Mission Control for Orbiter v1

[TSPenguin]

Now all we need is a modified voice tool that delays delivery of the message according to distance.
Sign me up!

 

[thomasantony]

Oh yea. . that puts my crazy nerd imagination into overdrive.. I can just imagine coming home from college and flopping down in front of the comp. Putting on my headset, taking over from the flight controller on the other side of the world. ... Going through Go-no-go s for TLI .. oh yea .. :beach: .. and blabbing .. "Ok CAPCOM tell 'em we are go for TLI!":speakcool: ... while my sis really starts to understand that I have watched Apollo 13 and From the Earth To the moon too many times

Getting the Go for burns over the headset while flying as pilot would be even more cool :speakcool: .
~
Thomas

 

[davewave]

Just some food for thought with this concept:

You could have crews of mission control running all over the world who take turns at controlling the mission, handing over at every shift whilst the pilot gets some sleep or plays the mission in real time!!!

 

[DaveS]

Could this software be used to simulate scenarios like this one:

It's a ascent simulation for the STS-26R flight deck crew, with video being the STS-51J launch video.

So could it be used in this fashion for Orbiter? That you have someone acting as the flight deck crew and someone being Sim Control creating various problems for you.

 

[Urwumpe]

So could it be used in this fashion for Orbiter? That you have someone acting as the flight deck crew and someone being Sim Control creating various problems for you.

Just as addition - implementing a network protocol into SSU is the smallest problem for us. I did such stuff far too often in the last ten years. :dry:

 

[Arrowstar]

Whilst this might be true for an apollo mission, can the same be said for say a descarte mission to jupiter or a deltaglider run around mercury?
What I hope to develop are non-stereotyped positions which each have a role to fulfill and all contribute to the outcome of the mission regardless of the craft being used.

This way the mission control program will be adaptable to any new craft which gets put onto orbithangar.

Lets not forget the Shuttle here too!!! could be loads of fun

Alright, I see your point and agree with you here. In this case I'd recommend perhaps developing some Orbiter Air Traffic Controller software that could be used by stations, bases, and outposts to monitor vessels. Besides the basic statistics of each vessel (fuel state, engine state, velocity relative to primary, cargo/payload/attached vessel, etc), it would be useful perhaps to have a 3D view of the space around the controller's location showing each vessel within x km. For bases, it could be a 2nd screen with the same concept. It would be great fun in my opinion to run a Prelude-II base, managing inbound and outbound traffic, cargo transfers, etc. Obviously some of the fun would come from the comm chatter, but being able to see where other vessels are in relation to the controller's position and using that information to direct them would be awesome.

I realize that the multiple vessel scenario I described above won't happen until OMP gets more complete (which I look forward too!), but it can't hurt to code it in now, huh?

 

[yagni01]

Could this software be used to simulate scenarios like this one:

It's a ascent simulation for the STS-26R flight deck crew, with video being the STS-51J launch video.

So could it be used in this fashion for Orbiter? That you have someone acting as the flight deck crew and someone being Sim Control creating various problems for you.

Remember we're working with the orbiter api. You "sim sup" could set fuel to 0, or turn an autopilot off, but I think there's an issue with turning engines off in that Orbiter just recalculates it the next timestep, so it won't stay off. Using the messages available for XR-series vessels gives us more capability, but there's not much available yet to talk to/command internal vessel systems.

 

[davewave]

update

Hi all.
Here are some initial screenshots of the Mission Control for Orbiter at work.

This is the home screen which allows you to connect to an orbiter client and establish an uplink to begin a communication session with that client.
At all times you have control over the speed of the simulation. *Note that this mission control forces a maximum of 100x speed if the client tries to go higher.


Here is the bulk of what I've been doing all this time.
This should be familiar to most orbinauts except that Periapsis and Apoapsis information is color coded. You can click and drag to recenter the orbit display and there is a zoom tool below.


Lastly on the menu for now is the tracking map which allows an overview of the current orbital location of a planet using a map.


Down below of each screen you may have noticed a status panel. This will flash based on the current situation where "Network" indicates a net connection to the orbiter client and "Xfer" represents data coming in and going

 

[Master of Blades]

It looks cool, but in the map screen, you ought to have an indicator of the ships orbital path (as in the map MFD)

 

[davewave]

It looks cool, but in the map screen, you ought to have an indicator of the ships orbital path (as in the map MFD)

I'm not actually quite sure how to do this. any ideas?

 

[Master of Blades]

Nope... i know about as much about programming as an ostrich does about nuclear technology...

 

[orwellkid]

First off, this is a mighty fine project kind sir. I would be damn happy to use this.

As for the Map MFD, as far as I can tell, it dispalys your path based on inclination.

So, to display it, it would be something like:

Split the map into 2 zones, Seperated by the AN/DN

Zone 1, would dispaly course as:

inclination - 180 = angle of decending node

Zone 2, would display course as:

inclination + 180 = angle of ascending node

it would be a rather rudimentary line (projecting x1, y1 -> x2, y2, per zone), but it would be something. I'm not sure exactly how Martin does this with a wave formation, but it must be something similar, tying in the AN/DN lat/long juxtaposed Map lat/long.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[davewave]

Does anyone have some source code to the MAP MFD used in orbiter or even the MAP displayed in Aerobrake MFD.

I've been trying to work out how to plot an orbit on a map and I've been using spherical coordinates whereby PHI is my inclination and Theta is given by the True Longitude.

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/SphericalCoordinates.html
This website explains all this but I'm only getting spherical representation.
There must be an easier way.

Just to reitterate, I'm duplicating the orbit projection which is seen on map MFD in orbiter but for my mission control mod.

 

[spacegeek94]

wowy! id love to use this, it sounds outrageously fun! good luck, cant wait to see the end product! maybe just maybe, see if martin might want to hook up with you to put this in newer versions of orbiter. maybe it will make it as a standard in future versions.

 

[spcefrk]

A quick suggestion:

Could you make the interface sort of standard so that others could make "skins" for it? I absolutely love what you're working on here but I'd like to be able to use it in different styles -- perhaps a couple of different NASA styles (1970s, 1980s, Modern) or futuristic ones. It would be cool if we could select fonts and colors and whatnot.

You definitely need the orbit displayed on the map (and I asked for this elsewhere) but could someone make a political map to show the track over? If I were running a mission control I'd be less interested in the color of the ground they're over than a map with radio ranges, political lines, etc...

I'm not much good for programming anything but Matlab and Fortran, but if I can help, shout.
​

 

[davewave]

Hi.
The programming language isn't the issue, just getting the math is all I need.

Skins are definatly on the horizon and not impossible for me to do but right now I'm getting the mechanics all working.
What I could use is an internet test. Can someone run OrbConnect on an orbiter client and send me the ip address!

 

[SiameseCat]

Does anyone have some source code to the MAP MFD used in orbiter or even the MAP displayed in Aerobrake MFD.

I've been trying to work out how to plot an orbit on a map and I've been using spherical coordinates whereby PHI is my inclination and Theta is given by the True Longitude.

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/SphericalCoordinates.html
This website explains all this but I'm only getting spherical representation.
There must be an easier way.

Just to reitterate, I'm duplicating the orbit projection which is seen on map MFD in orbiter but for my mission control mod.

Well, what you're really trying to do is graph a sinewave on the map.
You'd have an equation like
y=PHI*sin(x-LAN), where PHI is inclination, LAN is longitude of the ascending node, x is longitude and y is latitude. You can use this equation to display the orbit.

 

[davewave]

Well, what you're really trying to do is graph a sinewave on the map.
You'd have an equation like
y=PHI*sin(x-LAN), where PHI is inclination, LAN is longitude of the ascending node, x is longitude and y is latitude. You can use this equation to display the orbit.

Thanks so much.
I'll give this a shot

 

[Andy44]

THe ground track only looks like a sin wave for a circular orbit in a low inclination, though. A polar orbit, for instance, looks like a square wave.

 

[to be]

This probably seems obvious, but just in case, make sure your inclination is based on EQUATORIAL data.