Spacecrafts for Celestia

[DaveBowman2001]

Part of the Mariner-Mars 1964 mission, Mariner 4 is the first spacecraft to successfully visit Mars, and also the first one to image a planet up close. It flew by the Red Planet at a distance of 9,840 km on 15 July 1965. After the flyby, it continued to send data about the surrounding interplanetary medium until October 1965. Communications were reacquired briefly in September 1967, and during that time it was hit by a "meteor storm" possibly originating from the lost comet D/1895 Q1 (Swift), where it also certainly passed close to its shattered nucleus about 20 million km away. The damage it sustained ultimately caused the mission to be terminated on 21 Dec 1967. Its twin, Mariner 3 was lost when it failed to separate from its Agena booster.


Originally meant as a backup to Mariner 4, the spacecraft that would later be known as Mariner 5 would then be redesigned and repurposed for a Venus flyby in 1967, dubbed the Mariner-Venus 1967 mission. Mariner 5 flew as close as 3,990 km from the surface of Venus on 19 October 1967. Like Mariner 4, it gathered data from the surrounding interplanetary medium, however it quickly lost contact with Earth a month later. Attempts to re-establish contact were made in the months of 1968, and after one brief signal lock in October 1968, the mission was terminated on 5 Nov 1968

[toutatis]

My new model and addon "Asterix"... Orbital elements by NORAD data from website https://www.space-track.org

"Astérix or A-1 (initially conceptualized as FR.2 or FR-2) is the first French satellite. It was launched on 26 November 1965 by a Diamant A rocket from the CIEES launch site at Hammaguir, Algeria. With Astérix, France became the sixth country to have an artificial satellite and the third country to launch a satellite on its own rocket. Its main purpose was to test the Diamant launcher, though it was also designed to study the ionosphere. Astérix orbits Earth as of December 2020 and is expected to do so for centuries." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astérix_(satellite)


Tianwen-1 model and addon will be published here on July 1, and is dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Communist Party of the People's Republic of China...

[gironde]

Thank you Toutatis for this 3D model of the first French satellite launched autonomously by a Diamant rocket. The satellite's name, Asterix, comes from a comic book character, a little Gallic with fantastic strength who fought the Roman invaders of Julius Caesard. What is funny is that it was Toutatis who made this model: Toutatis was a Gallic God; it is regularly evoked by the exclamation "By Toutatis!"

For those who would like to make the cardboard model:
http://www.nielspapermodels.com/asterix.htm

[toutatis]

Thank you Toutatis for this 3D model of the first French satellite launched autonomously by a Diamant rocket. The satellite's name, Asterix, comes from a comic book character, a little Gallic with fantastic strength who fought the Roman invaders of Julius Caesard. What is funny is that it was Toutatis who made this model: Toutatis was a Gallic God; it is regularly evoked by the exclamation "By Toutatis!"

Well, this model was made like a small gift for you Gironde... You are welcome...

[gironde]

To complete the DaveBowman2001 Mariner series:
Mariner 3 and Mariner 4 were identical but unfortunately Mariner 3 had a problem at launch and could not reach Mars. The satellite has entered heliocentric orbit with Periapsis 0.983 AU and Apoapsis 1.311 AU, and must still be there. Orbital data is no longer accessible on Celestrak even in its history. However the fr.wikipedia site for Mariner 3 provides periapsis and apoapsis. We can therefore define EllipticalOrbit in a restricted way.

Mariner 3.7z

(499 Bytes) Downloaded 306 times

[DaveBowman2001]

SAC-D, also known as Aquarius after its main instrument, is a joint US-Argentine Earth observation satellite operated by CONAE and NASA. It was launched from Vandenberg atop a Delta II (7320-10C) rocket on 11 Jun 2011, and was planned to operate for five years. However, on 7 Jun 2015, a severe spacecraft failure rendered the satellite inoperable beyond repair, and the mission was officially terminated the next day. It is still in orbit around Earth as a derelict object.

This is a model update from gironde's original post here

[gironde]

Starlink launches 05-15-2021 05-25-2021 and Oneweb 05-28-2021 :

Starlink launches 29 and 30.7z

(42.85 KiB) Downloaded 374 times

Oneweb 7.7z

(48.81 KiB) Downloaded 266 times

* without module vidiba.lua, modify 'Visible false' by '#Visible false'

[Eric Nelson]

Now without Vidiba, I usually replace it with an albedo using a very low value as spacecraft are very small compared to even asteroids and without the albedo value, they'd look unrealistically bright even from tens of thousands of km away.

[toutatis]

"Auarius" satellite after my modifications... deleted visual defects of model... also deleted Blender textures which don't works properly in Celestia... and model was right textured as original model but made one correction... textures converted to .DDS...

[DaveBowman2001]

New XYZV trajectory for Juno, with new data from HORIZONS ranging from 2019 to 2025, coming soon....

[toutatis]

My new model and add-on Tianwen-1.... Trajectory by data from HORIZONS... (Cruise stage and Mars orbit insertion maneuver)

Added after 17 minutes 19 seconds:
I will modeling orbit around Mars later...

[toutatis]

SSC file for SAC-D (Aquarius)... orbital data for 2021-May-29 by NORAD...

Code: Select all

"SAC-D:Aquarius:2011-024A" "Sol/Earth"
{
    Class    "spacecraft"
   Mesh "Aquarius.cmod"

   Radius   0.003

   Beginning   "2011 06 10  14:30:00"
   # Ending " " 

   EllipticalOrbit
   {
      Epoch         2459364.3981105 # 2021-May-29 21:33:17
      Period         0.067883806989
      SemiMajorAxis   7029.308997406722
      Eccentricity   0.0000703
      Inclination      98.0058
      AscendingNode   158.7683
      ArgOfPericenter   87.4925
      MeanAnomaly      334.3798
   }
   BodyFrame
   {
      TwoVector
      {
         Center   "Sol/Earth/SAC-D"
         Primary
         {
            Axis   "-x"
            RelativePosition
            {
               Observer   "Sol/Earth/SAC-D"
               Target   "Sol/Earth"
            }
         }
         Secondary
         {
            Axis   "y"
            RelativeVelocity
            {
               Observer   "Sol/Earth/SAC-D"
               Target   "Sol/Earth"
            }
         }
      }
   }
   UniformRotation
   {
      Period   0.00
   }      
}


Added 30.06.2021, 11:40:

[pedro_jg]

The normal maps (which are included with many of the source models used to make the addons on this thread) can be used successfully in Celestia, as long as the model has its tangents generated. For that, there is a need to have texture coordinates set up, but since cmodview tries to generate the tangents for the whole model, this makes untextured parts disappear from the model. I'm pretty sure I saw some models which have both untextured parts and fully working normal maps, though... advice would be appreciated!

In my humble opinion, normal maps are a major step in realism, since they (obviously) cause the shadows to vary depending on the lighting angle, and also make the specular highlights match the texture features.

[toutatis]

In my humble opinion, normal maps are a major step in realism, since they (obviously) cause the shadows to vary depending on the lighting angle, and also make the specular highlights match the texture features....

yes, normal maps works in celestia... but textures like "gold ramp" or "silver ramp" not works properly... you can see black line on models when you use these textures...
I always traying to learn how to save normal map when I export model... can't export material with normal map... but when I modeling I can use it... see below in pictures... cube with normal map and cube without normal map... you can see difference...

Added after 27 minutes 2 seconds:
I think, I solved the problems with normal maps... thank you pedro_jg

Added after 45 minutes 49 seconds:
"Aquarius" satellite... model with normal map... see difference...

[trappistplanets]

"Astérix or A-1 (initially conceptualized as FR.2 or FR-2) is the first French satellite. It was launched on 26 November 1965 by a Diamant A rocket from the CIEES launch site at Hammaguir, Algeria. With Astérix, France became the sixth country to have an artificial satellite and the third country to launch a satellite on its own rocket. Its main purpose was to test the Diamant launcher, though it was also designed to study the ionosphere. Astérix orbits Earth as of December 2020 and is expected to do so for centuries." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astérix_(satellite)

i never even heard of this probe, there are so many probes orbiting earth right now i don't know about


nice!

[toutatis]

i never even heard of this probe, there are so many probes orbiting earth right now i don't know about

Yes, many satellites... so we have a lot of work... thanks

[trappistplanets]

Yes, many satellites... so we have a lot of work... thanks

yup, have fun making more satellites
(i didn't download these yet or else my earth would be very leggy from celestia having to render all those meshes around earth)

here is one request
you should do an addon for chang'e 2
(probe that visited toutatis than went to the moon (main target))

[toutatis]

here is one request
you should do an addon for chang'e 2

with time....

[DaveBowman2001]

i never even heard of this probe, there are so many probes orbiting earth right now i don't know about

There are over ~5,000 spacecraft in total around Earth and elsewhere in the Solar System, with about ~3,000 in active service, mostly geostationary comsats, cubesats, and Starlink satellites. The 5,000 figure includes ones that have been deorbited and derelict in orbit, as well as landers, rovers, and others

[DaveBowman2001]

Juno's new XYZV trajectory now lasting until 2024. Data from 2019 to 2024 were obtained from JPL HORIZONS. Due to its size, the Jupiter phase of the mission is now divided into three parts:
- PRIME MISSION (2016-2018)
- EXTENDED MISSION 1 (2018-2021)
- EXTENDED MISSION 2 (2021-2024)

Flybys of Ganymede, Europa, and Io are now simulated...
- 2021-06-07, 16:56:08 UTC - Ganymede - 1,035.1 km
- 2022-09-29, 09:34:20 UTC - Europa - 403.5 km
- 2023-12-30, 08:35:20 UTC - Io (1st) - 976.84 km
- 2024-02-03, 17:47:59 UTC - Io (2nd) - 635.63 km

To prevent Juno from colliding with Ganymede, a day-long XYZV trajectory of the moon is also included.

The ZIP file only contains XYZV and SSC files. For the models and textures, download them from this post