ESA CTV and ATV...

[Therius]

I downloaded the ESA CTV Pegase' about a week ago at Mustard's site http://orbiter.mustard-fr.com/ and I must say that I've had as much enjoyment out of it as just about any add-on so far. I love the features on it. I played with DG4 forever until I discovered NASSP and AMSO. Using them, I fell in love with the old tried and true capsule concept. That's what brought me to this add-on. It was created by Well & No Matter and I must say well done and thanks.

I completed my first successful lunar mission last night. I made 10 lunar orbits and headed back to earth. My re-entry and splashdown was successful. Re-entry took some practice in earlier sessions. I ended up with an Apollo style return with IMFD settings of ReA 3 degrees, Ant 2 degrees @ 80km. Max G's were 6.9. I believe that a softer entry can be obtained with more tweaking.

Has anyone else been enjoying this add-on as much as I have?

 

[tl8]

All of the french addons are of excellent quality, You may like to try the HLV addon which simulates a lunar base.

 

[RAF92_Moser]

I've downloaded this addon. The re-entry effects are incredible, but I've still have much to do with this addon before I am completely satisfied.

 

[Urwumpe]

I ended up with an Apollo style return with IMFD settings of ReA 3 degrees, Ant 2 degrees @ 80km. Max G's were 6.9. I believe that a softer entry can be obtained with more tweaking.

3° at 80 km is too steep. Try 6° at 120 km. Minimum altitude should be about 73 km if you fly full lift for the beginning of the entry.

 

[Therius]

I tried that angle and alt. I burned up! :blackeye:
I must be doing something wrong.

 

[Urwumpe]

I tried that angle and alt. I burned up! :blackeye:
I must be doing something wrong.

Just tested it, I thought it has Apollo like aerodynamics, and the first test looks good. The piloting manual for reentry could need some better explanations.

I reentered at the wrong attitude and had no useful lift at all (wrong trim settings, needed to trim down instead of up), but correcting this and turned heads down ended in still in a intact 4.35G reentry, though I dropped a few dozen km deeper as planned.

It is possible that it has a tiny bit worse aerodynamics, because of the different ballistics, but still you should get out in one piece from lunar distances.

 

[no matter]

Thanks for enjoying the CTV

I am not far experimented in aerodynamics and atmospheric reentry, I only tried to do my best by guessing (of course Apollo capsule was not far in my mind). Don't really know how great should be the lift effect on a capsule, that's why trim is used.
On Dansteph's forum, some have reported good results using Basesync and Aerobrake MFD with these values in BaseSync MFD: angle 2°, Ant 14° et alt 80km.

There is a french (sorry no translation yet) tutorial on Mustard's site explaining how to reenter using basesync and aerobrake. Input values for MFD are outdated since it uses the previous version of CTV addon but the method remains the same.
Une_rentree_precise_en_CTV.zip
I will try to make a decent tutorial in english on CTV's reentry, expect that for the next version (minor update to make it compatible with the next Ariane5 version I am working on).