We are relasing today with great pleasure the Christmas Service Pack which includes a few surprises.
The download includes several changes, fixes, adds new clouds during landing and liftoff, and also a surprise new mission for Christmas – STS-401. Departing with tradition, this is a first fictional Space Shuttle mission released for SSM2007. Thanks go to NSF Chris Bergin and our KSC friends for supplying the necessary material for implementing this mission.
To be carried out by Discovery, STS-401 is the planned rescue mission for STS-125, in case Atlantis is stranded on orbit. STS-125 is a Hubble maintenance mission and it will be also the last non-ISS Shuttle mission. Due to the difference in orbits between the ISS and STS-125, there will be no way for Atlantis to rendezvous with the ISS in case of emergency, therefore rescue missions have been worked out by NASA to insure a safe return of the STS-125 crew to Earth.
Although this is a fictional mission, it is based on real NASA's plans for such a situation. Let us hope it never becomes a reality.
MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY HOLIDAYS to all our customers!
IMPORTANT: You are required to download and read the NEW Commaders' Reference Manual - especially the keyboard commands section. There are quite a few changes to how we control EVA (now in full 6DoF), the Shuttle RCS, FreeCam and RMS.
