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Showing posts with the label spaceport

World spaceports: Matagorda

Besides the well know Kennedy Space Center or Baikonur launch sites, there are many other such places around the world. Some of them aren't used for rocket launches, it they played an important role in space history, or are part of current aerospace activities. As part of the development of my Orbiter stock bases upgrade add-on, I've done some research regarding this sometimes little know sites. My objective was to provide high resolution surface tiles for each base and to represent, using the stock base objects, the main structures present. I'll share here some interesting places I discovered. Matagorda was considered as a possible location for NASA's spaceport, along with places like Cape Canaveral... While it was not chosen in reality, it's still featured as a space base in some Ben Bova books. In reality, two close airfields exist at that location, one of them related to private space firms in the 1970s.   Matagorda Island AFB   Matagorda...

Modeling the Alcantara Launch Center

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.

Surface bases for the "Lusophone Space Agency"

Kind of a side project that started from discussions between the Portuguese speaking space simulation enthusiasts. This add-on groups several bases created for the Lusophone Space Agency: Amílcar Cabral Airport (Cape Verde) Beja Airport (Portugal) Angola International Airport Macau International Airport (China) São Tomé and Príncipe International Airport Timor International Airport Alcântara Launch Center and Airport(Brazil)   The bases follow the actual airport layouts and no structures were added. The exception is Angola International Airport, as it is under construction and was created based on project renderings.   Standard Orbiter base blocks were used for all structures (with the exception of Alcântara Launch Center), in order to provide good performance. Landsat based Surface tiles are provided, complemented by other aerial imagery when available.  The Lusophone Space Program is based on space tourism, using for that the well known D...