Celestia Forums

For those who would like to see the Columbia Shuttle appear and disappear during its missions...here you go. For those missions without ending times...an average mission seems to be 7-14 days long on average.
I hope this post isn't to long...I'll be doing the other shuttles as well, but, if this is to long a post then you'll have to convert the times yourself...check this address

http://www.thespaceplace.com/shuttle/past.html ...for the missions
and
http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/JulianDate.html ...to convert to Julian time...don't forget to add 4-5 from EST/EDT to UT

Eastern Daylight Time
subtract 4 hours from UTC

Eastern Standard Time
subtract 5 hours from UTC



Get the Columbia model here http://home.arcor.de/jimpage/other_addons.html ...thanks Jim

There is also some info on inclination and orbital altitude in the shuttle missions website. Inclination is easy enough, but how do I incorporate the orbital altitude(in Nautical miles) into the ssc file? If anyone can help me with this, that would be great.
Any corrections, additions, etc. is welcome.

Just wanna put in some input to this fascinating software
Chris

StarCrazy,

You can find very detailed orbital information of most of the shuttle missions at the CelesTrak website, in the "Historical Archives" section;

http://www.celestrak.com/NORAD/archives/STS/

The data is in the 2line element format, which thankfully can be converted to a CELESTIA compatible .ssc file using a very handy Excel program which is available at;

http://www.lns.cornell.edu/~seb/celesti ... heets.html

regards
TERRIER

Terrier...You are a legend. Thanks a heap. The links you gave are fantastic and Grant's programs are brilliant...Just finished the data for Columbia and the sense of realism is a tad stronger.

By the way...I downloaded your Mariner 10 file. I found that the word 'beginning' in the ssc file was misspelt. I had to correct it to get it happining. Great work, by the way...for a minute I thought I was going to crash into Mercury

Thanks again for your guidance. May the force be with you, live long and prosper, nanu nanu and cheers
Chris

StarCrazy wrote:Thanks again for your guidance. May the force be with you, live long and prosper, nanu nanu and cheers
Chris

LOL ROFL LOL !

StarCrazy wrote:By the way...I downloaded your Mariner 10 file. I found that the word 'beginning' in the ssc file was misspelt. I had to correct it to get it happining. Great work, by the way...for a minute I thought I was going to crash into Mercury

Shame
I see that I'd spelt it as beginninig
At least the .ssc still worked, Celestia must have ignored the wrong line in the code.
I've now updated my website, cheers.

BTW the Mariner 10 orbit is a complete fudge...one guess allowed for anyone who can tell me which orbit I've altered slightly for it ?
It actually got a lot nearer to Mercury on the 3rd and final flyby....it got as close as 327km, which I was unable to show.

StarCrazy wrote:nanu nanu

Wasn't that from Mork and Mindy ? It's years since I've seen that.

regards,
TERRIER

PS

StarCrazy wrote:happining

er hem !

TERRIER wrote:PS

StarCrazy wrote:happining

er hem !

D'OH!!!!