General Question Realistic applications for Orbiter

[jedidia]

Is it even possible to consider a vessel completely self contained?

It's certainly possible, the question is if it makes sense. As long as we stay in our solar system, it isn't really a necessity...

 

[Lacanau]

It's certainly possible, the question is if it makes sense. As long as we stay in our solar system, it isn't really a necessity...

Well my thinking is if for whatever reason communication gets blocked or severed for whatever reason, the vessel would have to rely on its own system for navigation. Any ideas as to what kind of system the shuttle uses? It would suprise me if it was all ground based.

 

[Keatah]

The only reason why nasa pushed for a computer onboard the apollo missions was to facilitate a return to earth if the russians jammed ground signals. The apollo craft was designed to be completely autonomous in the event of total loss of communications.

 

[insanity]

This is a bit of an aside, but a very realistic application of Orbiter is to kill my time and productivity.

Now, to your question about independent vessels:
Sure, though they will not have the precession of Orbiter's MFDs. IRS and other technologies can do amazing things, but tiny amounts of error add up quickly on such a large scale. We might get there someday, but as jedidia said, for our solar system it doesn't make much sense.

 

[Monroe]

We have a real need for LEO based simulations. We also have a mission coming up that launches a small rocket about 400 miles into space (suborbital) I'd like to simulate with HIL Basically what we use is a 9 DOF IMU that has 3 gyros 3 Accelerometers 3 Magnetometers and GPS for positioning that is enough for a spacecraft. The space shot is carried to 100kft by a balloon and launched from there. This is a two stage rocket and the payload is a small autonomous space plane that fly's back to the recovery zone. Sensors included are a barometer (good to 100kft) and a pitot air speed sensor (for in the atmosphere)

Astro navigation is the entire point to Orbiter to make that realistic! The idea is to learn how to navigate amongst the stars in space!