igel
Addon Developer
About a year ago, I released a [ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=3299"]Luna-9-Luna-10-Molniya [/ame] "addon for addon" – an expansion pack for atronavt’s impressive [ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=2844"]"Project R-7"[/ame] addon. Now, I am back with another expansion pack. This time, we go further back into history, into 1959. With the lunar version of Vostok rocket, three first historical Russian lunar missions are available in fine details: Luna-1, Luna-2 and Luna-3.
Luna-1 missed the Moon and went into a solar orbit. Not quite a success, but a “historical first “ nevertheless
. Luna-2 hit the Moon square-on and "dusted" it with the cloud of tiny titanium pennants. Or so it the belief. It is hard to tell... The pennants were designed to survive the impact, but the event was quite violent! Those pieces that remained in the crater, probably melted down. The pieces that left the crater could have been thrown as far as halfway around the Moon, or even escape its gravity - you'll see that in the addon. Yes, with this addon you actually can follow each individual pennant on its trajectory!
Luna-3 was by far the most impressive of all three, and looks impressive even by today's standards. It went around the Moon, took first-ever photos of its Far Side, returned back to Earth on a slingshot trajectory and transmitted the photos via a radio link. Now you can do this too. Yes, you actually can take photos with this addon, and the possible targets are not limited to the Moon's Far Side (after all, today we already know how it looks like). You can even transmit the photos to Earth, though they'll significantly degrade in the process, just like the original Luna-3 images.
The three probes were launched to the Moon by a three-stage modification of R-7 missile. The new block E third stage was added for that purpose. A modification of block E would later be used to launch the first human into space, and the whole rocket will get the Vostok name - and, retroactively, will give the same Vostok name to the three-stage lunar rocket. But the two types of block E were different enough to commonly refer to the lunar version as a separate modification, Vostok-Luna.
The lunar version of block E had shorter body, different payload adapter and very navigation programming. It propelled the payload directly to the Moon, without any intermediate orbits. But the main difference of the lunar block E was an unusually big (for a propulsion module) set of the scientific and radio equipment, that turned the block into a space probe of its own. The most impressive and notable experiment was the "artificial comet", a huge cloud of sodium vapors released en route to the Moon to provide visual aids for the astronomical trajectory measurement. This spectacular feature is also implemented in the addon.
The addon does not have any dependencies - other than the original [ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=2844"]Project R-7[/ame] of course. It can be transparently installed side-by-side with my previous addon, Molniya Rocket Pack - they won't collide. All the files in the addon are new and won't overwrite anything - with just one exception: I am overwriting a couple of original astronav't scenarios regarding Luna-2 and Luna-3 with the new and better versions. I am also adding a bunch of new scenarios into the subdirectories of the "Project R-7" scenario directory - for all the important flight phases of the early lunar probes. As usual, sound addon is supported and recommended, but not required.
There have been extensive beta testing across a variety of the machines and users, so I do not expect many problems
. The only "know issue" so far is a random CTD upon the lunar impact - or shortly after. I was unable recreate it in any of my environments, but those are pretty "clean and fresh" configurations. I suspect that in some of the "heavier-loaded" configurations with many addons, problems are more likely to happen. Impact is a very "violent" event in Orbiter, almost like in real life . A lot happens there: old vessels disappear and get replaces by new ones right at runtime. Maybe once I get some wider statistics, I'll be able to corner the cause of this random issue...Big thanks to Thorton for great meshes for this addon, and big thanks to Bllodest for the great picture-taking code (reused with almost no modification at all), and big thanks to all beta testers. It is a privilege to do anything with such people - and for such a great community!
You can download Vostok-Luna addon from the [ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=3761"]OrbitHangar [/ame] or from my web site. The site also has addon manuals and a ton of screenshots, so you can "see before download"
.Enjoy!
