As an avid downloader of spacecraft from Jack's website, BH's site and others, I have seriously began to lose track of when a particular spacecraft was/is supposed to be in orbit or not. Using the Beginning and Ending commands that are now available for Celestia developers, modelers are placing spacecraft in space only during the time there are/were really there. For example, Mir is a craft that was launched in February 1986 and crashed back to Earth in March, 2001. To see it in Celestia, you have to set the date to fall between those two numbers. Unfortunately, the only way you can really tell what the correct dates are for a particular spacecraft, is to open up the ssc file for every craft of interest and either read the date or decipher the Julian dates, or visit some Astronomy website and get the date off there. With over 30 spacecraft now in the Celestia universe, it has gotten a bit difficult to do.
To assist me and everyone else, I have created a simple MS Word reference document containing a table with most of Celestia's spacecraft, and the beginning and ending dates. You can download it from my website (www link is below). Print it out, keep it handy and visit any craft you wish by resetting the date in Celestia as applicable.
Jack, BH and others: Feel free to put a copy of the document on your spacecraft site if you wish.
I will try to keep up with new additions.
Enjoy.
Frank G
