Orbiter Shuttle Sim

[BHawthorne]

Shhhh! No! take down your post! my secrets must not be given away! Kidding

Answer: Yes I think it would be possible, and I've been toying with that idea before. Especially since I was able to crank it up to a 20Hz data rate with the subscription method, you're probably close to being able to do what you describe.

I think the best bet would be to somehow support UDP broadcast in Orb:Connect, so you can have any number of clients on the same network with no additional network or server load. Given a good enough network (standard Ethernet should be fine) and host, you may even be able to broadcast the simulation state once a frame or every other frame, which would be plenty fast enough for an outside view.

If you can make it work, I'd love to see multiple computers pushing custom views to whatever viewport windows you'd want to install. For instance the aft crew station windows looking into the cargobay could be done this way with 2 monitors. Also the 2 viewports in the ceiling of the flight deck. You would definitely bump the immersion factor up a lot with things like that. My interest would be that these slave computers would do nothing but be window renderers.

On another note, I found my old "The Space Shuttle Operator's Manual" softback manual by Ballantine Books. The panel layouts are obsolete, but there is a wealth of information in the book as far as fuselage layout. I'd suggest anyone who is doing a shuttle simpit to pick up the book used. It was published in 1982, but it's a great book. I'll probably use it to rough out the initial CAD dimentions then work off of newer reference material for the updated glass cockpit flight deck. The Orbiter wiki info on shuttle simpit will be helpful here too.

 

[tblaxland]

I think the best bet would be to somehow support UDP broadcast in Orb:Connect, so you can have any number of clients on the same network with no additional network or server load. Given a good enough network (standard Ethernet should be fine) and host, you may even be able to broadcast the simulation state once a frame or every other frame, which would be plenty fast enough for an outside view.

I think even 5Hz would be sufficient given you are updating not just position and attitude but also rate data. You may get some minor glitches around dynamic events (thrust starting/stopping etc) but as long as they weren't on the primary windows that would be OK.

Thinking specifically about the shuttle, you may need vessel support for events like PLBD ops, especially for the payload windows. The alternatives are:

- have OrbConnect to pass keyboard states to the clients and have the clients process them to get animations working.
- I think computerex (or someone) had a remote animation control addon. A hack of that could be used to communicate animation states via OrbConnect.

 

[landon2006]

Below are very bad designed of what we are looking for in general. Things are not really to scale, but it gives you a little bit of an idea.



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Also, I downloaded the "Virtual Mission Control" software. It looks really neat. I'm just wondering if we can run it in the networked mode with more than one PC. By this I mean one PC in mission control would show the world map and location of the shuttle, projected onto a big screen, while we would have 4 other PC's, each running its own version of Virtual Mission Control. This will be something I'll have to look into.

 

[Hielor]

Some quick comments on your design:

I would suggest shorter ceilings than 8ft. To a kid, 8 feet is going to feel cavernous, and the shuttle cockpit IRL is quite cramped (I'm a bit under 6 feet, and I could just barely stand in the motion-base simulator which is pretty accurate). For reasons of claustrophobia you'll not want to make it too cramped, but keep in mind that most of the younger ones will be rather small, and the older ones will probably think that the cramped is cool and realistic. I'd say 7ft height absolute max, at least for the flight deck. Maybe more for the mid-deck.

Bunks: Strongly recommend having the bunks be foldable into the wall. The underside could be decorated with false drawers and stuff, like the interior of the real thing.

 

[landon2006]

I tell you what would be really neat... if we had the simulator on a motion base... The movement of the joystick would directly control it. I bet it would cost a pretty penny though....

I dunno... More than we can afford. We are probably looking at well over $20k just for the shuttle sim...

Also, that is a good idea about the bunks... it would save a lot of space, and leave room for some activity areas when not in use. One thing i notice I forgot in the drawing, is the restroom. Not 100% sure where it will go, but somewhere on mid-deck.

 

[yagni01]

One thing i notice I forgot in the drawing, is the restroom. Not 100% sure where it will go, but somewhere on mid-deck.

Why not put it in the actual location?


-----Post Added-----

I think even 5Hz would be sufficient given you are updating not just position and attitude but also rate data. You may get some minor glitches around dynamic events (thrust starting/stopping etc) but as long as they weren't on the primary windows that would be OK.

Thinking specifically about the shuttle, you may need vessel support for events like PLBD ops, especially for the payload windows. The alternatives are:

- have OrbConnect to pass keyboard states to the clients and have the clients process them to get animations working.
- I think computerex (or someone) had a remote animation control addon. A hack of that could be used to communicate animation states via OrbConnect.

For outside views this might be doable. I'm not sure I have all the commands for getting and setting airfoil positions, though. You wouldn't have to pass the kepresses to the clients, they would just be repeaters, getting states and setting them to the same value on the local box. Its definitely not made for OMP, but this would be an interesting experiment to try.

CameraMFD might work for the fixed outside views, but I think you need to add attachment points. Not sure it works in an externalMFD, though.

 

[landon2006]

After exploring around "Virtual Mission Control" software, I found that would also be possible for some of the MFD's and controls to be displayed through that software, on the cockpit monitors. While they would not be the same look as the MFD's on Orbiter, they would do the trick.

I'd still like for the MFD's in Orber to be the primary ones we use though... VMC has some neat menues and guages, but the ones in Orbiter tend to look more "realistic". Also, with VMC, It has a menu where mission control can control quite a bit of the aircraft remotly. I could not however get it to work in the Atlantis shuttle... I pressed "Fire Engines" on VMC and nothing happend in Orbiter, so I don't know if I did something wrong, or if there is a glitch in the software?

PS) Does anyone know what happend to the addon shuttles "Discovery" or "Endeavor" (cant remember which one it was)? I know they used to be available to download somewhere, because I downloaded one of them one to use in orbiter. For some reason, as I remember it, controlling that shuttle (maybe it was Endeavour, cant remember for sure) was much easier than controlling the in-game Atlantis. I still have not been able to control Atlantis very well, not as well I a remember being able to control the other shuttle.

I looked around on several download sites, but could not find either of them anywhere.

Thanks,
Landon

 

[yagni01]

PS) Does anyone know what happend to the addon shuttles "Discovery" or "Endeavor" (cant remember which one it was)? I know they used to be available to download somewhere, because I downloaded one of them one to use in orbiter. For some reason, as I remember it, controlling that shuttle (maybe it was Endeavour, cant remember for sure) was much easier than controlling the in-game Atlantis. I still have not been able to control Atlantis very well, not as well I a remember being able to control the other shuttle.

I looked around on several download sites, but could not find either of them anywhere.

Thanks,
Landon

You may be referring to the Shuttle Fleet. If so, that addon was pulled down by the author (last I heard). The stock shuttle has some 'idiosyncrasies' in its flight model, particularly during reentry. You should be able to search the tutorial section for some 'howtos'.

 

[DaveS]

You may be referring to the Shuttle Fleet. If so, that addon was pulled down by the author (last I heard).

Still available for download right here: [ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=3221"]Search[/ame]

 

[yagni01]

Still available for download right here: http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=3221

Oops. My apologies.:blush:

 

[BHawthorne]

I have some tentative measurements based on scaling some Orbiter technical drawings. Looks like the flight deck + mid deck is around 16 ft wide x 17.6 ft long x14.6 ft tall. That wouldn't include anything but the shuttle flight deck and mid deck. What sort of space is this planned to be built in?

 

[landon2006]

Brad,
We are still unsure of exact building locations. You see, Space Academy will be part of the Indiana Space-Science Museum, which is currently under development. The Museum is not scheduled to open until spring of 2010, and Space Academy will probably not open until Summer of 2010.

We still do not have final blueprints for the museum facility, or even have a site location. We have some ideas, but no solid blueprints. More than likely, the Shuttle Sim, ISS Sim and Mission Control Room will be built in an indoor "room" with a concrete floor, width of probably 30', length of 40' and height of 20' or so. Again, we still don't have this down 100%. In fact, We may also make use of the sim room for the training floor, although I don't know for sure yet.

Thanks,


-----Post Added-----


Also, I decided I would upload this for you to see. I don't really think it is relevant, as it is an older design plan, but it might give you an idea of what were going for.

Basically, the major difference here is the dorms and cafe area, which was included in the plan originally for Space Academy, as we had choose to do a residential camp. While this still might happen, we are leaning toward day-camp at this time.

Anyway, here you go:

Also, is it just me, or did the appearance of this forum change? For some reason, it seems different... Perhaps I'm going insane?

 

[Quick_Nick]

After exploring around "Virtual Mission Control" software, I found that would also be possible for some of the MFD's and controls to be displayed through that software, on the cockpit monitors. While they would not be the same look as the MFD's on Orbiter, they would do the trick.

I'd still like for the MFD's in Orber to be the primary ones we use though... VMC has some neat menues and guages, but the ones in Orbiter tend to look more "realistic". Also, with VMC, It has a menu where mission control can control quite a bit of the aircraft remotly. I could not however get it to work in the Atlantis shuttle... I pressed "Fire Engines" on VMC and nothing happend in Orbiter, so I don't know if I did something wrong, or if there is a glitch in the software?

Thanks,
Landon

vMC is full of bugs, especially with the current version of Orbiter. It's actually supposed to be possible to make your own gauges etc. in vMC but every time I try to do that, the program crashes. I pointed out vMC because it is 'complete' and is a working example of telemetry communication and does provide sufficient info for some missions. There are other programs under development by modders, but they don't seem to be nearing completion too soon. (if your camp won't be happening for a while, you may not need to worry)

 

[yagni01]

We are still unsure of exact building locations. You see, Space Academy will be part of the Indiana Space-Science Museum, which is currently under development. The Museum is not scheduled to open until spring of 2010, and Space Academy will probably not open until Summer of 2010.

Since this is museum sponsored, have you talked to John at Historic Space Systems (http://www.space1.com/)?

As far as the forum look, check your profile. You may have the theme set to 'random'

 

[landon2006]

I would also like to add that I think I have a good idea of how to do the mission control. Since PC's support multiple Keyboard and mouse inputs, as well as the monitor signal splits, We will just run a split from all shuttle controls to mission control, as well as "Split" the monitor MFD signals and run them to Mission Control.

I think that should work, and mission control could control the spacecraft same as the astronauts, as well as have the ability to manually do things to game, such as time warp, etc without the crew involved.

Does anyone else see how this might work?

I also came up with the cool, but expensive idea of either making 2 shuttle simulators, both connected to the space station, and somehow do a "dual launch" mission, or build a replica of an older spacecraft, such as Apollo, to give the kids a feel for real old school technology... Possibilities are endless really, sadly, our budget is not. I would really like 2 shuttles, as this would double the capacity of each camp session, as well as make for a more interesting, if albeit unreal, mission.

I dont' know... any comments?
Thanks!

 

[BHawthorne]

Looking at Space Shuttle Ultra development work at the moment it might be best for me not to reinvent the wheel as far as 3d models. They're in the midst of reproducing pretty accurately the mid-deck and other areas that will be useful in the simulator design. I suggest I hold off on the CAD development until they've frozen and released the updated SSU and I'll just get the ok from them to CAD convert the MDL to DXF with 1:1 scaling. That way everything just needs to be broken down into how it would need to be cut and put together in kit form. They're doing half the work. The other half is reverse engineering the the model in such a way that it can be produced in-real-life. I'm used to doing that, so it'll be pretty straight forward. Looking at the SSU and mid-deck development threads I'm excited to see how the simpit will look once I have the designs nailed out for everyone to build. My goal is to use regular construction materials such as 2x4, 2x6, plywood, MDF and masonite sheeting in the design I'll release. The shell should be able to be made in 2 weekends of woodwork and carpentry if I design the plans right.

Tentatively I want to make one plan where there is just a flight deck and another that has both mid-deck and flight deck.

 

[landon2006]

Brad, That's a good idea on the hold off. No need to reinvent whats already going to be invented.

Also, I ran across this image online today. Judging by the age of the kids in the picture, I'm guessing this was taken @ Space Camp in Huntsville? I wanna know how the heck they the got the huge, wide screen, high resolution earth image.

I have come to 3 Conclusions: Either its A) Not really there, via greenscreen or bluescreen layering. B) It's a static background picture or C) It's a very expensive way of getting a real, wrap-around display in the Sim.

Check Out the Picture HERE: http://images.google.com/imgres?img...le+simulator&start=54&ndsp=18&um=1&hl=en&sa=N (I was unable to get it to display in this post...)

Does anyone know of any technology that would produce this kind of image? Would it be possible with Orbiter? What I noticed was that in the 3D cockpit view of Atlantis, you'll see that the software simulates a wrap-around image out of the shuttle windows.

How could this be achieved in Orbiter with a real sim cockpit?

Thanks for putting up with me guys,
Landon

 

[Quick_Nick]

...or build a replica of an older spacecraft, such as Apollo, to give the kids a feel for real old school technology...

If NASSP 7 is done by the time you put all of this together, it'd be AWESOME! NASSP 7 is heading toward simulating just about every single switch and system of the Apollo spacecraft. It's still under development though, and I think there isn't much code for the LM made yet, but you can try out the CSM so far.

 

[BHawthorne]

Brad, That's a good idea on the hold off. No need to reinvent whats already going to be invented.

Also, I ran across this image online today. Judging by the age of the kids in the picture, I'm guessing this was taken @ Space Camp in Huntsville? I wanna know how the heck they the got the huge, wide screen, high resolution earth image.

I have come to 3 Conclusions: Either its A) Not really there, via greenscreen or bluescreen layering. B) It's a static background picture or C) It's a very expensive way of getting a real, wrap-around display in the Sim.

Check Out the Picture HERE: http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://lh4.ggpht.com/_5dfFibjffa0/SFwr_j3BsKI/AAAAAAAAAEQ/JyJ7FLVziIA/Space%2BShuttle.jpg&imgrefurl=http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/gAzKXVbc-0kH2Iwr8jO1gw&usg=__mHp6vKO7IlJipzUqyMKfBSCO90M=&h=1063&w=1600&sz=15&hl=en&start=66&sig2=wH_lWM7AvtD2oBvrHmC7Gg&um=1&tbnid=uHkgofAH7nyHsM:&tbnh=100&tbnw=150&ei=9hg3SbOzOqOiNdj93Y8I&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dspace%2Bshuttle%2Bsimulator%26start%3D54%26ndsp%3D18%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN (I was unable to get it to display in this post...)

Does anyone know of any technology that would produce this kind of image? Would it be possible with Orbiter? What I noticed was that in the 3D cockpit view of Atlantis, you'll see that the software simulates a wrap-around image out of the shuttle windows.

How could this be achieved in Orbiter with a real sim cockpit?

Thanks for putting up with me guys,
Landon

My conclusion is that was masked in, in Photoshop. It simply isn't behaving like a projected screen would look in a photo lit like that.

Now for reproducing that in the simulator. You will want to purchase Sol7, a matrox TripleHead2Go and a semi-circular screen kit. You can reproduce that quote closely with that combination of hardware and software. Most of the answers can be found at www.mycockpit.org, or you can ask me. I have a 3 projector InFocus SP5000 surround hardware for my simpit build.

One disclaimer, Orbiter 2006 is based on DX7 which won't work at that high of a resolution. OVP and the Orbiter betas based on OpenGL and DX9 will solve that problem. There will be no issue using my suggested setup once the client is updated in 2009.


-----Post Added-----

If NASSP 7 is done by the time you put all of this together, it'd be AWESOME! NASSP 7 is heading toward simulating just about every single switch and system of the Apollo spacecraft. It's still under development though, and I think there isn't much code for the LM made yet, but you can try out the CSM so far.

I own a registered copy of Ultimate Unwrap3D Pro, so it would be little issue for me to come up with designs for those older capsules too. Might be cool to have an Apollo, Gemini and Mercury setup in the sim building too. The big issue is that you can't have a large quantity of people in a captsule sim like a shuttle build. Also capsule sims aren't as visually stunning to fly as shuttles with many big windows looking out on a panorama. That might be addressed by rotating the kids through the sims so everyone gets at least a bit of fun in the older capsules too.

Have you come up with enrollment figures for the camp? If the shuttle build turns out to be pretty cost effective, I'd almost suggest fielding 2 shuttles with airlocks to the ISS connecting on both ends. That way you could do a bunch of different scenarios like a shuttle rescue or redundancy when one simpit needs maintenance you have the other ensuring no downtime.

Another thing to ponder, unmanned remote roaver mission control and space telescope programs to put into the mix. The mission control doesn't need to be shuttle specific. It could be used diversely with both manned and unmanned simulation. Kids might have a short attention span, therefore it would be great to have a diverse lineup of simulation for them to experience using the same physical layout.

 

[yagni01]

I suggest I hold off on the CAD development until they've frozen and released the updated SSU and I'll just get the ok from them to CAD convert the MDL to DXF with 1:1 scaling.

I suggest scaling it down to 85% since its for kids, . That is a common reduction for other (commercial) flight deck components so some COTS components could be available if needed.


-----Post Added-----

Thanks for putting up with me guys,
Landon

This is exactly what this forum if for. No worries. Its a great project for a good cause.