Calculating ballistics in Orbiter

[garyw]

Hi,

I was curious to know if it's possible to calculate ballistic touchdown points in Orbiter for things like the Shuttle SRB's. It would be nice to be able to place a Camera view right where the SRB is targeted for splashdown. :lol:

 

[SiberianTiger]

Hi,

I was curious to know if it's possible to calculate ballistic touchdown points in Orbiter for things like the Shuttle SRB's. It would be nice to be able to place a Camera view right where the SRB is targeted for splashdown. :lol:

No, but you've got a pretty good tool for numerical modeling of their falling and splashdown: just run your mission, mark the points where the SRB's fell and re-run the same mission from the same scenario again, now with the cameras at the spots.

 

[garyw]

Yeah, that was the backup option!

 

[Scrooge McDuck]

I would say that it is possible, however you'll need to take the drag of the SRB into account. Like Map MFD calculates the intersection with the earth's surface as if there was no atmosphere, there are various MFD are already able to do this including the effects of drag. Maybe some of them have source available?

However, it this may be hard to calculate, because the changing orientation of the SRB would influence the drag. Unless you start calculating after parachute deploy...

 

[Bj]

You could make use of the record tool. Record your launch, find the coordinates where they 'splashdown' and then replay the launch from the different camera angles.

 

[garyw]

You could make use of the record tool. Record your launch, find the coordinates where they 'splashdown' and then replay the launch from the different camera angles.

Yes. I'm planning on setting up something like that so that all telemtry goes into a database but it's only possible for the focused vessel so I'll need to make sure I focus on one of the SRBs. From that I should be able to work out the drag from distance between the location at apogee versus the location and splash down.

 

[unussapiens]

Would it be possible to write a .dll to move the camera to the lowest point on a mesh?