AdrianDogmeat

Yeah the only "BDB" parts are the Centaur II engine mount and 2x RL10C-3s

I don't know how much of this includes parts from BDB, but it's cool as hell so why not post it anyways?

SATURN III | LDM-1 Following a five-year hiatus after the last flight, new upgrades to Saturn III were implemented to improve the rocket's reliability such as: - New software-based guidance system serving as an addition to the current Inertial Guidance System - Improved engines on EDS Alongside the selection and finalization of both NASA's Crewed Exploration Vehicle (CEV), and the Human Landing System (HLS) programs, Saturn III will once again demononstrate a new capability turning it from a standard Heavy Lifter into a Crew-Rated Launcher able to send a 5 man crew to the Moon and beyond using the brand-new National Team/Lockheed CEV "Odysseus". With everything coming together Saturn III will be scheduled to launch on March 27, 2004 carrying Odysseus to the Moon and back. Mission Profile: LDM-1 will follow a similar flight path to its earlier predecessor (CFT-2) all the way to Low Earth Orbit, but instead of taking a single orbit to execute a Trans-Lunar Injection (TLI) maneuver, the Saturn III second stage stack will coast for about two-and-a-half orbits around Earth, executing TLI at T+2 hours and six minutes sending Odysseus on a six-day journey to the Moon Upon reaching the Moon, Odysseus will perform a Lunar Orbit Insertion Maneuver entering a stable low orbit around the moon of 75x96km and will remain there for 45 days simulating a future crewed lunar mission. Odysseus will perform a Trans-Earth Injection (TEI) maneuver with a projected landing spot 400 miles east of the Australian Coast Aerial View of Saturn III, March 25. 2004, T-minus 2 days "T-Minus nine minutes and counting" [...] "TLS Autosequence has been initiated" "twelve, eleven, ten, nine, eight.. We have a go for Main Engine Start.." "five, four, three, two, one..." "We Have Booster Ignition and Liftoff of The Third Flight of the Saturn III Rocket Carrying Odysseus To The Moon As We Continue to build Our Future in Space" "Houston Now Controlling the Flight of Saturn III" "One Minute into the flight the main engines beginning to rev up to full throttle 104% of rated performance" "Two Minutes Thirty-eight seconds into the flight [...] Saturn III ten miles in altitude eleven miles downrange" "Standing by for Solid Rocket Booster separation coming up in about [...] nine seconds" "Booster Officer here in Mission Control reports a good Solid Rocket Booster separation [...] Saturn III thirty-eight miles in altitude fifty miles downrange" "Seven minutes into the flight Mission Officer reports a good Launch Abort System Separation" "Saturn III travelling at a speed of more than three miles per second at the moment" [...] "less than a minute away from Main Engine Cut off Saturn III seven hundred-fifty miles downrange" "Flight Controllers here in Mission Control confirms Main Engine Cutoff and Separation of The Second Stage" "Mission control now has confirmation of a successful engine ignition on the Second Stage nine minutes ten seconds into the flight" "Odysseus now eighty miles in altitude nine hundred miles downrange" "Flight Controllers here in Mission Control confirms a successful service module fairing separation ten minutes twenty seconds into the flight" "And we have the first Second Engine Cutoff eleven minutes into the flight Odysseus travelling at eight thousand seven hundred miles per hour" [Switchover from NASA Narrator to Mission Control] "Verifying flight systems one hour fifty minutes before TLI" "All flight systems good thirty-five minutes before TLI" [Switchover from Mission Control to NASA Narrator] "Flight Teams here at Houston standing by for Second Engine Start propelling Odysseus to the moon two hours five minutes into the flight" "And we have confirmation of a successful Second Engine Start two hours six minutes into the flight" "Flight Teams here at Mission Control confirms a successful Engine Cutoff two hours ten minutes into the flight" [Switchover from NASA Narrator to Mission Control] "Odysseus Separation Confirmed"

(NASA Side Contination) CREWED LUNAR EXPLORATION VENTURES The next logical step after Lunar Lander Selection was finalized in 1999 would be the Development of a crewed lunar-capable spacecraft with the ability to stay in orbit for a minimum of 29 days under the Crewed Exploration Vehicle (CEV) program. Similar to the previous Lunar Lander Selection Process, Contractors came up with their own proposals for use under the CEV program. The contractors are: - National Team - Lockheed CEV "Odysseus" - Boeing Space - Starchaser - DLR/Dassault Aviation X-38L After careful consideration and design review, National Team under Lockheed Martin won the second contract for NASA's Crewed Exploration Program (CEV) citing the already existing hardware built by Lockheed and flight data from earlier testing in 1997, shortly after being awarded $6.7 Billion contract to build the necessary flight hardware for Lockheed CEV Shortly after selection, works immediately began on building flight hardware as early as Dec 1999 in order to meet NASA's deadline for Lunar Demonstration Mission (LDM) better known as Selene-1, which involves testing spacecraft systems and flight hardware such as the new RL-10EX engines intended for Circumlunar Operations. With a projected completion date of NET 2003, and a flight date of NLT 2004 Lockheed Martin CEV "Odysseus" Design Document - 2001 NEXT POST: LUNAR DEMONSTRATION MISSION-1

Decision on Upcoming Posts: Instead of posting events from the chinese side chronologically, I'm gonna post on an alternating -basis which allows me to explore new concepts and advancing the main timeline, which means: - Three to Four Standard Terras Irradient posts (NASA) followed by One or Two Chinese Terras Irradient Counterpart post - Next Post will pick up after the latest Main Timeline Post (Lander Selection)

You need to ask the modders currently maintaining RO configs, since BDB doesn't provide RO configs

Saturn III - A late-90s SDLV

Is that an early teaser for Part II??

Yeah I didn't know what category this belonged in

I don't know if something happened on discord's end or the forum's end, but it resulted in thousands of pictures being deleted and replaced with "this content is no longer available", which makes reading mission reports and other forum threads a lot worse Especially for others trying to maintain a forum thread using discord image links (me included)

Terras Irradient: 红龙苏醒 - The Red Dragon Awakens - Part I HISTORY & DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHINESE SPACE PROGRAM I- Geopolitical Landscape It's no surprise that the geopolitical landscape in East and Southeast Asia was affected significantly following World War 2, some of which led to the rise of new governments in multiple countries though not always by peaceful means. And that's where China comes into play after the successful Chinese Communist Revolution in 1949 resulting in two separate entities existing at the same time, being: - People's Republic of China (PRC) formally proclaimed by Chairman Mao Zedong - Republic of China (ROC) better known as Taiwan This combined with the continual rise of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leads us to the next segment: II- Timeline of China's Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) Program: Following the somewhat recent Soviet RDS-1 Nuclear Test in 1949, and the looming Nuclear Threat against China by the United States after the Taiwan Strait Crisis, alongside the continued research of means to deliver said-nuclear bombs to their destinations using Short-Range Ballistic Missiles (SRBM) all the way to Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM) using the knowledge carried over from Operation Paperclip following WW2, China (and by extension the CCP) was in desperate need of a nuclear program of its own to allow deterrence against foerign threats. And on January 15, 1955 - Chairman Mao speaks at the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China to announce the commencing of the Chinese Nuclear Program. Kickstarting the first Ballistic Missile development Program in China. While the announcement was public to the residents of Communist China, some details were hidden from the general public most notably being "Project 581" development spearheaded by hundreds of rocket scientists coming from both China and the Soviet Union on March 1, 1956, emphasizing ICBM Development over Aircraft Development IIA- Changes to Soviet Leadership: Nikita Khrushchev's rise of power was remarkable after a successful Coup d'État in 1953 with him becoming a leader in 1954. But his popularity quickly eroded following his more "liberal" approach and his several PR failures including the failed capture of a U.S U-2 spyplane pilot after being shot down over Armenia in 1957, and the mishandling of the situation in East Germany in the same year. He became so unpopular amongst Kremlin members he was outright replaced by Brezhnev in 1958 in an undercover coup under the guise of "....Accepting his request to retire from offices for health problems". Compared to his predecessor, Brezhnev had better ties with China meaning there is no Sino-Soviet Split due to Chariman Mao becoming dissatisfied with post-stalin liberal approach. Due to this, The Chinese Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) Program development was sped up significantly. (Continuation of Part II) As development moved forward with the assistance of Soviet scientists and engineers, there was a need for a more organized entity to monitor R&D. The first Chinese institute of missile and rocket research gott opened on October 8, 1956. After 2 years of non-stop development on China's first-ever Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Program (and secretly, Project 581), Construction works immediately started on January 1958 to build the necesarry facilities to house, develop and launch rockets to support the ongoing efforts to build the nation's first nuclear deterrence program. After 3 months, a new launch site was erected near Jiuquan located 1370km Northwest of Beijing in Inner Mongolia, with ground being broken on April 1958 III- Shift from a Nuclear Deterrence Porgram to a Dedicated Space Program: For a very long time, Everyone just knew there was a dedicated Nuclear Program being developed since 1955, that changed however on May 17, 1958 after Chairman Mao Zedong announced that China will become the Third nation ever to send a satellite in orbit after the United States and Soviet Union in a statement in which he said: "我们也要搞人造卫星" - "We too need satellites" And subsequently revealing the adoption of Project 581, a once secret project from all the way back in 1955 now revealed to the general public with the goal of placing an artificial satellite in orbit by 1959, which coincides with the 10th anniversary of the PRC's founding. This goal however was quickly proven to be unrealistic due to time limits. Two years later on January 1960, The first Chinese Medium Range-Ballistic Missile (MRBM) was developed, being essentially a direct descendant of the Soviet R-5 Pobeda, partially due to the help of Soviet engineers and scientists working alongside their Chinese counterparts simultaneously. Dongfeng-2 (DF-2) Medium-Range Ballistic Missile (MRBM) From 1960 till 1964 there were multiple suborbital launches on sounding rockets carrying biological experiments, scientific payloads, and data collection, but there was something to be revealed soon that would totally change the landscape of Chinese Aerospace Industry. On August 1965, the CPC Central Committee approved the “development of China’s satellite workers.”, kickstarting the development of Dongfeng 5 (DF-5) Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, capable of delivering a single warhead at a maximum range of 12000km, and can also be repurposed into a Small-Lift Launch Vehicle. After 3 years of rigorous development, Dongfeng 5, FengBao-1 and Long March 1 series of rockets were both completed, with the latter planned to send the nation's first artificial satellite in 1969 - coinciding with the 20th anniversary of the PRC's founding. IV- Rise of the Red Dragon: The development of the Chinese Space Program went through many stages, from mere Short-Range Ballistic Missiles all the way to Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles like Dongfeng 5 and FengBao-1. The stakes were high considering the launch will take place during a national event attended by Chairman Mao Zedong himself With a launch on the horizon, Ground teams at Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center were working relentlessly to ensure all facilities were in working order anticipating the launch of Long March 1 carrying Dong Fang Hong 1 scheduled on May 10, 1969 长征1号 - Long March 1 Awaiting Launch May 9, 1969 发射日 - Launch Day May 10, 1969 发动机点火 - Engine Ignition 升空! - Liftoff! 车辆向下俯仰 - Vehicle Pitching Downrange 最大动压 - Maximum Dynamic Pressure 发动机节流 - Engines Throttling Up 第一阶段接近倦怠 - First Stage Approaching Burnout 热阶段 - Hot-Staging 分离 - Separation 整流罩分离揭示东方红1号 - Fairing Separation Revealing Dong Fang Hong I 第二阶段接近倦怠 - Second Stage Nearing Burnout 第三级分离和点火 - Third Stage Separation & Ignition 第三阶段接近倦怠 - Third Stage Nearing Burnout 第三阶段截止 - Third Stage Cutoff 东方红1分离 - Dong Fang Hong I Separation 东方红一号在地球轨道上广播“ 东方红” - Dong Fang Hong I in orbit above Earth broadcasting “The East is Red” V- Post-Launch Recap: After more than a decade of continuous development and testing, China became the fifth country to launch an artificial satellite into orbit independently after the United States, Soviet Union, France and Japan. Not only was it a technical success, but also a massive propaganda win for the Chinese Communist Party by demonstrating the capabilities of combined Chinese and Soviet engineering Shortly after on May 12, 1969, Leonid Brezhnev, The General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union personally congratulated Chairman Mao Zedong, The Chairman of the Chinese Central People's Government on the achievement carried out by both contributing nations, granting China a foothold in the world of Spaceflight Under all the news though, another secret project was already in the works since 1966 under the codename "Project 716" to start a crewed program to put Two Chinese Taikonauts into Space by 1971, not wanting to be left behind in the Space Race the project was quickly adopted after both Mao and Zhou Enlai's approval on October 2nd, 1969, with astronaut/taikonaut selection starting on January 1970 NEXT POST: PART II - CHANGE OF PLANS FOR CHINA'S CREWED SPACE PROGRAM This post took me the longest to make - from finding sources on China's Space Program to sometimes losing motivation and almost giving up on this forum thread I really hope you all would enjoy reading this post As for upload schedule, I can't say for certain as for when the next post gets released

Terras Irradient: 红龙苏醒 - The Red Dragon Awakens Introduction: Welcome back to a new sub-series/spinoff viewing in-universe events from the Chinese side, which will offer a unique point of view of how the Chinese Space Program came into fruition leading up to Circumlunar Development ending up with China becoming the third nation ever to have a dedicated crewed lunar program, hence starting the events of the Main Timeline I made the decision to create a separate timeline since everyone follows a linear timeline focusing on only one side of the story (Mostly being 1960s-1990s NASA/Soviet Space Program), and also I felt like some events in the main timeline weren't fleshed out apart from some vague mentions from an off-universe perspective The Timeline will be split across 4 posts, being: 1- Extensive History & Development of the Chinese Space Program, including Long March 1 Maiden Launch 2/3- Launch and Assembly of Lunar Transfer Vehicle 4- Earth Departure, Including Lunar Orbit and Return Posts will come out when they're ready

Thanks! Also I do have the gamedata folder right here

BDB, Restock, Station parts expansion, TweakScale and Tantares Recolor

Chinese Mission To the Moon - 1991

Prequel posts which will view the events from the Chinese side starting from 1955 until 1991 coming soon

Mine's a 5m scaled core/upper stage with STMEs instead of F1s

Wait what I also have a rocket named Saturn III Coincidence??

UPDATE: Thread isn't dead (yet), I'm just taking a break from KSP for the time being

For the posters? I used Kronal Vessel Viewer, then removed the background and edited them in gimp

I made them using gimp

LUNAR EXPLORATION PLANS MOVING FORWARD Now with a reliable launcher that can lift heavy payloads to the moon exceeding Saturn V's payload capacity, the next logical step was to source out a lander for near-future use on Selene crewed lunar expeditions, returning America and by extension Humanity to the moon after nearly 40 years of hiatus Immediately after CFT-2 post-flight analysis, NASA started looking for competitors to build a two-stage lander similar in vein to Apollo Lunar Module as part of two contracts: - Lunar Crew Access Vehicle [LCAV] - Cargo Lunar Delivery System [CLDS] As part of the contract, three teams sent over their proposals: - National Team (Aerojet, Rocketdyne, Rockwell International, Lockheed Martin) -Northrop Grumman - Boeing After further review of all three proposals, National Team was selected to provide crew and cargo capability for both LCAV and CLDS and was awarded $4.3 Billion for both contracts, with development immediately starting on lander design as early as 1999 with a projected finishing date of NLT Nov 2002 NASA however realized that crewed landings will start later than expected due to some budget problems, the delay caused by CFT-1's stage separation anomaly. Due to this Lunar Landing was delayed to NET 2004. While this might sound bad on NASA's end, it will allow the National Team to have more time to test different systems required for future lunar landings including: - Flight Computers - Descent and Ascent Engines A press conference was held between July 24, 2002 and July 25, 2002, revealing certain key elements of the lunar program, the highlight of the show however was the release of National Team Human Landing System [NTHLS] design schematics, including both cargo and crew landers National Team Cargo Lander Schematic, July 24, 2002 National Team Crew Lander Schematic, July 25, 2002 NEXT LAUNCH: SELENE-1 UNCREWED FLIGHT TEST

EUCLID | TRANSIT & LANDING Following the successful flight of CFT-2, Euclid is now separated from S-III flying on a pre-planned trajectory to the moon, with lunar arrival occuring on Dec 21, 1998 In addition, Mission Control at Houston, TX is now tracking the spacecraft, monitoring systems and telemetry data downlink via the Deep Space Network DAY ONE: SEPARATION "All systems in good status, 13000km above Earth" DAY TWO: TRANSIT "Mission Control reports nominal trajectory, Euclid 36000km away from Earth" DAY THREE: LUNAR ARRIVAL "Engine Ignition on Euclid, LOI in progress on the lunar far side" [Moving away from Mission Control] [......] Earthrise Deorbit "Engine Shutdown #1" "Fine-Tuning Landing Spot" "Approaching the Landing Spot, 150m above the moon" [Switching now to Mission Control] [......] "Euclid Landing Confirmed"

SATURN III | CFT-2 Following the (almost) successful maiden flight of Saturn III, engineering teams at both NASA and Rockwell International have both collected valuable data from the test flight including (but not limited to) Engine Performance, First and Second Stage telemetry data. Following this, works on getting the necessary flight hardware up and ready for Certification Flight Test-2 [CFT-2] have already started with a set launch date of NET Nov 1998 On top of this, some changes were implemented to the launch vehicle, these include: - Completely redone stage separation system - Changes to the Guidance System from using Saturn IB/V Instument Unit to a more modern Inertial Measurement Unit used on the Space Shuttle - Transitioning from using Lightweight Tank [LT] to Super Lightweight Tank [SLT] Mission Profile: CFT-2 will follow the same flight plan as its predecessor, lifting off from Launch Complex 39A. Inserting into a low orbit of 135x160km around Earth, But instead of a simple phasing burn at T+30 minutes, S-III [EDS] will perform for the first time since Apollo 17 a Trans-Lunar Injection on T+52 minutes sending another 20-ton mass simulator to the moon and then to a heliocentric orbit As part of the new flight plan change implemented on June 28, 1998, CFT-2 will be delayed to Dec 1998, and it will carry an additional payload being the Joint NASA-ESA "Euclid" Lander, intending to study the lunar geology and how the solar radiation affects the moon on higher latitudes Aerial View of Saturn III, Dec 16. 1998, T-minus 2 days "T-minus 10 minutes and counting, TLS auto-sequence has been initiated" "..eleven, ten, nine, eight.. We have a go for Main Engine Start.." "..six, five, four, three, two, one..." "Booster Ignition and Liftoff of The Second Flight of Saturn III Rocket Carrying NASA and ESA's Joint Lander To The Moon" "Houston Now Controlling the Flight of Saturn III" "One minute thirty-two seconds into the flight Saturn III already two miles from the Kennedy Space Center all systems reported in great shape" "Three minutes into the flight [...] Saturn III twenty-four miles in altitude eighteen miles downrange, good telemetry data from both stages" "Booster Officer here in Mission Control reports a good Solid Rocket Booster separation [...] Saturn III fourty-one miles in altitude fifty miles downrange" "Flight Controllers here in Mission Control standing by for Main Engine Cutoff" "Booster Officer reports Main Engine Cutoff right on time" "Mission Control now has data confirming a successful Stage Separation event" "Mission Control now picking up telemetry from the Second Stage five minutes fifty seconds into the flight" "And we now have reports of a successful fairing separation event six minutes into the flight" "Second Stage still following the flight plan six minutes fourty seconds into the flight" "Mission Control now confirms Second Engine Cutoff nine minutes into the flight S-III will now enter a coast phase" "Thirty minutes into the flight Mission control now tracking S-III as it coasts in Low Earth Orbit in preparation for Trans-Lunar Injection" "Mission Control now has confirmation on a successful engine restart fifty minutes into the flight on the way to the moon" "Fifty-five minutes into the flight and we now have a confirmation on a successful engine shutdown putting Euclid on its way to the moon" [Switchover from NASA Narrator to Mission Control] [......] "Euclid Separation Confirmed" Post-Flight Analysis CFT-2 once again proved to be a successful mission and another accomplishment for the teams involved, not only that it exceeded everyone's expectations, but it proved the lunar launch capability required for the 21st century rocket NASA envisioned all the way back in 1994 As for the new separation system, reports indicate that it worked flawlessly, a far cry from the days of faulty first stage separations on CFT-1 way back in February of the same year Now Mission Control at Houston will continue to monitor Euclid's path on the way to the moon in the coming days, with Lunar Orbit Insertion [LOI] occuring on December 20, 1998 NEXT POST: EUCLID LUNAR ARRIVAL AND LANDING

CHANGE OF PLANS FOR CFT-2 While collecting telemetry and flight data from CFT-1 and ongoing preparations for CFT-2, A change to the flight plan was announced on a Press Conference held on June 29th, 1998 turning it from a standard Certification Test to a dual-payload Launch carrying the NASA-ESA "Euclid" Lunar Lander to the moon as part of the revised flight plan It will sit atop a 20-ton mass simulator on the way to the moon, separating 2.5 hours after Trans-Lunar Injection, arriving on the moon Note that the flight of CFT-2 will be delayed by two months to implement the changes to the separation system on S-IIC, targeting a launch window of NET Jan 1999 And as part of the NASA Press Conference, new schematics of Euclid were released to the public NASA-ESA "Euclid" Lunar Lander Schematic - June 28, 1998