Project AIA Toehold Project (Space Station)

[wehaveaproblem]

What are the different phases you're planning?
You've mentioned "phase 3" twice now and have piqued my interest.

I'm gonna be updating the Toehold Project page on my blog soon with the latest plans.

But in a nutshell:
Phase 1: Establish operational station. This will involve a number of modules making a sizable station.
Phase 2: Station Expansion, including addition of construction scaffold for Phase 3.
Phase 3: Assembley of Lunar Station on scaffold, then launch to lunar orbit
Phase 4: Addition of dry docks to scaffold for an, as yet, unnamed concept LEO-Lunar shuttle

something like that anyway...

 

[HiPotOk1978]

Awsome work WHAP... your earlier statement about launch windows to the station are correct. When looking for a launch window to the moon, you have to account for the stations LAN and the moons moving on ya... Good news is that your LEO staiton will drift west faster than the moon. 50 days isn't too bad... what is the altitude of your station

 

[wehaveaproblem]

Watcha HiPot, cheers for the kind words.

Plan at the mo is for an altitude of about 500km... although I'm tempted to go a little higher - purely because I like the view.

 

[tblaxland]

so depending on how much fuel you want to burn, it's possible to have a good window about every 42 days. This perhaps isn't 100% ideal, although can fit in with my plans fine. Looks like there will be one very busy week every six weeks lol.

An off-plane transfer will be available every two weeks (half the period of the Moon's orbit) for very nearly the same dV as an in-plane transfer. The reason is that although such a transfer will be out of the Moon's orbital plane, it will be in plane with station's orbital plane. The dV difference between the two will only depend on what your target inclination is at the Moon.

 

[wehaveaproblem]

Cheers for that tb, so in essence, it's a viable orbit, that's enough for me!

now back to the vertices...

 

[Arrowstar]

Looking forward to this, WHAP! Following the blog closely.

 

[wehaveaproblem]

Cheers Arrowstar.


Here's another dev shot showing the progress on the model.
I've added EVA hand rails, RCS nozels and radiators.

 

[T.Neo]

Cheers Arrowstar.


Here's another dev shot showing the progress on the model.
I've added EVA hand rails, RCS nozels and radiators.

That's very impressive. The RCS thrusters do look a bit blocky though.
I'm curious to find out what the poly count of this is/will be.

 

[Countdown84]

WHAP,
This sounds awesome! I really like the concept and your screens so far. I might be interested in trying to do .dll modules for you. I'm still a novice programmer but I learn fast With all the sophisticated functionality that UMMU, DGIV, XR- vessels, and other addons offer, I hate to see so many addons limited by SC3 (can't stand Spacecraft vessels honestly).

Plus, if you use SC3 you won't be able to spawn the modules via the XR-5 payload manager, which could become a pain for station assembly scenarios. The autopilot for maintaining orbit is a good idea too.

Are you planning to do a VC / module interior other than the window?

PM me if you'd like to discuss. Can't wait to see this station in (virtual) orbit!

 

[wehaveaproblem]

That's very impressive. The RCS thrusters do look a bit blocky though.
I'm curious to find out what the poly count of this is/will be.

I agree the RCS do need a bit of work I think. Untextured, this pic doesn't do them justice, but I do agree.
With the current plan and the way things are going, the module will come in under 10k polys.

WHAP,
This sounds awesome! I really like the concept and your screens so far. I might be interested in trying to do .dll modules for you. I'm still a novice programmer but I learn fast With all the sophisticated functionality that UMMU, DGIV, XR- vessels, and other addons offer, I hate to see so many addons limited by SC3 (can't stand Spacecraft vessels honestly).

Plus, if you use SC3 you won't be able to spawn the modules via the XR-5 payload manager, which could become a pain for station assembly scenarios. The autopilot for maintaining orbit is a good idea too.

Are you planning to do a VC / module interior other than the window?

PM me if you'd like to discuss. Can't wait to see this station in (virtual) orbit!

Once I've done it as an SC3 (which is about the limit of my coding, so I enjoy it), if you wanted to convert to dll, that would be awesome. At least the SC3 version will have all the animation locations and whatnot in, which should hopefully help conversion... plus it allows me to get a release out before whenever.
SC3 not being being selectable in the XR5 scenario editor is a bit of a bummer I agree, but I'll release the module with scenarios at least, so not the end of the world.

As to a VC. I'm thinking about it. I'm certainly going to model the observation control room you can see through the window, which will essentially be the module's cockpit, so it's quite possible.

 

[Countdown84]

Once I've done it as an SC3 (which is about the limit of my coding, so I enjoy it), if you wanted to convert to dll, that would be awesome. At least the SC3 version will have all the animation locations and whatnot in, which should hopefully help conversion... plus it allows me to get a release out before whenever.

Sounds great! Yeah, SC3 will make it easy for you to define the animations, which will really save me a lot of time making a .dll.

If you're willing, send me a pre-release mesh sometime and I'll start roughing out the module.

These are features I would ultimately (read:long-term) like to put into it:

• UMMU with full crew management (menu/MFD to view name, age, status)
• appropriate interior sounds, maybe even some custom ones
• Consumables management (fuel, water? food?)
• Electrical system (code for sun-tracking of solar panels and realistic electrical output)
• RMS - would you want the module to have its own RMS system or could we use URMS?
• Some way for future modules to "talk" to each other. E.g. if you dock an additional hab module then the electrical load goes up and crew capacity increases.

I've thought for a long time about making a space station with these kinds of features, but my 3D modeling skills are so poor right now I've never attempted. I'm thrilled to have the opportunity to contribute to this project!

 

[wehaveaproblem]

All those features sound awesome tbh, countdown. If you wanted to do a dll that deep for them then you have my encouragement lol. I wouldn't know where to start with the c++ stuff, but I'd be happy to give you the meshes and whatnot once they are finalised. I'm hoping to get the Core module modeled(untextured) and SC3 coded by the end of this coming weekend. So hopefully I can have something for you next week.

 

[tgep]

Looking great ! Can't wait to launch a CEV from my modified AIA !

 

[wehaveaproblem]

I've decided to put this back on the back-burner while I develop an expansion for Wideawake International. Basically because there are a million cool space station modules, but not that many cool bases. The Orbiter can live without another space station project for a while.

Any users of WIN are encouraged to visit THIS THREAD and contribute their thoughts on the base.