After the Soviet Union lost the 1960s Moon Race, its manned space program shifted its focus on long-term habitation of space aboard orbiting laboratories. This began under the civilian
Salyut programme, and its military counterpart
Almaz, which were a series of nine space stations (including 3 failed ones) from 1971 to 1986. It was succeeded by
Mir, which operated from 1986 to 2001. The valuable experience gathered by these programs, and the subsequent international collaboration that began in 1978 have enabled the creation of the
International Space Station in 1993 (with the first module launched in 1998)
This addon supersedes my previous uploads,
Salyut 3-4-5 and
Evolution of Mir under one installation, and therefore they are now obsolete. Just like my previous Mir addon, the shuttle orbiters by bh are also included in the package (
Atlantis carrying Spacelab,
Endeavour,
Discovery with payload) to simplify installation.
MISSIONS SUMMARY:(It covers every mission related to the manned space program of the Soviet Union in a time span of 28 years, from the launch of Salyut 2 in 1973 until the deorbiting of Mir in 2001)- 5 Salyut (DOS) stations (including Mir's Core Module)
- 5 Almaz stations (including 2 repurposed as unmanned satellites)
- 79 Soyuz missions
- 89 Progress missions
- 10 Shuttle-Mir missions (including STS-63)
- 4 TKS missions
WHAT'S NEW?-
Soyuz T-15 is finally simulated. As such, Mir and Salyut 7 now virtually share the same orbital plane
- Mir's solar arrays are shortened to allow the shuttles "dock" properly to the station without hitting it
- The Soyuz TM visiting Mir are rotated 45 degrees just like this
image of Soyuz TM-24- Three versions of the TKS spacecraft are included to represent the appearances they arrived on Salyut 6 and Salyut 7
- Models of Salyut 4 and Almaz (Salyut 2, 3, 5) were updated, with the solar arrays of Almaz now match this
published rendering- The hull of Salyut 7 is now less reflective, and its solar arrays now change in time to simulate the addition of small pairs of extension panels during four EVAs from 1983 to 1985
- Made the first-generation variant of the Progress spacecraft (7K-TG) based on gironde's
Progress-M addon
- The expansion modules of Mir can now be selected individually
- A dedicated model to Almaz-T, the robotic Earth observation satellite version of the Almaz space station in the 1980s, is included
- All space stations are resized to match the size and scale relative to the
Zvezda module of the ISS - Archival Celestrak TLE data applied to all space stations
HOW TO INSTALL:(The overall installation is similar to the predecessors of this addon)- Download first linuxman's
Salyut 6 addon. This will serve as the main folder and the source for Soyuz 7K-T missions (12 to 40), as well as Soyuz T missions (Cosmos 1001 to T-15)
- For missions to Mir, download Endeavor35's
Soyuz and
Progress addons
- Merge the contents of this addon along with the two addons by Endeavor35 onto "Saliout6-Soyouz" folder
- Allow "Saliout.ssc" and "Soyouz.ssc" to be overwritten by the SSCs included in this addon
EXTRA TIPS:- To view every spacecraft in this addon without manually changing time, download the
Spacecraft Goto script by Jan Stegehuis
- You can also download
Salyut 1 by linuxman to complete the Salyut series of space stations.
LIMITATIONS:- The closest distance between Salyut 7 and Mir is ~30 km. This didn't occur in real life, but this is a rather fun coincidence anyway due to the limitations of purely SSC-defined orbits (first "close encounter" is on 23 Feb 1986)
- Shuttle payloads for all STS missions (except STS-71) are fictional
- Inter-orbit phases of Soyuz T-15 aren't simulated
Credits to
Jack Higgins (Salyut 7),
linuxman (Salyut 6, Soyuz 7K-T, Soyuz T),
bh (Mir, shuttle orbiters),
Endeavor35 (Soyuz TM, Progress-M), and
gironde (Progress 7K-TG) for creating spacecraft that made this addon possible
Flock 2K, 3K, 3M, 3P, 3P', 3R, 3S, 4A, 4E', 4P, 4V.7z
