Edwards AFB/White Sands: Landing at daytime?

[Susan27]

Hi,

after sucessfully performed reentries & landed safely at KSC I would like to do the same at White Sands or Edwards AFB. But my problem here is:

I am still unable to set the simulation the way that there is daytime (sunshine) when landing at White Sands or EDW...Everytime I reach the fields there is nightime no matter if arriving from southwest or northwest directions from space...

For information: I am starting from the scenario "Endeavour on orbit" (Shuttle fleet Vers. 4 scenarios"...could this be the problem?

As we all could see last sunday when STS-126 landed at daytime at Edwards AFB from a standard (330x330 km?) orbit it has to be possible to get a plane going through Edwards AFB AND(!) landing at daytime...

So my general question is:

1) How do I set a proper date and time at my scn file? At the moment there is a strange setting " MJD 51683.3383805671"...l cannot "translate" into a normal GMT-time and date...

For example the conversion of the landing time of STS-126 at 30nd of Nov 21:00 GMT (was that the touch down time?)...?

2) Is there perhapes kind of a time converter from normal (GMT) times into those MJD-times/dates available somewhere...?

3) Do you know times when real shuttle (STS) missions landed at daytime at EDW/White Sands in the past...?

Thanks very much!

Kind regards

Susan

 

[Tommy]

There is a program called Date.exe in the Utils folder of your Orbiter install. It converts between Universal Time (UT, also called GMT) and Modified Julian Date (MJD), as well as Julian Date (JD), Julian Century (JC2000), and Epoch.

 

[Susan27]

Thanks very much I will try that...!

But where at my scn file do I have to edit/insert the result of this conversion...?

 

[TSPenguin]

It looks like this and is usaly at the top of the file, right after the description.

BEGIN_ENVIRONMENT
System Sol
Date MJD 54800.2567744097
END_ENVIRONMENT

 

[wehaveaproblem]

also, you can use the scenario editor to directly change the orbital settings, effectively putting yourself in any orbit that you are after.

 

[TSPenguin]

You can also keep your current orbit and just change time without changing your position.

 

[Susan27]

You can also keep your current orbit and just change time without changing your position.

Well, I exactly tried that a lot of times...but after quicksaving and changing MJD time/date I find myself at a complete other position over the earth what can be seen when looking at the MAP-MFD - the same plane but a lot of thousand of NM more at the east...(!)

What I am doing wrong here...?

KR
Susan

 

[Poscik]

Also, you can turn on "Non-spherical gravity sources" and stay few days in space. That happens in real life. Shuttle starts from KSC in night, but after 15 days in space, it's landing in daylight.

 

[Tommy]

Another handy tool is Extended Map MFD, found at the AVSIM repostitory. It can show your groundtrack for several orbits in advance, and can also show which part of the planet is in daylight. Simply stay in orbit until Edwards is in daylight, then de-orbit on the orbit where your path is nearest to Edwards.

 

[TSPenguin]

Well, I exactly tried that a lot of times...but after quicksaving and changing MJD time/date I find myself at a complete other position over the earth what can be seen when looking at the MAP-MFD - the same plane but a lot of thousand of NM more at the east...(!)

What I am doing wrong here...?

KR
Susan

In the post you quoted, I was refering to the scenario editor.
Activate the scenario editor module and activate it via ctrl+f4.
In the date time window should somewhere be an option called something like propagate vessel state. If you disable that (I think per default it is) then you can set the time to whatever you like.

 

[Susan27]

Another handy tool is Extended Map MFD, found at the AVSIM repostitory. It can show your groundtrack for several orbits in advance, and can also show which part of the planet is in daylight. Simply stay in orbit until Edwards is in daylight, then de-orbit on the orbit where your path is nearest to Edwards.

Thanks for info!

I installed that tool but though reading the manual I am still unable to select the Target, Reference object. After pressing on "TRG" or "Ref" a window popps up where I shall enter the Target...

But I really dont know what exactly to enter for targets like EDW, KSC, White Sands etc...? I wasnt sucessfull by entering things like "KSC", "EDW"...or numbers "1", "2" etc...Is there perhapes something like a list...like the one used for the MFD Add on which is shipped with the Shuttle Fleet 4 add on...?

Could someone please help me here...?

Thanks very much!

KR
Susan

 

[Tommy]

type in "edwards". It's not case sensitive, so it doesn't matter if you capitalize. For other bases, use Orbiters Object Info (press F4 to get the menu), and use the exact name that object info uses. For instance, KSC would be "cape canaveral"

 

[agentgonzo]

If you just delete the "Date" line from the config file it will use the computer's clock to find the date and time (starting your scenario running at the current real-world time)

 

[Susan27]

Thanks very much, that helped!