Orbiter Spaceport

The ESA Hermes space shuttle project ran from 1975 to 1992, after an original proposal from the French CNES (National Space Studies Center). The spacecraft was intended to serve two proposed  European  space stations:  the Man Tended Free-Flyer / Columbus Space Station and the Polar Platform. Before cancellation, some mock-ups and trainers were built.   Because the project was developed in the 1980's there aren't many reference photos on the web.  I'm taking the liberty of posting the all the images I could find on the web  of the Hermes interior, cockpit and instrument panels. This way they are grouped all  together in a single place for the convenience, so that the general layout can be understood and the different mock-ups / simulator versions can be sorted out.  Hermes shuttle flight simulator Hermes shuttle simulator Hermes shuttle misc mock-ups Hermes shuttle mock-up version "a" ...

Here's a try at recreating one of the proposed ESA Columbus space station configurations. It's based around my ESA Man Tended Free-Flyer add-on, with the addition of two modules, extra solar panels, a radiator and a robotic arm. To create this I'm using the excellent  Space Station Building Blocks  add-on by bregburch , with my own texture repaints to match the ESA hardware. In general the scaling is consistent and the look matches the late early 90's time frame. This specific configuration is based on a concept proposed by British Aerospace Ltd. (BAe) in 1990. In the future I'll try to recreate other configurations, as they make interesting destinations for the Hermes Shuttle...

I'm doing more detailed meshes of the Alcantara Launch Center (CLA) structures. Since I released the first version of the Brazilian Space Program add-on the real program itself has made progress, and new reference material about the Alcântara base and the VLS plus VLM rockets has emerged. I can now do a reasonable representation of the new VLS integration tower and pad. Also, the sounding rockets pad (used by the VS-40) has some new details, including the blockhouse.