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Computers do floating point calculations with a finite number of bits. In the case of IEEE standard double precision, its good for about 15 digits. So, if you are 10E+16 meters out, the smallest difference in distances is going to be about 10 meters. It is this quantization that causes the...

Just collect it with duct tape. The most useful stuff on or off the planet. ;)

:facts: http://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/ATpubs/AIM/Chap2/aim0201.html 2-1-9 They're green & white. The beacon for a civilian airport alternates green/white with about two seconds between each flash. At a military airport the white is dualpeaked (two quick white flashes between...

I will add another vote for taxiway and runway lighting and markings. You can find out how to do it correctly in the Aeronautical Information Manual, Chapter 2 "Aeronautical Lighting and Other Airport Visual Aids". I think making the base as a "ship", like Dan's "Prelude II" is a good idea...

Random thought: Maybe we can fake it by changing the reference at the half-way point. The Sun becomes Alpha Centauri A and we update the position of our spacecraft so that it's new position relative to the Sun becomes the old position relative to Alpha Centauri A. Trouble is I don't think the...

:compbash2: Ouch At the risk of stating the obvious: Once you get a working machine (even a laptop), you can put your hard drive in an external USB enclosure and salvage your data. Good deals on computers can often be found at http://www.extremeoverclocking.com/deals/ and...

In some cases a vessel may have specialized attitude or thrust capability. A solar sail is one example. These specialized capabilities would need to be operated by ship-specific code which, of course, should be provided in the ship's DLL. Currently some ships implement a custom autopilot, but...

Adapting the Windmill code will not be too hard. Techspecs.hpp contains nearly all the specifications. You will need to change a few numbers, well, more than a few... :) You will also need to update the names of the mesh and texture files. Finally, you will need to change the mesh group...

Autopilot limits I set it up with standard RCS groups so I am uncertain why AttitudeMFD is having problems. I do not normally use AttitudeMFD so I had not noticed. The "hold this attitude relative to my oribital velocity vector" mode is an interesting idea. This is a known bug. The...

A planetary magnetic field has an important effect too. A planetary magnetic field, such as Earth's, deflects solar wind particles around the atmosphere. Mars does not have a planetary magnetic field. One theory holds that, over time, the solar wind impacted directly on Mars atmosphere and...

According to the Thales Alenia Space statement, the problem was that they "could not restore the satellite into a stable sun-pointing attitude but consumed a significant amount of propellant and discharged the satellite's battery." I could not find any report that it threatened any other...

The autopilot is still a work in progress. I have not made it work with time acceleration yet. Orbit anti-normal does not work, last I checked. If you attach enough mass to the ship it will be unstable. It will not compensate for an off-center CG.

First, the "big picture" link points to the thumbnail. Some Ideas: 1) A tower or observation window overlooking the landing pads and hangar. 2) Communications antennae. They're going to want high speed internet :P (with terrible latency :download: ) 3) An obvious path to the gardens 4) Fuel...

The atmospheric pressure at the surface of Mars is rather low. Do the math: How much ground speed will you need to lift off? About 500m/s What kind of tires will hold together when turning that fast? How much runway do you need to take off? About 10km + a few more km to slow down in the...

1) In simulation: a) Due to the way that planets are implemented in Orbiter, no. b) If you replace the planet with a massive planet-shaped space ship, yes. 2) In real life, The Sierra Club will sue you senseless :P.

Random Thought Consider UMMU. Add a half-dozen lines of code, link in a DLL and you have UMMU capability. UMMU support is fairly common in new vessels. Someone could do the same with fuel cells, then with life support... As more reusable systems become available we can expect spacecraft to...

With GPS navigation you have four unknowns: Your position in three dimensions and the exact time. Thus you need four measurements to solve for the four unknowns. If you know your altitude then three satellites are "enough" because the altitude "measurement" replaces one satellite measurement...

While the realistic speeds of space vehicles limit relativistic effects to the fifth significant digit or less, sometimes even these small errors can render a system useless if not corrected for. One example is the Global Positioning System...

If you want to see what real runway and taxiway markings look like, you browse the FAA Aeronautical Information Manual on-line. Airport signs and markings are in chapter 2. The white chevrons indicate that the runway has a displaced threshold. The area marked with chevrons is not usable for...

Hang on... This developer has been having difficulty finding time to focus on ICOVD due to working overtime on a real-world WAAS/LPV implementation. Google "WAAS LPV site:rockwellcollins.com" for more information. This is a feature that everybody wants. Management would have liked to start...