The
spacecraft simulator was designed and constructed by students from UND
in the
Department of Space Studies, Mechanical Engineering and Electrical
Engineering. Funds were provided through a grant from the NASA-North Dakota Space Grant Consortium.
The spacecraft simulator can simulate launch, orbital operations and landings of different space vehicles. It uses different software packages depending of the mission to be simulated.The simulator will be used for academic and research purposes by students enrolled in life sciences, aviation, orbital mechanics and engineering classes. It will be available on a limited basis for visitors to the UND campus.
The
simulator is the approximate size of the original Apollo Command Module
that
took American astronauts to the Moon in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
It can
accommodate three people at a time. A second spacecraft simulator is
currently
being designed at UND which will simulate horizontal launches such as
that of Spaceship
One which was the first privately built spacecraft to reach space in
2004.
The UND Space Simulator uses for its operation the following software packages:
Satellite Toolkit STK
Orbiter Space Simulator
X-Plane
For more information about the software that makes the UND Space Simulator possible click here.