"From the Earth to The Moon" an AMSO 1.17 Apollo 11 Full Mission Tutorial Using IMFD

[polaris149Tiberius]

Exactly What

Any new updates on this tutorial? I'm having issues on doing the first LOI once I get to the moon. Great tutorial so far.

When you get to the moon and you notice the Earth has gone behind the moon you would (if actually there) experience a Loss of Signal (LOS). You will want to make preperations to do your LOI burn. You can use IMFD's Orbit Insert program and set the reference to the Moon if its not already set to that. That should allow you to do one single LOI burn.

However, if your a stickler for history, you can use Orbiter's retrograde program and then set an MFD to Orbit MFD (comes with Orbiter) and wait until the PeT gets to about T-60 and burn retrograde until you cause the orbit to reach a PeA of about 100km. Then when you get to the PeA, you will burn prograde to circularize your orbit so that the ApA and the PeA are both around 100km. This is the way NASA did it in 1969.

Im not sure on the PeT burn timming but a look at my scenario will give an exact amount. -Note, you can use IMFD's Orbit Insert to get the burn time. Your burn should take place at a PeT of 1/2 the total burn time. So if IMFD says your burn time to get into orbit is 250seconds, you must burn at PeT T- 125seconds. This should allow you to circularize your orbit as given above.

Let me know if you have any further questions. I am still working on this tutorial sorry its not complete. I should have this section posted soon.
Thanks for your question.

 

[polaris149Tiberius]

Im not seeing any feedback

Im not seeing any feedback


Can I get some feedback on this tutorial. 3,833 viewers makes this the most popular thread I think. Some of you should chime in and let me know if this helps or not.

Thanks in advance.

 

[caningo]

Tutorial Feedback

Im not seeing any feedback


Can I get some feedback on this tutorial. 3,833 viewers makes this the most popular thread I think. Some of you should chime in and let me know if this helps or not.

Thanks in advance.

Alright, it’s been a while since I replied to this thread. I meant to respond sooner but I was on vacation until last weekend.

I’ve played the AMSO Apollo 11 mission probably like 10 times already using this tutorial. Overall it’s very good but there are some things I would like to comment on. My feedback/suggestions are as follows:

Orbiter settings:
>> One minor change I had to do was change the AMSO recommended brightness in Orbiter from 40 to 100. Due to the fact that Tranquility base is located on a moon dark spot, I could barely see anything even with my monitor brightness all the way up.

Procedure:
1)Launch – OK

2)LEO – OK

3)TEI – I referred to the suggestions given at the end of the IMFD manual. They suggest doing TEI @ 2:44:16 GET with a PC alt. of 120 km. The 120 km works out great because when you arrive at the moon and complete the LOI-1 burn it allows you to end up with a final perilune altitude of approx. 59.2 nm (109.6 km) which is the historical one. One more thing: the map program has a feature that tells you what your angular distance from Tranquility base will be at the LM landing time. I prefer to use this when doing the offset procedure. I just set it as close to 0.00* as possible to ensure proper alignment once at the moon.

4)CSM/S-IVB separation – This occurs around 3:15:00 GET. I usually orient the ship retrograde that way when I separate the LM from the S-IVB, it is in front and doesn’t collide with me when it ignites to get into a solar orbit.
NOTE: This isn’t the way it was done in 1969. They had to perform a collision avoidance maneuver. I prefer the other way because it doesn’t mess up my course that much. It’s up to you.

5)MCC – I do mine @ 26:44:58 GET using the same offset procedure outlined in the tutorial, but with PC alt. of 120 km. Don’t forget to set the ang. dist. as close to 0.00* from Tranquility as possible.

6)LOI-1 – This burn is very important because it sets the stage for how far off you will be time wise with respect to the real flight. The NASA flight plan states that this burn was done pointing the CSM/LM stack retrograde to achieve an orbit of 59.2 nm X 169.8 nm (109.6 km X 314.5 km).

The way I do this is using the Delta Velocity program in IMFD. It should already be set to Vel. Frame Off-Axis, otherwise you should change it. Then, you adjust the TEj so that the periapsis after the burn (blue dot) is right over your current periapsis (green dot). Once that is done, you adjust the dVf downwards so that the planned orbit is as close to 109.6 km X 314.5 km as possible. TEj will be before 74:54:28 but you should pass your periapsis around that time.

7)LOI-2 – This one is done around 80:09:30 according to the flight plan. Historical orbit is 53.6 nm X 65.6 nm (99.3 km X 121.5 km). AMSO uses a parking orbit of 110 km. I find that this simplified orbit causes the time difference when you land on the moon. I still haven’t tried Attitude MFD which allows you to adjust the pitch, yaw and roll very accurately. The pitch, yaw and roll numbers needed for this burn are included in the NASA flight plan.

8)LM/CSM separation – Done at historical time.

9)DOI – Use AMSO autopilot.

10)PDI – Use AMSO autopilot.

11)LM landing – Important part here. The AMSO manual clearly states that Neil Armstrong did not land on the first planned spot because it didn't look safe. He switched to manual control and landed a bit further ahead. The P64 program (Target Change) should be used here otherwise the automatic landing will have you inside Little West crater. Using your arrow keys move the green flashing light up so that you are close to the Double crater formation that's north of LW. Refer to the EVA.doc included with the AMSO documentation for the exact location. In my flights by the time I land, I am on average 4 minutes ahead of the historical time.

12)LM ascent stage liftoff and rendezvous – Done at 124:23:26 GET. Use AMSO programs. You might have to make a CSM base alignment burn because it might have misaligned during the time you were on the moon. If CSM and LM are not aligned you won’t be able to run the Ascent programs. After about 2 orbits The LM should end up 20 m away from the CSM in a station mode. Just maneuver the CSM and dock.

13)TEI – OK

14)Capsule reentry and landing – I keep getting the same problem as the author of this tutorial. I always end up landing way off the intended landing target. I am guessing it might have do with the fact that the real flight maneuvered in the atmosphere and I only set the capsule retrograde once I separate from the CM. Maybe if I try using aerodynamic lift it might help. I will try sometime in the future.

15)Recovery – I don’t even try this step. The helicopter is such a pain to fly. I always end up way far from the capsule and I just get frustrated.

Well, I hope this has helped. I must thank Polaris for providing this wonderful tutorial otherwise I would have probably just stayed at Earth orbiting and never reached the moon. :huh:

To refer to the specifics of the Apollo 11 flight plan I used the following: http://history.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/a11final-fltpln.pdf

Cheers,
Caningo

 

[polaris149Tiberius]

Excellent reply. Outstanding work. Thank you for your awesome full contribution to this thread. This information is invaluable. We need to now site a seperate document or a transcript to this tutorial and site the reference to your work here as is done in the scientific process. I propose that we test each process one by one and site the differences until we get a single standard process -like NASA must have done to thier simulators to test an exact process.

I think that .xls launch recording MFD's files of our launches and video recordings with certain MFDs showing or what ever we can to record the launch and then comparing the flight is a good start.

Have you seen my thread on the new AutopilotMFD flightplan for launching the default Shuttle STS-101 Atlantis and the Satelite?
Here is the link:
The ONLY Launch AP for built in Atlantis STS-101

We might be able to find ways to make my flightplan for the Shuttle Atlantis work for like the AMSO launch. This would be where I start if you wish to join this endevour.

I invite you work on this process with me at any level of involvement you choose. Thanks very much for your contribution.

 

[caningo]

Hey man no problem. I really appreciate you taking the time to write this and helping people like me and others understand how to do this fun Apollo flight.

I am up for helping in whatever I can. Just let me know. I can do video recordings/pictures of each of the A11 flight phases and then send them to you so that we can compare.

I’ll definitely look into the shuttle tutorial, though I must admit that I am quite hooked on AMSO now. :lol:

PM me and fill me in with the details.

Caningo

 

[polaris149Tiberius]

Mainboard cuttof

"Mainboard cuttof"
Cool! Thanks for offering your services. I would like to start with the launch phase. I want to see if we can get the exact same results from a launch. You will need 2 MFDs to begin this study. Both MFDs can be downloaded at Orbit Hangar Mods direct links can be found by clicking on the name of the MFD.

[ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=406"]Launch Data Recorder[/ame] by dh219

and

[ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=759"]FlightDataRecMFD[/ame]by mattweidner

The first is the more simpler recorder. It outputs various flight parameters to a CSV file in the Orbiter directory when activated.

If you dont have MS Office you will need something like Open Office or some other data sheet (spreadsheet) application that will let you look at the spreadsheet file Launch Data Recorder creates. Here is where you can get it completely free
http://www.openoffice.org/

We are going to take on the roll of Misson Control Houston for this study. The mission will be to study the launch parameters and time reference of the Launch ONLY. We want to see how the AMSO autopilot gets us into orbit. The official flightplan may dictate a different process which we may also want to look at.

We will test the Apollo 11 flight only for now. Im interested in the exact second cutoff happens for you and for me. We can report this here as our findings. I am also interested in a form of the CSV file which we can upload here that shows the altitude as a function of time as the raw data, and the graph of the launch. I will post an example of what Im looking for here in a few hours.

 

[polaris149Tiberius]

Ok in the previous reply is my launchrec.csv file with a chart that shows altitude as a function of time. The file is in the OpenOffice format ".ods" but I have also included the launchrec.csv file which is the raw data that the LaunchRecordMFD creates in the Orbiter root folder.

 

[caningo]

I'll be posting my data soon. Classes just started this week and it has been pretty hectic.

Ok in the previous reply is my launchrec.csv file with a chart that shows altitude as a function of time. The file is in the OpenOffice format ".ods" but I have also included the launchrec.csv file which is the raw data that the LaunchRecordMFD creates in the Orbiter root folder.

 

[cdhutch]

Tutorial Recommendation

Im not seeing any feedback


Can I get some feedback on this tutorial. 3,833 viewers makes this the most popular thread I think. Some of you should chime in and let me know if this helps or not.

Thanks in advance.

Polaris,
Great tutorial. Since a lot of the steps between Parts 7 and 16 are still in work, may I recommend uploading a scenario file or two that will let users start just prior to TEI without going through all of the DG-S procedures? This should give a common point of departure/resumption for your tutorial. If you have and I didn't see it in the thread, 1000 pardons.

Thank you.
Regards,
Craig

 

[polaris149Tiberius]

Main board cuttoff

"Main board cuttoff"


First of all thanks for your input.
That is a very good Idea but the TEI is complete and covers the whole proceedure. It also works for the CSM not just the DG s.

The parts that I need are fairly simple and I try and do about one a week. I havent for a little while because I have been job searching. Sorry.

NOSA (National Orbiter Space Administration) needs help if you want to help us. Just ask any question you want and I will try and answer within a couple of days. And let me know if you want to join NOSA.

 

[2552]

Step 26. Set the LMFD's Operation modes to: "Vel. Frame" by navigating between the 2 pages and useing "Nxt", "Prev", "Set", "(+)", and "(-)" buttons.

Could this maybe say "by navigating between the 2 pages (useing the MOD button) and useing.."? I was confused on how to set that (tried using the PG button) for a little while untill I googled 'imfd "Velocity Frame"' and found how to do it here:

If you want an 8-shaped free return trajectory, there is something more to be done. Using MOD button switch
to the page containing "Offset Disabled" and change it to "Velocity Frame".

I am going to the Moon right now using this awesome tutorial and have almost never used IMFD before, thank you for making this!

Edit: also, I am using the latest IMFD (5.1m)

 

[polaris149Tiberius]

Affirmative

"Affirmative"

Yes this is a good idea. I will ammend the tutorial to read as follows:

Step 26. Set the LMFD's Operation mode to: "Vel. Frame" by navigating between the 2 pages using the MOD button until you see a page with the function called "Offset Disabled" . Now move around the different functions on the page useing "Nxt" or "Prev" until "Offset Disabled" is highlighted. You will change "Offset Disabled" to "Vel. Frame" by clicking on "(+)" or "(-)".


Does this make more sense?
I appreciate your suggestions and I submit to the entire Orbiter community that without this type of feedback, there would have been no way for me to realize how confusing this step was until somone pointed it out to me. This ADDS to the value of the document.
Eventually, with help like this, we should have documents that are clear and concise and ready to be read by all Orbinaughts not just the ones with understanding.

Thank you very much for your input 2552. Please feel free to submit any further comments/questions/suggestions you may have.

 

[2552]

Yes, that makes more sense, thank you. After a few tries of getting the numbers right (and starting from the "Apollo 11 step 5" scenario and finally getting the GET and PeA right from there), I did the TLI burn and am on the way to the moon.

Edit: Oops, forgot to mention, on part 3, step 2, it's actually J to detach the CSM from the S-IVB (and to extract the LM from the S-IVB), not K (and it says so in the manual too):

When the mission has progressed to the 3rd stage, and Apollo CSM, the “J” Action key will separate the Apollo vessel from the 3rd stage

Edit: Mission Complete. Got to lunar orbit, landed, moonwalked, collected rocks, drilled samples, deployed experiments. Took off, rendezvoused with the CSM, jettisoned the LM, did the TEI burn, and ran out of fuel (due to not seeing RMFD change back to Realtime from off-axis, almost doubling the required dv for the burn, plus having only ~28% fuel left). Had to restart from my Post-TLI burn quicksave and make some RCS burns to make my EqI closer to 180 (got 176.34). I got lucky and didn't have to align the CSM's orbit with Tranquility at all for landing or ascent. Plus I got to watch the awesome landing sequence again .

After the TEI burn (done using Planet Approach), I saw my Earth PeA was about -1500km instead of the 38km I set in LMFD. I fixed that with some RCS burns while still near the Moon. I reentered without dying (just turned on retrograde autopilot), and landed about 20 minutes early, which made the landing site pretty dark, and hard to see from the helicopter.

I noticed one thing AMSO does on Apollo 11 that's a bit unrealistic. After rendezvousing with the CSM and jettisoning the LM, AMSO magically refuels the LM and deorbits it. On Apollo 11, the LM was left in Lunar orbit, but on later missions, it was deorbited deliberately. I opened Scenario Editor and set the LM's fuel to 0 so it would stay in Lunar orbit.

 

[caningo]

AS 506 Launch Data

Alrite. I'm back. It's been pretty rough this past month taking Fluids and Thermodynamics.

Here's the data for the Apollo 11 launch part. I wasn't able to figure when the outboard cutoff is for the 2nd stage, but from previous launches I know it doesn't match the historic one.

Let me know what we should do next. I've been working on a method of getting a precise reentry for the Apollo capsule when it returns from the moon. I tried using aerobrake MFD but as others have said it doesn't work for capsules because the nose isnt pointing the same way as the velocity vector.

I've come to the conclusion that a precise landing can only be achieved if the capsule attitude can somehow be kept at a fixed angle. I guess we can ask Alain to maybe make an attitude or AoA hold autopilot feature and then experiment with that.

If there is anything else let me know. I'll try to get back ASAP.

Caningo:beach:

 

[polaris149Tiberius]

Main Board Cuttof

"Main Board Cuttof"

Ok cool. Your data looks good and almost exactly the same as mine.
The next phase is to report our orbital data just after cutoff. I will as soon as I get home from work today if I can.

For re-entry I want you to do something that will show you how to re-enter. You need to download ReentryMFD and install it and then activate it.

What you will do is use the same scenario as Apollo 11 and you will use the same launch time and AMSO autopilot to launch into orbit, but this time you will jetteson the SIVB rocket with its 70% or so fuel and then do a retrograde burn until the PeA is 40km. You MUST do this when crossing over the Western tip of Austrailia. You can open up the Map MFD and take note of your Lon and Lat when you begin the de-orbit burn. You will want to test it several times from launch to de-orbit burn or at the same GET all three times. Look at where you land all three times. Also after you do the burn, jetteson the CM and you will activate the retrograde in Orbiter's AP.

I will post my results here and you can too. This will be cool and it will teach you how to re-enter as the same proceedure will work for comming home from the moon. Also make a note of your highest level of G-force using reentry MFD. Note: if your G forces go beyond 10 Gs for more that a few seconds your toast.

Talk to you soon.

 

[n122vu]

I just wanted to say how much I appreciate this tutorial. I have learned so much from the sections that are complete, not just about AMSO but also several of the available MFDs and their use. I'm afraid I don't have any technical suggestions for the document. I just wanted to let you know how valuable I think this tutorial is and will be for Orbiter as a whole. It is now and will be a must-have once complete. Thank you for all of the time and meticulous attention to detail you are putting into this. Keep up the good work, and best of luck.

Regards,
n122vu

 

[polaris149Tiberius]

I just wanted to say how much I appreciate this tutorial. I have learned so much from the sections that are complete, not just about AMSO but also several of the available MFDs and their use. I'm afraid I don't have any technical suggestions for the document. I just wanted to let you know how valuable I think this tutorial is and will be for Orbiter as a whole. It is now and will be a must-have once complete. Thank you for all of the time and meticulous attention to detail you are putting into this. Keep up the good work, and best of luck.

Regards,
n122vu

Well n122vu, Thank you very much for your kind words. This tutorial began whith what I saw as a large need in the Orbiter community to have a complete step through for using the latest AMSO and IMFD (the two complement each other and the two authors work together for a complete Lunar Mission since the beginning of AMSO) mods that offered going to the moon and then getting back again. There were already tutorials for how to use IMFD to get to the moon but none on how to get back -at least for using the latest version of IMFD.

This tutorial started with just the TEI burn instructions and then became a full tutorial for all the processes over time which addresses the usage of the latest versions of both IMFD and AMSO.

When the tutorial is complete, I plan to make a PDF that will be downloadable. For now, it is available ONLY on these forums. The reason is because I consider these forums my home and I feel a certain loyalty here. The tutorial has been viewed 5,074 times as of today and since its posting on 04-16-2008 which makes it the most read post in these forums.

I am glad it has helped you and so many others learn to use Orbiter for this historical flight. In my view it was the most important endevor man had ever undertook in human history and still is. It therefore needed to be (in my view) the most exciting flight people could simulate in Orbiter.

Please feel free to suggest any modifications or additions to the tutorial especially since it is so incomplete.

Thanks again for your very considerate and positive feedback. Have fun and enjoy.

Adam

 

[apolloyamsi]

Can't get Docking Reticle up

Hi,

The tutorial is great so far, but when I get ready to dock with the LM and extract it from the SIVB, I can get the docking reticle up. I try CTRL-ALT-UP, and it doesn't do anything. What am I doing wrong?

 

[caningo]

Hi,

The tutorial is great so far, but when I get ready to dock with the LM and extract it from the SIVB, I can get the docking reticle up. I try CTRL-ALT-UP, and it doesn't do anything. What am I doing wrong?

What do you mean by docking reticle? The sight? And in which vehicle is this happening? CM or LM?

Caningo

 

[apolloyamsi]

Okay,

Firstly, since I said I was trying to extract the LM from the SIVB, we can ASSUME I am in the CM. Secondly, yes, I mean the sight (not site). During Apollo, it was called the reticle, if I am not mistaken. I just can't get it to come up at all while I am in the virtual cockpit. Any help would be appreciated.

Yamsi