UI Overview

Scenario Navigation and Customization is quickly possible through the UI. The main windows and their features are as follows:

Window manager

Window manager

Overview of available windows:

  • Ground Track - enable/close the Ground Track map
  • Inspector - view the internal settings/attributes computed in MDS
  • Satellite - toggle the satellite control panel
  • Power Budget - toggle the power subsystem
  • Mission Log - view mission events
  • Mission Events - create mission events
  • Ground Stations - show/hide ground stations
  • Propagation - perform long propagation
  • Ground Assets - view and edit list of ground assets
  • Data Export - enable sensor data exporting
  • Manual Control - enable keyboard control of rigid-body satellite

In the Window manager, you are able to directly open/close several available UI elements.

View Control Panel

Control panel

In the View Control Panel, you are able to switch between satellite/planet-centered views and select the focused object. You also have control over the Run-time:

  • Time Scale- the rate at which MDS executes propagation steps
  • Propagation Time Step - the size of the propagation step, which defaults to 10 ms. You can also hide satellite labels.

Satellite Control Panel

Satellite control

In the Satellite Control Panel, you can directly monitor satellite states. Additionally, you're able to change the scenario by adding:

  • Single Satellites
  • Satellite Constellations You are also able to modify existing bodies, both translationally and rotationally. The translational states and other properties are modifyable in real-time via the Edit button. The pointing mode and logic can be changed for kinematic (non-rigid) satellites via the Pointing mode drop-down,

Control panel

You are also able to enable the camera subsystem by attaching it to a satellite and modifying its parameters. A limited set of customization features are available via UI, the camera is a lot more customizable through the API.

Mission log

Mission log

In the Mission log, various events, such as pointing modes, thrust events, scene modification, etc are logged with their timestamps. These logs are also automatically saved in Export\MissionLogs, allowing to see what occured when in your scenario.

Ground track

Ground track

MDS has a native ground-track visualizer, allowing to actively monitor the ground track of any selected number of satellites, relative to the configured ground stations.

Data Exporter

MDS provides the ability to export selected data in CSV format through the UI. To do this, open the Data Export window. Select the celestial bodies and satellites whose data you want to export. Next, choose the export attributes you wish to include. Check the Export Data checkbox and click the Apply button. When the simulation starts, all selected data will be exported in CSV format.

File location: MDS Install Directory/Export/DataExport/

However, even more data is available and exposed through the API and is shown in most example scripts. Data exporter