Games Soyuz-TMA Spaceflight Simulator

I want to tell you about our project. We are developing a Soyuz-TMA spaceship simulator. It will not be easy a simulator of a spaceship is not just a game. It will be a full-fledged simulator of this ship, recreated in all the smallest details and details. On this simulator it will be possible to fly on a real Soyuz-TMA ship! A bit more detailed:

Opportunities:
- all stages of the flight are implemented: starting from 2-hour prelaunch training and until after flight operations, namely:
1) Prelaunch preparation,
2) Start and launch,
3) Orbital flight,
4) Rapprochement and docking,
5) Work in conjunction with the station,
6) Undocking and descent,
7) landing and post-flight operations.

- input of emergency situations, as randomly, according to a certain algorithm (all emergency situations are calculated, that is, those that can actually occur on the ship and which can be fended off)

- choosing any flight scenario or creating one of your own, namely entering initial conditions (about 30 parameters) of any historical flight of the Soyuz-TMA ship according to the data of the MCC which had not been published before (old archives had to be lifted)

- Ship control in one of 5 modes: ship commander, flight engineer, ekpage instructor, flight control center observer and just an observer.

- Multiplayer. Since it is almost impossible to control a ship alone (this is extremely difficult), an option for joint control is provided. At the moment, the possibility of mutual management is realized only on COM ports and through the network. Only the commander and flight engineer panels are connected.

40% of the entire simulator code is written based on the algorithms and codes of a real ship!

Further more! Since this project is a priori very difficult to implement, then work on it will be very long and a lot of versions and corrections will be released, I will publish the progress of the project here, as well as screenshots and video materials.

If someone is ready to take part in this project - mail, we will be glad everyone!

 

What is ready at the moment:
- Made several options for 3-dimensional models of the Soyuz ship with different polygonality. For videos and animations - high and low for dynamic modes.

- The interior of the ship, all its devices and systems, were modeled.

- Algorithms for the operation of all systems have been written, all stages of flight.

- A computer system for the external control of the ship, INPU, was developed, which is used both on the ship itself and on the ISS.

- At our request, the astronauts on the ISS took about 300 photos of the ship in high resolution and with special lighting for texturing.

- A software cyclogram of the stage of launching the ship into orbit was written.

 

Development News:
- The third-party software “SPO Modeling and Control” was developed, designed to debug mathematical and simulation models of computing systems of the Soyuz-TMA spacecraft, namely, the Argon-16 Onboard Digital Computing Complex, the KS-020 special descent calculator, as well as other on-board computers. The software is implemented in C ++ in the form of several integrators with a fixed step. The initial conditions are entered into the program (the orbit or position of the ship in the J2000 era, orientation, also in this era, the parameters of the mode and initial operation of the Motion and Navigation Control System, as well as the mass-inertial characterization of the ship), after which these parameters are also worked out by command The “start-up” program produces a structure (according to the TCP protocol) containing the current position (velocity and position vector) and the orientation of the ship (pitch, roll and yaw in the form of a reversal quaternion, as well as the angular velocity vector) for the scene in Unity, and that the other features and parameters (linear and angular instant ship acceleration and stations engine thrust value and more than 100 parameters).
- Updated 3D models of the Soyuz-TMA ship (edited arrangement of mooring and orientation engines, as well as other structural elements according to the modification of the ship number 219, because we have drawings and technical documentation for this series of the ship only).
- At the moment, the Earth’s movement is being implemented, corresponding to the document “PZ” - Earth parameters, in which the first harmonic will be realized, as well as gravity chess. In addition, the sphere will be edited according to calculations of the non-sphericity of the earth's surface.
In parallel, a standard atmosphere is being implemented, not as physical (since physics is fully described in mathematical models of motion), but as a graphic phenomenon.

 

You have a video sounds interesting

 

I hope that in the very near future we will publish the video, we just have to write a program that will redirect the structure with the current position of the ship in Unity, and assign the values the position and orientation of the values from this structure and the graphic part is ready, then we can record the video with the working the dynamics of the spacecraft in orbit

 

So far I will publish a few screenshots of the models that are already ready for us. In this screenshot you see a 3-dimensional model of the main governing body with which the astronaut works most of the time (about 80% of the total flight time) - the Neptune-ME Cosmonaut Remote Control, developed at the Scientific Research Institute of Aviation Equipment (Russia, . Zhukovsky). The head of development is an outstanding engineer (who also developed many remotes on the ISS, the World and the entire display system of OK Buran) - Yuri Alexandrovich Tyapchenko. We contacted him and he kindly provided us with the drawings of this product, so this model was developed according to the original drawings for this product. As we finish with the transfer of the state control parameter to Unity, we will begin to develop control scripts, because All ship control will be carried out from this control panel. The only unsolved task for this remote control at present is the integration of standard software (which we also have including source codes), or rather its user interface in Unity, with the ability to display a “screen” (or a screenshot from it) on a dynamic texture ( in the photo there is a green screen with a green user interface) on a 3D model.

But this remote control looks like in a real Soyuz-TMA ship. The console consists of two independent computers called INPU - which stands for Integrated Control Panel. The same remote controls are located in the Russian Segment of the International Space Station. We have regular software for these remotes, with which we have successfully established software exchange (via the TCP protocol). The problem is that this software is a separate executable file and works on the MSDOS operating system. To work with him, we are currently using the DOSBOX emulator. By the way, you can download this truly unique software - (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BzYlHyjAXFK6i7GXZgiq94iUoyHoo1XO/view). So, we need to somehow pull out the picture (DOSBOX screen) and display it on the texture with an update step of at least 250 ms (clock cycle of the InPU remote control software). But as far as I understand, this is either impossible or extremely difficult, so we will most likely rewrite the graphical interface of this software in a more simplified version in C #.

Photo software Neptune-ME InPU. It is the stage of the descent of the spacecraft at the time of passage of the dense layers of the atmosphere. This is a rather interesting (in terms of control, physics, and dynamics of Soyuz-TMA) physical experience.


The descent vehicle (the main module of the spacecraft in which the astronauts are in most of the flight time). From it will control the ship.

 

If it will be interesting for you to learn more about Soyuz spacecraft information display systems, here is a translation of the presentation directly from the leading engineer of this system, which better describes the whole system in a clear and detailed way
https://docplayer.net/35518297-Information-display-systems-for-russian-spacecraft-an-overview.html

 

As, a spaceflight fan especially Soyuz spacecraft, and many hours in Orbiter 2016 I am looking forward to see simulate real flight to ISS

 

nice project looking forward to the final product!, i only have an error when i want to run the sim. It says:
CONFIG:Loading primary settings from config file C:\Users\EliteBook\AppData\Local\DOSBox\dosbox-0.74.conf
MIDI:Opened device:win32
Warning: file C:\Program Files (x86)\Ð╬╩┴ ╩Ê ═╚└╬\╚ݤË\INPU.EXE exists and failed to open in write mode.
Please Remove write-protection

 

Hello! I am interested in your efforts to develop an authentic Soyuz TMA spacecraft simulator. I manage a school that provides space-related education to a very international student base. We use a suborbital (Virgin Galactic) and a NASA Orion simulator and I think our students would be very interested in learning space operations and orbital mechanics from a Russian perspective. Our institute is here: astronauticsinstitute.org . I would be happy to talk with someone on your team - My email is jreimuller (at) hotmail (dot) com