Tracking the Mars 500

Post requests, images, descriptions and reports about work in progress here.
Topic author
halkun
Posts: 5
Joined: 30.09.2002
With us: 22 years 2 months

Tracking the Mars 500

Post #1by halkun » 19.06.2010, 16:36

Right now the ESA is running an experiment called the Mars 500 where 6 people are sealed into a simulated manned mission to mars. I would like to track this mission with Celestia. Lucky for us, the Mission commander has a twitter account.

What kind of information do I need to display the spaceship's location? My guess is just a vector, and the gavity will do the rest. The thing is that it will take 240 days to get there, and I can't find a proper cycle that will trasfer them from Earth to Mars in that time exactly. They just undocked with the ISS, which means they probably are using some kind of propultion to get them into the right cruise attitude for mars.

What can I get from either ESA or the mission commander to track the mission on my side?

Avatar
Hungry4info
Posts: 1133
Joined: 11.09.2005
With us: 19 years 2 months
Location: Indiana, United States

Re: Tracking the Mars 500

Post #2by Hungry4info » 20.06.2010, 05:49

Are you talking about the real location of the experiment? (It's in Moscow if I recall), or a representation of it out in space on the way to Mars?

And if the later, is the mission going that in detail? I thought it was a psychological experiment alone.
Current Setup:
Windows 7 64 bit. Celestia 1.6.0.
AMD Athlon Processor, 1.6 Ghz, 3 Gb RAM
ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics

Topic author
halkun
Posts: 5
Joined: 30.09.2002
With us: 22 years 2 months

Re: Tracking the Mars 500

Post #3by halkun » 21.06.2010, 00:08

No, it's a real simulation of mars with a real flight profile. I just need to know what info I need to follow the simulation in Celeatia.

chris
Site Admin
Posts: 4211
Joined: 28.01.2002
With us: 22 years 10 months
Location: Seattle, Washington, USA

Re: Tracking the Mars 500

Post #4by chris » 21.06.2010, 00:26

halkun wrote:Right now the ESA is running an experiment called the Mars 500 where 6 people are sealed into a simulated manned mission to mars. I would like to track this mission with Celestia. Lucky for us, the Mission commander has a twitter account.

What kind of information do I need to display the spaceship's location? My guess is just a vector, and the gavity will do the rest. The thing is that it will take 240 days to get there, and I can't find a proper cycle that will trasfer them from Earth to Mars in that time exactly. They just undocked with the ISS, which means they probably are using some kind of propultion to get them into the right cruise attitude for mars.

What can I get from either ESA or the mission commander to track the mission on my side?

Ideally, you want a file SPICE position kernel file (.bsp file). But, you'll probably have better luck just getting a list of the spacecraft's position and velocity at successive times in the mission.

--Chris


Return to “Add-on development”