Celestia Forums

Al-Amal, known internationally as the Emirates Mars Mission or simply Hope, is the first of three spacecraft bound for Mars that was launched in July 2020, along with Tianwen-1 and Perseverance/Ingenuity. It is the UAE's first interplanetary mission, and it reached Mars successfully on 2021-Feb-9, just days ahead of the two aforementioned probes.

From its unique high Martian orbit, it will study daily and seasonal weather cycles, weather events in the lower atmosphere such as dust storms, and how the weather varies in different regions of the planet. It will also add to knowledge about Mars atmospheric hydrogen and oxygen loss and other possible reasons behind the planet's drastic climate changes.

Orbital trajectories from HORIZONS. Note that there's a slight discrepancy on the Mars-centric trajectory just a few minutes after orbital insertion on 2021-Feb-9

Hi,

I found a prolem in Orbit of Al-Amal


Please fix it.



EarthMoon

Taken from the Discord so that Dave doesn't have to explain much:

There's something wrong with Hope's HORIZONS trajectory around Mars. There's a section where it suddenly warps into a different point in space as shown in the image below (it happens right after orbital insertion on 2021-Feb-9)[...]I tried rewriting it to make sure I didn't erased anything about three times now, but the same result happens
- DaveBowmann2001

Update/Replacement for the Long Duration Exposure Facility addon. The satellite's name will no longer appear from afar once it is attached to either STS-41-C (Challenger) or STS-32 (Columbia). Also fixed visual bugs seen from its earlier model from 2021

REQUIRED ADDONS:
Install these addons first to allow full functionality
- STS-2022, by DaveBowman2001, et. al.
- SolarMax (2022), by DaveBowman2001


Additional note: This addon's PC version includes the support equipment used to repair SolarMax after forgetting to include it on the said addon upon uploading it

Update/Replacement to the Surveyor Landers addon. In preparation for the upcoming Project Apollo (Part 4) addon, the visual bugs on the 3D model has been partially fixed (except for the inexplicably transparent parts), and the landers are enlarged by 40% from the previous iteration to closely match its actual dimensions in real life

--Added after 5 hours 7 minutes:--

Quick Update: Fixed the transparency issues at last. Must be a bug encountered during conversion to CMOD. Please redownload if you have installed this addon earlier today



EDIT (221207): This addon is now obsolete. Download this version instead

Good!

Taking a break from making addons for a week or two, but here are the future projects that I've been working on:

CAPSTONE
Precursor to the Lunar Gateway
Released: 2022-Jul-27, 03:02


Diwata-2B
The first satellite under the STAMINA4Space program
Released: 2022-Jul-28, 10:54


Galileo Probe
Featuring its deployment animation and descent into Jupiter
Released: 2022-Jul-26, 02:33


Project Mercury
NASA's first manned space program
Released: 2022-Aug-14, 06:53


Syncom I to III
The first satellites in geosynchronous orbit
Released: 2022-Jul-20, 06:51


Voskhod 1 and 2
Featuring the first-ever spacewalk in history, by Alexei Leonov, in 1965-Mar-18
Released: 2022-Sept-16, 15:13


Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer
The observatory that discovered C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE)
Released: 2022-Jul-17, 11:24

In addition, work in updating Project Apollo (Part 4), the International Space Station, and additional satellites/payloads for STS-2022 will continue in the following days

51st Starlink launch on 07-07-2022 (53 satellites) group 4-21
52nd Starlink launch on 07-11-2022 (46 satellites) group 3-1
(the latter has a provisional numbering using the international number)




the 39th launch had provisional numbers. It now has definitive numbers.

Update/Replacement to the Syncom-IV/Leasat addon. Allows the five shuttle-launched satellites to be placed inside the payload bay of the Space Shuttle orbiters a few hours before they were deployed into GEO

REQUIRED ADDONS:
Install these addons first to allow full functionality
- STS-2022, by DaveBowman2001, et. al.

Additional note: Includes an SSC update to the Canadarm1.ssc which added missing RMS arms on certain shuttle missions that have it in real life

Ulysses was a NASA/ESA space probe whose primary mission was to orbit the Sun and study it at all latitudes. It was launched in 1990 and made three "fast latitude scans" of the Sun in 1994/1995, 2000/2001, and 2007/2008. In addition, the probe studied several comets until it is decommissioned in 2009

This addon features the space probe's configuration inside the payload bay of STS-41 (Discovery). Therefore, to allow full functionality, STS-2022 is needed to be installed first


Original addon by FarGetaNik

The WISE observatory, also known as Explorer 92, is a NASA infrared telescope which performed an all-sky infrared survey from 2009-2011 which afterwards put into hibernation mode. Upon reactivating in 2013, it is repurposed to search for asteroids that could collide with Earth, thus renaming into NEOWISE. Aside from discovering the first known Y-type brown dwarfs and thousands of asteroids, it also discovered many comets, one of which became the Great Comet of 2020, which also bears the same name

The early Syncom satellites were 68-kg cylindrical spacecraft about 0.71 m in diameter. With the exception of Syncom I (which failed prematurely before reaching target orbit), these were the very first spacecraft ever sent into geosynchronous (Syncom II) and geostationary orbits (Syncom III) respectively. All satellites were launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA from 1963-1964, and the latter two satellites remain in operation until 1969.

LAGEOS 1 and 2 are two scientific research satellites, launched in 1976 and 1992, designed to provide an orbiting laser ranging benchmark for geodynamical studies of the Earth. They are in very stable medium Earth orbits, and are expected to de-orbit and re-enter Earth's atmosphere in 8.4 million years. LAGEOS 1 contains a plaque designed by Carl Sagan depicting Earth's continents as they appeared 268 million years ago, as they appear now, and as they are predicted to appear in 8.4 million years.

This addon features the IRIS booster used during LAGEOS-2's deployment from STS-52 (Columbia). For this reason, to view the second satellite, STS-2022 is needed to be installed first


Original addon by Snowfall-The-Cat.

Starlink launch n° 53 of 17-07-2022
group 4-22, 53 satellites, international number 2022-083.

Galileo was a NASA space probe that became the first spacecraft to orbit Jupiter in 1995. Launched in 1989 aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis, it flew by a number of objects in the Solar System (Venus, Earth, 951 Gaspra, and 243 Ida), witnessed the crash of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, and studied Jupiter and its moons for eight years before being commanded to crash into Jupiter itself in 2003 to prevent biological contamination in any of the moons, especially Europa


This addon features the following:
- Animated deployment and descent of the Galileo Probe as it parachutes down the bottomless atmosphere of Jupiter for about 61 minutes
- Its launch configuration inside the shuttle payload bay of STS-34 (Atlantis). For this reason, STS-2022 is required to be installed for this addon to fully work


Original work by toutatis and FarGetaNik.



EDIT (221215): This addon is now obsolete. Download the latest version here

CAPSTONE is a lunar orbiter that will test and verify the calculated orbital stability planned for the Lunar Gateway space station. The spacecraft is a 12U CubeSat that will also test a navigation system that will measure its position relative to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) without relying on ground stations

XYZV trajectory from HORIZONS. The spacecraft begins right after the final TLI burn on 2022-Jul-4, and it features the departure and jettison of its Photon booster about 10 minutes after CAPSTONE first appears on Celestia! Take note that the actual event occurred about 20 minutes earlier than depicted because of insufficient state vector data


This addon is released as part of Project Artemis

Diwata-2B, or simply Diwata-2, is a Philippine Earth observations microsatellite launched as a secondary payload to Japan's GOSAT-2 satellite on October 29, 2018. Excluding the communications satellites Agila-1 and 2 (which were purchased from satellite companies), it is the first Philippine spacecraft to be ever directly launched into space, and the first of the country's STAMINA4Space program, which succeeded the PHL-Microsat program that launched its predecessor, Diwata-1, in 2016. It remains operational as of 2022

IMPORTANT NOTE on the GALILEO (2022) ADDON:

The spacecraft's parent body used here is Sol/Jupiter to simulate shadows once Galileo is crossing behind Jupiter itself or one of its moons. But it will create a duplicate against the stock version of Galileo (which uses the Sun directly as its parent body).

To prevent creating duplicates on PC versions, open up extras-standard folder and delete the entire stock installation of Galileo before using this addon.

For mobile users, download it here


BONUS:
In addition, for refined orbital trajectories of the moons themselves, you can download it off here or on the Forum's page for JUICE

The latest Starlink launches:
54th on 22-07-2022 V1.5 Group 3-2 46 satellites, no. 2022-084
55th on 24-07-2022 V1.5 Group 4-25 53 satellites, no. 2022-086

the 52nd launch has received its definitive numbers, so I put here the replacement files
(I have changed the name of the zip-file; its content is the same)

Added after 7 minutes 11 seconds:
SKYSAT is a constellation of 21 high-resolution Earth imaging satellites owned and operated by the commercial company Planet Labs



Unfortunately, I don’t have a matching model so I used a generic cubsat

Project Mercury was the first human spaceflight program of the United States. Its goal was to put a man into Earth orbit and bring him back safely, ideally before the Soviet Union (under the Vostok programme). Although it failed to launch the first humans to space, its success laid the groundwork for Project Gemini, which in turn paved the way for Project Apollo to put the first people on the Moon by the end of the 1960s.

All six crewed missions of the program (one each for the Mercury Seven astronauts) are included, in addition to two unmanned orbital test flights. Orbital data for all missions is derived from CelesTrak.


Credits to ElChristou for making the models for Liberty Bell 7, Freedom 7 and Friendship 7 over 17 years prior, which inspired me to complete the latter missions Aurora 7, Sigma 7 and Faith 7 for this addon


NOTES:
- If you're using version 1.6.2 below, make sure to open up the SSC file inside and delete all "Replace" commands as this was built for version 1.7.0 and Mobile versions
- All suborbital flights (except Freedom 7 and Liberty Bell 7) are NOT included in this addon