GeoStation

[p.s. Cargile]

It's been quite some time. . .



Recently I found Celestia, an interactive astronomy program that allows you explore the solar system, and the local stars, and add your own solar systems, planets, moons and other bodies, and spacecraft, satellites, and stations.

This is my first serious station for Celestia, and probably more detailed than it needs to be. I've made a simple mock-up and installed into the program to see how it looks, then went back to the model and stating detailing and editing. There is still more stuff to add to it. You can see the progress of that here, a forum of my own.

Honesty I haven't found a purpose for this thing. Maybe some Earth Sciences Observatory.

[evil_genius_180]

Looks like a scientific station of some kind. Looks good so far.

[p.s. Cargile]

Rebuilt the radiator system and truss, added an un-detailed airlock, and put a scale figure in a cupola.

The radiator arrangement still isn't quite right. They need to point away from the sun as the solar wings face the sun. They really need to be on the truss with the solar wings, and would mean extending the length of the truss so that when the system turns the radiators don't hit the habitat modules. As it is now, the radiators are in good position to rotate freely.

[evil_genius_180]

Looks good. The radiators are the wavy wings that hang down?

[p.s. Cargile]

Yes.

This is a station in orbit during routine manned missions to the Moon and Mars. It might not have anything really to do with such missions, but that is the time period I'm thinking about. Maybe 2050's.

[evil_genius_180]

Cool, man. I like the futuristic look based on existing technology.

[p.s. Cargile]

This radiator/solar array arrangement is better. Redid the blanketed trusses as well.

[evil_genius_180]

Yeah, that configuration is better. Looks great.

[Darrell Lawrence]

I've an idea for it, one that I've never seen before:

A small craft/fighter relay station.

Small craft and fighters go out on missions and are limited to their distance due to fuel and rations, etc.

But what if there were relay stations for them to refuel and resupply at various points in space?

[p.s. Cargile]

I'm leaning away from the weaponization of space, at least in the very near future. Given its geostationary orbit, I could be a climate change research station. If anything, there would be at least three for full global coverage. Or it could be a station for a number of research programs.

I was thinking it could be constructed autonomously in much the same way that the Progress docks to the ISS. There'd have to be a vehicle to get each piece into place. Then there could be a number of rockets ready to launch within a few days of each other to increase the assembly time.

[evil_genius_180]

Add a bunch of docking ports and it can be an airport, like the spinning wheel in 2001.

[p.s. Cargile]

It's not that big.

[Thomas P]

Looks great. Maybe a way station to transit from a CEV to a planetary ship.

[p.s. Cargile]

A 3dmax render. The shadow maps turned out rather nice once I upped them to 4096.

Thomas, it very well could also serve as a CEV stopover station. And that had me thinking that by 2050, there might also be enough manned space traffic to warrant a better Orbit Traffic Control System. So it could serve as Earth observatory for a number of research programs, a crew stopover, and a traffic control station. The radar for the latter wouldn't have to be connected to the station, and could be in a higher orbit. It would probably be in the active electronically scanned array category.

So far this model needs a service model most likely adjacent the airlock (Quest III?) to give it balance (at least visual), some equipment trusses off the lower node for comm antennae, telescopes, and whatever more, docking mates on the lower docking node, a resupply vehicle (designed and placed so that its thrust plumes don't hit the station) and an escape vehicle. I may have to add another lower module to accommodate all that.

It orbits so that the lower modules point toward the earth. These solar panels are double sided, although in real life they probably aren't. I did this so I wouldn't have to rotate the wings for certain renders. However, with the new arrangement and the requirement that the radiators point away from the sun, I'd have to anyway. So in the above the radiators are pointing in the wrong direction. I'm lazy. I'll take care of that detail when its done. ("The temp is increasing!" "The rotary joints are frozen!" "Our escape capsule is missing!" "We're all going to die!")

I might have to increase the size of my individual solar cells. It should look very similar to the ISS panels and they don't.

The following is the rough idea model as imported into the Celestia program:



I make no claim to the Earth model. This is a Celestia screen-cap.

[evil_genius_180]

Wow, it really looks snazzy in that Max render.

[p.s. Cargile]

Thanks. If the news isn't on, NASA TV is. The spacewalk coverage shows how much ambient light there is in LEO. I try to accomplish that ambiance. Those shadows may be a little too dark. I'm using two external light sources. Of course I could spend all day playing with lighting.

[evil_genius_180]

Yeah, you've got starlight (nonfiltered) and the sun giving you light. Plus, the earth and moon and whatever planets in the system are aligned reflecting light back at your station in orbit. Orbital shots are some of the trickiest lighting setups because of the abundance of light, where normal ship flying through space scenes usually have simple lighting.

[skyhawk223]

Welcome back Mr. Cargile. Nice to see you again. Great looking model as always.

[Thomas P]

Well, I had never got around to using Celestia until I saw you building a model for it. Downloaded one add-on system and have tweaked it some to figure things out. Would love to add this when you get finished. It's too bad that you cannot maneuver ships around in the program though.

Always fun to watch one of your projects.

[p.s. Cargile]

Celestia is more of an astronomical program, but a lot of people are using it to build their own sci-fi universes replete with ships. The programmers are working on versions that will address better orbital elements and positioning and overall manipulation of spacecraft.

This model is getting file size big and I may need to dumb it down a little so it wont slow Celestia down. The current version is starting to do that.

[p.s. Cargile]

Added a segment under the zenith truss. Just felt it needed it.



The Low Impact Docking System, or a simplified version thereof, created for other projects.




The solar cell redo.

[Thomas P]

Looking better and better.

[evil_genius_180]

Those solar cells look better each time you redo them.

[p.s. Cargile]

Thanks guys.

There is more detail to the solar array that I could add, but I don't feel it is necessary for the purpose of the model. There are some little details that run along the sides. Those colors are color picked from a photo.

It really does look great!

Now that should be the ISS!

[p.s. Cargile]

Thanks.

Of late I've been working on a Star Wars project for a friend that's been in several stages of work for a couple of years and is near completion. I'll get back to this sometime soon.