Mira

Read about it from the NASA history office here: http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4208/ch14.htm. Here's a nice photo of Skylab in orbit -- notice the missing solar array and the jury-rigged heat shield. The other station to receive extensive repairs in orbit and to be successfully revived was Salyut 7, but that damage was all internal. sp1989 -- thank you! I now have a TON of new stuff to play with! Looking forward to tossing Lunokhod onto a rocket and exploring the Moon.

It's too bad the stock ports are a little bit too big. I might wind up using the resize-any-part mod to downscale the Mir docking port I have that came with my Mir station to see if I can get it to fit well. I might also wind up upscaling the entire Soyuz a bit to match the station if it turns out to be too small to match it. Here's a picture of Soyuz TMA-7. I'm not sure when the grey blankets went in, but it's got to be a pretty recent change. I shall look into this later! Interestingly, the periscope is still green (a leftover one, perhaps) and the SM-to-OM umbilical stands out quite a bit with that brown blanket.

Is there a docking port for the Soyuz? For the moment, I mounted an Apollo port to the orbital module, but I'd love a Mir-compatible replacement. The periscope is a FASA camera part. Alas, I misjudged how the antennas would deploy, so one swung too far forward and for some reason the action group didn't deploy the other at all. Also, for some reason I don't have the alternate green parts -- guess those aren't available yet. A minor quibble, but the newer Soyuz-TMA craft are grey.

Forgot to report that with 4.97, the Saturn 5 I built to launch raidernick's Skylab did not flex. I'll send up an Apollo S5 tonight, probably, to try that one out. A little bit late (we'll call it a weather delay!) but my Kerbals will set that LM down soon! Also sent up this CSM on top of a 1B built by re-doing the stock FASA 5 from the S-IVB down (and deleting the LM) -- including the toadstool extra-high launch platform. Something really minor that would be interesting to address: the Command Modules sent up for the Skylab missions were painted partly white rather than completely foil-covered. (This photo shows where the "split" was.) (and an edit: found out why: because Skylab tracked the Sun, the CSM couldn't be rolled for thermal control as it was on earlier missions, so different properties were required of the coating on the Sun-facing side.). I haven't experimented yet with the reflection plugin, but I haven't tried any Gemini/Titan missions since installing 0.64. Does that issue happen in x64?

Nothing, I'm sure -- just wasn't aware of those! I'll look for them and see which I like. The TRS looks great. It was designed to fly on either Titan IIIC or Shuttle, and FASA already comes with the Titan, so it won't take much work to plop the TRS on top of it and send it up.

I wonder if it would be difficult to make ASTP using parts that already exist. Tantares, I believe, has parts to build the Soyuz. It isn't colour-correct -- the ASTP Soyuz was green with white visibility stripes -- but it'd be close. And it might not be too hard to build the docking adapter. Alas, without the APAS-75 docking port parts, it won't look quite right, but you can get close. Sending a crew won out. Here's Skylab! I'm pondering sending up another to get some photos of two docked simultaneously. Fortunately, that never happened as the second port was there for emergency purposes only.

That worked nicely! Accidentally launched the damaged version, but it's happily whizzing about in low orbit. Now, to decide whether to send a crew first or send a boost module first and complete the job the delayed Shuttle never did. It looks great.

I'm struggling with launching it. Built a two-stage Saturn V using FASA parts and it tries to execute the circularization burn for a 70km orbit, but sadly the S-II runs out of fuel on the circularization burn (using MechJeb), so it falls victim to atmospheric drag like the real Skylab did, but does so before ever reaching a stable orbit. What parameters are others using to achieve a successful launch using FASA parts? I'm using 4.97 in 0.24 x86.

I did do a full removal and reinstall of FASA, but I tried to launch a Saturn 5 last night (the stock one) in honor of Apollo 11 and to my dismay it wobbled very badly, flexing visibly. It didn't do that before the 0.24 update. The camera refused to lock onto it, so all I could see at the end of the launch attempt, before I reverted to confirm the flex, was the glow of the engines. I couldn't figure out how I lost camera lock. That was on 4.96. I have now installed 4.97; we'll see how it goes when I test it this evening.

I will try some of those suggestions -- thanks! Aaaand an edit: The KW fairing is working wonderfully. I also added ullage rockets from the KW pack to assist in separation. I'm now fine-tuning my lovely four-stage Saturn 5!

I'm trying to build a Saturn-Centaur by placing the Centaur Gemini upper stage atop the S-IVB. This would have been able to launch a 7,000-pound spacecraft to Saturn in just two years. According to study drawings, the rocket used what looks like the Skylab fairing: I'd love to see this fairing made available. I wouldn't be surprised if it's been requested, but 300+ pages, ouch. Do any other mods offer the part? I know some others were working on Skylabs, hopefully to fit the FASA Saturn rockets. I also need to figure out why my Apollo 9 1B (added the CSM to AS-204) is not reaching orbit...

Enjoying this quite a bit so far! One minor quibble -- I've never seen a photo of the Saturn 5 with the "USA" markings on the 5's 500-series S-IVB stage. Only the 1B's 200-series S-IVB seems to have carried the marking.