Question Best Constellation Program Earth to Moon Addon?

[Clavius0712]

Hi,

I know there a several addons covering various aspects of NASA's new "Constellation Program" vehicles but I am having trouble working out which ones to install to simulate a near future "Return to the Moon" type scenario.

Ideally I need an addon or collection of addons which would allow all of the following to be simulated:

1. Ares V launch of Earth Departure Vehicle/Altair Lunar Lander stack into Earth orbit.

2. Ares I launch of Crew Exploration Vehicle into Earth orbit.

3. Rendezvous of CEV with EDV/Altair.

4. EDV TLI (Trans Lunar Injection) burn.

5. CEV/Altair stack mid-course correction(s).

6. CEV/Altair stack LOI (Lunar Orbit Insertion) burn.

7. Altair decent to Lunar surface and EVA of crew.

8. Altair ascent stage launch from Lunar surface.

9. Altair ascent stage rendezvous with CEV in Lunar orbit.

10. CEV TEI (Trans Earth Injection) burn.

11. Command Module separation from CEV and re-entry.

12. Command Module splashdown.

I hope I've got all the terminology right. Basically, is it possible to do all the above using one or more addons?

 

[Clavius0712]

Hi again,

As no-one has responded so far, I'll make it a bit simpler.

I need:

"Orion" CEV (Crew Exploration Vehicle):

EDS (Earth Departure Stage):

N.B. Image above shows EDS with CEV and Lander docked ready for departure for the Moon.

"Altair" Lunar Lander:

"Ares I" Crew Launch Vehicle, to launch CEV:

"Ares V" Cargo Launch Vehicle, to launch EDS and "Altair" Lunar Lander:

If I can get all these vessels working together in Orbiter, I can make my own scenarios for them, similar to the AMSO ones.

Is this doable?

 

[cjp]

How about these add-ons:

[ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=1957"]NASA VSE SC v1.0[/ame]
http://orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=1972

 

[the.punk]

As far as I know francisdrake has made an early beta of the orion cev.
http://home.arcor.de/francisdrakex/download/CEV-Orion-0i.zip

---------- Post added at 12:42 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:40 PM ----------

This one is with round solar panels.

 

[Clavius0712]

Hi all,

Thanks for your replies.

I am aware of a number of addons based on the current NASA "Constellation" plans but it's getting the right ones and/or ones that work together that's the problem.

Here's the closest I've got so far to what I want:

Francisdrake's ESAS CEV addon gives me a scenario in which you have to launch the CEV on an Ares I and rendezvous with the EDS and attached Lunar Lander. This is scenario "11-CEV-launch to rendezvous" in the CEV-E scenarios folder (once the ESAS CEV addon has been installed).

[ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=1972"]ESAS CEV[/ame]

Unfortunately there is no autopilot for the Ares I/CEV-E but I can just about manage an orbit manually. However, I'm currently trying to figure out how to get a better alignment with the EDS orbital plane once I achieve orbit. Last time I had a relative inclination of something like 20 degrees!

I tried the "LaunchCEV" autopilot addon (see below) but this only gets you to the ISS and also causes crashes in other scenarios until you disable it again.

http://www.orbithangar.com/search_quick.php?text=LaunchCEV&submit.x=0&submit.y=0

I feel like I'm getting there but am still some way off achieving the full "NASA - Return to the Moon" experience! For one, I'm not sure if the LM that comes with the ESAS-CEV addon had a functioning ascent stage but haven't checked yet so forgive me if it has.

I also got that new-look CEV addon mentioned above (http://orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=1972) but it doesn't have a rendezvous with EDS scenario. I prefer the look of that CEV though, so it would be great if this could be substituted for the one in the rendezvous scenario. Does anyone know if this is possible?

It would be great if we had a scenario pack that covered all the steps for the new NASA back to the Moon vision with all the latest looking vehicles.

 

[JamesG]

Just do the Apollo missions. It the same thing.

 

[Ark]

Just do the Apollo missions. It the same thing.

Only with no glass cockpit. :lol:

 

[Clavius0712]

Just do the Apollo missions. It the same thing.

I know what you mean but I've done lots of Apollo missions using AMSO and want to see what a future Moon mission might look like. Isn't this just a bit cooler than rehashing old flights?

FYI, I copied and edited the AMSO mission in which the LEM is just about to undock from the CSM and descend to the Moon and swapped in the CEV-E and Altair LM from the ESAS-CEV addon and the scenario actually loaded OK. I haven't had a chance to see if I can actually land at Tranquility Base yet but it was a promising start. Of course the date was 1969 etc but with a bit of tweaking...

I also noticed that there is in fact an autopilot for the CEV-E rendezvous with EDS/LM scenario from the ESAS-CEV addon but it's commented out with a ";" so it isn't called. I uncommented it and the Ares-I got all the way into orbit but then went too far and ended up in a highly eliptical orbit. I may copy the guidance file and play around with it to see if I can fix this but it could be tricky unless anyone can suggest an easy way of doing it. Can I record my own manual flight somehow and use this as a guidance file?

I will continue playing with the various addon files with the aim of putting together a mission pack for a future NASA return to the Moon. It would be like AMSO, i.e. lots of individual steps all in the same scenario folder. I'm hoping that once the EDS/LM/CEV are all docked together in one of the scenarios, you could do a full mission including landing on the Moon, ascent back to the CEV, and return to Earth, but this is a pretty ambitious aim at the moment.

 

[tgep]

Have you tried to modify the auto-pilot file to put you into an orbit aligned to the lunar plane for that scenario date ? A change of heading and a correct launch date are what's needed for it.

 

[Clavius0712]

Have you tried to modify the auto-pilot file to put you into an orbit aligned to the lunar plane for that scenario date ? A change of heading and a correct launch date are what's needed for it.

I haven't tried that. Thanks for the suggestion.

In the meantime, I've created three scenarios portraying the ESAS-CEV "Orion" and ESAS-LM "Altair" performing a landing on the Moon in 2015. I will add more as I go along. All the scenarios require ESAS-CEV addon by francisdrake and AMSO addon by ACSoft to be installed.

[EDIT]Added more missions. Now includes EDS TLI burn from Earth Orbit and mid-course corrections. There is an LOI scenario as well but my mission parameters must be off as the Orion runs out of fuel. Either I'm coming in too fast or the launch window I chose wasn't right but there is something wrong.

NASA Constellation Program Scenario Pack
http://www.mediafire.com/?t2mqzlynwlm
I had fun making these - and yes I did manually land the Altair! I saved my final approach as one of the scenarios in the pack. I overshot the landing site and had to turn around but eventually made it.

Any feedback is much appreciated.