Project Space Shuttle Fleet Orbiter Operations Guide

[sunshine135]

Introducing the new Orbiter Operations Guide and Abbreviated Checklists for use with the Shuttle Fleet by David413. The purpose of the checklist and guide is to help enhance the realism of Shuttle Operations. This thread will provide regular updates for the project.

Please see some images of the current guide. Nominal Launch Procedures are fairly complete along with Orbiter Operations and OPS 2 Transition. Here is a sample of the Payload Bay Opening Attitude section of the guide:

Here is the OMS-1 Burn Card in the abbreviated checklist. Black boxes are editable fields so you can customize your parameters. Inputs in the boxes dynamically change the checklist to give you step-by-step procedures. I am working to make these usable on the iPad and Playbook, so you can have your checklist in a portable electronic format.

Check back here for regular updates. Due to the amount of procedures that require analysis and interpretation, anticipated release date is in January 2013. After initial release, I anticipate that changes or better ways of doing some of the procedures may be found. To that end, I will create an input form where you- the Orbiter Community- can contribute to the guide. If your procedure is determined to be more accurate, I will add your screen name as a contributor to that procedure.

I'm very excited about this add-on, and in 2013, we'll get you there better!

 

[Mojave]

wow, this seems interesting. I'll have to keep track of this thread.

 

[sunshine135]

Working on modified PDRS checkout today. Lots of testing and tweaking to the SRMS to make sure your numbers are accurate.

 

[Scav]

You just put a big smile on my face.

Can you make those inline images bigger so we can see what you're going on about? They look like Excel spreadsheets?

 

[sunshine135]

You just put a big smile on my face.

Can you make those inline images bigger so we can see what you're going on about? They look like Excel spreadsheets?

Your wish is my command:

You are half right. The Checklists are done in Excel while the Operations Guide in in Word format. The whole purpose in doing this is so that the guide gives detailed and "gee-whiz" information about the procedure. The abbreviated checklist is done in Excel Format. Several reasons for the latter.

1. I wanted the checklists to be no nonsense line-by-line
2. I want to be able to use the checklist on a tablet, independent of my PC that is running Orbiter
3. I have added formulas to the Spreadsheet that will convert nautical miles found on the GPCs and the Media Guides to kilometers. I have also embedded these formulas into the checklist, so a burn card, for instance will populate the Universal Pointing options with the appropriate data in the checklist. Also, timing for OMS 2, for instance, can be calculated into MET, so you control when the Shuttle burns. This is closer to the real deal.
4. You can simply print the checklists and burn cards as needed or desired- printing only the pages you need.

See the PLBD opening procedures for example. I have included the manual first, then the abbreviated checklist on bottom. All boxes are editable variables.

Thanks,

 

[sunshine135]

First Tests today of the Ascent Checklist on the Blackberry Playbook. Here are my impressions:

Checklist takes some getting used to in the editor. It displays width-wise, and requires a bit more scrolling than I would have desired.

Checklist is very readable otherwise. Font size seems good for viewing.

Calculators work well with the embedded checklist. Caught a few errors around rounding in concatenated strings that I have fixed. Issues were minor.

The checklists will likely be nicer on a 9" tablet, so iPad users- standby for results

 

[sunshine135]

All who are interested:

As of today, I am shutting this project down. I will explain further, but before I do, I want everyone to understand clearly- I do not blame anyone but myself for not researching further and reaching out to the add-on developers beforehand. I was even warned by one of the developers around consultation, and they were absolutely right.

A great deal of the Checklists and Operations Guide development have been centered around giving proper attitudes to perform maneuvers in space. All of the add-ons that have been developed for the Shuttle Fleet have been around for ages. There are two MFDs that have been created for Shuttle attitude adjustments- Attitude MFD came first and this was followed by Universal Pointing MFD. The orientations that were used in Attitude MFD and in Universal Pointing MFD are basically the same as universal pointing was built off of the attitude MFD. Because Universal Pointing MFD is the most similar to the MM201 that is used in the Shuttle, it has been my decision to use this MFD.

Here is a simple summary of the problem: the R/P/Y inertial attitudes using this MFD are completely off. This is because the inertial attitudes are based on the left-handed coordinate system and the ecliptic- not the M50 that the real shuttle is built on. This makes inputting any inertial attitudes from a FDF completely useless. There is no way to compensate for this. If it were only this problem, I could work around the issue, but in the process of working on LVLH tracking attitudes, I have determine that the roll components are also incorrect in some cases.

In speaking with SiameseCat, the author of the Universal Pointing MFD, I have determined that these problems will not be corrected. SiameseCat is currently working with the SSU team and is building out the new MM201 which works correctly and with the proper coordinate system. No time or desire exists to fix these issues. I respect that answer and would ask everyone to do the same. SiameseCat, like every other Orbiter add-on developer, works for no money.

Also, although I would love to try and fix the problem myself, I have no experience with MFD development and an even shallower understanding of the coordinate systems.

With this being said, however, I no longer have a desire to continue on with the guide or the checklists. An excerpt from the first paragraph of the Operations Guide says it all:

The purpose of this manual is to provide the user of David413’s Space Shuttle Fleet with some real world data based on Space Shuttle Flight Data Files- thus providing the user an opportunity to understand A. what the Shuttle would look like in an operational environment and B. provide some realism to the existing missions.

While B. may be achievable still, I feel that A. is out of reach for now. Most of all, I will NOT publish something to the Orbiter Community that I feel is crap. Right now, I have 34 pages of information developed interspersed with crap. I am just thankful that I determined this before going too much farther.

Lastly, I have began to wonder what interest the community would actually have in this project. Probably 95% of folks who use the Shuttle Fleet do so to launch, go to the station by whatever means necessary, leave, and land back at Kennedy or Edwards. More exacting types are probably allured by the SSU. That leaves a handful of folks who would take interest in this manual and checklists.

Perhaps in the future and after careful review, I will release parts of the checklists and guide or change them into tutorials. If a more exacting MFD for attitude becomes available for the Fleet, I will reconsider development as well.

Thanks to those of you who have offered support, and assisted me in my understanding. I am as disappointed as you about the development if not more so.

Kind Regards,

 

[Wolf]

That's very sad sundog. it would have been very nice to have such a handbook available. Am also sorry I could not help you either with this project. if the present MFDs do not allow to simulate the missions properly as you say, then there is not much we can do about it. I fully understand your sense of frustration for all the effort and time you've spent on this project and understand your disappoinment, but it is for people like you that orbiter gets better every day. I really wish we could fly the shuttle fleet in the most realistic way, but it seems we lack the tools to do that. In the past I had also posted some wishes to David413 asking for some possible realism improvements (i.e. A real like HUD). i never got a feedback but of course I do not blame Dave for this. First he has the right to decide if and what kind of developments the fleet requires, second he can not follow all the orbinauts requests, third I guess he has a real life aswel and he can not pass the entire existance pleasing us with updates. Said that let s hope somebody will develop some new tools to properly and realistically run an STS mission using the Fleet.