nepphhh

Is your rocket single?

Sir, this is a family-friendly forum

NEW EXPLOSIONS (TYPE, SIZE & BEHAVIOR DEPEND ON FUEL LEFT IN TANK): NEW EFFECTS (ORION NUCLEAR PULSE DRIVE): NEW PLUMES (METALLIC HYDROGEN): NEW PLUMES (METALLIC HYDROGEN? TORCHSHIP?): HIGHER RES CAPTURE OF NEW UI: https://imgur.com/kuaYTUI ZOOMED: KSP 2 HYPE

TORCHSHIPS GET HYYYPE

It's an old, old, joke. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/commit-sudoku

Just added a bunch more community screenshots to the album. Scroll to the bottom & check it out: https://imgur.com/gallery/QUMU6JA

@Fenisse Spotify playlist time?

RSSRO & Kerbalism, that's all.

No manual required, but if you want one, we're building out the wiki: https://github.com/DRVeyl/RealAntennas/wiki Otherwise, it's incredibly simple. Here's some I wrote a while back: https://github.com/DRVeyl/RealAntennas/blob/master/GameData/RealAntennas/Parts/Coatl.cfg For dishes, set antennaDiameter to the dish diameter in meters, for omnis, set referenceGain to an appropriate gain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antenna_gain That's it!

50 km/s??? I highly doubt we have the technology to make anything survivable at an impact of that speed, no matter in how much ice you encase it.

I'd recommend producing RealAntenna configs (seems to be the future, and they're far easier to put together) instead of RT ones. I might even author them myself when I'm less busy...

What a big loveing mood

It is, and this new RP-1 thread is the current one, please ask for further help there:

RO will update when RSS updates, which will update when Kopernicus updates. Don't go yell at the Kop developers, they're working very hard. Unity changes to 1.8.1 have made their lives quite difficult. On the RP-1/RO wiki there is a link to an album of screenshots from RP-1/RO. Click that link and check the wiki sidebar, the link is called "Community Screenshot Album" or similar. I will be adding more soon. This album is also linked in the RP-1 forum thread. I believe DECQ's shuttle may be configured. I have seen people play with it but am unsure if the configs are included in RO current. You may need to do some local patching. This link may help:

Are you sure about that? The ROE model is a much nicer one than Taerobee provides. The ROE git cites the source for the RD-100 series as RealEngines by Alcentar. Still would love to have an A-10.

What an incredible mod. That A-10 model is phenomenal--seriously, can't believe my eyes. I assume there exist RO configs for this... what is the license? I'd love to get that model into https://github.com/KSP-RO/ROEngines.

@WellAny interest in modeling abort motors as described earlier in the thread? Having surface-attachable ones and an inline motor that would fit in the interstage adaptor would be incredible. Alternately, just a hollow adaptor into which we could fit our own solids would also be excellent.

@LittleBitMore If you're interested, you can get started in a currently ongoing RP-1 space race. DM me for more details. Offer is open to anybody else too, DM me for info. That said, I agree. I think after the RP-1 devs finish cooking up some more awesome changes to the career structure, another space race would be just the thing to celebrate the newly-released 1.7.3 version of RP-1.

Thank you. That'd be my mod. I'll copy part of the readme here (read the full thing for installation instructions). What is NQB? NQB (Neph's Quarterly Budgets) does three things: Replaces funding contract rewards with reputation rewards. More reputation means you earn more money in your budget, which is paid out four times a year. Restructures the contract progression to be more historical. This means contract objectives are based off of real rocket contracts and also relative rewards are changed to encourage the player to try more than just the traditionally optimal RP-1 path. Relies on Kerbalism to make more interesting long-duration science and communications contracts. https://github.com/nepphhh/RP-0 It is and will continue to be under development. If you join the RO/RP-0 discord (https://discordapp.com/invite/3xMtyBg) and keep an eye on the #quarterly-budgets channel, you'll stay in the loop about when you should install from NQB branch and when you should snag a release. Also, we've got a bit of a Race to Space going on, and we could open up a slot.

Parachutes are reset.

The Vandenberg Program, Chapter 3. (In case you missed it, Chapter 2 was restored from deletion. Scroll up to find it. Read that first!) Over three years have elapsed since the Vandenberg Program opened its doors. After that first successful launch, sixteen rockets have since followed. The scientific data and engineering demonstrations provided by these vehicles continue to buoy the reputation of the program—we now enjoy over three times the funding per quarter we did at 1951’s end. But these successes have not been unaccompanied by failure. Figure 3.1: The revised design of the Whippersnapper Mk II as diagrammed in promotional material prior to its inaugural launch. Sounding Rocket 5, as designed in late 1951, was scrapped after tests indicated the bulbous single-engine “ice cream cone” design would be insufficient for reaching the 140 km target required by the scientists by whom we had been contracted. A period of redesign delayed the launch from Q1 to A2 1952, but on April 12th the new rocket was unveiled. A much more robust design yet in many ways more ambitious, the Whippersnapper Mk. II (retroactively renamed W-II) consists of two stacked rockets, both powered by the newly-developed XASR. However, it uses slimmer and more conservative cylindrical propellant tanks. The dedicated science payload section, contained between the upper stage’s tank & nosecone, retains the 38 cm diameter of the previous design but is more stable during re-entry because of the conical shape of the control system and science adaptor. As launched, the rocket contained a meteorological payload & scientific equipment for probing the thermosphere and nearly a dozen fruit flies, to be exposed to the vacuum of 140 km. Figure 3.2: The science module of Sounding Rocket 5 shortly before full parachute deployment. It splashed down west of Vandenberg several minutes after launch. The launch proved that suborbital re-entry was possible, potentially even could be made routine, and fulfilled the needs of the biologists and meteorologists relying on our launch services. The successful launch was joined at the end of that quarter quarter by a second launch of the Red Knight (retroactively renamed R-I), this time avoiding LA in launch 425 km downrange into the Pacific Ocean. Figure 3.3: Sounding Rocket 6 rises through the clouds. June 16, 1952. Figure 3.4: Sounding Rocket 8 sported an enlarged shock cone. This experiment allowed it to carry more scientific equipment and tested the drag savings of very long shock cones on larger diameter rockets, preceding the development of the 38 cm bodied W-III (Whippersnapper Mk. III). Figure 3.5. Sounding Rocket 10 awaits an early-morning launch. Modifications to the airframe lent its silhouette a unique elegance among the W-II class of sounding rockets. Both these designs would fly each twice again in the next year as sounding rockets 7 through 10. In these rockets, the engineers embarked on a campaign of modifications to enable further and more ambitious missions on tested designs while new iterations on these early designs languished in development. Sounding Rocket 10, flown late April 1953, was a Whippersnapper Mk. II modified to fly without the reentry module. The mass savings and less draggy profile were intended to permit the rocket to set an altitude record of 300 km and carry with it a small meteorological payload. These modifications were significant enough that the model was renamed officially as the one-off Mk. IIa. Despite the extensive preparation, the mission was met with failure when the second stage failed to ignite at altitude. The rocket and payload were destroyed shortly thereafter, concluding the Mk. II program and failing the contract. The 300 km altitude record would remain out of Vandenberg’s grasp until early 1954. The fourth and final planned launch of the R-I heavy sounding rocket was as Sounding Rocket 9 on the first of March, 1953. SR-9 carried no sounding rocket payload in an emptied nosecone, but did carry a film camera nestled into a stringer interstage placed between the control unit and fuel tank. The film camera decoupled along with the nosecone and, through the magic of body lift (Author’s note: I can’t imagine playing without FAR.) deaccelerated from high speed and came to a gentle touchdown. It was launched due west and returned high-resolution images of the Mojave Desert. Figure 3.6: Sounding Rocket 9 pitches to approximately 45ׄ° shortly before burnout. One further R-I rocket had been built, but it was shelved as breakthroughs in propulsion research at the end of 1952 propelled rapid development of new designs poised to exploit more powerful engines than had ever been available to Vandenberg. The R-I had been sufficient to complete the Class I series of downrange contracts offered by interested rocketry development groups. Now a certified Class I rocket, it was known that the R-I was capable of delivering 800 kg of payload to up to 300 km away, but the Class II certification required much greater abilities—a full metric ton delivered to 700 km. Emerging out of a feverish night of design and refined over many more long nights was the R-II design, known during development as Red Bishop. As betrayed by its name, the Bishop first stage closely followed the design of the R-I Red Knight, but after that the designs diverged. The Bishop design team contracted with North American to develop the “Mark III” of American A-4 engine variants. The A-4 used on the Knight was a clone even to the name of the rocket that launched the V-2 missile at London, albeit built with American tools on American soil. After several iterations, the XLR43-NA-I was put into limited production. While still powered by a HTP turbopump, the entire motor had been redesigned, and the result was a third more powerful yet half the mass of the original A-4. But more than the changes to the first stage was the development of a brand new second stage. The stringer interstage, located in the same central position along the rocket as the R-IA photography Knight, was enlarged to fit a fully controlled hypergolic stage based on the Whippersnapper engines. Despite the consternation of the engineers—the propellants used in these motors freeze at a balmy -40°C—the clustered Aerobee solution on the R-II second stage never failed. However, attitude authority proved an issue at the high speeds and low atmospheric densities of stage separation. Ultimately, the dual systems of bizarre, blocky outboard fins used for stability and a 3-axis HTP reaction control system to provide control without using gimbal on the engine mounts was decided upon. The first R-II to launch did so flawlessly in the third quarter of 1953, delivering a ton of payload to 620 km in the Pacific Ocean. Figure 3.7: The first R-II to launch, Sounding Rocket 12, tears through the low atmosphere. Figure 3.8: Stage separation on SR-12 was a very tense time for the rocket designers and propellant men alike. The AJ10-27 was relatively untested engine at this launch, and fears of freezing were high. Ultimately, an improvised electric heating system kept icy feed lines from accumulating frozen propellant and the hypergolic engines ignited correctly. Figure 3.9: Detail of the R-II upper stage. Figure 3.10: SR-12 meets a fiery demise, its mission successful and the demonstration complete. Figure 3.11: SR-14 was the final and second successful launch of the R-II “Red Bishop”. But not all flights of the R-II would be so successful. The second launch was destroyed by Range Control as the rocket started to slow its climb only a few seconds into its initial ascent. Post-mortem analysis of the scattered debris lead the engineers to the conclusion that a faulty valve caused a loss of thrust. Its third launch, as Sounding Rocket 14, was a success, but it was being pushed to the full extent of its abilities. A replacement was needed. This successor (argued, successfully, to the naming committee to be an evolution) of the R-II was the R-IIB. With the mentality that no stage is better than a good stage, designers stripped out the worrisome second stage entirely. However, an upgraded configuration for the Phase III motor more than made up for it. The XLR-43 NA-3 doubles the thrust of the -1 motor and has a few more precious seconds of rated burn time. It was necessary to stretch the conical first stage tank of the R-II, accomplished by inserting a cylindrical section at its base, right above the engine boattail and assembly. While the first R-IIB was being constructed, that 300 km record was finally snagged by the final R-I Red Knight modified to remove all excess weight and to fly directly up. Carrying a pair of hapless mice, a slew of meteorological equipment, and the pride of the Vandenberg Project, the awkward rocket (it had an extended Whippersnapper nosecone & control assembly mounted to the nose) reached an apogee of 313 km before returning a Mk. II reentry module to the sea, the mice only a bit worse for wear. Figure 3.12: SR-14, a modified R-I, is ignited on its launch table. Shortly thereafter, the R-IIB completed rollout & erection. It launched on an overcast Saturday evening in the middle of the June of 1954. After the thunder of the XLR-43 NA-3’s 600 tons of thrust quieted, we craned our necks to watch it curve to the west in a pillar of red-hot air being torn asunder by a silver and red bullet climbing ever faster. Sounding Rocket 16 not only delivered a ton of payload to nearly 700 km but also carried a camera & stabilization equipment the whole way. The camera had a rocky re-entry. Separation of the required ancillary equipment (for mass reduction during the unshielded reentry) was delayed until deep in the atmosphere, and a few moments later the fragile payload was nearly impacted by the discarded & crumpled propellant tank. But re-enter safely it did, and it was in a single piece that it was recovered by a shipboard team. Images of the flight are recorded below. A second flight occurred the next quarter, concluding the Class II certification. Figures 3.13-18: Photographs & artist’s renditions of the flight of Sounding Rocket 16. On the less massive side of the Vandenberg sounding rocket program, W-III, the successor to the Whippersnapper Mk. II, was tested in 1953. Need for further use of this rocket has not yet arisen but it is anticipated. Figure 3.19: Sounding Rocket 11 rises on a pillar of fire produced by the improved AJ2.5k solid kick stage. It is in mid-1954 that the directors of the Vandenberg Project emerge from the board room, sobriety and excitement written alternately on their faces. The vote has been cast—narrowly. We will accept the contract to orbit an artificial satellite of the Earth. Within three years, we must either make the next greatest step in the technological history of mankind, or our contract is forfeit and we will be shuttered. Exciting times indeed. [Authors note: The next update will contain details of the X-plane program being persued in parallel with the sounding rocket program. After that, the backlog is cleared and we return to the present tense!]

Thank you! I have been, but I foolishly assumed there was no need to save the local version after I'd uploaded it. To my chagrin after I realized I needed to load the backup, the last time I had saved it was when there was just two sentences. Whoops.

Not touching KCT with a 10 ft pole, but would it be possible to add a module to command parts which contains a buildsource="VAB" or buildsource="SPH", then limit recovery to only that building from which it originated?

The Vandenberg Project, Chapter 2. Q2, 1951. The beancounters are excited: funding is up over 30% and the lobbyists (we don’t actually have any yet) assure us it’ll keep going up, provided, of course, that we don’t screw up too bad. So far so good, then. Figure 2.1: Contracts offered by our funders & investors. Unfortunately, the Program is only capable of managing two at a time before the need to negotiate further bureaucratic hires arises. After our first flight, Vandenberg seeks to break the sound barrier. The Panther 104, so named for its athletic profile and audacious battery of four downscaled Rolls Royce Nene jet engines stuffed in its rear, is the Program’s first attempt at supersonic flight. It is an ambitious first design, but it is anticipated that it a rugged airframe will be required for rocket plane development in the near future. The design itself was conceived of error and patience. Countless hours in wind tunnels over the previous months have informed every aspect of the design, but none more so than the waisted fuselage. Wave drag, encountered in the transonic regime, has been previous found to be a function of the derivative of area. In layman’s terms, where there exist significant changes in total cross-sectional area, there will be abnormally high drag as the plane approaches the speed of sound. By decreasing the area of the fuselage where the area of the wings is maximal, wave drag is minimized. The 104 is a unique challenge, as it is required to take off and return to the runway independently. The Program is currently investing into developing airlaunch capability for rocket planes, but it will not be available when the first Panther completes construction & testing, nor would it be capable of lifting such a large and heavy vehicle. Figure 2.2: Design schematics for the Panther 104. Figure 2.3: The propulsion solution adopted for the Panther 104 excites the designer and terrifies the engineer. Figure 2.4: The waisted construction of the Panther 104 is clearly visible from the front. May 16th, the second launch of the Program. At high noon, another Whippersnapper I is launched. Sounding Rocket 2 fails to repeat the success of its predecessor. There is a brief delay in the ignition circuit of the liquid stage. This missed moment--the delay was no longer than a second--is critical. The solid kick stage burns for only 0.6 seconds, but it accelerates the rocket to nearly the speed of sound. At these high speeds near sea level, the air is thick and the window for sucessful ignition is brief. In this all-important moment, where thrust was momentarily suspended between solid burnout and liquid ignition, atmospheric drag immediately took grip of the rocket. The negative acceleration caused the liquid propellant to settle at the top of the slowing tank, so when ignition was finally attempted, the motor ingested only fumes and failed to ignite. The fully fueled rocket crashed back down to the launch pad and exploded in a ball of toxic flame. The failure delays plans. A third Whippersnapper must be built. Figure 2.5: Sounding Rocket 2 fails to ignite. Shortly thereafter, it prematurely and spectacularly returns to Earth. Shortly after the start of the third quarter of the year, we get that second chance. June 10th marks a return to the dirt pad. Figure 2.6: Sounding Rocket 3 is readied prior to launch. Figure 2.7: VRP-SR 3 shortly after takeoff. This second successful launch significantly boosts the reputation of Vandenberg in the eyes of our funders. Small hypergolic sounding rockets will not be put aside forever, but it is time to move onto to bigger things. The A-4 missile, better known as the V-2, was captured in droves by the US and USSR at the end of World War 2. Unfortunately, all those captured missiles have been either chopped up, blown up, or launched and destroyed. To continue rocketry development where the Army left off, the Program needs to build its own equivalent. The costs associated with the development of a large rocket are substantial, especially for the fledgling aerospace program. Construction of the prototype Red Knight is anticipated to take slightly less than half a year. As the Red Knight and Panther 104 are slowly built, routine science collection continues, and we prepare upgrades to the dirt pad to support the 13 ton rocket. Figure 2.8: The Red Knight, a near-clone of the German V-2, in a vertical position mockup. The Red Knight burns concentrated ethanol and liquid oxygen. The combustion reactants are fed into the combustion chamber at high pressure by a turbopump, itself powered by superheated steam and oxygen gas produced by the catalytic decomposition of very high-concentration hydrogen peroxide (HTP). Use of ethanol fuel necessitates special safeguards be taken to prevent flight operations from consuming the propellant. The Panther is completed, but it sits in storage for three months. Vandenberg has committed to delivering a heavy sounding rocket launch before accepting any other demonstration contracts. Thus, we await the completion of Red Knight. In the meantime, initial research into liquid rocketry and supersonic development is completed. Our material and propulsion scientists’ interests are redirected; the labs shall not stay still. The fourth quarter arrives. The Program’s funding disbursement continues to rise despite a quarter of inactivity, buoyed by the promise of our future capabilities and justified by the accomplishments of earlier in the year.Sounding Rocket 4, the Red Knight, is completed on December 15th 1951. Erection and checkout are completed December 21st. It is a cloudless afternoon. Figure 2.9: The science plane in high-altitude flight. Figure 2.10: VRF-SR 4 awaits takeoff. The A-4 motor, an exact copy of that used on the V-2, begins to belch gentle smoke, a cough, and then suddenly powerful flame. The rocket lurches against its clamps. They release, and the steel bullet slips into the air. Five seconds later, it begins its pitchover program, a pre-programmed set of instructions that tilt it off the vertical in a controlled manner so it flies downrange. To the onlookers’ horror, the routine pitches the rocket due south. The pitchover routine is of primitive design, unaware of cardinal heading, and the rocket must have been placed at 90 degrees to what the program anticipated was west. But the rocket performs perfectly, heated to a red hot as it exceed Mach 5 and stabilizes at a maximum ballistic pitch of 45 degrees. Later analysis of telemetry delivered to Mission Control will indicate that the engine fails seventy-five seconds into the flight, merely moments before it would have cut off otherwise. To suffer a failure when it matters least means it is nothing but a blessing to the program, as analysis of the failure mechanism will aid diagnosis and prevention of future engine shutdowns. The vehicle soars over Santa Rosa and the Channel Islands, reaching an apogee of 104 km just southwest of Los Angeles. As it descends, its steel skin again begins to glow red before collapsing under the pressure, a stunning sight for the viewer keen-eyed and lucky enough to catch it—the vehicle is destroyed before the crack of its reentry sonic boom reaches the suburbs of LA. Figure 2.11: VRF-SR 4 breaks the sound barrier. Figure 2.12: VRF-SR 4's skin rises visibly in temperature due to atmospheric heating as it approaches the hypersonic regime. Figure 2.13: VRF-SR 4 coasts downrange over Los Angeles after sustainer cutoff. It has exceeded requirements, delivering 800 kg of test equipment almost 400 km downrange, nearly twice as far as required by the contract under which Red Knight was developed. Even as we celebrate, an investigation is mounting. Launching a V-2 in all but name over LA is completely unacceptable. An error such as this cannot reoccur. But the year is not yet over. The Panther flies a few short hours later that day. Our daring test pilots have hopped back in the cockpit. The four clustered Derwent Vs roar to life, and the plane begins a slow trundle down the long tarmac. 120 m/s and almost the whole runway later, Greene eases back on the yoke and the plane leaps off the ground. They are airborne. Figure 2.14: The Panther 104 accelerates down the VAFB/VSC runway. Figure 2.15: Over the Pacific Ocean, the Panther 104 executes low-altitude, high-speed maneuvers in the transonic regime. Figure 2.16: Test pilots Samuel Greene and Christine Freeman break the sound barrier in a climb on Friday, 21 December 1951. The Panther breaks sound's speed limit, setting an institutional crewed speed record of almost Mach 1.2. After the strenuous inaugural flight, it is studied and rebuilt from a hard splashdown. It will not fly again until February 23rd, 1952. The year concludes. The Program has finalized plans for a bigger sounding rocket. Sounding Rocket 5, the first Whippersnapper Mk. II, will be the first thing to fly in 1952. It is time to return from space. Figure 2.17: Whippersnapper Mk. II (right) compared to scale with its predecessor. The Mk. II model uses the same solid kick motor, but it has an uprated Aerobee engine, the XASR, which runs on a slightly different propellant mixture. The nosecone can be jettisoned and recovered by parachute.

How are you doing that? Recovery to the VAB isn't unlocked until shuttle era tech. There's no way you should be able to relaunch the same rocket every eight hours.