General Question powering down Shuttle Atlantis?

[rocketdued]

yes i suppose and sorry for the mispelling there.

 

[orb]

well im a flightsimulator 2004 cessna pilot. does that mean i have to know how to bulid a cessna and know every operation for it to be able to fly it? no. then why would i have to be a nasa rocket scientist to be able to fly a space flightsimulator?

When I found Orbiter in 2002, there was no "Go play in space" everyone recommend (which I haven't read yet, by the way), but there was that JPL's "Basics of Space Flight", which helped me with Orbiter by that time. After reading that I could easily get to Moon or Mars with DG, and every Shuttle launch resulted in getting me into orbit without problems. It doesn't teach you how to build a real rocket, but how the spaceflight works. It's named "Basics of Space Flight" after all.

 

[Urwumpe]

well im a flightsimulator 2004 cessna pilot. does that mean i have to know how to bulid a cessna and know every operation for it to be able to fly it? no. then why would i have to be a nasa rocket scientist to be able to fly a space flightsimulator?

No, but actually, you need to know how a Cessna works for knowing how to operate it. Same here. If you don't know lift and drag, the Cessna won't fly with you. If you don't know about Kepler elements, no spacecraft will fly with you.

 

[N_Molson]

Well, I'm certainly not a rocket scientist. My studies are about litterature & teaching, so my scientific knowledge is quite limited compared to other people there.

I had a similar reaction when I first tried Orbiter 10 years ago. Then I went back to it and found it was an interesting challenge. From there I quickly got space-addicted, and when you have fun about something, learning about it is not a problem.

To fly a Cessna in FS2004, you need to know that an object heavier than air tends to fall. You also need to know that an winged aircraft needs a certain speed to produce lift. Also that any aircraft has structural limits. And I'm not talking about the radio-navigation instruments, that are complex things.

Orbiter is the same. To send a spacecraft into Orbit, you need to have an idea of the relationship between gravity, mass & speed (to keep things simple). But you don't need to know the formulas. Trial and error is a great way to learn.

Also, there are great tutorials on these forums you should really try out.

 

[garyw]

When I found Orbiter in 2002, there was no "Go play in space" everyone recommend (which I haven't read yet, by the way), but there was that JPL's "Basics of Space Flight", which helped me with Orbiter by that time. After reading that I could easily get to Moon or Mars with DG, and every Shuttle launch resulted in getting me into orbit without problems. It doesn't teach you how to build a real rocket, but how the spaceflight works. It's named "Basics of Space Flight" after all.

My experience of Orbiter is almost the same as Orb's. I found it around 2003 and had absolutely no clue what I was doing. I had just the manual and the original forum. It took me 6 months to go from Cape Canaveral to docking with the ISS. That's right. 6 months.

I ended up doing a lot of reading and doing a lot of simple experiments. My first few DG sorties were simple touch and go types of things. My next lot were into orbit. Any orbit. ISS didn't matter, next it was onto ISS rendevous and then finally docking.

My maths skills are terrible. They have improved with Orbiter, time and patience. Ok, Urwumpe, Orb, Xyon and many, many others have helped. I'm still learning.

Remember what the orbiter home page says:

"The Emphasis is firmly on realism".

if you don't have the time or the inclination to learn something that IS a simulator then there are plenty of space games that don't use physics.

 

[rocketdued]

ok i'll try that and see what happens. maybe im aiming to high being a newbie. i'll start smaller

 

[Rtyh-12]

Believe me, don't get disappointed. It's not that hard, although it's very realistic. In time, you will make most maneuvers without any problems. Thrust me! :lol:

Edit: I can't tell you two of the three laws of Kepler and yet I can dock with the ISS and get to the Moon.

 

[garyw]

I'll also remind you of the helpful advice you received over in this thread regarding the same orbit problems.

 

[rocketdued]

ah hey i been looking for that. but i couldn't remember the name of it. right now though im practiceing touch and goes with the delta glider. but for somereason it keeps wanting to pitch down. im messing with my joystick settings but it seem really touchy

 

[garyw]

rocketdued - you can view your own post history via your user profile and there is the handy SEARCH bar at the top of the forum.

 

[rocketdued]

yes sir i know about those. this is not my very first post on any forums

 

[Urwumpe]

ok i'll try that and see what happens. maybe im aiming to high being a newbie. i'll start smaller

If enlightenment hits you, you can get, in terms of your skills, from the first controlled orbit to the ISS in a few hours. It takes a bit of practice, but actually, what really brings you forward is understanding the coarse concepts.

Not math, since MFDs can do the math much better than you can. But you should know what the results of the math done by the MFDs mean, or how you can tweak your trajectory towards a target trajectory.

Docking is for example, making your seven important orbit elements (There are also other elements known and displayed, that are calculated from those seven) slowly equal to those of your target. Not a large complex mystery, but actually just a series of small steps that bring you into the right trajectory.

If you don't make errors (eg, burn too long or too short) and have a perfect knowledge of the trajectory of you and your target, the rule would be: the less steps you need to docking, the less fuel you need.

In reality, when even adding 1 and 1 does not always result in 2, the best way to save the fuel that would be wasted for correcting errors, is to make as many small steps as possible. Which then takes more fuel towards the target. Infinitely many steps would mean you need about twice as much impulse or Δv (Δ = Delta = "difference in" or "Change of" , v is the engineering symbol for velocity, so Δv means "change of velocity") the real currency in space (not fuel! How much fuel you need depends on your spacecraft, while Δv is universal ... all spacecraft need the same Δv for flying the same maneuvers, regardless how heavy they are), as you would need for an optimal two maneuver docking.

So, in Orbiter, you need to get a feeling to tell, how many steps you are away from your docking target, and if you would need to introduce extra steps (mid course corrections) for correcting growing errors. That is only a matter of training.

Learn using Sync Orbit MFD for that, it is a bit mysterious at the first look, but actually gives you what you need to know for getting closer to a target. A time difference of zero at an intersection means, you will be very close, only apart by relative inclination (the angle between your orbit plane and the orbit plane of the other spacecraft).

 

[rocketdued]

oh ok

 

[Urwumpe]

Also, as tiny cue: The time difference in Sync Orbit MFD relates directly to miss distance, if you multiply it with your orbit velocity: At about 7.8 km/s one second of miss time (the target passes the intersection one second earlier than you do) means AT LEAST 7.8 km distance between you and the target at the intersection.

All messing with Sync Orbit MFD is about having a really tiny miss time at the next intersection, so you are close enough to fly directly to the target by linear RCS. Which is only possible if you need a much shorter time to the target, as you need for one orbit. In reality, it is never done at distances bigger than 100m, in orbiter, you get away by doing it from as far as 5 km distance.

 

[rocketdued]

ohok. well i know the serface mfd. cause it's the samething like flightsimulator uses for speed/altitude/heading. so that one's passed. so are ils's for landings. i just have to try and get into orbit which im going to try one more time

 

[Urwumpe]

ohok. well i know the serface mfd. cause it's the samething like flightsimulator uses for speed/altitude/heading. so that one's passed. so are ils's for landings. i just have to try and get into orbit which im going to try one more time

There is also an HSI (not only ILS), but you are on the wrong track by assuming it is all the same. Actually there are many small differences between what you see in aircraft and what you see in Orbiter and again, what you see in real spacecraft. The Orbiter HSI for example is closer to the aircraft HSI than the Space Shuttle HSI.

Surface MFD is also not really the same, if you pay attention to the details. You can for example select many different kinds of velocities, depending on what is best in the current situation. Aircraft only display IAS or EAS, and maybe have TAS in navigation displays. Orbiter also knows OS or Orbital Speed, which is independent of the rotation of Earths surface below you (TAS), or the density and temperature of the atmosphere (IAS).

For all orbital maneuvers, including insertion into Orbit, OS is the best choice.

Also, you should not make the error to assume that Orbiters VORs operate identical to air traffic VORs. There are tiny differences as well. For example in the range of many beacons, and they all come with DME capability as well, being actually closer to the military TACAN than the civilian VORs or VOR/DMEs. (It just lacks the ability to be also installed on vehicles ^^, but that is nothing that an add-on can't fix. )