Editing Probe

[[Image:Probe1.jpg|thumb|250px|right|Probe (a Luna E3) in an unglamorous LEO]]

{{Addon|
1=[http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=58685&package_id=124522 Luna E3 'Probe' (CVEL) at CCCP Fleet]|
2=Dave Rowbotham and Jógvan 'C3PO' Trondesen
}}

==History==

''Dealer McDope'' created a series of Soviet-era meshes between 2002 and 2004 included in these was a basic, green, Luna E3 mesh. The Luna E3 was the first probe to photograph the far side of The Moon, launched atop an R7 booster.

When the [[CCCP Fleet|CCCP Team]], co-ordinating on [[IRC|OrbiterIRC]], set about writing C++ code for McDope's meshes the generic test object of choice became the Luna E3. Sticking to the naming convention McDope adopted of simply calling it ''Probe'', an in-joke cropped up by which whenever a developer conducted a flight test, cries of ''Hail Probe!'' would abound.

This in-joke gained popularity when a post to the old M6 off-topic forums introduced the concept of ''Hailing Probe'' to a wider audience with a thread titled ''The Cult of the Probe''. So ensued the second longest-running thread in the old Forum's history. Without a single flame. 

The Probe has been hailed a great number of times afterwards; one notable example is during the Winter holidays in the end of 2008 (http://orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?t=5947). 

Such was the following of the thread that it spanned two years and even spawned '''Probe Day''' (4th October -- the date of both Luna E3's launch, and two years earlier, that of Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite).

Unfortunately, with the migration of the Orbiter forums to a new system in Februrary 2006, the thread was not ported.

Regardless, it is the obligation of orbiternauts across the world to hail the omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent probe.  Hail probe!

===New information of 04/02/2007===
A long time Orbiter fan and forum lurker has archived the thread in a .mht file and now needs to figure out how to restart the thread.

==Links==
[[Image:Probeday9.jpg|thumb|300px|right|Probe (a Luna E3) on a fanciful Saturn flyby]]
*[http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=58685&package_id=124522 Luna E3] at [[CCCP Fleet]]
*[http://orbit.m6.net/v2/read.asp?id=15806 Archived M6 Cult of The Probe thread]
*[http://orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?t=5947 End 2008 Winter Holiday thread on Orbiter-forum]
[[File:Hailprobev2.gif|200px|thumb|left|the hailprobe smiley from Orbiter forum]]

[[Category:Add-ons]]
[[Category:Vessel add-ons]]
[[Category:CVEL Vessels]]