Recent content by darrenc

Interesting - I hadn't thought of that. Have you tested it in Orbiter to see if it works as expected? I'm trying to correct that :) Thanks for the vote of confidence, but you don't have to worry! I'm more or less just experimenting - I doubt it will ever be a finished product. If anything...

Hi lassombra, Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner - I get distracted easily. I had actually been thinking of implementing something similar, myself. Namely, attempting to hook all thruster related methods and re-implementing them using the RCS class - would be kinda cool to be able to...

Really? I was going off all the information I could find, which largely consisted of pictures of mock-ups. I noticed the configuration changed several times; perhaps I used one of the duds. ...which Orbiter doesn't do - leaving the original problem that the default auto-pilots do not handle...

By "unbalanced", I wasn't just referring to a "standard" thruster configuration with a shifting CG. The Kliper spacecraft which inspired this has a highly non-orthodox configuration, which doesn't at all fit into the thruster group idiom. (ie: a pitch command involves all the thrusters). Say...

Hi, lassombra. I just noticed your thread while posting one of my own on a similar subject. You may want to check the thread out [here]. Basically, it is a thruster control system which can work with arbitrary (ie: non-balanced) thruster configurations, and has been designed to be easily...

Greets, Forum! It's been a while since I've done much development. My last Orbiter project (Kliper spacecraft) ground to a halt when I discovered Orbiter didn't handle unbalanced RCS configurations too well. I didn't like the idea of "faking it" with virtual thrusters, so I left it while I...

I'll second this recommendation. It is an enthralling read, especially if you have a programming background. The book goes into great detail of the inner workings of the AGC and a good deal of attention is given to the Digital Auto Pilot. If you really want to understand the AGC, investing in...

Thanks for this info. I am no Soyuz expert, and finding this info can be quite difficult at times. I just decided what I thought "looked right", but I'll fix this when I get a chance. russianspaceweb.com has been a favourite of mine for this project, so I'm surprised I didn't pick up on this...

It's been a while, so I suppose an update is in order. Unfortunately, I only get a chance to work on this on weekends, so progress is slow :( I've posted a video to youtube showing 1st and 2nd stage jettison, and also a test of a neato thrust-vector control algorithm I have been working on. The...

I'll probably put out a cockpit-less version once I've got the spacecraft/lv all working fine, and cockpit added late on (which should be the fun part!). There will definitely be an MFD for CameraMFD. I'm not sure if I should add some kind of cockpit window so you can see where you're going...

Development has continued on the MultiStage framework. I have extended the VESSELSTAGE class to include wrappers for THRUSTER_HANDLE and PROPELLANT_HANDLE. Now, when you jett. stages, all thrusters and propellants of the stage are automagically transferred to the new vessel, with quantities and...

Vertical at the cape :) I hope NASA doesn't mind. I've been working at bit more on the model (mainly the Soyuz-3 launch vehicle) and the multi-stage code. I was disappointed to see orbiter has no API functions for rotating a mesh (really a must for the Soyuz boosters), so I wrote my own code...

A little more progress today. Windows have been added to the Kliper (though I note it has no cockpit windows!), and I've begun developing a simple multistage framework in C++. Having never developed a spacecraft before, I was a bit surprised at the hoops you need to jump through for multi...