksaved scenarios Click the Clear quicksaves button to delete all scenarios stored in the Quicksave folder ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 14 4 2 Parameters tab The Parameters tab contains various options to customise the simulation behaviour including realism and difficulty settings back ground star rendering in strument display settings and focus mode for dialog boxes Realism Complex flight model Select the realism of the flight model for spacecraft Tick this box to enable the most realistic flight parameters available for all vessel types Disabling this option may activate simplified flight parameters which make space craft easier control for newcomers Not all vessel types may support this option Damage and failure simulation Spacecraft can sustain damage and system failure for example if operational limits are exceeded Not all vessel types may support this option Limited fuel Un tick this box to ignore fuel c
30. comes with the basic distribution of Orbiter It is a User s Guide to the Orbiter software which is to say that it gives an introduc tion into how most things work but doesn t tell you much why they behave as they do By following the instructions you will find out how to operate the engines of your spacecraft how to use the instruments and how to perform the most common mis sions But a big part of the appeal of Orbiter is finding out about the why why do space craft in orbit behave as they do what is involved in a gravity assist flyby why do rockets have multiple stages why can it be tricky to line up for docking with a space station what do the numbers in the instrument displays actually mean This is where physics comes into the picture If you want to conquer the final frontier you will at some stage need to understand a few of the fundamental physical concepts that form the basis of astrodynamics and space flight Luckily most of it is not very difficult if you learn a bit about forces and gravity Newtonian mechanics and how they relate to the motion of planets and spacecraft in orbit Kepler s laws you will have covered a good deal of it Of course there are always opportunities to dig deeper into the details so your next steps might be finding out about the effects of ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 7 orbit perturbations attitude control trajectory optimisation mission planning in st
31. ence object This mode displays a pitch ladder relative to the current orbital plane where the 0 line indicates the orbital plane It also marks the direction of the orbital velocity vec tor prograde direction by and retrograde direction by If neither the pro grade nor retrograde direction is visible then the direction of the marker is indi cated by a pointer labeled PG prograde The reference object for the HUD can be manually selected by pressing 13 7 Docking HUD mode Indicated by DOCK Tgt in the upper left corner where Tgt is the name of the target station This mode marks the current docking target orbital station with a square marker and displays its name and distance It also shows the direction and magnitude of the target relative velocity vector The velocity of the target relative to the ship is indi cated by This is the direction in which you need to accelerate to synchronise your speed with the target The opposite direction the velocity of the ship relative to the target is indicated by If neither nor are visible then the direction of the marker is indicated by a pointer Similarly if the target marker is offscreen its di rection is indicated by a pointer The target station for the HUD can be manually selected by pressing ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 59 14 Multifunctional display modes Multifunctional displays o
32. for 1 AU A 499 004783806 0 00000001 s Gravitational constant G 6 67259 0 00030 10 11 kg 1 m3 s 2 General precession in longitude 5028 83 0 04 arcsec Cy Obliquity of ecliptic J2000 84381 412 0 005 arcsec Mass Sun Mercury 6023600 250 Mass Sun Venus 408523 71 0 06 Mass Sun Earth Moon 328900 56 0 02 Mass Sun Mars system 3098708 9 Mass Sun Jupiter system 1047 3486 0 0008 Mass Sun Saturn system 3497 898 0 018 Mass Sun Uranus system 22902 98 0 03 Mass Sun Neptune system 19412 24 0 04 Mass Sun Pluto system 1 35 0 07 108 Mass Moon Earth 0 012300034 3 10 9 Table 2 Primary constants Constant Symbol Value Astronomical unit distance c A AU 1 49597870691 1011 3 m Heliocentric gravitational constant k2 AU3 d 2 GMsun 1 32712440018 1020 8 109 m3 s 2 Mass Earth Moon 81 30059 0 00001 Table 3 Derived constants Notes Data are from the 1994 IAU file of current best estimates Planetary ranging deter mines the Earth Moon mass ratio The value for 1 AU is taken from JPL s current planetary ephemeris DE 405 Reference Standish E M 1995 Report of the IAU WGAS Sub Group on Numerical Stan dards in Highlights of Astronomy I Appenzeller ed Table 1 Kluwer Academic Publishers Dordrecht B 2 Planetary mean orbits J2000
33. if the panel is larger than the simulation window or to scroll the panel out of the way If a ship supports multiple panels you can switch between them with Generic cockpit Generic cockpit 2D panel view 2D panel view Virtual cockpit Virtual cockpit ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 51 For details on HUD and MFD modes see sections 13 and 14 12 2 External views External views allow to have a look at any objects currently populating the simulated solar system including the Sun planets and moons spacecraft orbital stations and surface bases From cockpit view an external view of the current spaceship can be selected by pressing Other objects can be selected from the target list in the Camera dialog Two types of external camera modes are available Track views follow the object The camera can be rotated around the target object by pressing keys The and keys move the camera towards or away from the target Different camera panning modes for external views can be se lected by pressing or via the Track tab in the Camera dialog Target relative The camera is fixed in the target s local frame of rotation Looking at a planet in this mode for example will rotate the camera together with the planet around its axis will rotate the camera around the tar get s local axes Global frame The camera is fixed in a non rotating reference frame Looking at a planet in this mode w
34. may have a slight impact on frame NEW NEW ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 21 rates If the selected video mode doesn t support stencil buffers this option is ig nored Full Screen Select this option to run Orbiter in full screen mode You can choose the screen resolution and colour depth from the lists provided Only modes supported by the selected device are listed here Higher resolution and colour depth will im prove the visual appearance at the cost of reduced performance In addition you can select the Disable vertical sync option This allows Orbiter to update a frame without waiting for a synchronisation signal from the monitor This can improve frame rates but may lead to visual artefacts tearing On some systems the hardware frame buffer switching may cause the screen occasio nally to flash white Use Disable hardware pageflip to solve this problem Disabling hardware pageflip also disables vertical sync Window Select this option to run Orbiter in a window You can specify the size of the render window here Selecting one of the available fixed aspect ratio options 4 3 normal 16 10 widescreen or 16 9 widescreen automatically adjusts the window width or height to maintain the aspect ratio Large window sizes can reduce simula tion performance Note that some older graphics drivers may not allow 3 D applica tions to run in window mode 4 6 Joystick tab The Joystick tab allows selec
35. move the observer position and will change the observer altitude and will rotate the observer di rection unless locked to the target ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 35 7 4 Internal cockpit view The two multifunctional displays MFD on the left and right side of the screen are controlled via left right Shift key combinations where the left Shift key addresses the left MFD the right shift key addresses the right MFD The Head up display HUD and MFDs are visible only in internal cockpit view Toggle between generic 2D panel and 3D virtual cockpit modes if sup ported by the current spacecraft Rotate view direction Return to default view direction Scroll instrument panel in 2D panel view Switch to neighbour panel if available in 2D panel view Toggle HUD display on off Toggle HUD colour Switch HUD mode HUD reference selection Orbit HUD opens reference selection input box Docking HUD steps through available NAV receivers Docking HUD Reference selection bypassing XPDR and IDS transmit ters 7 5 MFD control MFD commands are generally key commands where the left and right keys refers to the left and right MFD display respectively Toggle MFD on off equivalent to MFD PWR button Open a menu for MFD mode selection equivalent to MFD SEL button Open page close the MFD specific parameter selection menu equivalent to MFD MNU button lt mode gt
36. need to plan your ascent care fully not to run out of fuel Delta glider model and textures by Roger Frying Tiger Long Instrument panels by Martin Schweiger ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 39 The vessel has a set of two main and two hover thrusters plus a pair of auxiliary thruster pods which can be rotated 180 for main hover or retro thrust Model design Roger Long Instrument panels and module code Martin Schweiger Virtual cockpit payload management exten sions Radu Poenaru The Shuttle A comes with instrument panels For operational details and technical specifications see the separate Shuttle A Technical Manual The latest version of the Shuttle A supports a virtual cockpit detachable cargo pods and working landing gear contributed by Radu Poenaru Main and overhead instrument panels Turn the panels on and off with The Shuttle A supports two panels which can be selected with and Fuel tank pump status indicator airlock lock cover control Navmode selectors indicators left MFD RCS mode select or right MFD main engines hover engines thrust indicators aux engines aux pod tilt controls payload control ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 40 Vessel specific key controls Operate docking hatch mechanism Open close outer airlock door Operate landing gear 10 3 Shuttle PB PTV
37. of the SLF Shuttle Landing Facility at the Kennedy Space Center Cape Canaveral Florida You are in control of a Delta glider a powerful futuristic spacecraft aligned and ready for takeoff You can always exit the simulation by pressing or or by clicking Exit on the main menu Orbiter saves the current simulation status in the Current status scenario so you can continue your flight later by selecting this scenario Camera modes You are in an external camera mode looking towards your ship You can rotate the camera around your ship by pressing and holding down the key and pressing a cursor key on the cursor keypad of your keyboard Alternatively you can press the right button on your mouse and drag the mouse to rotate the camera Or if you have a joystick with a direction con troller coolie hat you can use that as well To jump into the cockpit of your glider press always toggles between cockpit and external view of the spacecraft you are controlling In the cockpit you can look around by rotating the camera with or with the right mouse button or the joystick coolie hat To look straight ahead press the button To learn more about camera modes and views have a look at Section 12 Cockpit modes At the moment you are in virtual cockpit mode that is you are inside a three dimensional representation of the glider cockpit with the glass pane of the he
38. on rotating docking targets only if the vessel s docking port is aligned with its longitudinal axis of rotation This is the case for Shuttle A and Dragonfly but not for the Delta glider or Space Shut tle The wheel station sends a transponder signal at frequency 132 70 The default IDS transmitter frequencies for the two docking ports are Port 1 136 00 Port 2 136 20 ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 46 Wheel model and textures Martin Schweiger 10 9 Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope is the visible ultraviolet near infrared element of the Great Observatories astronomical program The spacecraft provides an order of mag nitude better resolution than is capable from ground based telescopes The objectives of the HST are to 1 investigate the composition physical characteristics and dy namics of celestial bodies 2 examine the formation structure and evolution of stars and galaxies 3 study the history and evolution of the universe and 4 provide a long term space based research facility for optical astronomy During initial on or bit checkout of the Hubble s systems a flaw in the telescope s main reflective mirror was found that prevented perfect focus of the incoming light This flaw was caused by the incorrect adjustment of a testing device used in building the mirror Fortunately HST model and textures by David Sundstrom ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger
39. page press RTN Rotational docking alignment The attitude MFD can also align the vessel with a target docking port From the main page press the DCK button This opens the Dock alignment page Docking alignment is performed with data from an IDS instrument docking system transmitter Make sure that one of your NAV radios is tuned to the IDS transmitter of the target dock Use the NAV button to select the appropriate radio Docking alignment can only be activated once an IDS signal is received Press ACT to activate the alignment mode You can then return to the main page with RTN Docking alignment mode is cancelled if the IDS transmitter goes out of range or if the slaved radio is re tuned Docking alignment also works for off axis docking ports Pre multiplying an angular offset Sometimes it is useful to apply an angular offset to all attitude modes For example the Space Shuttle s OMS engines are tilted by 15 against the longitudinal axis The resulting thrust vector therefore points to 15 pitch For a prograde OMS burn the Shuttle needs to pitch up by 15 against the orbital velocity vector This constant off set due to engine arrangement can be taken into account by the Attitude MFD Open the Configuration page by pressing CFG from the main page You can now add angular offsets by pressing the ADD button You can then set the rotation axis and angle similar to the attitude mode setup For example for the Shuttle add a p
40. the OBS indicator will turn into the ap proach direction and can be used as a localiser indicator At the same time the glideslope indicator will become active When both indicators are centered to form a crosshair you are on course and on glideslope to the runway 14 5 Docking The Docking MFD assists during final approach to dock with another vessel or orbital station It provides indicators for translational and rotational alignment with the ap proach path as well as distance and closing speed readouts Left HSI indicator NAV receiver frequency and identifier OBS TO FROM indicator Glideslope Localiser Course Deviation Bearing Right HSI indicator Gyro compass CDI Distance ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 71 This instrument relies on docking approach data received by your spacecraft Ap proach data can be acquired in three different modes IDS mode data are acquired from a radio signal sent by the docking target The IDS Instrument Docking System signal is obtained by tuning a NAV receiver to the appropriate frequency and slaving the Docking MFD to that receiver The typical range for IDS is 100km To select a NAV receiver press The se lected frequency is displayed in the upper right corner of the MFD Visual mode Docking parameters are acquired from onboard visual systems typically video cameras mounted in the docking port The visual system aids in docking t
41. the landing gear Turn right towards heading 140 Pitch up steeply to 70 ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 114 At about 30km altitude your glider will start to drop its nose due to decreasing at mospheric pressure even while you are pulling back on the stick Now activate the RCS Reaction Control System by right clicking the RCS Mode selector on the right side of the instrument panel or by pressing Num You are now controlling your craft with attitude thrusters Pitch down to about 20 After leaving the dense part of the atmosphere you need to gain tangential velocity to achieve orbit Your flight path indicator the symbol on the HUD should stay above 0 Switch the right MFD to Orbit mode SEL Orbit Select the ship s orbit as refer ence plane and select ISS as target ISS Continue at 100 thrust Maintain your heading and adjust pitch angle so that the flight path vector remains slightly above 0 You will see how your orbit tra jectory green curve in the Orbit MFD grows Cut thrusters when your apogee radius highest point of the orbit reaches 6 731M the ApR entry in the left column of the Orbit MFD This corresponds to an al titude of 360 km Switch to Orbit HUD mode So far we are on a ballistic flight path that would eventually bring us back to the surface To enter orbit we need to perform a further burn orb
42. top left corner of the simulation window It contains information about the camera target and track mode This display can be turned on and off with Camera target Camera track mode Camera distance from target External camera information View Name of the current camera target Mode The camera mode used for tracking the target Dist Distance between camera and target 13 3 Engine information display The engine information display is only shown in non panel cockpit views Fuel status Remaining fuel is displayed as percentage of full tanks Main engine The horizontal bar shows current main retro engine thrust as fraction of max engine thrust Green indicates main thrusters orange indicates retro thrus ters The numerical value shows acceleration in units of m s2 positive for main neg ative for retro thrust Note that the acceleration may change even if the thrust setting doesn t because the ship s mass changes as fuel is consumed Hover engine If available hover engines are mounted underneath the ship s fuse lage to assist in surface flight in particular during takeoff landing Display analogous to main engine ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 57 RCS indicators controls The Reaction Control System RCS is an assembly of small thrusters arranged on the spacecraft so that they can be used for rotation and fine translational adjustments The display shows the current mode
43. tuned to the runway ILS system The HSI contains a course pointer deviation and glideslope indicator It works like a standard aircraft instrument so you may already be familiar with its use If not check section 14 4 for details ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 28 As you approach the runway you will see PAPI and VASI landing aids in front of and beside the runway see section 17 6 The PAPI is of limited use here because it is adjusted for the Space Shuttle s steep descent slope of 20 Throttle back and engage airbrakes to reduce speed Lower the landing gear After touchdown engage left and right wheel brakes and until you come to a full stop Space flight So far we have treated the glider much like a conventional aircraft Now it is time to aim a bit higher Take off as before Turn east use the compass ribbon at the top edge of the HUD or the one in the Surface MFD display and pitch up to 50 As you gain altitude you will notice that your craft starts to behave differently due to the reduction in atmospheric pressure One of the effects is a loss of lift which causes the flight path indicator the HUD marker slowly to drift down Another effect is the loss of response from your aerodynamic control surfaces At about 30km altitude your glider will start to drop its nose even while you are pulling back on the stick Now activate the RCS Reaction Control Syst
44. variations in Earth s rotation by inserting leap seconds at irre gular intervals Currently the offset between TDB and UT is 66 184 seconds Date TDB date and time readout Engine information display Left MFD Right MFD Direction indicator Pitch ladder Altitude Airspeed Compass tape General information Nav modes Velocity vector ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 56 MJD The Julian Date JD is the interval of time in days elapsed since 4713 BC January 1 at Greenwich mean noon The Modified Julian Date MJD is the Julian Date minus 2 400 000 5 Since dates are referenced to TDB a day is defined as consisting of 86400 seconds SI rather than as mean solar day Sim Simulated time in seconds elapsed since the start of the simulation Wrp Time acceleration factor This field is not displayed for acceleration factor 1 real time FoV vertical field of view i e viewport camera aperture FPS current frame rate frames per second Dim viewport dimension width and height in pixels colour depth in bits per pixel The display of frame rate and viewport dimension can be turned on and off with the key Orbiter provides a date conversion utility date exe in the Utils subdirectory The Scenario Editor see Section 20 1 allows to manipulate the date of a running simula tion 13 2 Camera target mode display This data block is displayed in external camera modes only in the
45. via a scena rio file Camera Mode preset list ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 54 13 Generic cockpit view Generic cockpit mode displays flight information in a standard format and is availa ble for all vessels Some vessel types may additionally provide customised instru mentation in the form of 2 D panels or 3 D virtual cockpits In that case switches between the available modes The generic view mode represents a head up display HUD that projects various avionics data displays directly onto the pilot s forward view The HUD is switched on off with HUD modes can be selected with The following modes are available Surface Displays horizon pitch ladder compass ribbon altitude and airspeed Orbit Displays orbital plane pitch ladder prograde and retrograde velocity markers Docking Displays target distance and relative velocity markers All HUD modes show engine and fuel status in the top left corner and general infor mation time and camera aperture in the top right corner Two multifunctional displays MFDs can be displayed independent of the HUD mode see Section 14 Each MFD has up to 12 mode dependent function buttons along the left and right edges of the display and 3 standard buttons below the dis play The standard buttons are PWR Turns the MFD display on or off This button is available even if the MFD is deactivated provided that the HUD is activated SE
46. 1 to 104m logarithmic scale VSPD vertical airspeed component m s The vertical speed bar has a range from 0 1 to 103m s logarithmic scale Positive vertical speed is indicated by a green bar negative vertical speed by a yellow or red bar Red is a surface impact warning Target indicator Shows the horizontal location of the slaved NAV transmitter ship relative on a logarithmic scale Range 1 to 104m Hspeed vector Shows the horizontal component of the airspeed vector ship relative on a logarithmic scale Range 0 1 to 103m s VTOL cone This circle indicates the admissible deviation from the vertical touchdown vector as a function of altitude During VTOL landing the target indi cator must remain inside the VTOL cone A red circle indicates that the ship is outside the cone The VTOL cone is displayed only when the MFD is slaved to a VTOL transmitter 14 4 Horizontal Situation Indicator The Horizontal Situation Indicator HSI consists of two independent displays Each display can be slaved to a NAV receiver and show directional and relative bearing in formation The instruments accept data from surface based transmitters such as VOR and ILS The function is similar to instrument navigation systems found in aircraft The display consists of a gyro compass indicating the current heading at the 12 o clock position The yellow arrow in the centre of the instrument is the course arrow or Omni Bearing Selector OB
47. 47 however Hubble was designed for regular on orbit maintenance by Shuttle missions The first servicing mission STS 61 in December 1993 fully corrected the problem by installing a corrective optics package and upgraded instruments as well as replacing other satellite components A second servicing mission scheduled for March 1997 installed two new instruments in the observatory Orbiter provides several Space Shuttle HST missions for both deployment and re capture operations For Shuttle payload manipulation see Section 10 5 above HST specific key controls Deploy retract high gain antennae Open close telescope tube hatch Deploy fold solar arrays 10 10 LDEF Satellite Long Duration Exposure Facility LDEF Deployed in orbit on April 7 1984 by Shuttle Challenger and intended for retrieval after one year the LDEF satellite was stranded in orbit for six years after the Challen ger accident The crew of STS 32 recovered the LDEF from its decaying orbit on Jan uary 11 1990 two months before it would have re entered the Earth s atmosphere and would have been destroyed The LDEF makes a good object for deployment and retrieval missions in Orbiter LDEF mesh by Don Gallagher ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 48 11 Object information Use the object information window to retrieve data and current parameters about the current camera target object spacecraft spaceports celestial objects sun p
48. 52025 0 00019150 2 09 1681 40 1312 56 1542547 79 Neptune 0 00125196 0 0000251 3 64 151 25 844 43 786449 21 Pluto 0 00076912 0 00006465 11 07 37 33 132 25 522747 90 arcsecs Cy Julian century a Semi major axis e eccentricity i inclination longitude of the ascending node longitude of perihelion L mean longitude Notes This table contains mean orbit solutions from a 250 yr least squares fit of the DE 200 planetary ephemeris to a Keplerian orbit where each element is allowed to vary line arly with time This solution fits the terrestrial planet orbits to 25 or better but achieves only 600 for Saturn Elements are referenced to mean ecliptic and equi nox of J2000 at the J2000 epoch 2451545 0 JD Reference Explanatory Supplement to the Astronomical Almanac 1992 K P Seidelmann Ed p 316 Table 5 8 1 University Science Books Mill Valley California B 4 Planets Selected physical parameters Planet Mean radius km Mass 1023kg Density g cm3 Siderial rota tion period h Siderial orbit period yr Mercury 2440 1 3 301880 5 427 1407 509 0 2408445 Venus 6051 84 0 01 48 6855374 5 204 5832 444 0 6151826 Earth 6371 01 0 02 59 73698968 5 515 23 93419 0 9999786 Mars 3389 92 0 04 6 418542 3 9335 0 0004 24 622962 1 88071105 Jupiter 69911 6 18986 111 1 326 9 92425 11 856523 Saturn 58232 6 5684 6272 0
49. 6873 10 65622 29 423519 Uranus 25362 12 868 32054 1 318 17 24 0 01 83 747407 Neptune 24624 21 1024 569 1 638 16 11 0 01 163 72321 Pluto 1151 0 15 1 1 153 28 248 0208 Planet V 1 0 mag Geometric albedo Equatorial gravity m s2 Escape velocity km s ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 130 Mercury 0 42 0 106 3 701 4 435 Venus 4 4 0 65 8 87 10 361 Earth 3 86 0 367 9 780327 11 186 Mars 1 52 0 15 3 69 5 027 Jupiter 9 4 0 52 23 12 0 01 59 5 Saturn 8 88 0 47 8 96 0 01 35 5 Uranus 7 19 0 51 8 69 0 01 21 3 Neptune 6 87 0 41 11 00 0 05 23 5 Pluto 1 0 0 3 0 655 1 3 All values from reference 1 except Pluto data from 2 Mercury to Neptune masses derived from GM data in 1 thanks to Duncan Sharpe for pointing this out Orbiter now uses 23 93447h 23h 56m 4 09s which appears to give better long term stability References 1 Yoder C F 1995 Astrometric and Geodetic Properties of Earth and the Solar System in Global Earth Physics A Handbook of Physical Constants AGU Reference Shelf 1 American Geophysical Union 2 Explanatory Supplement to the Astronomical Almanac 1992 K P Seidelmann Ed p 706 Table 15 8 University Science Books Mill Valley California B 5 Rotation elements Planet North pole Obliquity of eclip tic Longitude of Sun s tran sit Right a
50. C screen resolution to avoid excessive switching between video display modes ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 124 Appendix A MFD quick reference NAV COM see pg 61 Orbit see pg 63 HIS see pg 68 Switch left right HSI Select NAV receiver Rotate OBS left Rotate OBS right Prev receiver Next receiver Down0 05MHz Down 1MHz Up 0 05MHz Up 1MHz Select orbit reference Auto select reference Select target Unselect target Display mode Frame of reference Orbit projec tion mode Alt rad dis tance display ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 125 VOR VTOL see pg 67 Docking see pg 70 Surface see pg 73 Select NAV receiver Switch to vis ual acquisition Direct target input Select NAV receiver Indicated airspeed IAS True airspeed TAS Ground relati ve speed GS Orbital speed OS ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 126 Map see pg 75 Align orbital planes see pg 79 Synchronise orbits see pg 81 Select map reference Select target base orbit Zoom out Zoom in Toggle track mode on off Open config page Scroll up Scroll down Scroll left Scroll right Select target object Toggle inter section point List length Rotate inter section point Rotate inter
51. Descending node The point at which the orbit passes through the reference plane from above Radius vector The vector from the orbit s focal point to the current position of the orbiting body For further explanation of orbital elements see Appendix C For hyperbolic non periodic orbits the following parameters are interpreted spe cially SMa real semi axis a distance from coordinate origin defined by intersection of hyperbola asymptotes to periapsis The semi major axis is displayed negative in this case SMi imaginary semi axis b a sqrt e2 1 ApD apoapsis distance not applicable T orbital period not applicable PeT time to periapsis passage negative after periapsis passage ApT time to apoapsis passage not applicable MnA mean anomaly defined as e sinh E E with E hyperbolic eccentric anomaly G field contribution The G value at the bottom of the display shows the relative contribution of the cur rent reference body to the total gravity field at the ship s position This can be used to estimate the reliability of the Keplerian 2 body orbit calculation For values close to 1 a 2 body approximation is accurate For low values the true orbit will deviate from the analytic calculation resulting in a change of the orbital elements over time As a warning indicator the G display will turn yellow for contributions lt 0 8 and red if the selected reference object is not the dominant contr
52. INFORMATION 48 11 1 Vessel information 48 11 2 Spaceport information 48 11 3 Celestial body information 49 12 CAMERA MODES 50 12 1 Internal view 50 12 2 External views 51 12 3 Selecting the field of view 52 12 4 Storing and recalling camera modes 53 13 GENERIC COCKPIT VIEW 54 13 1 General information display 55 13 2 Camera target mode display
53. L Displays the MFD mode selection screen This allows to activate a different MFD mode If more than 12 modes are available use SEL repeatedly to show more modes MNU Displays an onscreen menu for the available function buttons of the cur rent MFD mode including the associated keyboard shortcuts The MFD buttons can be operated either with the mouse or with keyboard shortcuts ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 55 Generic cockpit view with two onscreen MFD displays and HUD in surface mode 13 1 General information display A block of data with information about simulation time and speed frame rate and camera aperture displayed in the top right corner of the simulation window This display can be turned on and off with Date and time readout Modified Julian Date days Simulation time seconds Frame rate Time acceleration factor Field of view camera aperture Viewport dimension W x H x bpp General simulation information The date in Orbiter is referenced to Barycentric Dynamical Time TDB TDB is a li near time scale measured at the barycentre of the solar system for the purpose of ac counting for relativistic effects useful for expressing planetary motion and other ce lestial events It is similar but not identical to Universal Time UT which is the time reference that terrestrial clocks are generally referenced to subject to a time zone off set UT is adjusted to
54. PROGRD RETRGRD NML and NML align the kill rotation level horizon pro grade retro grade orbit normal orbit antinormal hold altitude ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 58 vessel into a specific attitude with respect to the orbital velocity vector and orbital plane while HORLVL aligns with respect to the local horizon HOLDALT is only available for vessels that provide hover thrusters The KILLROT mode terminates automatically at zero angular velocity All other modes are persistent and terminate only when deselected or when a conflicting mode is selected 13 5 Surface HUD mode Indicated by SRFCE in the upper left corner This mode displays a pitch ladder which indicates the ship s orientation w r t the cur rent plane of the horizon The plane of the horizon is defined by its normal vector from the planet centre to the spacecraft The compass ribbon at the top of the screen indicates the ship s forward direction w r t geometric north A marker shows the direction of the current target space port The box left below the compass ribbon shows the current altitude m The box right below the compass ribbon shows the current airspeed m s even if there is no at mosphere The surface relative velocity vector direction is marked by 13 6 Orbit HUD mode Indicated by ORBIT Ref in the upper left corner where Ref is the name of the refer
55. S When the slaved NAV radio is tuned to a VOR NAV receiver frequency vertical speed m s altitude m vertical speed bar log scale altitude bar log scale NAV type and id NAV distance and direction horizontal air speed m s horizontal speed vector VTOL cone target position indicator ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 69 transmitter the OBS can be adjusted with the OB and OB keys For ILS transmitters the OBS is automatically fixed to the approach direction The middle section of the course arrow is the Course Deviation Indicator CDI It can deflect to the left and right to show the deviation of the OBS setting from the cur rent bearing to the NAV sender If the CDI is deflected to the left then the selected radial is to the left of the current position In the lower left corner of the instrument is the TO FROM indicator TO means that you are working with a bearing from you to the ground station FROM indi cates a radial from the ground station to you When tuned to an ILS localiser transmitter the instrument shows an additional ho rizontal glideslope bar for vertical guidance to the runway If the bar is centered in the instrument you are on the correct glide slope If it is in the upper half the glide slope is above you i e you are too low If it is in the lower half the glide slope is be low you and you are approaching too high
56. SLF runway 33 at the KSC You may need to scroll the instrument panel down a bit Cur to see the runway in front of you Make sure you can still see the top half of the panel with the MFD screens Your launch is scheduled at MJD 51983 6308 the Modified Julian Date or MJD is Orbiter s universal time reference and is shown in the top right corner of the screen This leaves plenty of time to get used to the instrumentation If you are not yet familiar with the glider s panel layout check section 10 1 For details on MFD modes see section 14 The left MFD screen is in Surface mode and shows velocity and altitude data The right MFD screen is in Map mode and shows your current location KSC as a white cross The orbital plane of the ISS is shown as a yellow curve As time progresses the curve will shift across the map as the Earth rotates under the sta tion s orbital plane To fast forward to your launch window press Each time you press time accelerates by a factor of 10 As you approach launch time switch back to real time by pressing until the Wrp indicator in the top right corner of the screen disappears Engage main engines Num to 100 thrust You may also use the sliders on the instrument panels or the throttle control on your joystick to operate the main engines At ground speed 100 m s surface MFD or HUD readout pull the stick or press Num to rotate Climb at 10 and retract
57. Sizing factor for instrument panels Scale 1 provides optimal visual quality but other values may be used to adapt the panel size at low or high screen resolutions Panel scroll speed Determines how fast the panel can be scrolled across the screen pixels second Negative values invert the panel scroll direction 4 3 Visual effects tab The Visual effects tab provides options for tuning the rendering parameters and graphic detail These options will improve the visual appearance and realism of the simulator but most of them can have an adverse effect on simulation performance frame rates when enabled and may increase video and main memory demands so they should be used with care in particular on less powerful computers As a first step in troubleshooting Orbiter problems it is often a good idea to turn off all visual effects Note that some advanced rendering options can also be found in the Extra tab under Visualisation parameters This includes mipmap and anisotropic filtering options as well as the new on demand texture loading feature ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 16 Planetary effects Cloud layers Render clouds as a separate mesh layer for appropriate planets Cloud shadows Render cloud shadows cast on the planet surface Only planets whose config files contain a CloudShadowDepth entry lt 1 will actually render cloud shadows Cloud lay ers dis abled left and enab
58. The PB is a very agile single seater It produces little lift in atmospheric flight and depends on its hover thrusters for takeoff and landing Aerodynamic control surfaces are not supported in this version Attitude control is performed via the RCS reaction control system Overall design and textures Bal zs Patyi Model im provements Martin Schweiger Technical specifications Mass 500 kg empty orbiter 750 kg fuel capacity 1250 kg total Length 7 m Thrust 3 0 104 N main 2 x 0 75 104 N hover Isp 5 0 104 m s fuel specific impulse in vacuum 10 4 Dragonfly The Dragonfly is a space tug designed for moving payload in orbit It may be used to bring satellites delivered by the Space Shuttle into higher orbits or to help in the as sembly of large orbital structures The Dragonfly has no dedicated main thrusters but a versatile and adjustable reac tion control system THE DRAGONFLY IS NOT DESIGNED FOR ATMOSPHERIC DESCENT OR SUR FACE LANDING ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 41 Dragonfly original design Martin Schweiger Model improvements and textures Roger Long Systems si mulation and in strument panels Radu Poenaru The Dragonfly is the first vessel to be modeled with detailed electrical and environ mental systems simulation contributed by Radu Poenaru For detailed information see the Dragonfly Operations Handbook Technical specifications Mass 7 0
59. The refresh rate for the HSI MFD is 4Hz or the user selection in the Launchpad di alog whichever is higher Key options Select NAV receiver Switch focus to left right HSI instrument Rotate OBS left Rotate OBS right MFD control layout Switch left right HSI Select NAV receiver Rotate OBS left Rotate OBS right ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 70 MFD display components To use the HSI for surface navigation Determine the frequency of the VOR station you want to use e g from the Map or spaceport info dialog and tune one of your NAV receivers to that frequency on the COM NAV MFD Slave one of the HSI displays to that receiver with To fly directly towards the station turn the OBS indicator until the CDI aligns with the arrow and the TO FROM indicator shows TO Turn the spacecraft until the OBS indicator points to the 12 o clock position If the CDI wanders off to the left or right turn the spacecraft in that direction un til the arrow is aligned again To fly away from the station use the same procedure but make sure that the TO FROM indicator shows FROM To use the HSI for instrument landing Make sure the runway is equipped with ILS use the spaceport info dialog and tune one of your NAV receivers to the appropriate frequency Slave one of the HSI displays to that receiver As soon as the ILS transmitter is in range
60. a perihelion marker equatorial position and rate angle of attack deg pitch ladder Indicated airspeed IAS True airspeed TAS Ground relati ve speed GS Orbital speed OS ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 75 TAS true airspeed The speed of the spacecraft relative to the surrounding at mosphere Airspeed is usually measured with a pitot tube in the airstream re cording the difference between freestream and stagnation point pressure The TAS mode is only available if the freestream pressure p1 gt 10 4Pa on Earth this corresponds to approx 140 km altitude If TAS cannot be measured the speed tape is reset to 0 and the readout shows IAS indicated airspeed Commonly used in conventional aircraft IAS is cali brated to atmospheric density and speed of sound at sea level IAS and TAS are similar at low altitude but start to diverge at higher altitudes with IAS lt TAS The limit p1 gt 10 4Pa also applies for IAS availability GS ground relative speed The magnitude of the vessel s velocity vector transformed into the rotating planet reference frame This is similar to TAS at lower altitudes but diverges at higher altitudes Usually TAS is no longer availa ble at altitudes where the differences would become significant Note For an ob ject in geostationary orbit GS is zero since it is stationary relative to the rotating planet frame OS orbital
61. ad up display HUD in front of you and the instruments and controls arranged ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 25 around you If you look back you can even get a glimpse of your passengers in the cabin behind you You can switch to a different cockpit mode by pressing Pressing once will open the generic glass cockpit mode with only the HUD and two onscreen mul tifunctional displays Pressing again will open a 2 D panel mode The panel can be scrolled by pressing a cursor key on the cursor keypad To scroll the panel out of the way press You should now be able to see the runway stretching in front of you Scrolling the panel is useful if you want to see more of your surroundings Also if the panel is larger than your simulation window you can scroll different parts of the panel into view If the native resolution of the panel is larger than your simulation window you can use the mouse wheel to zoom the panel view in and out this feature may not be supported by all spacecraft types Some spacecraft have more than a single panel which can be accessed by pressing in combination with a cursor key If you press you will see the glider s overhead panel with some additional controls Pressing twice will bring up the lower panel with brake and gear controls For now switch back to the main panel with Not all spacecraft types support 2 D panels or 3 D virtual cockpits but the ge
62. age www lua org A large number of functions and methods have been added to the standard Lua command set to provide an interface to the Orbiter simulation environment To a large extent the Lua Orbiter interface replicates the Orbiter C API interface There are several methods available to users and developers for accessing the script interface Console window Make sure the LuaConsole module is activated in the Modules tab of the Orbiter launchpad The console can then be opened by selecting Lua console window from the custom command list Terminal MFD Make sure the LuaMFD module is activated in the Modules tab of the Orbiter launchpad The terminal MFD mode is then available via Run a script on launching a scenario This is useful for mission or tutorial style scenarios Execute a Lua command or script from a module using the Orbiter API This is useful for implementing autopilots and control systems For script examples and a list of available functions see the Orbiter Scripting User Manual section in the Orbiter online help available from the Help button on the Launchpad window or with from within the simulation From a terminal console window or terminal MFD you can access the script manual by typing help api 19 1 Console window The console allows to enter com mands or launch scripts controlling various aspects of spacecraft beha vior To open the console window select Lua conso
63. al resolution level supported by any planetary body may be lower than this value depending on the texture set available Higher resolution textures for may bodies may be downloaded from the Orbiter website or add on repositories The highest resolution levels are usually only supported in selected areas of the surface e g around spaceports If you are using many high resolution texture maps it is important to activate the load on demand feature to avoid excessive loading and closing times This feature can be activated under the Extra tab of the Orbiter Launchpad Select Visualisation parameters Planet rendering options Load on demand General effects Vessel shadows Enable shadows cast by spacecraft on planet surfaces Object shadows Enable dynamic shadows of ground based objects such as buildings Specular reflections from objects Render reflective surfaces like solar pa nels window panes or metallic surfaces May degrade performance Reentry flames Render glowing plasma hull during reentry Particle streams Render ionised exhaust gases and vapour trails with particle effects Planet night lights dis abled left and enabled right Florida scenery at resolution level 10 left and 14 right ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 19 Local light sources Enable localised light sources e g from engines landing lights floodlights etc This option can have a significant influe
64. anual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 62 MFD display components The display is divided into two sections The NAV receiver stack listing the frequency and signal status of the ship s navigation radio receivers and the Transponder status showing the frequency of the ship s transponder The frequency of the selected receiver transmitter can be tuned in steps of 1MHz with and and in steps of 0 05MHz with and in the range from 85 00MHz to 140 00MHz If a compatible NAV transmitter is within range the instrument displays information about the signal source You can scan across the frequency range with down and up Scan ning will stop as soon as a signal is detected Notes Certain instruments such as the Launch Land MFD mode are slaved to a NAV re ceiver and will only work if a suitable signal is available This behaviour differs from earlier Orbiter versions where the data reference was obtained automati cally The Object Info see Section 11 2 Navaid Info and Map dialogs are a useful tools to obtain frequencies for navaid transmitters such as VOR and ILS beacons or vessel transponders The positions and frequencies of VOR stations in your vicinity can also be dis played directly in the simulation window via the VOR Markers option of the Vis ual helpers dialog box NAV receiver status Transponder status frequency signal source type and ID NEW ORBITER Use
65. any of its major bodies the sun planets and moons You take control of a spacecraft either historic hypothetical or purely science fiction Orbiter is unlike most commercial computer games with a space theme there are no predefined missions to complete except the ones you set yourself no aliens to de stroy and no goods to trade Instead you will get a pretty good idea about what is in volved in real space flight how to plan an ascent into orbit how to rendezvous with a space station or how to fly to another planet It is more difficult but also more of a challenge Some people get hooked others get bored Finding out for yourself is easy simply give it a try Orbiter is free so you don t need to invest more than a bit of your spare time Orbiter is a community project The Orbiter core is just the skeleton that defines the rules of the simulated world the physical model A basic solar system and some spacecraft real and fictional are included but you can get a lot more with add on modules developed by other enthusiasts in the Orbiter community There are add ons for nearly every spacecraft that ever flew and quite a few that never got beyond the drawing board for many more celestial bodies in the solar system or entirely new fictional systems for enhanced instruments and much more The Orbiter web site contains links to many Orbiter add on repositories 1 2 About this manual This document is the main help file that
66. ata files when recording over long periods of time by fast forwarding through less critical parts of a mission Sampling intervals Currently not used Attitude data Can be recorded either with respect to the global ecliptic frame of reference or with respect to the local horizon of the current reference celestial body To play back a previously recorded session launch the scenario under the Playback scenario folder During playback all vessels will follow their pre recorded trajectories and will not respond to manual user control At the end of the playback the simula tion will automatically switch back to manual mode and the user can take over con trol You can terminate the playback before the end of the recorded data is reached by pressing or by pressing the STOP button in the Recorder dialog In that case control returns immediately to the user During playback the user has still various op tions to interact with the simulation For example it is possible to move the camera change between internal and external views and even manipulate the MFD instruments to access more flight data Manual control of time ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 104 compression is only possible if the Play at recording speed option is deactivated in the Player dialog Otherwise Orbiter sets the time compression directly from the recorded data Recorded flights can be annotated with onscreen notes which appear o
67. ay Frm The plane into which the graphical orbit displays are projected can be selected via The current projection plane is indicated in the top right corner of the in strument Prj ECL or EQU project into the plane of the ecliptic or equator respec tively SHP projects into the vessel s current orbital plane and TGT projects into the target s current orbital plane if a target is specified The length of the current radius vector and the apoapsis and periapsis distances can be displayed in two modes planetocentric distance distance from orbit focus indicated by Rad ApR PeR respectively altitude above planet mean radius indicated by Alt ApA PeA respectively ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 64 Use to switch between the two modes opens a menu to specify a target object Only targets which orbit around the current reference object will be accepted The target display can be turned off with Pressing will switch the vessel s head up display to Orbit mode and copy the orbit reference object from the MFD to the HUD This is often more convenient than selecting the HUD reference directly with Key options AR Auto select reference object DST Toggle radius apoapsis and periapsis data display between planetocen tric distance and altitude above mean planet radius FRM Toggle frame of reference ecliptic equator of reference object HUD Set HUD to Orbit mode and co
68. balance gravitational acceleration can be done automati cally with Hold altitude nav mode This also means the ship should be kept level with the horizon Navigate with short main thruster bursts At high horizontal velocities the flight path may approach an orbital trajectory In that case hover thrusters must be reduced to maintain altitude In the extreme case of horizontal velocity exceeding the orbital velocity of a circular orbit at zero altitude the ship will gain altitude even for disengaged hover thrusters That means you have entered into an elliptic orbit at periapsis If the planet has an atmosphere When flying through an atmosphere the flight model will be similar to an airplane s in particular if your ship essentially is an airplane i e has airfoils that produce a lift vector as a function of airspeed As with an airplane you need to apply continuous thrust to counter atmospheric friction and maintain a constant airspeed If your ship produces lift hover thrusters are not necessary unless airspeed falls below stall speed e g during vertical lift off and landing If your ship does not generate a lift vector hover thrusters must be substituted or the ship must be tilted such that the main thrusters provide a vertical component to counter the gravitational field Note that lift produced by thrusters is independent of airspeed 17 2 Launching into orbit Launching from a planetary surface and entering i
69. bit targets Only bases located on the current reference planet will be accepted as target bases Your ship s orbital plane will only be plotted if you are orbiting the current reference planet If required the Map MFD mode can be reverted to the 2006 legacy version by adding the line MFDMapVersion 0 to the Orbiter cfg configuration file in the main Orbiter folder 14 8 Align orbital plane This MFD mode aids in rotating the orbital plane in space so that it corresponds with some target plane e g the orbital plane of another object The instrument contains the relevant orbital elements inclination and longitude of the ascending node of the current and target orbits It also shows the relative inclination angle between the two planes the angles of the current radius vector towards ascending and descending nodes the time to intercept the next node and the predicted required thruster burn time See section 17 4 on how to use this MFD mode The target plane can be either defined in terms of the orbital plane of another orbit ing object or by specifying the parameters that define the orientation of an orbital plane the inclination and longitude of ascending node with respect to the ecliptic frame of reference Key options Input a new target object or target orbital parameters Input target plane as ecliptic inclination and longitude of ascending node Display items Selection marker Display status
70. computer you should not install the new version into the same folder because this could lead to file conflicts You may want to keep your old installation until you have made sure that the latest version works without problems Multiple Orbiter installations can exist on the same computer ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 11 Download the Base package from an Orbiter download site into your new Orbiter folder and unzip it with WinZip or an equivalent utility Important Take care to preserve the directory structure of the package for example in WinZip this re quires to activate the Use Folder Names option After unzipping the package make sure your Orbiter folder contains the executa ble orbiter exe and among other files the Config Meshes Scenarios and Tex tures subfolders Run orbiter exe This will bring up the Orbiter Launchpad dialog where you can select video options and simulation parameters You are now ready to start Orbiter Select a scenario from the Launchpad dialog and click the Launch Orbiter button If Orbiter does not show any scenarios in the Scenario tab or if planets appear plain white without any textures when running the simulation the most likely rea son is that the packages were not properly unpacked Make sure your Orbiter folder contains the subfolders as described above If necessary you may have to repeat the installation process 3 4 Uninstall Orbiter d
71. cs and physics relevant for space flight you might find the Scienceworld site useful at scienceworld wolfram com 1 5 Getting started If you are a first time user it is probably a good idea to have a look at this manual to get you off the ground quickly Ideally use it together with the simulator If you don t want to print it run Orbiter in window mode see Section 4 5 and have the manual open next to it For installation help see Section 3 The first time you run Orbiter you will have to configure the video options Sec 4 5 Then you are good to go see Sec 4 1 on how to select a scenario and launch the simulation To get a feel for Orbiter you can run some of the pre recorded flights and tutorials These are the scenarios you find under the Tutorials and Playback folders They don t require any user input so you can lean back and enjoy the view Once you are ready to take control have a look at the Quickstart chapter Sec 5 It contains step by step instructions for takeoff flight and landing in the futuristic Delta glider Some more complex missions including a flight from the Kennedy Space Center to the International Space Station can be found in Flight checklists folder Sec 21 For an overview of basic spacecraft controls see Sec 15 A detailed list of common keyboard commands can be found in Sec 7 And once you have made your first steps into orbit you might want to consult the rest of the manual t
72. d by a gray line and the intersection longitude is displayed TLi The position of the target at the time when the ship reaches the intersection point is marked by a dashed yellow line The objective is to adjust the HTO so that the gray and dashed yellow lines coincide so that ship and target arrive at the intersection point simultaneously Hohmann transfer orbit A transfer orbit which just touches the target orbit i e where ejection and intersec tion longitude are 180 apart is called a Hohmann minimum energy transfer orbit because it minimises the amount of fuel used during the orbit ejection and injection points Transfer orbits with larger major axis require more fuel but are faster than Hohmann orbits Ejection burn ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 87 Once the HTO has been set up the ejection burn takes place when the ejection point is reached when the solid and dashed green lines coincide The ejection burn is pro grade or retrograde given the orbit w r t the current orbit reference As the burn takes place the current orbit solid green line will approach the HTO The burn is terminated when the orbit coincides with the HTO and Dv has reached zero After ejection the HTO should be turned off so that intercept parameters are displayed for the actual transfer orbit Numerical multi body trajectory calculation The source target and transfer orbits discussed above are analytic 2 body solutions Th
73. d dialog You can then open any number of MFD windows by clicking Ex ternal MFD from the Custom Functions dialog ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 110 External MFDs behave in the same way as built in MFDs They can be controlled by pressing the buttons on the left right and bottom edges See Section 14 for a descrip tion of the available MFD modes and controls Unlike built in MFD displays the window MFDs can be resized They are available in external view as well as cockpit view and they can be configured to either automati cally follow the focus vessel or remain attached to a specific vessel even if the focus is switched to a different vessel 20 3 Performance meter This is a little dialog box to keep track of Orbiter s frame rate performance and simu lation time step intervals It shows the frames per second FPS and or the step length interval in seconds between con secutive frames in a graphical display over the last 200 seconds This is a useful tool to estimate the impact of complex scenery and visual effects on the simulation perform ance The time step graph also incorporates the effect of time acceleration and thus reflects the fidelity of the physical model ac curacy of trajectory calculation etc This function is only available if the Framerate module is active and is accessible via the Frame Rate entry in the Custom functions panel Clos e MFD mode help Lock vess
74. descending node ascending node radius vector intersection with target plane action Select custom elements ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 81 Tip It is often more fuel efficient to make the orbit more eccentric before applying the plane change so that the radius distance of one of the nodes is increased and the corresponding Delta V decreased In particular if the plane change is to be combined with other changes to the orbit a careful planning of the sequence of burns can help to minimise the fuel expenditure 14 9 Synchronise orbit The Synchronise Orbit MFD assists in catching up with an orbiting body once the or bital planes have been aligned see previous section The instrument displays the ship s and target body s orbits together with a reference axis and lists the times it will take both objects to reach this axis for a series of orbits For this instrument to work properly the orbital planes of both objects must coin cide The relative inclination of the orbital planes is shown in the lower left corner RInc If this becomes greater than 1 realign the planes using the Align Orbital Planes MFD Once the planes are aligned all subsequent maneuvers should be performed in this plane Key options Select target object Only objects orbiting the same body as the ship will be accepted Select reference axis mode Intersection 1 and 2 are only available if the orbits inter
75. e FPS display If this module is active the frame rate window can be selected from the Custom Functions list LuaConsole Provides a console window for interactive processing of script com mands from the Custom Functions list LuaMFD Adds a new MFD mode for script input via a console MFD 4 5 Video tab The Video tab provides options to select the rendering device switch between full screen and windowed mode and set the resolution window size and colour depth 3D Device Lists the available hardware and software devices for 3D rendering Se lect a hardware device with transform and lighting capabilities when possible such as Direct3D T amp L HAL or similar On some systems the hardware devices might be listed with the name of your graphics card Software devices such as RGB Emulation will produce poor performance Note that some hardware devices do not support window mode Always enumerate de vices Tick this box if Orbiter does not display 3D devices or screen modes correctly This option enforces a hard ware scan whenever Orbiter is launched and skips the de vice data stored in device dat Make sure to tick this box af ter upgrading your graphics hardware or DirectX video drivers to make Orbiter aware of the changes Try stencil buffer Enables stencil buffering if the video mode supports it Stencil buffers can improve various visual effects for example provide support for alpha blended shadows but
76. e Transfer MFD however also supports a numerical trajectory calculation to ac count for the effect of multiple gravitational sources The display of the numerical trajectory is toggled with The trajectory is displayed as a solid bright yellow line The calculation is performed in discrete time steps starting from the current source position or if displayed from the HTO ejection point Since the calculation of the trajectory can be time consuming it is not automatically updated but can be re freshed with The interval between time steps is automatically adjusted to provide consistent accuracy The number of time steps and thus the length of the trajectory can be selected via The number of time steps and the total time interval covered by the trajectory are displayed under Num orbit in the MFD Interplanetary transfers Using the Transfer MFD for Earth to Moon orbits should be straightforward For in terplanetary transfers e g Earth to Mars a few caveats apply For interplanetary transfers the reference should be the Sun and the source orbit should be the planet currently being orbited This is because the ship s orbit w r t the Sun will be severely distorted by the planet The ship should be in an orbit with zero inclination against the ecliptic before ejection The relative inclination between source and target orbits cannot be ad justed it is simply given by the relative inclination between the planets
77. e docking mechanism should engage once you are within 0 3 m of the desig nated dock A Dock indicator will appear in the MFD once your ship has suc cessfully docked Finished Mission 1 completed successfully 21 2 Mission 2 ISS to Mir transfer This mission performs an orbital transfer from the International Space Station to the Russian Mir station which in Orbiter s virtual reality is still happily in Earth orbit Note that in Orbiter Mir is placed in an ecliptic orbit to make it a platform for inter planetary missions This means that ISS and Mir have a very high relative inclination which makes the transfer very expensive in terms of fuel expenditure Start Orbiter with the Checklists ISS to Mir scenario Your glider is docked to the ISS Press to jump into the glider s cockpit Select target Mir in Orbit MFD Press Right Mir ISS and Mir orbits have a high relative inclination To prepare for orbit change select the Align plane mode in the left MFD SEL Align planes and Left Mir Undock from the ISS Once you are clear of the dock close the nose cone Switch to Orbit HUD mode The first burn will take place at the DN descending node point Use time compression to fast forward there but switch back to real time when the time to node Tn value in the Align plane MFD is down to 500 Prepare attitude for the burn click the Orbit normal
78. e scenario list contains all stored scenarios including any you created yourself in a hierarchical folder structure Double click on a folder to open its contents Double click on a scenario marked by the red Delta glider icon to launch it Selecting a scenario or folder brings up a short description on the right of the dialog box Some scenarios may include more detailed information that can be viewed by clicking the Info button below the description box There are a few special sce narios and folders The Current state scenario is automatically generated whenever you exit the simulator Use this to continue from the latest exit state The Tutorials folder contains pre recorded flights with onscreen annotations that explain different aspects and stages of space flight missions The Playback folder contains the flights you have recorded with Orbiter s built in flight recorder Launching one of these will start a replay The Quicksave folder contains in game saved scenarios generated by pressing Multiple quicksaves are possible Orbiter saves the quicksave states un der the original scenario name followed by a quicksave counter The counter is reset each time the simulation is launched so make sure to copy any scenarios you want to keep The Demo folder can be filled with scenarios that are automatically run in kiosk demo mode see Section 22 2 This allows to put together a set of simula tions that
79. ed in this version Orbiter now contains plug in modules and API support for running scripts from within the simulation Scripts can be used for a variety of tasks such as autopilots mission scripting and interactive tutorials Separation of the graphics and rendering subsystem from the simulation core The Orbiter code base has been revised to isolate the rendering module from the physics simulation This allows to plug in external graphics clients for improved vis ual appearance or to run Orbiter without graphics support in server mode New 2 D instrument panel engine The new version has improved support for displaying customized vessel instrument panels which provides better scaling and zoom support and can make use of mesh transformation techniques for smooth instrument animations The included Delta glider contains a sample implementation of the new panel interface The old panel style is retained for backward compatibility ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 10 3 Installation This section lists the computer hardware requirements for running Orbiter and con tains download and installation instructions 3 1 Hardware requirements The standard Orbiter distribution requires the following minimum hardware fea tures 600 MHz PC or better Pentium Athlon etc 256 MB RAM or more Windows 98 2000 XP Vista DirectX 7 0 or higher DirectX compatible 3D graphics accelerator card with at least 16MB of v
80. el Sebase mode Mode menu Power on off Left function buttons Right function buttons Reference city l ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 111 20 4 Remote vessel control The Remote Vessel Control plugin allows to remotely control the engines of all space craft The dialog contains the a vessel selection list gauges for main retro and hover en gines controls for RCS thrusters in rota tional and linear mode and access to the standard navmode functions This interface can also be useful if simultaneous access to linear and rotational RCS modes is re quired This tool is available only if the Rcontrol module is active and can be accessed via the Remote Vessel Control entry in the Custom functions panel 20 5 Flight data monitor The flight data monitor graphically displays a number of flight parameters as a function of time This tool is available only if the FlightData module is active The dialog box is accessible via the Custom functions panel The control area of the dialog box allows to select the vessel for which the flight data are displayed the sampling rate and the flight parameters to show The following parameter displays are cur rently supported Altitude Airspeed Mach number Free stream temperature Static and dynamic pressure Angle of attack Lift and drag force Lift over drag ratio L D Vessel mass For each parameter category selected in
81. em by right clicking the RCS Mode selector on the right side of the instrument panel or by pressing Num You are now controlling your craft with attitude thrus ters Pitch down to about 20 After leaving the dense part of the atmosphere you need to gain tangential velocity to achieve orbit Your flight path indicator should stay above 0 Now is a good time to activate the Orbit mode in one of your MFDs This shows the shape of your current orbit the green curve in relation to the planet surface the gray circle together with a list of orbital parameters along the left side of the display You should switch the display to current orbital plane projection mode by clicking on the PRJ button until Prj SHP is shown in the top right corner of the display Also select altitude readouts by clicking the DST button so that the PeR and ApR entries in the data column change to PeA and ApA periapsis altitude and apoapsis altitude respectively At the moment your orbit will be a rather eccentric ellipse which for the most part is below Earth s surface This means that you are still on a ballistic trajectory rather than in a stable orbit As you keep gaining tangential velocity the orbit will start to expand Once the green curve is completely above the planet surface and sufficiently high above the atmosphere you will have entered orbit At this point the most important pieces of information from t
82. ers which allows attitude rotation and linear control of the spacecraft Num Enable disable manual user control via keyboard or joystick of aerody namic control surfaces elevator rudder ailerons if available Toggle Hold altitude navcomp mode Maintain current altitude above surface by means of hover thrusters only This will fail if hover thrusters cannot compensate for gravitation in particular at high bank angles Combining this mode with the H level mode is therefore useful Toggle H level navcomp mode This mode keeps the spacecraft level with the horizon by engaging appropriate attitude thrusters Toggle Turn prograde navcomp mode This mode turns the spacecraft into its orbital velocity vector Toggle Turn retrograde navcomp mode This mode turns the spacecraft into its negative orbital velocity vector Toggle Turn orbit normal navcomp mode Rotates spacecraft normal to its orbital plane in the direction of V R Toggle Turn orbit antinormal navcomp mode Rotates spacecraft anti normal to its orbital plane in the direction of V R Cur Trim control only vessels with aerodynamic surfaces Apply left wheel brake where applicable Apply right wheel brake where applicable 7 3 External camera views Move camera away from target object Move camera towards target object Rotate camera around object In ground based camera views will
83. es 90 Your current flight path passes south of the KSC so you should initially bank left to correct your approach path check Map MFD The bank angle will determine your rate of descent and airspeed If you come up short to the KSC reduce the bank angles to slow your descent and reduce atmos pheric deceleration If you come in too fast or too high increase the bank angles to increase the descent slope and atmospheric friction Timing of the reentry path is not quite as critical as for the Space Shuttle because the glider can use its engines for a powered approach When the distance to target drops below 500 km tune your NAV1 receiver to fre quency 112 70 KSCX VOR and NAV2 to frequency 134 20 Rwy 33 ILS using the COMMS mode SEL COM NAV in the right MFD Turn the right MFD to Horizontal Situation Indicator HSI mode SEL HSI Leave the left display slaved to NAV1 and flip the right display to NAV2 Right Right Use the course deviation and glide slope indicators of the HSI displays for adjust ing the approach path They work like standard aircraft instruments Lower landing gear Deploy airbrakes as required Touchdown speed is 150 m s Use wheel brakes and on rollout until you come to a halt Rollout at the KSC SLF ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 119 22 Visual helpers Orbiter has the ability to display a number of visual cues to provide additi
84. et view mode and field of view Opens the online help window Toggle tracking mode for external camera views target relative absolute direction global frame Open the Time acceleration dialog This allows to speed up slow down the simulation and to pause resume Open vessel dialog to switch control to a different spacecraft Switch control back to the previously active vessel This allows quickly switching backwards and forwards between two vessels Main menu Open the Custom functions dialog Contains a list of functions defined in plug in modules if available Open the Flight recorder playback dialog Contains recording and play back options Open the Object Info dialog for object specific data such as ILS navaid frequencies etc Open the Map dialog spaceports navaid locations etc Open the Navaid Info dialog containing a list of navigational radio bea cons Open the Planetarium options dialog for controlling the display of grids and markers Planetarium mode Toggle display of constellations 7 2 Spacecraft controls These keys allow manual maneuvering of the user controlled spacecraft See also joystick controls Note some spacecraft may not define all thruster types Main retro thruster controls Num Accelerate by increasing main thruster setting or by decreasing retro thruster setting Num Decelerate by decreasing main thruster setting or by increasing retro thruster setting Num Kill main a
85. from the drop down list below the event list The most im portant event types have entries in the list For less frequently used items select the entry and enter the event tag manually Then press the Insert button A new event line will appear in the list and the Edit area in the lower part of the di alog box will allow to define any required parameters Editing an existing event If you want to modify the parameters of an event already in the list simply highlight it by clicking on a line in the list The event parameters will appear in the Edit area and you can modify them Deleting events To delete an event highlight it by clicking on a line in the list Then press the Delete button NEW ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 106 Committing changes To commit the changes you have made to the event list press the Commit button at the bottom of the dialog box This will save the modified event list in the playback file Orbiter will immediately re scan the file up to the current simulation time so that any changes can be examined at once ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 107 19 Script interface Orbiter contains a script interpreter module which allows to control a variety of si mulation tasks with the help of scripts Script applications include autopilots MFD control interactive tutorials mission control and many others The Orbiter script engine uses the Lua scripting langu
86. fuel it may however be better to match later or bits if this can be achieved with less distortion to the original orbit For example if the target is marginally ahead then to intercept it in the next orbit you need to nearly double your orbital period It is not essential that the orbits are identical or circular at the start of the ma neuver It is sufficient for them to intersect In that case it is best to use Intersec tion 1 or 2 reference mode in the Synchronise MFD You don t necessarily need to wait until you reach the reference point before firing thrusters but it simplifies matters because otherwise the intersection point itself will move making the alignment of orbit timings more difficult 17 6 Landing runway approach Some of Orbiter s spacecraft support powered or unpowered runway approaches similar to normal aircraft Examples are the delta glider and the Space Shuttle The Shuttle Landing Facility SLF at the Kennedy Space Center provides an good op portunity for exercising landing approaches Visual approach indicators The visual approach aids at the SLF are designed for Shuttle landings They include a Precision Approach Path Indicator PAPI for long range glide slope alignment and a Visual Approach Slope Indicator VASI for short range alignment The PAPI is set up for a glide slope of 20 about 6 times as steep as standard aircraft approach slopes The VASI is set up for a 1 5 slope during the fina
87. g the INV button For exam ple this switches between prograde and retrograde normal and anti normal etc The following table defines the orientation of each base mode via two principal vessel axes forward z and up y relative to the orbital velocity vector v radius vector r and orbital plane normal n r x v Mode Vessel orientation prograde z v y n retrograde z v y n normal z n y v antinormal z n y v perpendicular in z v x n y v perpendicular out z v x n y v radial down z r y v radial up z r y v After defining the base mode you can add additional rotations to modify the vessel orientation Press the R button to add a rotation You can then select a rotation axis pitch yaw roll by pressing the AX button Set a rotation angle with the V and V buttons You can add multiple rotations but note that the order is significant Rota tions do not commute You can select a rotation with the UP and DN buttons Rota tions can be deleted with the R button Active base mode Additional rotations Deviation from target direction Deviation from target rotation ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 84 When you are satisfied with your mode press the GO button to activate it You can continue editing the mode and activate the modifications by pressing GO again To return to the main
88. he Orbit display are the orbital velocity Vel and apoapsis altitude ApA For a low Earth orbit you need to achieve a velocity of at least 7800 m s Once you reach this value you will see the orbit rising rapidly above Earth s surface At the same time the apoapsis altitude the highest point of the orbit will start to grow Keep firing your engines until ApA reaches about 300km Now cut the engines ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 29 You are now nearly in orbit All that remains to do is raise the periapsis the low est point of the orbit to a stable altitude This is done best when you reach apoap sis which should be half an orbit or about 45 minutes from your current posi tion Time to switch into an external camera mode and enjoy the view It is also a good idea to switch the HUD from surface to orbit mode now Do this by clicking the OBT button in the top left corner of the instrument panel or by pressing twice In this mode the HUD flight path ladder is aligned with the or bital plane instead of the horizon plane and there is a ribbon showing your or bital azimuth angle It also shows indicators for prograde the direction of your orbital velocity vector and retrograde the opposite direction When you approach apoapsis turn your craft prograde You can see how close you are to the apoapsis point by checking the ApT time to apoapsis value in the Orbit MFD If it takes
89. ibutor to the gravity field In that case will select the dominant object ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 67 14 3 VOR VTOL The VOR VTOL MFD mode is a navigational instrument used for surface flight and vertical takeoff and landing In addition to altitude and airspeed readouts it can dis play a graphical indicator of the relative position of a VOR very high frequency om nidirectional range navigation radio transmitter This MFD mode can be slaved to one of the ship s NAV receivers The current receiver and frequency is shown in the upper right corner of the display If a signal is received the transmitter ID is displayed in the second line If the ship supports more than a single NAV receiver a different receiver can be selected with To set the re ceiver frequency use the COM NAV MFD mode see section 14 1 The instrument can also be used for vertical instrument landing VTOL When slaved to a VTOL transmitter the target indicator shows the relative position of the corresponding launch pad Key options Select navigation radio NAV receiver for VOR or VTOL information input MFD control layout Select NAV receiver ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 68 MFD display components DIST distance to NAV transmitter m DIR direction of NAV transmitter ship relative HSPD horizontal airspeed component m s ALT altitude m The altitude bar has a range from
90. ideo RAM 32MB or more recommended and DXT texture compression support Approximately 100MB of free disk space for the minimum installation additional high resolution textures and add ons will require more space DirectX compatible joystick optional Installing high resolution texture packs or add ons may have an impact on perform ance and can require significantly higher computer and graphics capabilities 3 2 Download The Orbiter distribution can be obtained from one of several Orbiter mirror sites on the internet You can find links to these mirrors at the Download page of the Orbiter site http orbit medphys ucl ac uk Orbiter is distributed in several compressed software packages zip files The Base package contains the basic Orbiter system and is the only required package All other packages are optional extensions to the basic system All package names contain a 6 digit time stamp YYMMDD identifying the modifi cation date of the package For example orbiter060504_base zip contains the base package built on May 4 2006 Note that not all current packages may have the same time stamp In particular high resolution planetary texture packages are rarely up dated and may have an older time stamp Check the download pages for the latest versions of all packages 3 3 Installation Create a new folder for the Orbiter installation e g c Orbiter Orbiter2010 If a previous version of Orbiter is already installed on your
91. ign with the HUD relative velocity marker and fire main engines until relative velocity is close to zero Rotate the ship towards the ISS target designator box and move to within 5km of the station You may want to use attitude thrusters in linear translatorial mode for this Switch between linear and rotational mode with the Num key Slave HUD and Docking MFD to NAV2 If you are within 10 km of the ISS you will receive the signal of the IDS system for dock 1 providing alignment informa tion in the MFD and a visual representation series of rectangles of the approach path on the HUD Move towards the rectangle furthest away from the station and hold Align your ship s longitudinal axis with the approach path direction align X indicator in the MFD using attitude thrusters in rotational mode Align your ship s rotation around its longitudinal axis align indicator at 12 o clock position in the MFD Center your ship on the approach path align indicator in the MFD using li near attitude thrusters Expose the docking mechanism under the nose cone by pressing Start moving towards the dock with a short burst of the main engines Closing speed CVel should be gradually reduced as you approach the dock Final speed should be lt 0 1 m s Re align ship on the approach path with linear attitude thrusters as required ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 116 Th
92. ill show the planet rotating underneath the camera will rotate the camera around the axes of the ecliptic frame of ref erence Absolute direction This can be regarded as a mixture of the two modes above The direction into which the camera points is fixed in an absolute frame but it is tilted with respect to the target s local frame will rotate the cam era around the target s local axes Target to Positions camera so that the specified object is behind the target Target from Positions camera so the specified object is behind the camera In Target to and Target from modes camera rotation is deac tivated but radial camera movement with and is still available Camera Selecting a track mode left or a ground based view right ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 52 Ground based views place the camera at a fixed point relative to the surface of a planet This is a good way to follow the launch of a rocket from a spectator s perspec tive or view the final approach of a Shuttle from the control tower To select a ground based view select the Ground tab in the Camera dialog You can now select one of the predefined observer locations from the lists e g Earth KSC Pad 39 Tower Alternatively you can just specify the planet and enter the location by hand providing longitude in degrees positive towards east latitude in degrees positive towards north
93. ing the dock You need to approach the dock to less than 0 3 m for a successful docking ma neuver To disengage from the docking port press ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 101 A Shuttle A class cargo ship after successfully completed docking approach to the ISS Notes For precise attitude control with the keyboard use the attitude thrusters in low power mode Ctrl Numpad key Rotational alignment is not currently enforced but may be in future versions Currently no collision tests are performed so you might fly straight through the station if you miss the docking approach Docking at rotating stations Stations like Luna OB1 rotate to use centrifugal forces for emulating gravity which is nice for their inhabitants but makes docking a bit more complicated Docking is only possible along the rotation axis so at most 2 docking ports can be provided The docking procedure is similar to the standard one but once aligned with the approach path the rotation around the ship s longitudinal axis must be aligned with that of the station Important Initiate your ship s longitudinal rotation only immediately before docking when past the last approach marker Once you are rotating linear adjustments become very difficult Once the rotation is matched with the station don t hit Num Kill rotation by accident or you will have to start the rotation alignment again Cheat
94. ints of interest historic landing sites navigational aids etc Likewise the planetary system may define sets of markers to identify bright stars navigation stars ne bulae etc You can select marker sets by clicking the Config button This opens a further dialog box where you can highlight the appropriate sets from a list box Additional lists may be available as addons from Orbiter internet repositories If you want to modify the provided marker sets or create your own see OrbiterConfig pdf Section Adding custom markers ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 120 Orbiter stores the current planetarium settings in its configuration file and rememb ers them in the next simulation run Hardcore space simmers may spurn the planetarium as a cheat mode but for the rest of us it can be a handy tool and also helps in visualising the dynamics of planetary systems Grid lines celestial vessel and surface markers 22 2 Force vectors Orbiter can provide a graphical display of the force vectors currently acting on a spacecraft This option is particularly useful for educational applications to provide a direct feedback of the effects of environmental parameters gravity atmosphere and user input e g change of lift as a function of changing angle of attack The display of force vectors can be activated and configured via the Force tab in the Visual helpers dialog Planetary surface markers Ves
95. ion ladder to monitor progress As soon as the time to node Tn reaches half the estimated burn time TthA or TthD for AN and DN respectively the Engage thruster indicator will start flashing Engage full main thrusters Make sure the relative inclination RInc de creases i e the rate of change Rate is negative otherwise you may be pointing in the wrong direction Adjust the ship s orientation as required to keep normal to orbital plane the automated RCS sequences will do this for you Disengage thrusters as soon as the action indicator turns back to Kill thruster If the relative inclination was not sufficiently reduced repeat the procedure at the next node passage During the maneuver make sure your orbit does not become unstable Watch in particular for the eccentricity use the Orbit MFD to monitor this 17 5 Synchronising orbits This section assumes that the orbital planes of ship and target have been aligned see previous section The next step in a rendezvous maneuver after aligning the orbital planes is to modify the orbit in the plane such that it intercepts the target s orbit and both ship and target arrive simultaneously at the interception point Use the Synchronise Orbit MFD to calculate the appropriate orbit For simplicity we first assume that the ship and target are in a circular orbit with the same orbital radius for synchronising the orbital radius see Section 17 3 i e both
96. it insertion burn at the apex of the trajectory Wait until you reach apogee the remaining time is shown in the ApT entry of the Orbit MFD This could take a while so you may want to time accelerate At apogee press the Prograde button to turn prograde Once the velocity marker is centered on the screen engage main thrusters until orbit eccen tricity Ecc reaches a minimum and perigee radius PeR equals ApR this will require only a short burn Switch the left MFD to Align Orbital Plane SEL Align planes Select ISS ISS Ideally the orbital planes should already be roughly aligned RInc within 5 You now need to fine adjust the plane As your ship P approaches an intersection point with the target plane AN or DN Rotate the ship perpendicular to your current orbital plane 90 on the Or bit HUD inclination ladder If you are approaching the ascending node AN turn orbit antinormal If you are approaching the descending node DN turn orbit normal You can use the Auto navigation modes for orbit normal and for orbit antinormal to obtain the correct orientation As soon as the Engage engines indicator starts flashing engage full main en gines The relative inclination between the orbital planes should now decrease Kill thrusters as soon as the Kill thrust indicator appears If you could not re duce the orbit inclination sufficiently
97. it normal to the OP It may not be possible to align the plane in a single node crossing If the angle to wards the target plane cannot be reduced further by accelerating normal to the current orbit cut the engines and wait for the next node crossing Since the maneuver will take a finite amount of time T thrusters should be en gaged approximately T before intercepting the node current orbit acceleration vector acceleration vector AN DN ir nt ns rs vs target plane Alignment of the orbital plane rs radius vector vs velocity vector AN ascending node DN Descending node ns normal of the current plane nt normal of the target plane The direction of the normal vector ns is defined by the direction of the cross product rs vs Acceleration should be applied in direction ns in the ascending node AN and in direction ns in the descending node DN see Error Reference source not found In Practice The Align orbital plane MFD mode see Section 14 8 is designed to aid in plane alignment Select the target object ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 97 The HUD should be in Orbit mode As your ship approaches the intersection with the target plane rotate it to a normal if at DN or anti normal if at AN orienta tion to the current orbital plane There are automated RCS sequences and available to perform the required alignment Use the HUD Orbit inclinat
98. itch ro tation of 15 When done press RTN to return to the main page The rotational off set will be added to all attitude modes except for the dock alignment mode 14 11 Transfer The Transfer MFD mode is used for calculating transfer orbits between planets or moons or more generally between any objects with significantly different orbits for which the Sync orbit MFD is not sufficient Note that Orbiter now contains Duncan Sharpe s TransX MFD mode as a plugin module which supersedes and extends most of the Transfer MFD mode TransX is described in a separate document TransXmanualv3 Key options Open input box for selection of reference celestial body Open a menu for source orbit object selection Open a menu for target selection Unselect target Toggle HTO hypothetical transfer orbit display on off Toggle numerical multi body trajectory calculation Refresh numerical trajectory if displayed ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 85 Open input box for time step definition Rotate transfer orbit ejection longitude Decrease increase ejection velocity difference MFD control layout MFD display components Transfer reference Current source or bit true longitude HTO params Eject longitude Time to ejection delta velocity Intercept longitude Time to intercept HTO Current src pos direction indicator Current target pos Rel inclinatio
99. ki Main_Page is a community main tained site which contains useful information for users and developers For general information about Orbiter have a look at the Wikipedia entry en wikipedia org wiki Orbiter_ sim A site dedicated to Orbiter graphics development is the Orbiter Visualisation Project at sourceforge net projects orbitervis 1 4 Finding more help The help files that come with the main Orbiter package are located in the Doc sub folder below your main Orbiter directory Many add ons will place their own help files in the same directory after installation The Doc Technotes folder contains some documents with technical details and background information for interested readers They are not required for using Orbiter Many people have written documentation and tutorials covering particular aspects of Orbiter Links can be found on the Related sites page of the Orbiter home page A very good introduction to using and understanding Orbiter for beginners and a handy refresher for old timers is Bruce Irving s online book Go Play In Space which can be found via a link from the Manual page on the Orbiter web site The scientific and technical background of space flight is covered in many textbooks and online sites A good introduction is JPL s Basics of Space Flight or R Braeunig s ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 8 Rocket amp Space Technology Among the many online resources for the general mathemati
100. l difference DTmin This is the minimum time difference s between the ship s and target s arrival at the reference point for any of the listed orbits see below Rel orbit inclination RInc Inclination between ship s and target s orbital planes Time on reference lists Sh ToR and Tg ToR A list of time intervals for the ship and target to reach the selected reference point The number of orbits can be selected with The closest matched pair of timings is indicated in yel low The DTmin value refers to this pair For usage of this MFD mode in orbit synchronisation see Section 17 5 14 10 RCS Attitude The Attitude MFD mode provides advanced functions for orbital attitude control beyond the basic navigation modes described in Section 13 4 This MFD mode is an ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 83 example for a script driven MFD definition In order to use it the ScriptMFD module must be activated This is a relatively complex multi page MFD mode The main page shows the cur rently active attitude mode To create a new attitude mode press the SET button This opens the Mode definition page If an attitude mode is currently active the definition page initially displays the parameters of this mode Otherwise a default prograde mode is shown You can use the BAS button to page through the available base modes prograde normal perpen dicular and radial Each mode can be inverted by pressin
101. l flare up prior to touch down ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 99 Precision Approach Path Indicator The PAPI consists of an array of 4 lights which appear white or red to the pilot de pending on his position above or below the glide slope At the correct slope there will be 2 white and 2 red lights see figure In Orbiter there are 2 PAPI units per ap proach direction at the SLF located about 2000 meters in front of the runway thre shold Above glide slope Slightly above glide slope On glide slope Slightly below glide slope Below glide slope PAPI indicator signals Visual Approach Slope Indicator The VASI consists of a red bar of lights and a set of white lights in front of them At the correct slope the white lights are aligned with the red bar see figure At the SLF the VASI is located about 670 meters behind the runway threshold Above glide slope On glide slope Below glide slope VASI indicator signals PAPI Threshold VASI 20 1 5 2000 670 SLF Shuttle approach path 17 7 Docking Docking to an orbital station is the last step in the rendezvous maneuvered Assuming you have intercepted the target station following the preceding steps here we discuss the final docking approach Select Docking mode in one of your MFD displays and the Docking HUD by pressing until docking mode is selected Tune one of your NAV receivers to the station s XPDR frequency
102. l life counterpart Orbiter s MIR is orbiting in the plane of the ecliptic which makes it an ideal platform to launch lunar and interplanetary missions 3D model and textures Project Alpha by Andrew Farnaby ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 45 MIR model and tex tures by Jason Benson MIR sends a transponder XPDR signal at default frequency 132 10 which can be used for tracking the station during a rendezvous maneuver MIR supports 3 docking ports with the following IDS transmitter frequencies Port 1 135 00 Port 2 135 10 Port 3 135 20 10 8 Lunar Wheel Station This is a large fictional space station in orbit around the Moon It consists of a wheel attached to a central hub with two spokes The wheel has a diameter of 500 metres and is spinning at a frequency of one cycle per 36 seconds providing its occupants with a centrifugal acceleration of 7 6 m s2 or about 0 8g to mimic Earth s surface gravitational force The main problem the station poses to the spacecraft pilot is in performing a docking maneuver Docking to a rotating object is only possible along the rotation axis The wheel has two docking ports in the central hub The docking approach is performed along the axis of rotation Before docking the approaching vessel must synchronise its own longitudinal rotation with that of the station For docking procedures see Section 17 7 Currently Orbiter s docking instrumentation works
103. lanets moons The object information window can be opened during the simulation by selecting Object info from the main menu or by pressing 11 1 Vessel information Select object type Vessel and pick one of the spacecraft in the current simulation from the list The information sheet for spacecraft and orbital stations contains current mass and size mass normalised principal moments of in ertia PMI transponder frequency engine vacuum thrust ratings equatorial position longitude and lati tude above currently orbited planet alti tude and speed attitude relative to local horizon yaw pitch roll angles orbital elements in the ecliptic frame of reference relative to currently orbited pla net semi major axis eccentricity incli nation longitude of ascending node lon gitude of periapsis mean longitude at epoch Atmospheric temperature density and pressure docking port status if applicable free docked vessel instrument docking system IDS transmitter frequency time propagation mode free flight landed dynamic or stabilised time step updates and current gravitational field sources 11 2 Spaceport information ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 49 Select object type Spaceport and pick one of the available surface bases from the list Spaceport information sheets contain planet moon and equatorial position lon gitude and latitude landing pad s
104. le window from the custom command list If this option is not available acti vate the LuaConsole module in the Modules tab of the Orbiter launchpad dialog The console window is a simple terminal interface User input is shown in black pro gram responses are shown in green The window can be resized The font size can be selected via the Console configuration item in the Extras tab of the Orbiter launchpad The console allows simple command line editing and scrolling through the command history via the key NEW ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 108 19 2 Terminal MFD The Terminal MFD mode is available via the Terminal MFD entry of the MFD selection list If this entry doesn t isn t available activate the LuaMFD module in the Modules tab of the Orbiter launchpad Commands can be entered into the MFD by pressing the INP input button typing the command and pressing The MFD allows to open multiple command interpreters simultaneously To open a new terminal page press NEW To switch between pages press PG gt or lt PG To close a terminal page press DEL 19 3 Run a script with a scenario To run an Orbiter script automatically when a scenario starts the scenario must contain the following line inside the ENVIRONMENT block SCRIPT lt path gt where lt path gt is the path to the script file relative to the Script subdirectory Script fi
105. led right Cloud shadows disabled left and enabled right ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 17 Horizon haze Render intensity graded glowing horizon layer for planets with atmospheres Distance fog Apply atmospheric mist and fog effects to distant object when viewed through planetary atmospheres Specular water reflections Render water surfaces on planets with specular reflection effects Specular ripples Generate ripple effect in specular reflections from oceans for improved appearance of water surfaces Horizon haze dis abled left and enabled right NEW Distance fog dis abled left and enabled right Specular water ref lections disabled left and enabled right Specular ripples disabled left and enabled right ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 18 Planet night lights Render city lights on the dark side of planet surfaces where available Night light level Defines the brightness of night city lights Valid range is 0 to 1 ignored if planet night lights are disabled Max resolution level The maximum resolution at which planetary surfaces can be rendered Supported values are 1 to 14 Higher values provide better visual appearance of planets that support high texture resolutions but also significantly increase the demand on computing resources graphics processor and memory Note that the actu
106. led spacecraft to interactive tutorials and mission scripts Orbiter s physics have also improved from new atmosphere models for Earth and axis precession support to solar radiation pressure check out the solar sail scena rios However the most important changes have taken place under the hood The Orbi ter code has been extensively restructured to separate the graphics subsystem from the simulation core This allowed the introduction of a new server version orbi ter_ng in addition to the traditional orbiter exe executable The server has no built in graphics ng no graphics and can be used for example as a multiuser server application or trajectory data generator But more interestingly for most users is the ability of orbiter_ng to link to external graphics modules This feature will allow to plug in more powerful and feature rich rendering engines in the future Even better the interface to the graphics module is public so anybody can try their hand at im proving the Orbiter graphics Enjoy the ride Martin Schweiger ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 6 1 1 About Orbiter Let us think the unthinkable let us do the undoable Let us prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself and see if we may not eff it after all Douglas Adams Dirk Gently s Holistic Detective Agency Orbiter is a space flight simulator based on Newtonian mechanics Its playground is our solar system with m
107. les are text files The file names should have the extension lua but the extension should not be added to the path specification For example if you have created a script file tutorial1 lua in a directory Script MyScripts under the Orbiter main direc tory the entry in the scenario file would be SCRIPT MyScripts tutorial1 19 4 Call a command or script via the API To access the script interface from within a plugin module you must create an inter preter instance with the oapiCreateInterpreter function This returns a handle with can subsequently be used to issue commands via the oapiExecScriptCmd function It is possible to either execute individual commands or entire scripts via the run command ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 109 20 Extra functionality Orbiter comes with a default set of plugin mod ules to enhance the core functionality of the si mulator To access these additional functions the appropriate modules must be loaded in the Modules tab of the Orbiter Launchpad dialog see Section 4 4 on how to activate plugin mod ules Many more plugins are available from 3rd party addon developers Check out the Orbiter reposi tories on the web to find more You should only activate modules you want to use because many plugins may access the CPU even if they are running in the background Too many active modules can degrade simulation performance When activated some plugins such as cu
108. m events such as animations Further time compres sion events can be recorded here This data stream can also contain timed anno tations that are displayed on top of the simulation window during replay Anno tations must be added manually to the atc file after the recording is completed A complete recording session consists of the playback scenario in the Scenar ios playback folder and the corresponding flight data folder under the Flights direc tory To share a playback with other Orbiter users these files must be copied Note that the scenario file can be moved to a different Scenario folder but no two playback scenarios can have the same name Be aware that long simulation sessions in particular during time acceleration may lead to very large data files if the Sampling in system time steps option is not used Note that the recorder feature is still under development Future versions may intro duce changes to the recording mechanism and file formats Certain features such as the recording of animations require modifications to the vessel plugin modules and may not be available for all vessel types Implementation details and flight recorder file format specifications can be found in a separate Orbiter Technical Note Doc Technotes RecorderRef ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 105 18 1 Playback event editor After recording a flight you have the option of using the Playback editor to enhance the playback You
109. modes than can be displayed in a single page pressing SEL or repeatedly will page through all mode screens Pressing SEL on the last mode screen will return to the previously selected MFD mode Note that the mode selection with keyboard shortcuts works from any of the mode selection pages even if the desired mode is not displayed on the current page Function buttons The function of the buttons to the left and right of the display depends on the current MFD mode and their labels will change accordingly Check the descriptions of the individual MFD modes in the following sections for the button functions of standard MFD modes For addon modes consult the accompanying documentation In some cases the buttons may act as switches where each press executes a specific function In other cases it may be necessary to press down a key continuously to adjust a para meter Function buttons can also be activated with key combinations Pressing the MNU button on the bottom edge of the screen will switch into menu mode keyboard shortcut is where a short description of each function button is displayed together with the associated keyboard key Pressing MNU again or pressing a function button will restore the display In generic view mode and in most in strument panels in Orbiter the MFDs have 12 function buttons but in principle this could vary If an MFD mode has de fines more functions than can be assigned to the butt
110. n Target orbit params current longitude longi tude at intercept Num orbit params Num orbit Intersection indi cator target at intersec tion target orbit Eject indicator Figure 1 Transfer MFD mode The Transfer MFD looks similar to the Orbit MFD it displays a source and a target orbit relative to a selectable orbit reference The source orbit is usually your ship s current orbit although sometimes a different source is more appropriate see below The MFD again assumes matching orbital planes of source and target although this condition usually can not be precisely satisfied for interplanetary orbits Select refer ence object Select source orbit Select target Unselect target Toggle hypo thetical orbit Numerical trajectory Update trajectory Time steps Rotate ejection point Rotate ejection point Decrease V Increase V ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 86 Source orbit selection The source orbit is the orbit from with to eject into the transfer orbit Usually the source orbit will be the ship s current orbit In certain situations however it is better to use a different source Consider for example an interplanetary transfer from Earth to Mars using the Sun as reference Since the ship s primary gravitational source will be Earth rather than the Sun its orbit w r t the Sun will be strongly distorted by the Earth s field In this case it is bet
111. n of the key on the keyboard not the key label For example on the Ger man keyboard the keys for the turn orbit normal and turn orbit antinormal will be and Keys from the numerical keypad or the cursor keypad will be denoted by subscript e g Num or Cur Note that certain spacecraft may define additional keyboard functions Check indi vidual manuals for a detailed description of spacecraft controls and functionality 7 1 General Toggle frame rate info on off Toggle display of information about current object and camera mode Time warp shortcut Slow down simulation by factor 10 down to real time See also Time acceleration dialog Time warp shortcut Speed up simulation by factor 10 up to a maximum warp factor of 100000 See also Time acceleration dialog Zoom out increase field of view See also Camera dialog Zoom in decrease field of view See also Camera dialog Zoom out in discrete steps of 10 Zoom in in discrete steps of 10 Start stop recording a flight or stop a flight playback See also Flight re corder dialog Undock from a vessel Pause resume simulation Exit to Launchpad dialog Quicksave scenario Cursor pad Numpad Keyboard layout reference ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 33 Toggle internal external view of the user controlled spacecraft Open the Camera dialog to select camera targ
112. n the simula tion window at predefined times This opens an exciting new way to write tutorials and space flight demonstrations The annotations can be turned off from the re corder dialog during a playback by deactivating the Show inflight notes option The data for recorded simulation sessions are stored under the Flights subdirectory Orbiter creates a new folder for each recording using the same name as the recorded scenario Each vessel in the scenario writes three data streams to this folder includ ing position and velocity pos At the moment these data are recorded relative to the reference planet either in a non rotating reference system ecliptic and equinox of J2000 or a rotating equatorial reference system As a result trajecto ries are recorded in an absolute time frame Samples are written in regular inter vals currently 4 seconds or if the velocity vector rotates by more than 5 degrees attitude att Attitude data are saved in terms of the Euler angles of the space craft with respect to the ecliptic reference frame or local horizon frame Samples are written whenever one of the angles has changed by more than a predefined threshold limit articulation events atc This stream contains changes in thrust levels of spacecraft engines and other types of events e g change of RCS mode activa tion deactivation of navigation modes etc It can also be used by individual ves sel modules to record custo
113. nce on frame rates Ambient light level Defines the brightness of the unlit side of planets and moons Ambient level 0 is the most realistic but makes it difficult to spot objects in the dark Level 255 is uniform lighting no darkness Celestial sphere Background Select a bitmap to cover the celestial sphere background Various options are available in the default distribution including sky surveys from various mapping projects at different wavelength ranges More maps may be available as addons Intensity The brightness of the background image range 0 1 For a realistic setting try the Visible map with a very low intensity setting e g 0 05 4 4 Modules tab The Modules tab allows the activation and deactivation of plug in modules for Orbi ter which can extend the functionality of the core simulator Plug ins can contain ad ditional instruments dialogs interfaces to external programs etc Make sure you only activate modules you actually want to use because modules can take up some processing time even if they run in the background and thus affect Orbiter s perfor mance To activate a module click the tick box next to its entry in the list By clicking on the entry itself many modules provide a short description about their function and user interface in the right panel Entries are grouped in categories You can expand or collapse categories by double clicking the category header The buttons at the bott
114. nd now supports the following fea tures Choice of ground track or orbital plane display In ground track mode the map shows the past surface track up to the current position as well as a predic tion of the future track line In orbital plane mode the map shows the great circle defining the intersection of the planet surface with the orbital plane Horizon lines The planet horizon as seen from the spacecraft can be displayed as a line This defines the surface area currently visible from the spacecraft or equivalently the area within which the spacecraft appears above the horizon for a ground based observer Track mode The map can either be scrolled manually or set to track mode where the spacecraft is kept in the centre of the display Terminator line The lit hemisphere of the planet can be marked by a shaded area or boundary line Vector coast and contour lines If provided for the target planet the map can display coast lines or other contours such as topological levels Large zoom range Zoom factors between 1 and 128 are supported Optional display of surface bases and navigation radio transmitters Surface bases and VOR transmitters can be displayed in the map At higher zoom levels the positions are labeled with names and frequencies Optional display of additional surface features If the target planet sup ports additional surface markers see also Section 22 1 such as cities or geologi cal feat
115. nd retro thrusters Num Fire main thrusters at 100 while pressed overrides permanent setting Num Fire retro thrusters at 100 while pressed overrides permanent setting Hover thruster controls where available Num Increase hover thruster setting Num Decrease hover thruster setting Attitude thruster controls rotational mode Num Engage attitude thrusters for rotation around longitudinal axis bank Num Engage attitude thrusters for rotation around transversal axis pitch Num Rotational mode Engage attitude thrusters for rotation around vertical axis yaw Num Toggle Kill rotation navigation computer mode Stops spacecraft rotation by engaging appropriate attitude thrusters ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 34 Note In combination with thrusters are engaged at 10 max thrust for fine control Attitude thruster controls linear mode Num Engage attitude thrusters for up down translation Num Engage attitude thrusters for left right translation Num Engage attitude thrusters for forward back translation Note In combination with thrusters are engaged at 10 max thrust for fine control Other controls Num Toggle reaction control thruster mode between rotational engage oppo site thruster pairs and linear engage parallel thruster pairs Num Enable disable reaction control system RCS The RCS if available is a set of small thrust
116. neric cockpit mode is always available MFD instruments The most important and versatile instruments are the two multifunctional displays MFDs in the centre of the instrument panel Each MFD consists of a square LCD screen and buttons along the left right and bottom edges MFDs can be set to different modes With the mouse left click the SEL button at the bottom edge of one of the MFDs Alternatively you can press MFD keyboard interfaces always use key combinations where the left key controls the left MFD and the right key controls the right MFD You will see a list of available modes Click on one of the buttons along the left or right edge to select the corresponding mode If you click the top left button the MFD switches to Orbit mode If you want to select a mode via keyboard press letter where let ter is the keyboard character listed in grey next to the MFD mode in the selection page Most modes have additional settings and parameters that can be controlled with the buttons as well The button labels change to indicate the various mode func tions For example the Orbit mode has a button labeled TGT This can be used to display the orbit of a target object Click this button you will see a dialog box to select a target object Press type iss in the text box and press again This will show the orbital parameters of the International Space Station in the MFD display T
117. nto a low orbit is one of the most basic problems of space flight During the early part of the launch the ship needs to apply vertical thrust to overcome the gravitational field and acquire altitude As the ship approaches the desired altitude the pitch is reduced to increase the horizontal acceleration component in order to reach orbital velocity A stable orbit is achieved ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 94 as soon as the periapsis distance is sufficiently high above the planetary surface so that atmospheric friction can be neglected Orbits should usually be prograde i e rotate in the same direction as the planet sur face to exploit the initial velocity vector provided by the planet That is on Earth ships should be launched eastwards This also means that launch sites near the equator are most efficient since they provide the largest initial velocity In Practice This assumes the ship is initially placed on the Earth s surface Set HUD to surface mode Bring up Surface and Orbit MFD modes Engage hover thrusters to at least 10m s2 Once free of the surface turn towards east 90 on HUD compass ribbon Raise nose to 70 pitch while at the same time engaging full main thrusters As air speed increases bring hover thrusters slowly back to zero As you gain altitude slowly reduce pitch e g 60 at 20km 50 at 50km 40 at 80km etc As the desired altitude is reached e g 200km the
118. nts 130 B 6 Atmospheric parameters 130 APPENDIX C CALCULATION OF ORBITAL ELEMENTS 131 C 1 Calculating elements from state vectors 131 APPENDIX D TERMS OF USE 134 D 1 Orbiter Freeware License 134 D 2 Disclaimer of warranty 134 ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 5 1 Introduction Welcome to Orbiter 2010 The latest version has been nearly three years in the making and I hope that it was worth the wait There is a whole range of new features and improvements The first thing you may notice are the new visual effects including increased planetary texture resolution distance haze effects anisotropic and mipmap filtering or new 2 D panel animation effects Other features may take longer to reveal their full potential Orbiter now comes with an embedded scripting language that will open up new possibilities from the design of autopilots and computer control
119. o learn about some of the more advanced details of Orbiter ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 9 2 What is new in Orbiter 2010 Improved physics Two new atmosphere models for Earth have been added to replace the limited model of the 2006 Edition The new models extend to significantly higher altitudes of 2500 km compared to previously 200 km and they fix the problem of underestimating atmospheric density above 100 km Micro drag for objects in low Earth orbit is now much more realistic and adds new challenges to maintaining orbit stability Support for simulating planetary axis precession has been added Even though most simulation session won t last long enough introduce a perceptible change of axis ro tation this feature will allow to correctly model planet orientations over longer time ranges without the need for modifying configuration data New visual features Planetary surfaces can now be rendered at significantly higher resolution 2 5 pix els arc second equivalent to 75 m pixel for Earth Despite this the simulation startup time has been reduced thanks to a new load on demand mechanism for planetary textures The Orbiter distribution contains an Earth texture package with maximum resolution for Florida New options for improved rendering include distance fog mipmap filtering and ani sotropic filtering Embedded scripting capability Scripting support based on the Lua script language has been add
120. o see a short description of the available mode functions click the MNU but ton at the bottom of the MFD Alternatively use NEW ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 26 A description of standard MFD modes can be found in Section 14 Orbiter can also be extended with add on MFD modes so you may see additional modes in the list For now switch the left MFD to Surface mode and the right MFD to HSI mode Takeoff Your glider is capable of runway takeoffs and landings on Earth and on any other planet if the atmospheric density is sufficient to provide aerodynamic lift For takeoff engage main engines at full thrust You can do this by pushing the Main engine sliders at the left of the panel to the top using the mouse make sure you push both sliders simultaneously or by pressing Num until engines are at full throttle If you have a joystick with throttle control you can use that to engage the main engines Your spacecraft will start to roll You can check the speed in meters second on the AIRSPD indicator of the Surface MFD or on the HUD head up display the value in the green box at the top right of the screen When the airspeed reaches 100 m s pull back on the joystick to rotate or press and hold Num Once clear of the runway press to raise the landing gear ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 27 When the atmosphere is too thin to produce enough lif
121. o targets which don t provide IDS The typical range for visual mode is 100m To switch to visual mode press Direct target selection If you want to avoid the need to tune into a navigation transmitter signal you can open target dialog and enter target name and optional docking port index 1 directly This shortcut method may be dropped in a future version Apart from their different operational range the three modes provide are identical in terms of the produced MFD display Key options Select NAV receiver for IDS information input Switch to visual docking data acquisition mode Direct target and docking port selection MFD control layout Select NAV receiver Switch to vis ual acquisition Direct target input ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 72 MFD display components IDS source identifies the source of the currently received IDS signal TOFS tangential offset from approach path This value is given in units of the approach cone radius at the current target distance TOFS lt 1 indicates a position inside the approach cone TVEL Tangential velocity velocity relative to target projected into plane normal to approach path m s DST Dock to dock distance m The bar shows the distance on a logarithmic scale in the range 0 1 103 m CVEL Closing speed m s The bar shows the closing speed on a logarithmic scale in the range 0 1 103 m s Yell
122. objects have the same orbital elements except for the mean anomaly The method for intercepting the target is then as follows Switch the reference mode of the Synchronise Orbit MFD to Manual and rotate the axis to your current position Turn your ship prograde using Orbit HUD mode and fire main thrusters The orbit will become elliptic with increasing apoapsis distance Periapsis is your current position Simultaneously the orbit period and the times to reference axis will increase Kill thrusters as soon as one of the Sh ToR times coincides with one of the Tg ToR times Then you just have to wait until you intercept the target at the reference axis At interception fire thrusters retrograde to get back to the circular orbit and match velocity with the target ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 98 target orbit ship target ship orbit TS TT tT Sh ToR 0 TS Tg ToR 0 tT Tg ToR 1 T t T T Synchronisation T T t S T T A transition orbit to intercept the target at the next periapsis passage Notes Instead of increasing the apoapsis distance one could fire retrograde and reduce the periapsis distance in this maneuver This may be more efficient if the target is ahead of the ship But make sure that periapsis does not become dangerously low It should always be possible to match your next ToR orbit 0 with the target s ToR at orbit 1 If you are low on
123. oes not modify the Windows registry or any system resources so no compli cated de installation process is required Simply delete the Orbiter folder with all contents and subdirectories This will uninstall Orbiter completely ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 12 4 Before you start The Launchpad Starting Orbiter exe brings up the Orbiter Launchpad dialog box The launchpad is your gateway to Orbiter From here you can select and launch a simulation scenario set simulation video and joystick parameters load available plug in modules to extend the basic Orbiter functionality open the online help system launch the Orbiter simulation window or exit to the desktop Clicking on one of the tab selector buttons along the left edge of the dialog box opens the corresponding configuration page Important Before running Orbiter for the first time make sure that all simulation parameters in particular the video options are set correctly When you are ready select a scenario and press the Launch Orbiter button to jump into the simulation 4 1 Scenarios tab The Scenarios tab allows you to manage and browse the available simulation startup scenarios A scenario defines the initial setup of a simulation session the date spacecraft positions velocities and other parameters Tab selectors Tab area Start scenario Launchpad help Exit base er ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 13 Th
124. of the MFD yellow The elements refer to the selected frame of reference so they will change when switching between ecliptic ECL and equatorial EQU frame Orbit reference Spacecraft orbit Ascending node Descending node Radius vector Apoapsis Periapsis Target orbit Planet surface Frame of reference Projection plane G field contribution Line of nodes Semi major axis Semi minor axis Periapsis distance Apoapsis distance Radial distance Eccentricity Orbit period Time to periapsis passage Time to apoapsis passage Velocity Inclination Longitude of ascending node Longitude of periapsis Argument of periapsis True anomaly True longitude Mean anomaly Mean longitude Orbit reference Ship elements Target elements Frame of reference G field contribution ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 66 Notation Semi major axis the longest semi diameter of the orbit ellipse Semi minor axis the shortest semi diameter of the orbit ellipse Periapsis The lowest point of the orbit For Earth orbits this is also called peri gee For solar orbits it is also called perihelion Apoapsis The highest point of the orbit for Earth orbits this is also called apo gee For solar orbits it is also called aphelion Ascending node The point at which the orbit passes through the reference plane plane of the ecliptic or equator plane from below
125. om of the tab allow expanding or collapsing the entire list and quick deactivation of all modules The modules provided with the standard Orbiter distribution are demos from the SDK package and are available in full source code A wide variety of additional mod ules by 3rd party add on developers can be downloaded from Orbiter repositories on the internet Some of the standard modules distributed with Orbiter are ScnEditor A versatile scenario editor that allows adding editing and deleting spacecraft in a running simulation See Section 20 1 for more details NEW NEW NEW ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 20 ExtMFD This module allows to open additional multifunctional displays in external dialog boxes Useful if you need more information than a vessel s built in MFD dis plays provide or if you want to track flight data in external camera views CustomMFD This module provides an additional Ascent MFD mode for the mul tifunctional displays which can be selected via Rcontrol Remote control of ship engines This allows to manipulate vessels even if they don t have input focus If this module is active the remote control window can be selected from the Custom Functions list FlightData Real time atmospheric flight data telemetry If this module is active the flight data window can be selected from the Custom Functions list Framerate A graphical simulation frame rat
126. on or off DSP Switch to parameter selection page UP Scroll map display up not in track mode or global view DN Scroll map display down not in track mode or global view lt Scroll map display left not in track mode gt Scroll map display right not in track mode Key options parameter selection UP Move selection marker up DN Move selection marker down MOD Modify the currently selected option OK Return to map display MFD control layout Select map reference Select target base orbit Zoom out Zoom in Toggle track mode on off Open config page Scroll up Scroll down Scroll left Scroll right ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 78 MFD display components Readouts Spacecraft position longitude latitude and altitude Orbit target position longitude latitude and altitude Base target position longitude latitude reference planet city base current position zoom level VOR transmitter target base reference planet surface bases orbit target current position zoom level horizon line terminator line ground track predicted target base ground track past locations for spacecraft target and base ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 79 Notes Only objects ships stations or moons orbiting the current reference planet will be accepted as or
127. onal data to the user These include a Planetarium mode that projects different coordinate grids onto the celestial sphere and provides markers and labels for various simulation objects and celes tial and planetary surface features the display of force vectors on spacecraft the display of coordinate axes on different objects The visual helper options can be configured via a dialog 22 1 Planetarium mode Lost in space If you lose your bearings in the middle of an interplanetary flight Orbiter offers guidance in the form of an in flight planetarium with grids and object markers To confi gure the planetarium options open the Visual helper dialog and select the Planetarium tab A shortcut for turning the planetarium on and off is The following items are avail able Celestial grid lines Earth equatorial reference frame Ecliptic grid lines Ecliptic great circle Equator great circle of the target body if applicable Constellation lines and labels full and abbreviated Markers for celestial bodies Vessel markers Surface base markers Markers for navigation radio transmitter locations Markers for user defined objects on the celestial sphere Markers for user defined planetary surface labels Some marker types will not be visible if the object is out of range or from a planet surface during daylight Planets may define their own sets of surface markers to locate items such as natural landmarks po
128. ons then pressing MNU repeat edly will page through the available sets of functions ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 61 Colour customization The default colour schemes for MFD displays can be changed by editing the Con fig MFD default cfg text file Note that some addon MFD modes may override the default settings Below is a description of the standard MFD modes provided by Orbiter See also the Quick MFD reference in Appendix A 14 1 COM NAV receiver setup The COM NAV setup MFD mode provides an interface to the ship s navigation radio receivers which feed data to the navigation instruments It also allows to select the frequency of the ship s transponder which sends a signal to identify the vessel The mode is activated via the COM NAV entry from the MFD mode selection page The MFD lists frequency and signal source information for all NAV radios NAV1 to NAVn The number of receivers n depends on the vessel class A NAV receiver can be selected from the list by and The selected receiver is highlighted in yellow see below Key options Select previous NAV receiver Select next NAV receiver Step down frequency 1 MHz Step up frequency 1 MHz Step down frequency 0 05 MHz Step up frequency 0 05 MHz Scan frequency down Scan frequency up MFD control layout Prev receiver Next receiver Down0 05MHz Down 1MHz Up 0 05MHz Up 1MHz NEW ORBITER User M
129. onsumption of your spacecraft Some of the more realistic spacecraft such as the Space Shuttle may NOT work properly if Limited fuel is not selected because they rely on the reduction of mass during liftoff as a consequence of fuel consumption Nonspherical gravity sources This option activates a more complex gravity calculation which can take into account perturbations in the gravitational poten tial due to nonspherical object shapes thus allowing more accurate orbit predic tions Note that this option can make orbital calculations more difficult and may reduce the stability of instruments that don t take this effect into account For a planet to make use of the perturbation code its configuration file must contain the JCoeff entry For background and technical implementation details please refer to the Orbiter Technical Note Doc Technotes Gravity Gravity gradient torque If this option is enabled vessels can experience an angular moment in the presence of a gravitational field gradient This will be noti ceable in particular in low orbits and can lead to attitude oscillations around the equilibrium or attitude locked orbits For background and technical implementa tion details please refer to the Orbiter Technical note Doc Technotes Distmass Window focus mode Focus follows mouse If this option is ticked the input focus is switched be tween the Orbiter simulation window and any open dialog boxes by moving the
130. or forces that are not generated at the vessel s centre of gravity e g the lift vector the total force displayed is broken up into a linear component originating at the centre of gravity and a corresponding torque The opacity of the displayed force vectors can be adjusted with the Opacity slider from completely transparent to completely opaque ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 122 Dynamics in action A Delta glider displaying the forces acting on its airframe 22 3 Coordinate axes The orientation of the coordinate axes for the local frames of vessels celestial bodies and spaceports can be displayed with the Axes tab of the Visual helpers dialog Coordinate frames can be useful in particular for addon designers who want to make sure that the orientation of their spacecraft design within the simulator is correct The display of coordinate axes is enabled by ticking the Coordi nate axes box Axes can be displayed for vessels spacecraft celestial bodies planets and moons surface bases Unless the Show negative axes box is ticked only the positive x y and z axes are displayed The length of the axis vectors can be adjusted with the Scale slider The opacity of the displayed vectors can be adjusted with the Opacity slider ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 123 23 Demo mode Orbiter can be run in demo or kiosk mode to facilitate its use in public environ ments s
131. or the VTOL VOR MFD to obtain direction and distance in formation A map with VOR locations is available with Frequencies of VOR transmitters located at a surface base are also available from the base s in formation sheet VTOL Surface landing pads for vertical take off and landing VTOL may be equipped with short range landing aid transmitters This signal can be fed to the VTOL VOR MFD to obtain landing alignment information A list of available VTOL transmitters can be obtained from the information sheet of a surface base ILS Many runways are equipped with Instrument Landing Systems ILS to pro vide heading and glideslope information ILS information is used by the HSI MFD mode ILS frequencies are available from the runway listing in the information sheets of surface bases XPDR Some spacecraft and orbital stations are equipped with transponders for identification and long range homing purposes An XPDR signal can be fed to the Docking MFD to obtain distance and closing speed information It is also recog nised by the Docking HUD mode which will display a target rectangle velocity marker and distance information The Docking HUD can be slaved to a NAV re ceiver with XPDR frequencies can be obtained from a vessel s informa tion sheet IDS Instrument docking system Most space stations and some spacecraft pro vide short range approach signals for their docking ports typical range 10 km Thi
132. ou can have a look at any of these by adjusting the camera mode To open the camera configuration di alog press You can now Point the camera to a new target by se lecting an object from the list and click ing Apply Jump back to the current focus object in external or cockpit view by clicking Fo cus Cockpit or Focus Extern Shortcut Select the external camera tracking or ground based mode by clicking the Track tab Shortcut Change the camera field of view by clicking the FOV tab Shortcut and for continous zooming and and for discrete zoom steps Store and recall camera modes via the preset list by clicking the Preset tab 12 1 Internal view In internal cockpit view the player is placed inside the cockpit of his her spaceship and looks forward Instrument panels head up display HUD and multifunctional displays MFD are only shown in internal view To return to cockpit view from any external views press or select Focus Cockpit from the camera dialog Some spacecraft types support scrollable 2D instrument panels and or a 3 dimen sional virtual cockpit in addition to the generic view Press to switch between the available cockpit modes You can rotate the view direction by pressing the key in combination with a cur sor key on the cursor keypad To return to the default view direction press on the cursor keypad 2D panels can be scrolled with This is useful
133. ow indicates positive closing speed The circular instrument shows the ship s alignment with respect to the approach path towards the allocated dock Approach path indicator The green cross indicates the position of the ap proach path relative to the ship When centered the ship is aligned on the ap proach path The radial scale is logarithmic in the range 0 1 103 m Tangential alignment should be performed with attitude thrusters in linear mode see Sec tion 15 2 Tangential velocity indicator The yellow arrow indicates the relative tangential velocity of your vessel with respect to the target The radial scale is lo garithmic in the range 0 01 102 m s The numerical value is the tangential veloc ity m s To align your ship with the approach path engage linear attitude thrusters so that the arrow points towards the approach path indicator Alignment indicator The white red cross indicates the alignment of the ship s forward direction with the approach path direction When centered the ship s forward direction is parallel to the approach path The cross turns red if misalign ment is gt 2 5 The radial scale is linear in the range 0 20 Rotational alignment transmitter ID IDS XPDR tangential ap proach offset tangential velocity longitudinal rota tion indicator tangential velocity indicator alignment indicator approach cone NAV frequency target distance closing velocit
134. press Space The arm has three joints the shoulder joint can be rotated in yaw and pitch the elbow joint can be rotated in pitch and the wrist joint can be rotated in pitch yaw and roll To grapple a satellite currently stowed in the cargo bay move the RMS tip onto a grappling point and press Grapple If grappling was successful the button label switches to Release To make it easier to identify the grappling points of satel lites you can tick the Show grapple points box This marks all grappling points with flashing arrows To release the satellite press Release You can also grapple freely drifting satellites if you move the RMS tip onto a grap pling point To return a satellite back to Earth it must be stowed in the cargo bay Use the RMS arm to bring the satellite into its correct position in the payload bay When the Payload Arrest button becomes active the satellite can be fixed in the bay by pressing the button It is automatically released from the RMS tip The RMS arm can be stowed in its transport position by pressing the RMS Stow button This is only possible as long as no object is attached to the arm Payload can be released directly from the bay by pressing the Purge button Atlantis specific key controls Jettison separate SRBs or main tank Operate cargo bay doors The cargo bay doors cannot be closed when the Ku band antenna is deployed Opera
135. py the current MFD orbit reference object MOD Toggle display mode list only graphics only and both NT No target orbit PRJ Toggle orbit projection mode reference frame ship s and target s orbital plane REF Select new reference object planet or moon for orbit calculation TGT Open menu for target selection MFD control layout MFD display components 1 Graphic display mode In graphical mode the Orbit MFD shows the ship s orbit green and optionally the orbit of a target object yellow around the reference body surface represented in gray The display also shows the ship s current position radius vector the periapsis lowest point of the orbit and apoapsis highest point and the ascending and des cending nodes w r t the reference plane Select orbit reference Auto select reference Select target Unselect target Display mode Frame of reference Orbit projec tion mode Alt rad dis tance display Copy data to HUD ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 65 The user can select the plane into which the orbit representations are projected or bital plane of the ship or target ecliptic or equatorial plane 2 Orbital element list mode In list mode the ship s orbital elements and other orbital parameters are listed in a column on the left of the MFD display green If a target is selected its elements are listed in a column on the right
136. r MFDs are used in the cockpits of most military aircraft and modern airliners They combine the function of a variety of traditional instru ments in a compact format and in combination with computerised avionics data processing present the pilot with situation dependent relevant data In space flight providing the pilot with information appropriate to the current flight regime is even more critical and the Space Shuttle makes extensive use of MFD dis plays Orbiter uses the MFD paradigm in a general and extendable way to provide flight data independent of vessel type An MFD is essentially a square com puter display e g an LCD screen and a set of input controls usually push buttons arranged around the screen The specific layout can vary but the functionality is the same The picture shows the MFD representation for the generic cockpit view mode which is available for all vessel types Up to two MFDs can be displayed in this mode Vessels which support customised 2 D instrument panels or 3 D virtual cock pits may use a different number of MFD screens In generic mode the displays are superimposed directly onto the 3 D scenery representing for example a projection onto the pane of a HUD display in front of the pilot In the centre of the MFD is the data display The 12 buttons along the left and right edge are mode dependent function buttons Their labels may change according to the current operation modus of the instrument The
137. r Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 63 Map and Navaid dialogs with VOR and ILS frequencies 14 2 Orbit The Orbit MFD mode displays a list of elements and parameters which characterise the ship s orbit around a central body as well as a graphical representation In addi tion a target object ship orbital station or moon orbiting the same central body can be selected whose orbital track and parameters will then be displayed as well The mode is activated via the Orbit entry from the MFD mode selection page The display shows the osculating orbits at the current epoch i e the 2 body orbit corresponding to the vessel s current state vectors with respect to a given celestial body The orbital parameters may change with time due to the influence of perturb ing effects additional gravity sources distortions of the gravitational field due to nonspherical planet shape atmospheric drag thruster action etc The orbital elements can be displayed with respect to one of two frames of reference ecliptic or equatorial The plane of the ecliptic is defined by the Earth s orbital plane and is useful for interplanetary flights because most planets orbit close to the eclip tic The equatorial plane is defined by the equator of the current reference object and is useful for low orbital and surface to orbit operations Use to switch be tween the two frames of reference The current mode is displayed in the top line of the displ
138. ration entries to the list when activated It is generally safe for new users to leave all settings in this list at their default values Advanced users can fine tune the behaviour of the simulator here Click on an item to see a short description of its purpose to the right of the list Double clicking or pressing the Edit button opens the associated configuration dialog Among the configuration options available are Time propagation defines the parameters for dynamic update of linear position and velocity and angular vessel states orientation angular velocity Users can select the integration methods as a function of step interval The Orbit stabilisation entry allows to configure the conditions under which Orbiter switches from dynamic to orbit perturbation updates For technical details on the dynamic propagation schemes available in Orbiter refer to the Orbiter Technical Note Doc Technotes Dynamics Vessel configuration Different spacecraft types may provide options for defining visual and physical behaviour under this section Celestial body configuration Parameters to define particular characteristics of planetary bodies Currently this section contains configuration options for the at mospheric models of some planets Debugging options Miscellaneous settings including the way Orbiter shuts down a simulation session and the option to enforce fixed time steps which can be useful for debugging or trajecto
139. rection 1 0 0 e g vernal equinox and the as cending node is undefined for equatorial orbits i 0 in which case Orbiter by convention sets 0 i e it places the ascending node in the reference direction which is equivalent to setting 0 0 1 n n Argument of periapsis arccos e n e n if 0 ze then 2 is the angle between the ascending node and the periapsis is undefined for equa torial orbits in which case according to above convention we get arccos e xe if 0 ze then 2 is also undefined for circular orbits in which case Orbiter by convention places the periapsis at the ascending node i e 0 True anomaly arccos r e r e if 0 v r then 2 is the angle between the periapsis and object position Note that this expression is undefined for circular orbits in which case the periapsis coincides with the ascending node according to the convention above i e arccos r n r n if 0 v n then 2 If in addition the inclination is zero then the true anomaly further simplifies to arccos r xr if 0 xv then 2 Some dependent parameters can be derived from the above elements Linear eccentricity a e Semi minor axis 1 2 2 2 e a b Periapsis and apoapsis distances 1 1 e a d e a d a p Longitude of the periapsis Eccentric anomaly e a E
140. repositories 10 1 Delta glider The Delta glider DG is the ideal ship for the novice pilot to get space borne Its futu ristic design concept high thrust and extremely low fuel consumption make it easy to achieve orbit and it can even be used for interplanetary travel The winged design provides aircraft like handling in the lower atmosphere while the vertically mounted hover thrusters allow vertical takeoffs and landings independent of atmospheric con ditions and runways Two versions are available The standard DG is equipped with main retro and hover engines The scramjet version DG S has in addition two airbreathing scramjet en gines fitted which can be used for supersonic atmospheric flight The scramjets have an operational airspeed range of Mach 3 8 The DG supports 2 D instrument panels and a virtual cockpit in addition to the stan dard glass cockpit camera mode The glider comes with operating landing gear nose cone docking port airlock door deployable radiator and animated aerodynamic control surfaces It supports particle exhaust effects Details on instrumentation controls camera modes and technical specifications can be found in the separate document Doc DeltaGlider 10 2 Shuttle A The Shuttle A designed by Roger Frying Tiger Long is medium size freight vessel designed preliminary for low gravity low density environments The current design allows to achieve LEO from Earth s surface but you
141. rument design to name just a few Don t get frustrated if you don t succeed immediately it s only rocket science Read the documentation and try some of the numerous Orbiter tutorials available on the internet and you will soon be orbiting like a pro Eventually you might start to develop your own add on modules to enhance Orbiter s functionality write tutorials and help files for newcomers or even take active part in the Orbiter core development by identifying and discussing flaws or omissions in the Orbiter physics model and there are still many 1 3 Orbiter on the web The Orbiter home page can be found at orbit medphys ucl ac uk It is your portal to Orbiter news downloads forum addon sites and related pages The main Orbiter forum www orbiter forum com is a friendly meeting place for an active community of new and seasoned users and developers It is a good place to find answers to any problems you may encounter or just to hang out with fellow Orbi nauts Suggestions bug reports and of course praise are always welcome Links to other forum sites can be found on the Orbiter web site Next door to the forum at www orbithangar com is the primary Orbiter add on re pository where you can find a huge number of user created spacecraft instruments textures and more And once you have started to write your own plug ins you can upload them here to share with others The Orbiter wiki at www orbiterwiki org wi
142. ry generation Visual parameters This section contains advanced rendering and texture load options for planetary bodies ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 23 4 8 About Orbiter tab The About Orbiter tab con tains version and build in formation as well as links to the Terms of Use credits and the Orbiter home page and forum ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 24 5 Quickstart This section demonstrates how to take off and land with one of Orbiter s default spacecraft the Delta glider If you are using Orbiter for the first time this will help to familiarise yourself with some basic concepts of spacecraft and camera control You should also read the rest of this manual in particular sections 6 and 8 on keyboard and joystick interface section 14 on instrumentation section 15 on spacecraft con trols and section 17 on basic flight maneuvers Make sure you have configured Orbiter before launching your first simulation in particular the video and joystick parameters see section 4 Once you have started the Quickstart scenario you can get the following scenario instructions also on screen by opening the Help window with Starting Select the Checklists Quickstart scenario see Section 4 1 on scenario selection and press the Launch Orbiter button to launch the scenario Once the mission has been loaded this can take a few moments you will see in front of you run way 33
143. s line for a given altitude while simultaneously the radial velocity crosses zero circular orbit is achieved ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 89 15 Spacecraft controls This chapter contains guidelines on how to control your spacecraft in free space out side the influence of aerodynamic forces due to an atmosphere We are considering a generic vessel Note that the handling of different spacecraft types may vary consid erably Always read the operating instructions of individual vessels if available 15 1 Main retro and hover engines Main thrusters accelerate the ship forward retro thrusters accelerate it backward Main and retro engines can be adjusted with Num to increase main thrust or decrease retro thrust and Num to decrease main thrust or increase retro thrust Main and retro thrusters can be killed with Num The permanent set ting can be temporarily overridden with Num set main thrusters to 100 and Num set retro thrusters to 100 If available a joystick throttle control can be used to set main thrusters The ship s acceleration a resulting from engaging main or retro thrusters depends on the force F produced by the engine and the ship s mass m a F m Note that both a and F are vectors that is they have a direction as well as a magni tude In the absence of additional forces such as gravitation or atmospheric drag the spacecraft will move with constant velocity
144. s signal can be fed to the Docking MFD to obtain dock alignment information It can also be fed to the Docking HUD to display the approach path as a series of rectangles IDS frequencies are available from a vessel s information sheet To find out how to set up XPDR and IDS transmitters via a cfg script see the 3DModel document ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 93 17 Basic flight manoeuvres The following flight techniques are mostly my own invention They seem plausible but since I am not a space flight expert although an enthusiastic amateur they may be inefficient or plainly wrong Corrections and suggestions are always welcome 17 1 Surface flight By surface flight I mean flight paths close to a planetary surface which are not ac tually orbits i e where the gravitational field of the planet must be countered by ap plying an acceleration vector rather than the free fall situation of an orbit Surface to surface transfers from one surface base to another typically involve surface flight If the planet has no atmosphere In this case the only forces acting on your ship are the planet s gravitational field and whatever thrust vectors you apply Most notably there is no atmospheric friction to reduce the ship s airspeed This causes a flight model rather different from a normal airplane The simplest but probably not the most efficient strategy for surface flight is Use hover thrusters to
145. scension 1 Declination 1 Mercury 280 99 61 44 7 01 228 31 Venus 272 78 67 21 1 27 302 07 Earth 90 23 44 0 Mars 317 61 52 85 26 72 262 78 Jupiter 268 04 64 49 2 22 157 68 Saturn 40 14 83 50 28 05 349 39 Uranus 257 29 15 09 82 19 167 62 Neptune 295 25 40 63 29 48 221 13 Pluto 311 50 4 14 68 69 225 19 Reference The Astronomical Almanac 1990 North pole coordinates Derived from north pole coordinates MS B 6 Atmospheric parameters Planet Surface pres sure kPa Surface density kg m3 Scale height km Avg temp K Wind speeds m s Mercury Venus 9200 65 15 9 737 0 3 1 surface Earth 101 4 1 217 8 5 288 0 100 Mars 0 61 variable 0 020 11 1 210 0 30 Jupiter gt gt 104 0 16 at 1 bar 27 129 165 at 1 bar up to 150 at lt 30 latitude up to 40 else Saturn gt gt 104 0 19 at 1 bar 59 5 97 134 at 1 bar up to 400 at lt 30 latitude up to 150 else Uranus gt gt 104 0 42 at 1 bar 27 7 58 76 at 1 bar 0 200 Neptune gt gt 104 0 45 at 1 bar 19 1 20 3 58 72 at 1 bar 0 200 Pluto ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 131 Appendix C Calculation of orbital elements Six scalar parameters elements are required to define the shape of an elliptic or bit its orientation in space and a location along its trajectory a Semi major axis
146. sect Rotate reference axis manual axis mode only Select number of orbit timings in the list MFD control layout Select target object Toggle inter section point List length Rotate inter section point Rotate inter section point ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 82 MFD display components Target object Reference axis True anomaly of ref axis Longitude differ ence Distance m Rel velocity m s Time of arrival dif ference Rel orbit inclination Orbit counter Ship time on ref erence axis Target time on reference axis Ship orbit Target orbit Ship radius vector Target radius vec Reference axis Synchronise Orbit MFD mode Target object The synchronisation target is displayed in the title line It can be selected with Reference axis A selectable axis for which timings are computed Can be se lected with from one of the following orbit intersection 1 and 2 if appli cable ship and target apoapsis and periapsis and manual The manual axis can be rotated with and True anomaly of ref axis RAnm The direction of the reference axis w r t the ship s periapsis direction Longitude difference DLng The angle between ship and target as seen from the central body Distance Dist Distance between ship and target m Rel velocity RVel Relative velocity between ship and target m s Time of arriva
147. section point Select target object Select custom elements ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 127 Transfer see pg 82 Ascent TransX Select refer ence object Select source orbit Select target Unselect target Toggle hypo thetical orbit Numerical trajectory Update trajectory Time steps Rotate ejection point Rotate ejection point Decrease V Increase V Context help Switch to next stage Switch to previous stage Select view Next variable Previous variable Increase sensitivity Decrease sensitivity Increase variable Decrease variable Toggle view mode Select display page Altitude range Radial velocity range Tangential velocity range ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 128 Appendix B Solar System Constants and parameters This section contains a list of physical and orbital planetary parameters used by Or biter to build its solar system B 1 Astrodynamic constants and parameters Constant Symbol Value Julian day d 86400 s Julian year yr 365 25 d Julian century Cy 36525 d Speed of light c 299792458 m s Gaussian gravitational constant k 0 01720209895 AU3 d2 1 2 Table 1 Defining constants Constant Symbol Value Mean siderial day 86164 09054 s 23 56 04 09054 Sidereal year quasar ref frame 365 25636 d Light time
148. sel markers Celestial markers Ecliptic Target equator Celestial equator Constellations Object markers ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 121 Tick Body force vectors to enable the vector display Orbiter allows to show a number of separate linear force components as well as the resulting total force Weight G yellow force due to gravitational field Thrust T blue force generated by the vessel s propulsion system Lift L green lift force generated by lifting airfoils in airflow Drag D red drag force generated by motion through atmosphere Total F white total force acting on the vessel Note that the total force shown may not be equal to the sum of the four component forces because additional forces may be acting on the vessel e g user defined forces Linear forces are shown graphically as vector arrows originating at the vessel s centre of gravity The vector lengths are propor tional to the force magnitudes or logarithm of the magnitudes depending on the Scale setting The lengths can be adjusted with the provided slider In addition the magnitudes are also shown numerically in units of Newton N In addition to the linear forces Orbiter can also display the acting total torque i i i i i r F M M The torque vector is shown w r t the centre of gravity of the ves sel The numerical value is shown in units of Newton metre Nm Note that f
149. sion 3 De orbit from Mir This mission completes your orbital roundtrip with a re entry to return to Kennedy Space Center Start Orbiter with the Checklists Deorbit scenario This picks up where the pre vious mission ended with the glider docked to the Mir station You are currently over the Pacific ocean already it the correct location for the deorbit burn Undock and engage retros for a few seconds Num to get clear of the station Close the nose cone Turn retrograde When the glider s attitude has stabilised and the retrograde direction is no longer obstructed by the station engage main engines at 100 Kill engines when the perigee radius PeR in Orbit MFD has decreased to 5 600M Turn prograde When attitude has stabilised roll the glider level with the horizon Switch to Surface HUD mode Turn left MFD into Surface mode SEL Surface You should reach 100 km altitude about 4000 km from the target Dst 4 000M in Map MFD At this point aerodynamic forces will become noticeable ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 118 At 50 km altitude turn off attitude stabilisation disable the RCS Num and make sure that AF CTRL is set to ON Lift forces will cause the glider to pitch up To bleed off energy you should per form left and right banks Due to the relatively high lift drag ratio of the glider you need very steep bank angl
150. speed The vessel s velocity relative to the planet s centre in a non rotating frame This is identical to the Vel readout in the Orbit MFD Note OS is usually nonzero for a vessel at rest on the planet surface since the planet itself ro tates The speed tape left of the artificial horizon displays the vessel speed in the selected mode The acceleration tape below shows the speed rate of change in the same mode The vertical speed and vertical acceleration tapes are not affected by the speed dis play mode The refresh rate for the Surface MFD is 4Hz or the user selection in the Launchpad dialog whichever is higher Technical background Orbiter uses a compressible flow model to calculate indicated airspeed 1 1 1 2 1 1 0 IAS s s p p p a v where p0 and p1 are the stagnation and freestream pressures respectively ps and as are the standard sea level values for static pressure and speed of sound and is the ratio of specific heats The stagnation point pressure p0 is obtained from the true airspeed by 1 1 2 1 1 0 1 TAS p p a v where a1 is the freestream speed of sound 14 7 Map The Map MFD mode shows a surface map of a planet or moon in a cylindrical lati tude vs longitude projection and a superimposed orbit track of the spacecraft and an optional target object ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 76 The Map MFD has been significantly improved a
151. stall speed ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 90 Main Retro Hover Num perm Num temp 100 Joystick throttle control Num perm Num temp 100 Num Num Acceleration from main retro and hover thrusters The maximum vacuum thrust ratings for main retro and hover thrusters as well as the current spacecraft mass are displayed in the vessel s info sheet Values are in Newton 1N 1kg m s 2 Note that the actual ratings may be lower in the pres ence of ambient atmospheric pressure 15 2 Attitude thrusters Attitude thrusters are small engines which are engaged in pairs to enable rotation or translation of the spacecraft In rotation mode attitude thrusters are fired in cross linked pairs to produce a rotational moment e g front right and back left to rotate left In translation mode thrusters are fired in parallel pairs to produce a linear moment e g front right and back right to accelerate left The current attitude mode is indicated in the top left corner of the HUD Att ROT and Att LIN and can be tog gled with Num Attitude thrusters are controlled with the joystick or keyboard In rotation mode Rotate Yaw Rotate Pitch Rotate Bank Num Num Joystick rudder control Or Joystick left right Button 2 Num Num Joystick forward back Num Num Joystick left right Attitude thrusters in rotational mode In translation mode the spacecraft can be linearl
152. stom MFD modes take effect automatically whenever the simulation runs Others are accessible via the Custom functions dialog Press to get a list of the available functions 20 1 Scenario editor Orbiter has an editor that allows to create configure and delete vessels within a run ning simulation and to change the simulation time The editor is provided as a plugin module To use it make sure that the ScnEditor module is activated in the Modules tab of the Orbiter Launchpad dialog During the simulation you can access the editor by opening the Custom Functions dialog with and double clicking the Scenario Editor entry in the list This will bring up the editor s main page From here you can either configure any vessels cur rently present in the simulation or create new vessels in any location The operation of the scenario editor is described in a separate document Doc ScenarioEditor This also contains a section for vessel addon developers who want to integrate the scenario editor with their vessel code 20 2 External MFDs If the multifunctional displays MFD integrated in the vessel instrument panels don t provide enough information you can open additional MFD displays in external windows This is particularly useful in multi monitor setups where you can display the Orbiter simulation window on one monitor and a set of MFDs on the other To open external MFDs the ExtMFD module must be activated in the Orbiter Launchpa
153. t for a runway takeoff for ex ample when taking off from the Moon or when no runway is available you can use the glider s hover engines to lift off Move the Hover slider on the instrument panel up by clicking and dragging with the mouse Alternatively press the Num key until hover engines are fully en gaged Your glider should now lift off vertically Once clear of the ground engage main engines Note that a fully loaded and tanked glider may be too heavy to lift off ver tically from Earth when the realistic flight model is used As you gain airspeed you can gradually reduce hover thrust Atmospheric flight In the lower atmosphere the glider behaves very much like an aircraft Try the joy stick controls for pitch roll and yaw to get a feeling for handling at different altitudes Without a joystick you can use the numerical keypad Num for pitch Num for roll and Num for yaw The glider has powerful rocket engines but their performance depends on atmospheric pressure at very low altitudes it will not even go supersonic This is a good time to try different camera modes Open the Camera dialog and check the effect of different track modes and field of view FOV settings Landing Go around and approach runway 33 of the SLF from the south Line up with the runway Your HSI instrument helps to maintain the correct approach path and slope One of its two displays should already be
154. tatus free landed vessel and instrument landing system ILS transmitter frequency runway information runway alignment direction length and ILS transmitter fre quency frequencies and ranges for any VOR very high frequency omnidirectional radio transmitters associated with the space port 11 3 Celestial body information Select object type Celestial body and pick one of the bodies listed Information sheets for ce lestial bodies such as sun planets and moons contain physical parameters mass M mean radius R length of siderial star day Ts obliquity of ecliptic Ob tilt of axis of rotation against plane of ecliptic atmospheric parameters if applicable atmospheric pressure at zero altitude p0 atmospheric density at zero altitude r0 specific gas constant R ratio of specific heats cp cv g orbital elements in the ecliptic frame of reference relative to currently orbited body semi major axis eccentricity inclination longitude of ascending node longitude of periapsis mean longitude at epoch current ecliptic position in polar coordinates longitude latitude and radius rela tive to currently orbited body geocentric celestial position right ascension and declination ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 50 12 Camera modes Orbiter s solar system contains a variety of objects including planets moons space craft and launch sites Y
155. te landing gear activated only after tank separation Operate split rudder speed brake Deploy retract Ku band antenna The antenna can only be operated if the cargo bay doors a fully open Space Open RMS control dialog ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 44 Unlike the futuristic spacecraft designs Atlantis provides only a small margin of er ror for achieving orbit Try some of the other ships before attempting to launch the Shuttle Limited fuel must be selected otherwise Atlantis is too heavy to reach or bit 10 6 International Space Station ISS The International Space Station is a multinational scientific orbital platform cur rently under construction although its fate is now somewhat in doubt after the Co lumbia disaster Orbiter contains the ISS in its completed state The ISS is a good docking target for Shuttle and other spacecraft missions In Orbiter the ISS can be tracked with its transponder XPDR signal which by de fault is set to frequency 131 30 The ISS contains 5 docking ports In Orbiter each is equipped with an IDS Instru ment Docking System transmitter The default IDS frequencies are Port 1 137 40 Port 2 137 30 Port 3 137 20 Port 4 137 10 Port 5 137 00 For docking procedures see Section 17 7 10 7 Space Station MIR In Orbiter the Russian MIR station is still in orbit around Earth and can be used for docking approaches Furthermore unlike its rea
156. ter to directly use Earth as the source orbit Whenever the source is not identical to the ship a small direction indicator will be displayed at the current source position which shows the ship s direction w r t the source This helps with timing the ejection burn e g direction indicator pointing away from the Sun Hypothetical transfer orbit Unlike in Orbit mode this MFD allows you to plot a hypothetical transfer orbit HTO which allows to set up what if scenarios without having to change the ac tual orbit The HTO display is toggled on off via It is calculated assuming that somewhere along the current source orbit a prograde or retrograde orbit ejection burn occurs The HTO has two parameters the longitude at which the ejection burn occurs adjusted with and the velocity change during the burn adjusted with The HTO is displayed as a dashed green curve in the MFD The po sition of the ejection burn is indicated by a dashed green radius vector A number of parameters is shown when the HTO is turned on TLe True longitude of orbit ejection point DTe Time to ejection point s Dv Velocity difference resulting from ejection burn m s TLi True longitude of interception with target orbit if applicable DTi Time to interception with target orbit s if applicable Intercept indicator If the source orbit or if shown the HTO intersects the target orbit the intersection point is marke
157. the list a graph display is opened below the control area to track that parameter as a function of time The Start Stop button starts or stops the update of the data graphs The Reset button clears the data graphs ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 112 The Log button starts or stops the output of flight data to a log file When the Log button is ticked Orbiter will write out data into text file FlightData log in the main Orbiter directory This file can later be used to analyse or visualise the data with external tools FlightData log is overwritten whenever Orbiter is restarted ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 113 21 Flight checklists This section contains point by point checklists for some complete flights While fly ing these checklists you may want to save regularly so you can pick up from a previous state if necessary The checklists can also be accessed during the simulation when running a checklist scenario by calling up help and clicking the Scenario button in the help window Other scenarios may also provide online help 21 1 Mission 1 Delta glider to ISS In this mission we launch the Delta glider into orbit from runway 33 of the Shuttle Landing Facility SLF at the Kennedy Space Center and perform a rendezvous and docking maneuver with the International Space Station Start Orbiter with the Checklists DG to ISS scenario Your glider is ready for ta keoff from
158. the same plane as your target most of the following navigational problems become essentially two dimensional which makes them more robust and a lot easier to compute In terms of the orbital elements aligning the plane of the orbit with a target plane means to match the two elements which define the orientation of the orbit in space inclination i and longitude of the ascending node The rotation of the orbital plane requires the application of out of plane thrust To match the plane with a target plane thrust should be applied normal to the current ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 96 plane in one of the nodes the points where the orbit crosses the intersection of the current and target planes This will rotate the orbital plane around an axis defined by your current radius vector The amount of normal v required to rotate by a given angle i is proportional to the orbital velocity v It is therefore more fuel efficient to perform the plane change where v is small i e close to aphelion For a given line of nodes it is more efficient to perform the plane change at the node closer to aphelion Sometimes it may even be useful to make the orbit more eccentric prior to the plane change maneuver so that the radius dis tance of one of the nodes is increased Note If the angle between the initial and target OP is large it may be necessary to adjust the orientation of the spacecraft during the maneuver to keep
159. thout explicit prior written permission by the licensor You will not remove or alter any copyright or license notices contained in the soft ware and documentation or remove or alter any identifying elements including splash screens and logos or try to hide or reassign in any way the name or origin of the software or any of its components You will not use Orbiter or any parts of it to advertise promote present or sell any software or other product or service without explicit prior written permission by the licensor You will not use Orbiter to engage in or allow others to engage in any illegal activ ity D 2 Disclaimer of warranty THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR AND CONTRIBUTORS AS IS AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES INCLUDING BUT NOT LI MITED TO THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT INDIRECT INCI DENTAL SPECIAL EXEMPLARY OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES INCLUD ING BUT NOT LIMITED TO PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SER VICES LOSS OF USE DATA OR PROFITS OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY WHETHER IN CON TRACT STRICT LIABILITY OR TORT INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 135 WISE ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE
160. three buttons along the bottom edge are static and mode independent The MFDs can be operated either by left clicking with the mouse on the buttons or via the keyboard All MFD keyboard functions are key combinations where the left and right keys operate the left and right MFD respectively For instrument panels with more than two MFD displays only two can be operated with the key board the others are limited to mouse control Turning the MFD on and off The PWR button activates and deactivates the MFD display Keyboard shortcut is In generic view mode turning off the MFD also hides the buttons except the power button so it can be turned on again Mode selection The SEL button activates the mode selection screen Keyboard shortcut is Each MFD mode provides information for a different navigation or avionics problem orbital parameters surface parameters docking and landing aids etc For a full list ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 60 of default modes see the following sections in this chapter Many additional modes are available via3rdparty addons The display shows the available modes in the display area one mode next to each function button To select a mode simply click the corresponding button For selection with the keyboard press the key together with the mode selection key displayed in grey with each of the listed modes for example for Orbit mode If there are more
161. tion and configuration of your joystick device if present Joystick device Lists all attached joysticks Main engine control Define the joystick axis which controls the main thrusters Try different options if the throttle control on your joystick doesn t work in Orbiter Ignore throttle setting on launch If ticked the joystick throttle will be ignored at the launch of a scenario util the user manipulates it Otherwise the throttle setting is used immediately Deadzone Use this to de fine how soon the joystick will respond when moved out of its centre position Smaller values make it respond sooner Increase if attitude thrusters do not cut out completely in neutral position Throttle saturation Defines the tolerance zone at the minimum and maximum range of the throttle control at which the joystick reports zero and maximum throttle NEW ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 22 respectively Reduce if main engines do not cut out completely at minimum throttle setting Applies only to joysticks with throttle control If further calibration is required you should use the appropriate tools in the Windows Control Panel 4 7 Extra tab The Extra tab contains a list of more advanced and specialised settings and configu ration parameters including details about Orbiter s dynamic state propagation ves sel configuration and debugging options Addon plugins may add their own configu
162. too long press to engage time acceleration and to switch back To turn prograde you can activate the RCS manually but it is easier to leave it to the automatic attitude control by simply pressing the Prograde button on the right of the instrument panel or Now fire your main engines for final orbit insertion The two parameters to watch are the orbit eccentricity Ecc and periapsis altitude PeA The eccentricity value should get smaller indicating that the orbit becomes more circular while the periapsis altitude approaches the apoapsis altitude ApA Once the eccentric ity value reaches a minimum turn the main engines off You can also deactivate the prograde attitude mode by clicking Prograde again Congratulations You made it into orbit Deorbiting Should you ever want to come back to Earth you need to deorbit This means to drop the periapsis point to an altitude where the orbit intersects the dense part of the at mosphere so that your vessel is slowed down by atmospheric friction Deorbit burns are performed retrograde Click the Retrograde button wait until the vessel attitude has stabilised and engage main engines Keep burning until the periapsis point is well below Earth s surface PeA lt 0 then cut the engines Strictly speaking the deorbit burn must be timed precisely because too shallow a reentry angle will cause you to skid off the atmosphere while too steep an
163. uch as exhibitions and museums Demo mode can be configured by manually editing the Orbiter cfg configuration file in the main Orbiter directory The following options are available Item Type Description DemoMode Bool Set to TRUE to enable demo mode default FALSE BackgroundImage Bool Set to TRUE to cover the desktop with a static image default FALSE BlockExit Bool Set to TRUE to disable the Exit function in Orbiter s launchpad dialog If this option is enabled Orbiter can only be exited via the task manager default FALSE MaxDemoTime Float Defines the maximum runtime for a simulation sec onds Orbiter automatically returns to the launchpad when the runtime has expired MaxLaunchpadIdleTime Float Maximum time spent in the launchpad without user input before Orbiter auto launches a demo scenario seconds In demo mode only the Scenario tab is accessible in the launchpad dialog to prevent users from modifying simulation configuration features such as screen resolution or plugin modules Orbiter should therefore be configured as required before launching into demo mode To use the auto launch feature in demo mode a folder Demo must be created in the main scenario folder usually Scenarios Orbiter will randomly pick a scenario from the Demo folder to launch Note When using Orbiter in kiosk mode it is recommended to run the simulation in a window or to use a fullscreen mode which matches the native P
164. ur screen and the distance between your eyes and the screen Typical values are between 40 and 60 You can adjust the field of view by clicking one of the aperture buttons moving the slider or entering a numerical value in the edit box The keyboard shortcuts are and to continuously decrease or increase the FOV respectively or and to decrease and increase the FOV in discrete steps of 10 The current field of view is displayed in the status section in the top left corner of the simulation window Camera field of view selection NEW ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 53 12 4 Storing and recalling camera modes Orbiter provides an easy method to store and recall camera modes in a preset list Click on the Preset tab in the Camera dialog Any available modes are listed here To acti vate a mode double click it in the list or select the mode and click Recall To store the current camera mode as a new preset in the list simply click Add This will produce a new entry with a short descrip tion To delete a mode click Delete or Clear to clear the whole list Each entry remembers its track mode posi tion target and aperture The preset list is a good way to prepare a set of camera angles beforehand for example to follow a launch and then activate them quickly without having to adjust the positions manually The preset list is stored together with the simulation state so it can be shared
165. ures these can be selected and displayed in the map Configuration page The Map MFD can be configured via a configuration page The current spacecraft position is displayed with a green cross The ground track or orbit plane as well as the visibility horizon are shown as green lines For ground track modes the past track is shown in dark green while the predicted future track is shown in bright green In total the track for approximately three orbits will be shown Note that in orbit plane display mode the cross sectional line will slowly move across the map as the planet rotates below it In addition to your own orbit the position and ground track or orbit plane of a target object e g a spacecraft or moon orbiting the same central body can be displayed The position and orbit lines are shown in yellow The positions of spacecraft and orbit target longitude latitude and altitude are shown at the bottom of the map display Surface bases are indicated by yellow squares A surface base can be selected as a tar get which will display its position at the bottom of the page Key options map display REF Open input box for reference planet moon selection TGT Open a menu for target selection NEW ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 77 ZM Decrease the zoom level by factor 2 down to 1x global view ZM Increase the zoom level by factor 2 up to 128x TRK Switch automatic vessel track mode
166. v as long as no engines are engaged When engines are engaged the ship s velocity will change according to t dt t d a v or t t td t t t 0 0 a v v Note that for a fixed thruster setting F the acceleration will slowly increase as fuel is consumed resulting in a reduction of the ship s mass m Hover engines if available are mounted underneath the ship s fuselage to provide upward thrust Hover thrust is increased with Num and decreased with Num Hover thrusters are useful to compensate for gravitational forces without the need to tilt the ship upward to obtain an upward acceleration component from the main thrusters The current main retro thruster setting and corresponding acceleration is displayed in the upper left corner of the generic HUD Main The indicator bar is green for positive main thrust and yellow for negative retro thrust The hover thrust setting is also displayed if applicable Hovr The numerical acceleration value is in units of m s2 Spacecraft with customised instrument panels usually have their own indica tors for thrust levels Spacecraft equipped with airfoils moving within a planetary atmosphere usually do not require hover thrusters except for launch and landing because they produce an upward force lift when moving with sufficient airspeed like a normal aircraft Lift is speed dependent and will collapse below a threshold speed
167. vertical velocity and accelera tion should fall to zero by reducing pitch not by killing the thrusters Pitch may still be gt 0 because part of the thrust vector is required to counter gravitation un til full orbital velocity is reached As the tangential velocity increases pitch should be reduced to maintain constant altitude As soon as the tangential velocity for a circular orbit is reached eccentricity 0 thrusters should be killed 17 3 Changing the orbit To change the shape of the orbit without changing the orbital plane the thrust vector must be applied in the orbital plane The simplest maneuvers involve modifying the apoapsis or periapsis distances Increase apoapsis distance Wait until the ship reaches periapsis Apply thrust vector prograde ship orientated along velocity vector engage main thrusters Decrease apoapsis distance Wait until the ship reaches periapsis Apply thrust vector retrograde ship orientated against velocity vector engage main thrusters Increase periapsis distance Wait until the ship reaches apoapsis Apply thrust vector prograde Decrease periapsis distance Wait until the ship reaches apoapsis Apply thrust vector retrograde In Practice Case 1 Assume you want to change from a low circular orbit 200km into a higher circular orbit 1000km Turn ship prograde and engage main thrusters ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 95 Kill thrusters
168. vessel 14 6 Surface The Surface MFD mode assists in flight close to planetary surfaces It contains the following elements Artificial horizon with pitch and bank readouts Heading indicator tape Altitude tape with markers for pherihel and aphel altitude Vertical speed tape Vertical acceleration tape Speed tape IAS TAS GS OS Acceleration tape Angle of attack tape Atmospheric data Equatorial position longitude and latitude and rate of change The following atmospheric data are displayed if applicable OAT Outside Air Temperature Absolute atmospheric freestream temperature K M Mach number M v a with airspeed v and speed of sound a DNS Atmospheric density kg m 3 ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 74 STP Static pressure Pa DNP Dynamic pressure q v2 Pa Key options Select Indicated Airspeed display Select True Airspeed display Select Ground relative Speed display Select Orbital Speed display MFD control layout MFD display components Speed display modes The user can choose between four different speed indicator modes vertical accelera tion tape m s2 VSI vertical speed indicator tape m s altitude tape km acceleration tape m s2 speed tape m s IAS TAS GS OS heading tape deg artificial horizon aphelion marker reference object pitch bank readout bank indicator atmospheric dat
169. within 0 5 repeat the process at the next nodal point ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 115 Once the planes are aligned the next step is intercepting the ISS Switch to Sync Orbit MFD SEL Sync orbit Switch the reference point to Intersect 1 or Inter sect 2 If the orbits don t intersect select Sh periapsis instead The two columns on the right of the MFD screen show the times it will take you Sh ToR and your target Tg ToR to pass the reference position at your current orbit Ob 0 and the 4 subsequent orbits Ob 1 4 Turn the ship prograde align with velocity marker of the orbit HUD This can be done by engaging the Prograde auto navigation mode Fire main engines until Sh ToR 0 matches Tg ToR 1 You will now intercept the ISS at your next passage of the reference point You may want to engage time ac celeration until the time on target counters are close to zero indicating that you are approaching the encounter point On approach tune your NAV receivers to the station s navaid radio transmitters Select Comm MFD mode SEL COM NAV and tune NAV1 to 131 30 MHz ISS XPDR frequency and NAV2 to 137 40 MHz Dock 1 IDS frequency Switch to Docking HUD mode and to Docking MFD SEL Docking Make sure both HUD and Docking MFD are slaved to NAV1 use to cycle through the NAV receivers for the HUD and for the MFD Rotate the ship to al
170. y distance bar log scale closing speed bar log scale approach path indicator ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 73 should be performed with attitude thrusters in rotational mode see Section 15 2 Longitudinal rotation indicator This arrow indicates the ship s longitudinal alignment with the docking port To align the indicator must be moved into 12 o clock position by rotating the ship around its longitudinal axis by engaging bank attitude thrusters in rotational mode see Section 15 2 When alignment is achieved the indicator turns white misalignment lt 2 5 Note that this indicator is only displayed when directional alignment see above is within 5 Approach cone The concentric red or green circle indicates the size of the ap proach cone at the current dock distance The ship should approach the dock so that the approach path indicator is always inside the approach cone indicated by a green circle The approach cone becomes smaller as the ship approaches the dock Closing speed should be reduced as the ship approaches the dock using retro thrus ters The final speed should be lt 0 1 m s Notes To dock successfully you must approach the dock to within 0 3 m Additional re strictions may be implemented in the future speed alignment etc No collision checks are currently performed If you fail to dock and keep closing in you may fly your ship through the target
171. y accelerated forward back left right and up down ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 91 Translate Forward back Translate Left right Translate Up down Num Num Num Num Joystick rudder control Or Joystick left right Button 2 Num Num Joystick forward back Attitude thrusters in translational linear mode For fine control of attitude thrusters with the keyboard use Numpad key combi nations This engages the engines at 10 thrust An important control function is the Kill rotation sequence Num This will auto matically engage appropriate attitude thrusters to stop the ship s rotation ORBITER User Manual c 2000 2010 Martin Schweiger 92 16 Radio navigation aids Orbiter uses various types of radio transmitters and receivers to provide information for spacecraft instrument navigation systems Most vessels are equipped with one or more NAV radio receivers which can be tuned to the frequency of a navigation radio transmitter and feed the data to the vessel s navigation subsystems To tune a NAV receiver open the Comm Control MFD mode select a receiver and and tune through the frequency band The following types of navaid radio transmitters are currently supported in Orbiter VOR surface based omnidirectional radio beacons typically with a range of sev eral hundred kilometres VOR signals can be fed into the HSI horizontal situa tion indicator MFD

ORBITER User Manual - Orbiter Space Flight Simulator

Contents

Download Pdf Manuals

Related Search

Related Contents