Venus has often been referred to as Earth's geological twin, having very nearly the same size, density, and gross chemical composition as the Earth. However, what if Venus was truly Earth's twin? Suppose that the two worlds co-orbit about each other with a separation of about 800,000 kilometers. Much closer than that, and daily tides would flood coastal regions; much farther, and their orbits would become unstable. For those who are interested, the orbit between Mercury and these twin worlds is occupied by the tiny planet Luna, an airless 3200-kilometer-diameter ball of rock that we know better as our moon.
This addon contains the Double Planet solar system, with Venus orbiting Earth in place of the Moon at a radius of eight hundred thousand kilometers. The included scenario file is set up to use the Deltaglider III to fly from Earth to TerraVenus and back again. Please edit it if you choose to use some other spacecraft.
Known Bugs:
1: ) The Moon currently orbits beneath the surface of the Sun! Apparently Orbiter is still using the default radius of 400,000 km for its orbit. Can anybody tell me how to override this without having to copy and rename the lunar texture map?
2: ) There is a single surface base defined, named Aphrodite Station, for those of you who wish to attempt to land at it. I have defined it as being near the 0,0 longitude and latitude lines, but I have not had the chance to check whether this is an appropriate location. Please send me a message on the Orbiter forum if it turns out to be in an inopportune location, along with your suggestion for a better set of coordinates.