Celestia Forums

Anybody else interested in this project?A joint venture of the Planetary Society and a commercial firm to launch the first experimental solar sail.Having played around a bit witrh celestia,and reading the posts in these forums,it occurred to me that I could learn a great deal more if I tackle a project of my own.So what I want to do is make a model of the Cosmos 1 spacecraft.The Planetary Society website provides schematics.and I've downloaded a freeware 3d modelling program(draw 3-d)bue I'm at a loss as how to go from here.Any pointers about how to get started(tutorials etc.)would really be appreciated.I often find in situations like this that getting started is the hardest part,after a while I can start feeling my way.So any help getting off square 1 ?

I've never used Draw3D, but most 3D modelling programs have a set of "object primitives" that can be assembled into more complicated objects. A cylinder with different proportions can be used to create the basis of the sail and guy lines, for example. Cut out pieces of the sail cylinder, leaving pie-shaped segments.

Or you could start with a flattened cube for each of the sail segments. Cut off one of the corners, making it into a triangle.

Does this help at all?

There already exists a cosmos1 addon - at least I have one, but I don't know where I've got it from. I can put it for download anywhere if you like. It's only about 21kB compressed. Or perhaps you'll find it by looking around in this forum

maxim

The Cosmos 1 add-on exists and is very good. It was drawn by Jack Higgins for me about a year ago, to include in an educational activity I did last year.

I have not yet uploaded it to the Motherlode as a stand-alone add-on because I was not sure if the PLanetary Society had a copyright on its design, and I did not want to put it out as a stand-alone add-on until I heard from them. I've sent them two e-mails advertising the existence of the add-on and advising them of the existance of Celestia, but so far, I've received no reply. Perhaps their spam filter is not letting my e-mails through.

Anyway, you can find the add-on on the Motherlode as part of a package of add-ons inside one of the educational activities. Go to the documentation page of motherlode, click on "educational", and download "Activity 7". Cosmos 1 will be one of the add-ons in the "educational-extras" spacecraft folder. Alternatively, the 3ds model is 120 KB and I can e-mail it to you as a zip file, if you wish. Just send me an e-mail at fs.gregs@gte.net.

Regards,

Frank