SpaceX Releases Crew Dragon Simulator To Show What It's Like To Dock With the ISS

New submitter quantumghost writes: SpaceX has opened up a new online simulator that mimics the Crew Dragon capsule controls. The game was released in anticipation of SpaceX's upcoming launch of Crew Dragon to the International Space Station. On May 27th, it'll be the first American-built spacecraft to haul American astronauts to the ISS in 11 years.

The goal of the simulator is to see if you can dock your spacecraft to the ISS. "According to the new game's opening slide, this is the actual interface on which astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, Crew Dragon's inaugural test pilots, have been," reports Popular Mechanics. "The central interface is packed with a slew of numbers. The green numbers indicate whether corrections need to be made. When they're below 0.2, it means you've successfully docked and beat the simulation."

Good Old Days

[Joe2020]

I got it right on the first try, yay! It took me right back to the old days of the Lunar Lander.

And what a strange feeling: no coin slot, but also no account creation or registration, no loot boxes, no vanity items and no micro transactions.

Re:Good Old Days

[jimtheowl]

I was on approach at 6m when I realized that I had left my cooking breakfast unattended.

I stopped the approach, dealt with that and successfully docked after resuming.

Now I'm eating my overcooked breakfast... Thanks Obama!

Re:

[LifesABeach]

A suggestion for the simulator would be radio chatter. A simple bot for guidance would lower the learning curve. In the future, not all pilots will be Top Guns.

The real thing is easier

[paulfjeld]

This sim is cute and gives you some idea of what docking is like, but is probably much harder than flying the real thing. The attitude of the real spacecraft would be held, within a tight deadband, by the autopilot. In other words, you should be able to maneuver to a pointing angle then stop without worrying that you'll move away from it. The dynamics are also very much simplified and don't reflect the weird drifting in height (radial direction) as you move (accelerate) in against the velocity direction.

Re:The real thing is easier

[AmiMoJo]

I suppose they have to train for a situation where they need to do full manual docking. In most cases if autopilot failed I imagine they would just abort the whole thing and not dock, but if the craft was damaged and they couldn't de-orbit safety or something they might have no choice.

Re:

[paulfjeld]

That's a good point. I think the onboard computer does the actual docking maneuver with the crew watching. If they have to take over, they can by flying it manually, as in the sim. My point is that the attitude control during that manual flying is mediated by the computer as well, such as an attitude hold mode, where the crew commands attitude rates then commands an attitude stop which the autopilot holds. Full manual, like controlling which thruster fires directly, is probably (nearly) impossible.

Re:

[michelcolman]

They shouldn't call it autopilot, because if they do, the astronauts are going to think they can watch a movie while it's doing its thing, and then one day it will crash into the space station and it will be Elon's fault for calling it an autopilot. A term like "astronaut assist system" would completely avoid this possibility.

Obligatory

[Narrowband]

https://xkcd.com/1356/ [xkcd.com]

Re:

[Guspaz]

The autopilot normally does the entire docking procedure by itself without human intervention. If humans are at the controls, something is wrong with the automated docking system and they're doing it manually without assistance.

Re:

[paulfjeld]

Okay, let's call the computer program that does the docking by itself the autopilot. What I should probably call the thing that turns target attitudes and/or attitude rates into thruster firings is an Attitude Control System (ACS). So the autopilot figures out from sensors where it is relative to the docking port and maneuvers along a predetermined path at various target rates by issuing pointing and translating commands. The ACS takes those commands and figures out which of the 12 available thrusters to fi

Same plot as The Last Star Fighter???

[JerseyTom]

I loved that film!
    https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0... [imdb.com]

Re:Same plot as The Last Star Fighter???

[Joe2020]

It would mean Elon Musk is an alien and his car is a spacecraft...

It sounds familiar. You could be on to something.

Re:

[DontBeAMoran]

That's funny, my car is also in orbit around the Sun.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

He is not an alien. He became a citizen. He is now an African-American.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Waterfox Classic

[DrMrLordX]

doesn't show the buttons correctly. Not 100% sure why. Edge will load correctly, but it's slower to load.

Docking computer

[nospam007]

Is it like in Elite, that you get an automatic docking computer when you level up?

The last flight

[TwoUtes]

It's just a nitpick, but the last flight of American astronauts from Kennedy Space Center was 9 years ago, not 11. July 2011. Shortly after that, myself and 10,000 of my cohorts lost our jobs.

Re:

[jellomizer]

Not to sound crass, but (assuming you were working on the shuttle program, which would had been cool) didn't you know that your jobs were at risk for a while.

Back in 2008 I worked for a software firm, that I was newly employed at, as it was a rapidly growing company. Have a meeting where it was in 2 locations. One Location are the people who lost their jobs (filled with most of the new hires), and those who will keep their jobs, but will need to cover all the jobs we were working on (filled with the longe

Re:The last flight

[TwoUtes]

Yes, working on the Space Shuttle was probably the coolest thing I ever did. Also yes, we actually knew the end was coming for a long time, and a lot of folks did leave before the RIF. Among the hangers-on, there was the quiet hope that Congress/NASA would have funded either some maintenance flights to the ISS with one vehicle being kept operational, or Aries/Constellation would fly, or some other gap filler. None of that came about. I only mentioned the layoff to put a point on the date of the last flight of a human rated American launch vehicle.

Cool beans

[AndyKron]

Pretty cool and you don't have to sign up, log on, or sell your first born to use it

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re: Controller needed

[Kristoph]

Your supposed to use it on a touch screen as the actual controls.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not that hard to figure them out.

Translate controls are WASD with QR for backward/forward thrust.

Pitch/yaw are controlled by arrow keys or numpad 8456, and <> or numpad 79 control roll.

Re:

[geogob]

If you need so much input to dock at the ISS that you need a physical controller, you are doing it wrong (which is obviously the case, as you stated you are attempting to do it in 5 minutes).

I believe 20 to 30 minutes is realistic to do it in a safe manner ("safe" meening less incident reports and debriefing in your career). Probably more in a fuel efficient manner.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

No Stock.

[jellomizer]

I was just expecting to double tap the stock to engage autopilot.

Bragging

[fluffernutter]

How come with Musk does it, it feels more like bragging?

LEM?

[gavron]

It's Lunar Lander all over again except they put all four axes in :)

It's not hard but it does take real time (like 30-45 minutes if you're an amateur like me)

1. Get your thrust low. That's the + and - on the lower left.
2. Orient yourself so you're in the right plane X/Y wise. That's the controls on the lower left.
3. Set your roll and yaw appropriately (your seeing the ISS as a flat object vs a vertical one or in between or looking at it sideways). Controls on the right.
4. Wait, wait, wait. DO NOT speed i

Shade

[samwichse]

Anyone else notice in the settings, you can switch the earth between "oblate spheroid" and "flat" and it really does it???

Well done SpaceX A++++++++ trolling!

And only then insert into the mating reciptacle

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

"The central interface is packed with a slew of numbers. The green numbers indicate whether corrections need to be made. When they're below 0.2, it means you've successfully docked and beat the simulation."

Slashdotters are used to docking simulations!

"Docking attempt failed: -60 lbs. needed."

"Docking attempt failed: +120 communications required."

"Docking attempt failed: Cladding insufficient quality."

Buggy

[Sumus Semper Una]

I hope they don't switch between small and large yaw/pitch controls during actual approaches. Because the interface starts reporting your current yaw and pitch incorrectly if you do that.

Try this out in the sim:

Start up the sim
Click the big center button on the lower right control (switches between small and large changes - you now made your changes large)
Click the left button on the lower right control
Click the big center button again (your changes are now small again)
Click the right button twice

Your craf

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Anyone check

[argStyopa]

....if this is phoning home?
Not that I object, but crowdsourcing a test of your UI systems with MILLIONS of people (who, mainly, are just internet wankers but also probably include somewhere in the bell curve some talented people) will certainly shake out things that are awkward, unwieldy, hard to easily parse, etc.

Great way to acid-test your systems to be as clear and communicative as possible about what's actually needed.

Re:

[wooferhound]

I thought they were trying to find the best flyers for future astronauts .