Project Soyuz 7K-T Custom

[diogom]

This should be interesting:

Looking forward to the power up and finally a proper look at one of the electroluminescent indicators. And seeing it move, the day/night thing finally makes sense.

Also finally have a proper look at the globe, and seeing Jurvetson's recently posted earlier unit, it's interesting that ASTP's looks so different from both the early version and Soyuz-35, assuming nothing got swapped out post-flight. I'm honestly surprised mine ended up looking so close with just text and like two low res pics. Should only need small adjustments.

There's also the potential here to get some power consumption figures.

 

[diogom]

Electroluminescents under update after fresh info:



Bluer than I expected, and the "font" is kinda broken up, which I guess has to do with the way the electrodes are made.

Edit:

 

[diogom]

Been a bit quiet here, as Orbiter took a bit of a back seat to other hobbies. Anyway, looking to ease back into this again, so might as well drop a small update.

As it stands, the remaining major item is Igla. First step is to establish a scenario that reliably fails, and see what the sequence is. Hopefully there's a fix for the root of the problem, and it doesn't just turn into whack-a-mole with various specific starting conditions.

I might also try to determine what sort of power consumption each of the electroluminescent signals would have. All I know is they take high voltage AC, so would it would require onboard inverters. My plan would be to try to get figures for contemporary technology and take that as good enough. I did manage to get some figures for the analog clock from CuriousMarc, which ended up being somewhat negligible compared to the overal power draw, but I've singled it out anyway. It's basically a 2 Hz square wave with 27 V amplitude, and 100 ms -ish pulses.

To add some colour, here's the full reworked ELS, following the Globe's pattern (which can now be seen here). There is glass in the mesh, and compared to the Globe's signal it's making it a bit harder to read, so I might reconsider that decision since it's otherwise invisible (duh) without any reflections and thus adding nothing of value.



Also reworked the IKP with the new blue:

 

[diogom]

Alright, my last post aged like milk. The Igla issue I and thermocalc (and probably everyone else who tried it) had was an easy fix, just a dumb if as I imagined. But that didn't make it work either and after testing, it opened the floodgates of questioning whether it can ever reliably work in its present form. There's so much dancing around, pitching back and forth. I'm thinking it might need some more major restructuring to focus more on that 90º pitch down attitude as the default orientation until 1 km -ish, which for all I know indeed was the strategy in real life. It would make for a quicker flip to braking burns and back, less fuel waste, yaw to align with motion of line of sight instead of roll, which is a bit less effective than yaw. And maybe there's a better way of getting the necessary data. But it will take some time to plan and execute, and I find myself again holding back a bunch of other new features already implemented for the one single blocking issue. So I've been thinking a few days, and as much as I dislike going back on it, after checking docking manually remains doable, I've decided to temporarily disable Igla and wrap up this release. I also know better now than to make promises about it for the next one.

All the usual approach info will still be provided on the HUD, provided the mode is """activated""", and Salyut will keep its own Igla working, so it will be a cooperative docking target. As for Soyuz, the old reliable "coast to just before the closest approach and burn retrograde to target" works (with the default Orbiter tools, and Salyut already had an IDS too), and then a small burn towards Salyut to get on final approach, keeping on track with DPO. The requirement of course is that the closest approach is short, within, say, 5 km.

As for the rest, I've closed up all the new english translations and just need to update the Guide to reflect this and all the relevant new stuff (electrical system, programs, etc), so I expect to have something out soon.

 

[kuddel]

[...]So I've been thinking a few days, and as much as I dislike going back on it, after checking docking manually remains doable, I've decided to temporarily disable Igla and wrap up this release. I also know better now than to make promises about it for the next one.[...]

Quality over quantity! That's nothing to apologize for

 

[diogom]

Agreed. It's not that I didn't expect a challenge, but there's a certain irony that attempting this particular system was one of the first concrete ideas when this was all just an idea being entertained. For what it's worth, even in its current form I'm glad to have tried it. On to the next attempt.

Have a few ideas cooking for next steps. The orientation modes have a couple of gremlins that could use a look, though I haven't been able to determine how to reliably trigger them yet. Recently learned/noticed that DPO and DO did not, in fact, have separate propellant supplies. Instead, there were three main tanks of H2O2, from which both DPO and DO drew, and a backup tank to be used when the three mains run out, or have an issue. Being pressure-fed engines, there were also main and backup pressurising gas tanks, one each, containing what I'm guessing was helium. So this calls for a reconfiguration of the tanks, and eventually I'd like to understand how to relate all this to pressure: the KEI would display both H2O2 and gas pressures, in kgf/cm^2 (same for the SKDU, except with fuel and oxidizer). The KEI on Soyuz-TM still retained this, though with the corresponding differences with the integrated fuel system.

Updated

Baikal - 18/05/2023:

• Basic main/backup battery implementation added, with power drain variation based on active systems on top of base power drain: external lights, IKP, clock
• Combined power mode and recharge when docked to Salyut (no influence from sun exposure for now)
• ELS button changed to be all-signal illumination test
• KSU SSVP signalling only when SSVP power on and show extended/retracted/open/closed, not intermediate states
• Improvements to SSVP operation
• IKP: Automatic Descent and Automatic Manoeuvre programs, standby and illumination test modes added
• BTSI target Delta-V input enabled for IKP Programs
• Optimisation of VC panel display rendering
• Vzor central and peripheral screen on/off added
• Globe texture updated (southern hemisphere latitude labels)
• Scenario save states for orientation modes, PVU/IKP and BDUS
• Igla temporarily disabled
• Documentation updated

 

[diogom]

Happy to report XRSound integration started and is going well, after a brief battle with linking libraries to kick off.

Starting with something which definitely won't get annoying at all. Or maybe lull one to sleep:

Don't have much else yet, other than the remaining switches, I've cooked up the alarm sound which will play along with the "АВАРИЯ" signal (and be shut up by the "Sound" button).

 

[n72.75]

I like it!

 

[diogom]

And there it is, as the remaining Delta-V crosses the 150 m/s threshold:

The alarm is based mostly on this document (Figure 4), which describes it for Soyuz-T and -TM as between 550 and 750 Hz, and on the film Return from Orbit. I found a triangle wave to be a match to what's heard on Return from Orbit, though there the frequency sweep is wider. Currently it's also assigned to the inertial hold mode, when the maximum angle deviations are exceeded and the hold mode is automatically switched off.