New atmospheric model for Earth

[vejiita]

Very stupid question from a new-ish user of orbiter. I love the ISS as it is (aka in orbit and not burning in the atmosphere )

How doable would it be with the new model to have some booster addon that we can fly to the ISS, attach it and use it to give some speed back to the ISS every X months/years ?

Ok, yes I am dreaming awake, but bear with me, I just had my first successful rendez-vous with the ISS with a stock DG and starting to think about expending it (the ISS, not the DG)

 

[RisingFury]

You can fly the DG or the shuttle, dock it with ISS and just use the RCS to boost it into a higher orbit.

 

[insane_alien]

there is sufficient drag to require boosting the ISS every so often. but if you time warp to the scales needed then atmospheric drag gets ignored because of the inherent accuracy errors it would induce.

 

[flaugher]

Martin, would it be possible to get the current solar flux off the internet and optionally use the real-time values? Will we be able to put the value in ourselves?

Also, what up with this? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7794834.stm

 

[simonpro]

Downloading stuff from the 'net would be a pain in the ass. Perhaps a better solution would be some form of model.

 

[tblaxland]

Downloading stuff from the 'net would be a pain in the ass.

I agree.

Perhaps a better solution would be some form of model.

Like this one: http://www.orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?p=81459#post81459 (post #26 of this same thread).

 

[mjessick]

If the solar irradiance varies, it would be nice to have the current value available for solar panels. It doesn't vary much, but still.

 

[n72.75]

This will make many historical flight atempts more accurate

thank you Martin!

 

[vejiita]

I guess the addons makers will need to update a bunch of things. I just flew a XR2 to the ISS... or I should say that I tried to reach the ISS. My hull temps went into the 1000 degrees and stayed there even on very high altitude. So I couldn't open the radiator to get the heat of the ship out. I tried anyway with disastrous results

 

[Ark]

I'd definitely like to have an option to toggle or adjust this feature, because it sounds like it has the potential to be very annoying.

 

[vejiita]

I'd definitely like to have an option to toggle or adjust this feature, because it sounds like it has the potential to be very annoying.

In the beta you do have a choice. From the options yo can choose from the new or the old version. I tried the new one to test it out, but for playing in space I switch to the old one

 

[EtherDragon]

I guess the addons makers will need to update a bunch of things. I just flew a XR2 to the ISS... or I should say that I tried to reach the ISS. My hull temps went into the 1000 degrees and stayed there even on very high altitude. So I couldn't open the radiator to get the heat of the ship out. I tried anyway with disastrous results

Yep, transonic flight can now be more accurately modeled, though...

 

[ex-orbinaut]

Since Orbiter's atmosphere model has been discussed quite a bit recently, I finally decided to revisit and rewrite the Earth atmosphere model. I have selected a moderately complex model (L. G. Jacchia, Thermospheric Temperature, Density, and Composition: New Models, Smithson. Astrophys. Obs. Spec. Rept. No. 375, 1977) which covers the range from 90 to 2500km (using a static standard atmosphere model below 90km). The only model parameter (apart from altitude) is the exospheric temperature. I found a plausible model for the diurnal exosphere temperature variations (Montenbruck, Satellite Orbits), but I won't include any dynamic parameters that depend on observation data (geomagnetic activity, solar flux).

This would be good news (first time I have seen this thread, BTW). I did spend a couple of flights exploring the Earth atmospehere in Orbiter to check the existence of temperature variations at different levels, night and day side, back when I was not as familiar as I am now with the inner workings of the sim and did not know where to read the data directly in the files. I was precisely hoping to find Thermosphere and Mesosphere diurnal variations in temperature.

I also wondered on the relevance these temperatures variations might have on the selection of reentry window times for real Shuttle operations, if at all(?).

Now, maybe a bit off topic.

In the rest of the post (the "EI" theme), it would be nice if the level of the Tropopause would could be variable depending on latitude (an expanding atmosphere). I played around with this (with absolutely no favourable results) when I attempted to make a comet with an expanding coma, using the CELBODY interface. It is a bit limited (as my programming skills may be, to engage in this sort of project just yet ), from a development point of view. How about an expansion of the CELBODY API capabilities, nothing fantastic, but to cover this sort of thing?