Luna-2 (and Luna-1)

Version 1.0

Build: 24.01.2009

Orbiter addon by Andrew Thielmann (igel)

atil@pin-plus.ca

Luna-2 was the first ever man-made object to reach the Moon on 14 September, 1959. Along with the set of scientific instruments, it carried a lot of memorial pennants, designed to survive the violent impact. Whether any pennants lived to tell the tale, remains seen by future space archaeologists. But it may be possible to locate a relatively fresh crater left by the impact.

The last stage of the Vostok rocket that carried the probe to the Moon did not remain passive after doing its job. It also carried a set of instruments and radio equipment, produced an impressive "artificial comet" of sodium vapours en route to the Moon, and impacted on the lunar surface shortly after the main probe.

What about Luna-1? Being identical in design, it was sent on the same mission a few months earlier, on 2 January 1959 - but missed the target by a narrow margin. Hence, she survived her fate and became another famous "first" - the first man-made object to break loose from the Earth's gravity and enter the solar orbit. She still travels out there... somewhere, waiting to be re-discovered by future generations!

Credits

Thorton (Nikita Vtyurin) - meshes and textures

astronavt (Dmitry Pritykin) - base R-7 addon

Big thanks to all beta testes for tons of valuable feedback!

Requirements and Compatibility

This addon is designed for Orbiter 2006 P1.

This addon requires R-7 project by astronavt. In other words, it is specifically designed for and tested with this addon. Many of its "out of the box" scenarios reference this addon and will crash without it, unless modified.

However, addon may [happen to be] compatible with other R-7 addons (and maybe even with other rockets!)

Automation

There is not really much to automation this addon. After all, Luna-1 and Luna-2 were quite passive, happily tumbling through space with no propulsion, no attitude control, no midcourse correction capabilities... So, automatically opening antennas a few seconds after separation is the only "real" automation provided. Other than that, the probe will "keep an eye" on time acceleration and will slow it down as it approaches the Moon and things become more interesting.

Pennants

When Luna-2 crashes into the Moon at about 3 km/s, it cannot survive. But the resulting explosion generates a cloud of tiny pennants that fly away at more or less random directions and velocities. Some may fall relatively close to the impact site, others may cover as much as half the lunar globe, or even reach the escape velocity and run away into space.

The pennant-generating ability of this addon provides some potentially interesting options for the operator.

By default, upon probe's impact on the Moon (or wherever) you, as "observer", stay with the resulting crater. From there, you can manually switch to any of the fifty pennants, that are flying away from the explosion. They are all regular Orbiter vessels.

The explosion happens very fast, and the initial velocity of the pennants is so big that you might not even notice them as they are leaving the site. If you go to "slow motion" by setting time acceleration to 0.1, things may become more appealing to the "naked eye".

As an interesting option, you can "lock" on one of the pennants and start flying with it immediately upon impact. To do so, use the Ctrl+J key combination prior to impact. The focus will be switched to one randomly selected pennant upon the probe destruction.

By default, all pennants can be focused. If you intend to reuse the scenario file after the probe impact, and don't like the list of the vessels to be "polluted" with fifty additional entries, use Ctrl+F key combination prior to impact. The pennants will be produced, but you won't be able to focus it.

This can be turned into a game of its own. If you intend to follow the pennants at later time to collect/retrieve them (in a kind of an "space archeology" mission), you can make task a little more hard (and more interesting and rewarding) by disallowing the focus on your "targets"

"Space collectors" should know, that most pennants have just country name on them, with month and year, while some - more rare! - have USSR's Coat of Arms.

Crashes and Burns

Like other components of this addon series, Luna probe is fragile and unforgiving. It won't survive falls from high altitude or atmospheric reentry after a failed launch. True, it does not have any fuel onboard - but it still carries enough explosions for pennants discharge to make catastrophic event look "interesting".

Control keys

Ctrl+J     toggle automatic focus switching to the randomly selected pennant upon impact;
Ctrl+F     disable/enable focus for the created pennants.


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