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...

 MTFF addon by 4throck for Orbiter Space Flight Simulator This add-on is based on the final MTFF proposals and illustrations, and on the related hardware that was actually built and flown. It features a single docking port at the front, a pressurized module (with a virtual cockpit based on Spacelab) and a power and propulsion module based on the Eureca platform. I’ve tried to approximate the Radio-frequency Ion Thruster Assembly (RITA) used for orbit raising and station keeping, so maneuvers will be very slow. Nevertheless I’ve added weak RCS jets to simplify docking procedures. On general this add-on is designed to test the concept of a space station with a VC. It’s recommended to use CameraMDF and simulate external views on the module’s interior display screens. Also, there’s a small view port that can be visited using Firstperson module, for example. Included scenarios feature the MTFF in orbit and docked to the Space Shuttle, Hermes and ISS. Background on the Man-Te...

lmost done with the ESA proposed Columbus MTFF spacestation. It will be a very simple Orbiter addon, with the station in orbit and one docking port. The idea is to provide an alternate destination besides the ISS.

Esrange Rocket Centre larger