Astrocelerate v0.2.1

v0.2.1 - Hotfix: Debug Diagnostics

This patch adds three new launch configurations that can be enabled/disabled via config/ApplicationConfig.json or overriden via command line arguments:

• ShowWindowConsole: Should a dedicated console open on launch?
• VkValidationLayers: Should Vulkan validation layers be enabled?
• VkAPIDump: Should Vulkan API dumps be enabled? (requires VkValidationLayers to be true)

In config/ApplicationConfig.json, these attributes can be directly edited, and should take effect on next launch. To override them via command line arguments, you can launch Astrocelerate with the following syntax:

> "Path/To/Astrocelerate/bin/Astrocelerate.exe" [args...]

Astrocelerate v0.2.0

This update marks the first stable release of the 0.2.x cycle. After months of architectural overhaul, Astrocelerate now sits on a robust engine foundation.

The goal of this release is to stabilize the engine to provide a reliable foundation upon which future features can be built.

Changelogs

Fixes:

• PHYSICS: Fixed critical TEME $\rightarrow$ J2000 transformation and Earth nutation/precession errors; the engine is now fully capable of TLE + SGP4 simulations
• UI/UX: Centralized simulation controls, and enabled time scale to be changed while paused
• UI/UX: Overhauled camera controls and viewport interaction
• ENGINE: Parallelized physics simulation and supported multithreaded rendering
• ENGINE: Resolved major memory leaks resulting from worker threads emitting infinite events while the main thread is too unresponsive to poll the event queue

Additions/Features:

• RENDERING: Added useful live information to the viewport (e.g., controls, current epoch, observer)
• ENGINE: Added watchdog thread to immediately stop rapid memory leaks caused by unresponsive main thread
• ENGINE: Implemented C++20 thread wrapper with CPU-efficient start/stop/request-stop functions
• ENGINE: Overhauled Vulkan resource management system by replacing stack-based destruction with custom-implemented N-ary resource tree

Known Issues:

• Performance may be subpar due to difficulties parallelizing UI rendering, with the added overhead of lock contention as a result of multithreaded physics and scene rendering. Expect substandard FPS.
• There may be input delay and visual instability, especially at high time scales, due to the newly multithreaded physics engine not being able to effectively synchronize with the renderer for smooth linear interpolation of object motion.
• Resizing the application window while a simulation is running or loaded freezes the entire application. This is an unfortunate oversight that was not accounted for when multithreading was integrated into Astrocelerate, and will be resolved by the next release.
• Installer issues still have not been resolved. In the mean time, please go to the directory in which Astrocelerate is installed, and run Astrocelerate.exe in the bin directory.

Astrocelerate v0.2.0-alpha

This major update includes fixes primarily pertaining to user experience, and a new, more capable physics engine.

Changelogs

Fixes

• INSTALLER: Removed UI background for text readability
• UI/UX: Auto-closed the loading screen
• UI/UX: Changed SPACE and L-SHIFT for Up and Down movement to E and Q respectively.
• UI/UX: Fixed camera Alt+Tab issue
• UI/UX: Fixed Earth completely black on dark side

New Features

• UI/UX: Implemented orbital camera
• RENDERING: Improved camera implementation to allow for visual stability even AUs away from a coordinate system's origin
• PHYSICS: Integrated the NASA SPICE Toolkit, with support for the J2000 ECI and SSB frames
• PHYSICS: Added support for N-body physics
• PHYSICS: Added support for TLE parsing and body propagation (with the SGP4 propagator)
• PHYSICS: Recreated the VNREDSat-1A orbit with SGP4 orbital propagation using publicly available TLE data
• OTHER: Overhauled simulation file syntax, with the addition of built-in common celestial bodies
• OTHER: Added 2 simulation samples (SP_SolarSystem.yaml and SP_SGP4Test.yaml) to demonstrate the new additions to Astrocelerate

A note on the installation process

As of now, I'm still experimenting with installers, so Astrocelerate's installer for this release will be quite basic, and require some manual intervention.

By default, the installer puts Astrocelerate in Program Files. After installation, please go to Program Files\Astrocelerate v0.2.0-alpha\bin and launch the Astrocelerate.exe executable.

A note on the crazy installer size

The reason why v0.2.0's installer is almost 1GB in size compared to v0.1.0's 100MB is primarily the sheer size of the prerequisite SPICE kernels for the Solar System simulation (and, for all intents and purposes, all simulations). If anyone knows an industry-standard approach to packaging huge binary content, I'm all ears!

Astrocelerate v0.1.0-alpha - First Public Preview

Astrocelerate v0.1.0 - First Public Preview
Welcome to the first public release of Astrocelerate, a high-performance, real-time orbital mechanics simulation engine built with Vulkan and C++. This release represents 8 months of development, focused on laying the foundation for a robust, modular, and engineer-oriented spaceflight simulator.

This is an early-stage preview version and is not stable. Expect bugs, crashes, and unfinished features. But also expect raw potential.

Key Features

• High-performance multithreaded architecture (WIP)
• Scene initialization offloaded to worker threads
• Basic Earth-satellite orbit simulation
• Vulkan-powered GPU rendering
• .msi installer for Windows

Known Issues

• Occasional crashes due to thread-safety vulnerabilities
• Limited physics features (no n-body physics, no real-time maneuvers, no advanced coordinate systems, etc. yet)
• Only tested on Windows 10/11 (x64)

Installation

• Download the .msi installer below.
• Run the installer and follow the on-screen instructions.
• Launch Astrocelerate from your desktop/start menu.

We Need Your Feedback
If you're a spaceflight enthusiast, aerospace engineer, or simulation developer, your insights are crucial. Please take a few minutes to fill out the feedback form below:

Astrocelerate Feedback Form

About
Astrocelerate is the flagship project of Oriviet Aerospace, an early-stage startup aiming to build the next generation of spaceflight simulation tools for engineers, researchers, and space mission designers.