Orbiter addon by Andrew Thielmann (igel)
atil@pin-plus.ca
Big thanks to astronavt (Dmitry Pritykin) for the most realistic and sophisticated R-7 rocket family addon!
Big thanks to all participants of the testing for the great attention to details, wonderful feedback, valuable comments and ideas!
Big thanks to the unknown source for the good-looking exhaust texture!
Luna-10 was the first man-made object to orbit the Moon;
Both lunar probes belong to the family of the E-6 (and E-6M) Soviet lunar stations. The main goal of this design was to achieve the first lunar landing. The same design was later retrofitted to put the first satellite around the Moon.
After the landing, the airbags were ejected to the sides from the lander and eventually deflated.
Launches occur at their exact historic timing, in broad daylight, with good visibility of all steps. You don’t have to do anything – the launch sequence starts automatically when you load the scenario. You don't see much until the engines are fired. Enjoy the ride! External views are very rewarding, as well as "rocketcam" views from the Block L orbital stage. (See Block L documentation for details).
If you want to fast-forward the launch to orbit, +10 time acceleration is a safe bet.
It is important to note, that, because of the high latitude of Baikonur, and contrary to the American Moon flights, this whole flight takes place in the highly inclined orbit, and not in the plane of Ecliptic or Lunar orbit. This makes navigation much harder. It is still possible to do it in manual mode, but standard MFDs will be insufficient. Use TransX!
With autopilot, though, you do not need to do anything other than enjoy the external and internal views from the Block L. The autopilot reports the time remaining for the precalculated burn point. You can safely accelerate up to +100 times. As you approach the burn point, time acceleration will switch off automatically.
Note how the probe passes over the Southern Europe, Black Sea and Crimea Peninsula (now in Ukraine), where the Russian Deep Space Network command center used to be located at the time of the early Moon flights.
MCC objective is slightly different between Luna-9 and Luna-10. Luna-9 targets the very center of the lunar disk, while Luna-10 aims at a specific "missing" trajectory, not too far away from the disk but also not too close. The autopilot also monitors the remaining fuel, and cuts the engine if the hard limit of 90% is reached.
The spacecraft uses very low-thrust cold gas nozzles to power the turn. The nozzles and the compressed gas tanks are located on the discardable equipment bay.
Luna-9 starts the turn at the altitude of 400 k. Luna-10 coasts to the custom-calculated altitude that depends on the specific trajectory. Note that Luna-10 fires its engines not in the pericenter point, which would have been most fuel-efficient, but significantly earlier. The goal is to perform the burn while still being in radio contact with the controllers in Evpatoria (where the Soviet-era Deep Space Network hub was located). Fuel efficiency was not a problem: the spacecraft was originally designed for lunar landing, which requires way more fuel than orbital insertion will require! Even discarding the equipment bays was not needed for the orbital mission.
From down here, Luna-9 and Luna-10 follow very different mission profiles.
At the ignition moment, a lot of things are happening at once! First, the main engine is ignited, and its thrust is throttled to match the descent profile. Simultaneously, the steering engines are enabled, which are more powerful than the cold gas jets. Moments later the two airbags of the lander ALS are inflated. Finally, two heavy equipment bays are jettisoned.
At about 200 meters above the ground (number is estimated, actual values may vary widely) the main powerful chamber of the engine is shut down. With almost all fuel burned, the spacecraft is so light now, that it does not need as much power as this chamber produces. Even worse, the super-powerful engine could overbrake and send you back up in the black moon sky! For the last lag, weak steering engine is all you need.
Once the main engine is disabled, two 5-meter long touchdown probes roll down. This cannot be done earlier - or they would burn in the engine flame. The probes are just spring-loaded thin-wall steel tubes flattened and rolled on the reel. When freed, they roll out like a measuring tape from the canister, get back to their tube shape and rigidly hold their memorized shape.
The probes brake at touchdown but send the signal to the autopilot. The steering engine shuts down completely. The lander cushioned in the airbags separates from the bus and bounces on the surface in the clouds of moon dust, until coming to a complete stop. well done, Luna-9!
Mission accomplished... well, almost. If you want a nice final touch, switch to internal view for a great photo-opportunity! :-).
To use manual controls (other than attitude controls), you have to explicitly switch to the manual mode by M key. This way, you say that you know (or trying to learn) what you are doing. You can go back to autopilot mode - but not at all times. Autopilot often thinks many steps "in advance", and if you skipped some critical steps while flying in manual mode, autopilot might not be able to properly update its state at later time. But at least it will inform you so :-).
Also beware, that while in manual mode, you can inflict irreversible changes to the spacecraft configuration. For example, if you prematurely jettison or deploy equipment components, some of the functionality that relies on them will not be available at later time! Of course, you may do so intentionally, as a part of learning or to get nice visuals.
Ab1:Luna9AB STATUS Orbiting Earth RPOS -4075420.84 4724991.50 2012242.72 RVEL 476.992 3400.957 -7014.683 AROT -27.30 20.31 8.40 VROT -12.99 -11.44 4.43 ATTACHED 0:0,Als PRPLEVEL 0:1.000 NAVFREQ 0 0 =========== END Ab2:Luna9AB STATUS Orbiting Earth RPOS -4075420.84 4724991.50 2012242.72 RVEL 476.992 3400.957 -7014.683 AROT -27.30 20.31 8.40 VROT -12.99 -11.44 4.43 PRPLEVEL 0:1.000 ATTACHED 0:1,Als NAVFREQ 0 0 =========== END Als:Luna9ALS STATUS Orbiting Earth RPOS -4075420.84 4724991.50 2012242.72 RVEL 476.992 3400.957 -7014.683 AROT -27.30 20.31 8.40 VROT -12.99 -11.44 4.43 PRPLEVEL 0:1.000 ATTACHED 0:2,Luna9 NAVFREQ 0 0 =========== AB1 Ab1 AB2 Ab2 END PoAstro:Luna9PO STATUS Orbiting Earth RPOS -4072413.49 4745550.37 1969525.56 RVEL 511.849 3358.912 -7030.666 AROT 125.11 -6.34 -9.53 ATTACHED 0:0,Luna9 NAVFREQ 0 0 =========== PO_TYPE ASTRO END PoRadio:Luna9PO STATUS Orbiting Earth RPOS -4072413.65 4745549.82 1969524.74 RVEL 511.849 3358.912 -7030.666 AROT 125.11 -6.34 -9.53 ATTACHED 0:1,Luna9 NAVFREQ 0 0 =========== PO_TYPE RADIO END Luna9:Luna9KTDU STATUS Orbiting Earth RPOS 3372551.57 4568915.92 -2888134.25 RVEL 325.791 -98.010 225.538 AROT 122.19 -31.93 -130.18 PRPLEVEL 0:1.000 1:1.000 2:1.000 THLEVEL 0:0 NAVFREQ 0 0 =========== PO_ASTRO PoAstro PO_RADIO PoRadio ALS Als ATTACHED END
ATTACHEDTo establish proper linkage between the component vessel objects, proper ATTACHED variable (standard orbiter variable) should be present in each component's scenario block. Luna9KTDU provides a special case: as its way of attaching to the parent translunar rocket can vary, assembling proper ATTACHED line is not always possible. In this case, the ATTACHED line should be present even without value, to indicate that the spacecraft is not on its own yet.
Additionally, names of the corresponding attached components should be properly specified in the corresponding custom variables of the parent vessels.
FOCUS - 0 or 1Override to enable or disable focus for the vessel. By default, only KTDU and lunar station after separation can be focused;
Default values don't have to be present in scenario file (to make it shorter and more readable). Use custom variables only to override the defaults.
Saved scenarios may have more variables than is documented here. These are for internal use only and are not intended to be manipulated by pilot. To understand them, use the source code of the addon.
PO_ASTRO | - if attached, name of the Astro equipment bay vessel object; |
PO_RADIO | - if attached, name of the Radio equipment bay vessel object; |
ALS | - if attached, name of the lunar station vessel object; |
MISSION LANDER (default) or SATELLITE | - Luna-9 or Luna-10 type mission; |
PO_TYPE - ASTRO or RADIO | - required, specifies type of the equipment bay; |
AB1 | - if attached, name of the Airbag 1 vessel object; |
AB2 | - if attached, name of the Airbag 2 vessel object; |
C | toggle between two camera views when in the cockpit view; |
M | toggle between manual and autopilot control mode; |
J | jettison (sequentially):
|
E | disable or enable main engine chamber; |
K | extend touchdown probes; |
B | inflate airbags on lander (when lander and Radio equipment bay are present); |
Ctrl J | enable/disable focus switch to the lunar station after its separation from KTDU; you may want to do it to keep your "point of view" in KTDU for alternative visuals. |
Ctrl F | enable focus for all subcomponents of the spacecraft. By default, only KTDU and lunar station after separation can be focused, to avoid cluttering the switch vessel dialog; However, being able to switch to any component extends the possible range of cool visuals. |
J | jettison airbags; |
K | open petals; |
G | open antennas; |
K | open antenna; |
P | stop or play International (when antenna is open); |
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