Search results

I've long been interested in light passing through the atmosphere, particularly in sunsets. Initially this came from implementing low light halfway correctly in real time 3d rendering, but I've quickly discovered that many multiple scattering processes are simply too complex to include in a fast...

I've long been interested in working out the how planets elsewhere in space might actually be. We can't know of course, but the more I've been thinking, the more I realized that we still can have a pretty good idea by applying science what can be and what can't. So over the years I've been...

While we've currently being bombarded with arguments based on R0 and fear of exponential growth in the news media, I eventually got curious why we do not see exponential growth in any country. Could it really be that they're all equally effective in containment procedures such as to reduce R0 to...

I'm currently busying myself coding Shuttle-payload interactions, and I was wondering if anyone could recommend a good read to brush up on procedures and data. For instance, I was wondering about questions like * I have satellite which is supposed to be captured into the payload bay - but it...

Not sure whether people are interested in that kind of thing, but since we also have threads discussing music and books, I'll share this anyway because for me it's terribly exciting. I'm now involved in producing a full-fledged Fantasy movie - seems a few years of GLSL coding have accidentially...

I'm happy to present the first version of LEO targeting, a C++ tool to analyze orbits and compute orbital maneuvering burn plans. The tool does numerical solutions of trajectories in J3 gravity with an ellipsoid earth shape, finite duration burns both with given Delta v (PEG-7) or using PEG-4...

On the occasion that I now started to present spaceflight simulation to an enthusiastic audience, I can't help but recall my first contact with Orbiter - flying the Delta Glider into orbit. *** I had known the math of orbital mechanics long before of course, the general idea of a launch...

I was wondering whether anyone has come across a document that outlines standard voice com phraseology for the Shuttle. I've come across the abort region callouts during launch two-engine TAL negative return press to ATO press to MECO and limits to inhibit and I'm fairly sure there must be...

We all know that if you slam a spacecraft into the atmosphere on the wrong trajectory, it's going to break up in flames. What I'm interested in here is modeling the 'when' of that, and I'm curious as to how people solve the problem in Orbiter, or whether anyone is aware of a documented...

I'm currently taking a break from spaceflight and am taking care of the integration of the USS Harry Truman into the Flightgear repository - a highly detailed carrier model we've recently been donated. So, in case someone is interested in what I'm doing when not coding Shuttle - here it is...

Over the years, I've been reading quite a bit of Shuttle-related material. I've come across the following statement about the transition from RCS yaw jets to rudder in at least 2 hardcover books and 8 different web pages. At Mach 3.5, the rudder become activated, and the aft RCS yaw jets are...

Next to the Space Shuttle, Vostok is the second rocket in the Flightgear repository. I haven't developed it myself (the developer would be Viktor Slavutinsky), but I'm now maintainer and have been busy over the last days moving the visuals to the next level. (I've thought I'd separate Vostok...

Not in time for our latest release unfortunately, but I've pushed a major update to the FG orbital rendering yesterday. The main focus of the improvements has been: * better modeling of the twilight zone - bringing out the relief of both clouds and terrain in low light * making it to some...

I'm currently modeling state vector management for the Flightgear Space Shuttle project. Basically the aim is to give the model the same navigational needs as the real thing, i.e. to divorce the true state vector managed by the flight dynamics from the state vector as known by GNC, such that it...

I wonder if someone can clarify this for me (or point me to the right document) - I'm wondering what c1 and c2 in the PEG 4 target really parametrize. I've found an explanation giving the relation between v_h (horizontal) and v_v (vertical) as v_v = c1 * v_h + c2, but... it doesn't seem to make...

We're proud to announce that the next release of Flightgear (3.6) will include a rather detailed simulation of the Space Shuttle. For those interested in multi-platform OpenSource spaceflight in a realistic sim, take a look at what we have: The NASA Space Shuttle was the world's first...

Since I've been doing GLSL shader effects for a while, I thought it'd be nice to have some alternative engine to render orbital views in Flightgear. Quite a while ago I wrote some short proof of concept putting a simple textured sphere into the scene and positioning it using ray optics. Now I...

In case anyone is interested, that's me flying in my native habitat - Flightgear, where I'm part of the development team, and as it so happens, I'm currently involved in a spaceflight project. We were contacted by researchers from project PoSSUM who aim at using the XCOR Lynx spaceplane to...

Hi to everyone. Brief introduction - my name is Thorsten Renk, I'm a theoretical physicist by profession, and as part of my spare-time activities I'm part of the development team of the Flightgear OpenSource simulator, mainly doing weather simulation and coding OpenGL shaders. I am fascinated...