Installation
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Project Apollo - NASSP is an ongoing project, many developers are working on lots of new features and enhancements. If you are interested in this development you can now beta test Project Apollo.
Since Project Apollo is an open source project and all developers are working for free in their spare time we don't have project plans, schedules, or things like this. We coordinate the development by using our forums. So if you read the latest news you hopefully get all the necessary information you need to use and test Project Apollo. Of course every developer is happy to get feedback regarding his work to fix bugs and make improvements, so please do not hesitate to post in the forum if you discover something noteworthy in the beta versions.
This section tries to provide step-by-step instructions to set up the "beta testing enviroment" for Project Apollo. You need to do the following steps only once. If you want to update your beta version read the "How do I update?" section below.
Install Orbiter
If you have installed the latest Orbiter version already, you can use this installation for Project Apollo, of course. Otherwise you need to install Orbiter. This includes the following steps at the moment:
Orbiter 2010-P1 Edition (http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk)
- Orbiter100830.zip/msi as explained here: http://www.orbiter-forum.com/download.php
Optional: - Earth091124_11_14.zip
- Moon090730_L11.zip
You can install every other high resolution texture package, too.
These package are available for download here: http://orbitersimulator.com/orbiter-2012-downloadsOrbiterSound 4.0 (http://orbiter.dansteph.com) - OrbiterSound40_*.exe
Optional: High resolution surface tiles for the Kennedy Space Center
Installation Prerequisites
Install the Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 SP1 Redistributable Package (x86) if it's not installed already.
Install the latest Project Apollo Beta
Download the Modules Pack using the link at the top of this page. Unzip the Modules Pack to your Orbiter installation folder. Make sure that the directory structure of the archive is retained, usually there's a "Use Folders" option box or similar, which should be ticked/checked.
Download and unzip the CVS snapshot the same way.
Optional, but recommended: Install the DirectX 9 client
The built-in (aka "inline") Orbiter graphics client is based on DirectX 7. Especially with Windows 7 computers and/or recent graphics adapter this client isn't working very well or in some cases isn't working at all. Fortunately there's an DirectX 9 client by jarmonik meanwhile, which is working great with Project Apollo. So it is strongly suggested to give it a try. You can get it from this thread in the Orbiter main forum or by following these instructions:
- Install a recent Microsoft DirectX Runtime, for example by using the Microsoft DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer.
- Download and unzip the D3D9ClientRC44.zip file to your Orbiter installation folder the same way as the Project Apollo files above.
- Start Orbiter_ng.exe (NOT Orbiter.exe) from your Orbiter installation folder.
- Go to the "Modules" tab and activate the "D3D9Client" module.
- The "Video" tab appears, configure the video settings as you like, they are quite similar to the usual Orbiter video settings. Do not change any settings you don't know/understand.
- Launch a build-in scenario in order to check if the client is running fine before you continue with the instructions below.
Configure Project Apollo
- Start Orbiter (that means Orbiter_ng.exe in case you're using the DirectX 9 client), go to the "Parameters" tab and make sure that at least Complex flight model, Limited fuel and Gravity-gradient torque are enabled. If you're using a Virtual AGC scenario, also enable Nonspherical gravity sources.
- Go to the "Modules" tab and activate the ProjectApolloMFD module.
- Optionally you can change some options with the Launchpad Configuration Options on the "Extra" tab.
- That's all, now you can try if Project Apollo is working properly. You'll find the proper scenarios in the "Project Apollo - NASSP" scenario folder. Please note that the scenarions in the "Broken Scenarios" subfolder are, well, broken.
How do I update?
To update your Project Apollo installation you can repeat the steps above. Alternatively you can update the CVS snapshot by using a CVS client like TortoiseCVS by following these steps:
- Choose the CVS Update menu item from the Tortoise context menu for each folder below "C:\ProjectApollo", i.e. "Config", "Doc", "Html" etc. CVS will download the changed files and merge the changes into your local copies.
- Download and unzip the latest Modules Pack (using the link at the top of this page).