Radio and High Gain Antenna Blackouts

[polaris149Tiberius]

Radio and High Gain Antenna Blackouts

I would like to see an add-on that allows for lunar dark side blackouts of all radio comms and syncronization and tuning for complex low gain and high gain configurations. In other words, if it happens in real life, then can we get it in the sim?

Apollo radio blackouts happened when the vehicle went behind the moon. I would like an addon that simulates this for missions where vehicles are not present in Lunar orbit to bounce your signal off of. So if your running the Atlantis Satelite Launch scenario and you created a DG to go to the moon in 2001, you could bounce your radio off the Luna-OB1 station assuming it was also NOT behind the moon when you whish to transmit. Now I know you cant transmit anything in Orbiter, but all your background comms could be replaced with static to give this effect.

Maybe some telemetry could be simulated for Mission Control to have to recieve from Apollo 13 and then when the sphere bursts you as Lovel would have to make sure you nulled out your rate of pitch, roll, and yaw before you could even report that "Houston we have a problem" It would be sweet in the future to see a Mission Controll Module for Orbiter but Ill keep my requests simple for now.
Lets start with radio line of sight MFD.

Also, it would be cool if you had to orient your ship within like 2 degrees to another dish that was either the dish you needed to be aimed towards at home (i.e. during transit to the moon), or another vehicle that had a clear shot to that dish at home (i.e. your behind the moon but Luna-OB1 is not and it can bounce your signal to the earth. So when in transit in the CSM, like say in AMSO, you would have to be facing the earth to get that High Gain Antenna to work.

Can this be done?

 

[Tschachim]

Can this be done?

Yes, we're working on that for Project Apollo - NASSP, but please don't expect something releasable soon: http://www.ibiblio.org/mscorbit/mscforum/index.php?topic=992.0

Cheers
Tschachim

 

[TSPenguin]

There is a Mission Control Plugin. It might not be what you expected and I agree with you that there is a great need for some good telemetry add ons. In the meantime I suggest using vMC http://www.orbiterwiki.org/wiki/vMC

 

[polaris149Tiberius]

Thanks a million

Thanks a million guys. You are both gentlemen and schollars. How hard would it be to get ahold of the guy from Orbiter Sound. His addon has the ability to detect when the Max Q reaches a certain point and/or detects reentry in some way and blacks out the radio comms during the blackout part of re-entry. I think this could be a good place to start. In the same way the sim knows how to put a shadow on your craft when you get behind the moon, I think you could also make the loss of signal occur.

Are there any tutorials on how to make an MFD? Can anyone put me in touch with somone who can work on this with me? Right now I have plenty of time to start development of this kind of MFD.
I want it so bad I can almost taste it.
It would really help me complete my Apollo 13 realism work Im doing. I am willing to put alot of hours into this project if somone can just point me in the right direction. Im new and have nowhere near an idea of where to start.

I have the mission control thing but I think if I were to head this project (or help out with it or whatever) I would start with a simple loss of signal when a clear line of sight to the earth is not available. Then of course we could work on that signal being recieved and interpreted by a telemetry readout maybe using that Mission Control addon.

Again, thank you both for your help. I will contact the guys at NASSP to see if they can help me work on this smaller project, then the next one of telemetry for Mission Control. Thanks!

Thanks in advance,

 

[Zatnikitelman]

orbiter.dansteph.com is Dan's site-the maker of OrbiterSound. I think it has an SDK with it so you could start there maybe.

 

[polaris149Tiberius]

Thanks for the tip pilgrim

Thanks for the tip pilgrim.

I will check this out thanks for the info. Keep em comming people that is just 1 lead. I'd love to have more input.

Thanks in advance