Mass moments of interia

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I was looking through your modules specifying the physical characteristics
of the spacecraft and did not notice anything specifying the mass moment of
inertia. This parameter is important to simulating accurate rotation.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by robertsc...@gmail.com on 17 Apr 2008 at 8:29

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It's kind of tricky .. in the code, a Structure (spacecraft) is made of 
Modules, and
each Module has an offset, size, and mass (among other things). The 
center-of-mass
can be determined by averaging (offset*mass), and the moment of inertia is 
currently
modeled as a cylinder based on the maximum dimensions of the spacecraft (see
...exo.orbit.ship.Structure.getIntertiaVector() and computeCenterOfMass()). 
Certainly
it could be better with each module having its own moment of intertia.

Original comment by seh...@gmail.com on 24 Apr 2008 at 2:42

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You should have an option to just plug in a known value. Some of the historical
spacecraft have the values for their configuration listed so you don't have to 
guess.

Original comment by robertsc...@gmail.com on 24 Apr 2008 at 2:42

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Also one reason I posted this is because when I tried the gemini it seemed too
responsive on the reaction control thrusters compared to my orbiter add-on 
which uses
the historical values.

Original comment by robertsc...@gmail.com on 24 Apr 2008 at 2:45