Apollo 11 landing

Apollo 11 powered descent and landing video prepared with Orbiter Space Sim and Video Capture MFD

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Orbiter
• Space
• Simulator
• Apollo

[tubewatch59]

Man! I used to obsess about this exact thing. How the Lunar Module was guided to the surcae. What thrust settings were used, what attitude/rotational control was used, etc.

Is this a profile that re-creates the exact trajectory of the landing? Or is it a manual version you did?

In any case I want to buy this simulator. Very nice job on this!

[dthtss]

The orbiter simulator used for this video is free as are the Apollo addons. The terrain meshes and textures I did myself - they're all from original Apollo 10 and Lunar Orbiter photographs. The actual descent and landing is based on as many sources about the actual flight I could find - mainly the official NASA transcripts and the film from the Apollo 11 LM itself.

[dthtss]

The soundtrack is the actual NASA recording. For the final touchdown, I looked at the pictures of the LM on the surface and wasn't satisfied until the size and orientation shadow of the LM relative to double crater was very close to what you see in the original pictures. Given that the orbiter simulator creates the exact conditions of the solar system for the day in question, I think you're not far away from seeing what a grandstand view of the actual landing would have been like.

[dthtss]

There are miriad minor anomalies I could fix at some stage but texturing and shaping the landscape takes a lot of time.

[dthtss]

The video is actually "shot" with a "videocapture" plugin I wrote myself for orbiter - which includes a script language that allows the thrust and other control inputs to be programmed on a frame by frame basis. I found this was necessary to create an accurate landing as regards matching the oringal sources.

[dthtss]

Think about it - I don't just have to fly the landing properly - I have to film it properly as well. How many takes did I need to get the camera sequencing looking right - about 100 I think.

It would be nice to remake these videos sometime but the orbiter graphics are not really good enough to justify it. I'd have to use one of the proper terrain generator systems to do it. Orbiter would still be useful for working out the trajectory in the first place though.

[FantasticBob7000]

Awesome job on the video, it looks fantastic. Thanks for posting!

[coreyagraph]

interesting perspective.........would be great if you could put the telemetry data on the screen!

[ParaglidingManiac]

Can I ask, where did you get that good moon textures? I use Orbiter 2009 version, and still, the moon looks bad when close to it.

[olly7000]

where is the 12-01 alarm??!! i use orbiter and downloaded amso apollo 11 sound add on and it gives you the 12-01 alarm which scared me at first.

[tubewatch59]

I found an interesting paper about modern considerations for lunar powered descent trajectorys. It was a pdf called: "Powered Descent Trajectory Guidance and Some Considerations for Human Lunar Landing" put out fairly recently. I haven't read it yet but it seems interesting.

I wonder if they are still going for a 12 minute descent or using higher thrust to get a shorter descent. With a super low periapsis (10000ft)? and a high thrust engine, I guess you could get her down in a few minutes.

[tubewatch59]

What language was your plugin written in? Do they build in a certain amount of 'plugin programmability to this simulator - right?

Also, you start this video around the 2 minute point after powered descent start, right?

Do they allow you to fly entire missions? And do they teach you orbital mechanics required to setup a mission and then run it?

And do they have a manual mode to try to land it without any data, which would be REALLY hard to do!!

[tubewatch59]

And to think that nowadays you would have so much computing power that you could just run probably hundreds of these descent simulations per second without even needing to make many approximations and just tweak the thrust and attitude variables to get it to the landing spot you wanted. But in those days they had to do it the hard way and even set it up so the whole computer could be switched off and back on again with a resumption of calculations from the last stored waypoint. Wow!

Thanks.

[tubewatch59]

... internet and I think I will be giving it a careful read. It is amazing what they came up with in such a relatively slow computer running a real time multitasking operating system! Quite an achievement. They indeed had to factor in so many details such as the delay factor from when a thrust up command was required through to when the engine could deliver it. Through to the quartic polynomials they were using which they later on realized could have caused some altitude problems on approach.