AMSO

Project home: ACSofts AMSO homepage Author: Alain Capt Current version: Unknown Compatibility: Unknown

AMSO (Apollo Mission Simulator for Orbiter)

AMSO is an add-on for Orbiter Space Flight Simulator by Martin Swighert. It reproduces the historical flights of the American Apollo Project for the exploration of the Moon from 1968 to 1972, from Apollo 8 to Apollo 17.

The main purpose of AMSO is to give users the possibility to live in first person this great challenge of our century, letting them, in the same time, choose the way they prefer to succeed. The user will be able to accomplish his mission flying the vessels completely manually (and this is a big challenge), or with the aid of some clever autopilot programs, that reproduce some features of real Apollo guidance system, created by Lazy-D; those will assist the Commander in some crucial phases of the flight, without depriving Orbinauts of their fun.

One of it’s greater quality is the astonishing graphic, which allows the user to enjoy a complex meshing and texturing work without loosing notably Frames Per Second; an example is the accurate Virtual Cockpit for both CSM and LM, for the moment unusable, but so accurate that gives a great immersion in phases of flight like docking and landing.

For Docking manoeuvre a full-working and realistic Crewman Optical Alignment Sight (COAS) is provided on both CSM and LM.

Complex Moon scenarios will allow pioneers to explore the surface of historical landing locations, with craters, mountains, rilles and particular soil characteristics; astronauts, with completely new meshes and fully movable visors, will have the possibility to plant flag, deploy SWC and ALSEP experiments, drill the soil and collect rock samples dynamically generated, and on the way back to Earth, during J-type missions, to retrieve useful materials from the fully simulated CSM Sim-bay.

And if a malfunction occurs? Crew members will have the possibility to test their nerves and skills facing a wide range of dangerous situation, from a simple autopilot malfunction to the Cryo Tank explosion aboard Apollo 13. Will you be able to abort the mission in time? Or to use the DPS engine of LM to get back to Earth?

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