[1.12.5] Bluedog Design Bureau - Stockalike Saturn, Apollo, and more! (v1.13.0 "Забытый" 13/Aug/2023)

[Blufor878]

9 minutes ago, DaveyJ576 said:

SORTING OUT THE MERCURY BOILERPLATES AND PROTOTYPE SPACECRAFT PART 2

 

There were two other extremely important test objectives in the early phase of Mercury development. The first was proving the LES under actual flight regimes, especially in the critical region of maximum aerodynamic pressure. The second was showing that the ablative heat shield for the spacecraft would actually work. Max Faget was very confident in his heatshield calculations, but he knew that an actual flight test would be needed. Two support programs were drawn up to conduct these vital tests, Little Joe and Big Joe.

The Little Joe rocket was developed by Max Faget and a team at Langley. It was a simple cylindrical airframe with four large fins at the bottom, powered by combinations of Castor and Recruit solid rocket motors. Once the design was finalized, a contract was awarded to North American Aviation to produce seven airframes and one mobile launcher.

These tests would encounter actual flight conditions and high altitudes and would require a much more sophisticated craft than the simple sheet metal boilerplates. A pressurized compartment was needed for instrumentation, and for the Big Joe test a rudimentary RCS was required to properly orient the spacecraft for reentry.

There was an urgency to get the Little Joe and Big Joe programs underway, as it was desirous to incorporate the data from these tests into the final design of the production spacecraft. The contract for the production of Mercury spacecraft was put out to industry in mid-December 1958, and McDonnell was chosen as the prime contractor on January 9, 1959. However, the Little Joe and Big Joe sub-programs predated the McDonnell contract, with their origins all the way back in early 1958, when the shape of the Mercury spacecraft was still to be determined.

The Space Task Group gave the job of developing the prototype craft for the Little Joe and Big Joe tests to Langley in late 1958. The configuration is shown in the diagram below.

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The original design is on the left, with the final two different designs on the right. Construction of the prototypes was joint effort, with Langley building the upper sections and the Lewis Research Center in Cleveland building the lower pressurized section. Final assembly was at Langley and Wallops. The lower section was built from fiberglass and contained mission instrumentation and a primitive RCS. It was even capable of supporting a pressurized primate couch. The top of the pressurized section was hemispherical and could be unbolted to allow access to the interior. Once sealed, the ribbed sheet metal upper section with the recovery system was bolted to the top of the pressurized section. These prototypes were not intended for orbital flight, they flew mid and high altitude sub-orbital missions only.

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In these photos taken at the Langley shop the separate sections can be clearly seen. Small camera pods were mounted on the sides of the pressurized section. Although not nearly as sophisticated as the McDonnell production spacecraft and never intended to carry an astronaut, these craft were much more than the simple sheet metal boilerplates that preceded them and thus should be properly called prototypes. The term boilerplate has been genericized over the years to describe both craft, even though this is technically incorrect. The coloration of the prototypes varied, with the top canister and the pressurized section usually painted in orange or orange and white, with the upper metal ribbed section usually silver in color. A prototype is shown atop a Little Joe mockup at the Airpower Park in Hampton, Virginia with a production style LES. The exact number of these prototypes that were built is not known to me, but there was a least five, and these were used on the Little Joe, Big Joe, and MR-BD flight tests. It also appears that they were not numbered or serialized in the same way that the Apollo boilerplates were.

The first flight of one of the prototypes was to be Little Joe 1 (LJ-1). This test failed when a stray electrical current fired the LES while the booster was being prepped on the pad. Luckily, no one was hurt and the booster was essentially undamaged, but the capsule sustained heavy damage when it crashed into the surf just off shore. Desirous of getting in a basic test of the Little Joe rocket, and without an immediate replacement for the damaged prototype capsule, the booster was quickly recycled with one of the D-shape boilerplates atop (painted to look like a prototype) and successfully launched as LJ-6 on October 5, 1959.

Meanwhile, the much-anticipated test of the ablative heat shield was flown as Big Joe 1 on September 9, 1959. A full Atlas D missile was used as the booster, and the prototype capsule used was built specifically for the test.

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The pressurized section was painted black, with the upper section silver with vertical white stripes. Notice in the diagram photo the conical section is referred to as the “afterbody”. This is because the Mercury spacecraft was intended to fly in a retrograde position for all phases of the flight except for the boost phase. Any Mercury spacecraft that you may fly in KSP/BDB should be flown with the heatshield forward at all times to be historically accurate, with the obvious exception of when it is mounted to its booster. In essence, you could say that Mercury rides uphill upside down!

Color photos of the Big Joe capsule prior to launch are quite rare, so it is often hard to determine exactly what the color scheme was. The photo atop the Atlas booster is one of the exceptions. Notice also that the capsule was launched without a LES tower. The sub-orbital flight of BJ-1 was mostly successful as it fully demonstrated the capability of the ablative heatshield. However, the booster section of the Atlas failed to separate and that negatively affected the overall performance of the rocket, but not to the point where it was considered a failure. The photo of the recovered Big Joe prototype gives a good detail view of how the upper section was constructed, and how it was bolted to the lower fiberglass pressurized section. The very small pitch and roll RCS thrusters can be seen near the base of the pressurized section. Only two of the protoypes survive to this day, the one mounted to the Little Joe mockup in Virginia, and the Big Joe variant at the NASM. The rest of the prototypes were either destroyed in testing or broken up once no longer needed.

Three more prototype capsules flew on Little Joe flights before that program transitioned to using production spacecraft from McDonnell. The prototype used on the LJ-1B flight was reused on the Mercury Redstone Booster Development (MR-BD) flight on March 24, 1961. This was the last flight of a prototype capsule. It flew with an inert LES and the capsule stayed attached to the rocket for the duration of the flight. It was intentionally destroyed at the end of the flight when the entire assembly crashed into the Atlantic. The photo below is a very rare color shot of the MR-BD liftoff. The prototype spacecraft can be clearly seen. 

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Once McDonnell’s production came on-line, they produced several boilerplates. These were used in additional drop tests, as egress trainers for the astronauts, as trainers for the recovery forces, as facilities checkout vehicles, etc. The exact number produced is not immediately known. The configuration for each was unique based on what it was built for. Some (the egress trainers) closely mimicked the production spacecraft while others (facilities checkout vehicles) were just basic sheet metal affairs with no internal equipment. None of these were intended for powered flight. Some of them survive today in museums.

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None of these boilerplates or prototypes are represented in BDB, although there are some color changes for the Mercury spacecraft that somewhat mimic the configurations seen here. I once posed the question of incorporating the boilerplates and prototypes to @Invaderchaos and he stated that there were no plans to do so. His reasoning was valid and I fully respected it. At this late point in BDB1 development it actually makes a lot of sense not to waste time to do so, but perhaps the dev team can look into it once KSP/BDB2 is up and running later this year.

It's odd seeing NASA equipment being made in brick buildings. I kinda like it.

[epicpupster239]

On 12/31/2022 at 3:44 PM, Pudgemountain said:

Ok I know I am really late for the Voyager/Mars Bandwagon but after many flybys of planets and manned landings on the Mun and Minmus, I was finally able to get enough science for all the parts with Skyhawk's Tree.

No cool reentry effect it wasn't going that fast.

I am starting to believe I am very lucky on landing landers right between huge rocks.

Are these parts from the mod? What tag are they under?

[Zorg]

1 hour ago, epicpupster239 said:

Are these parts from the mod? What tag are they under?

Its Voyager Mars but its on the github development branch for testing, not officially released yet. Will be out hopefully very soon.

[GoldForest]

8 hours ago, Zorg said:

Its Voyager Mars but its on the github development branch for testing, not officially released yet. Will be out hopefully very soon.

Hopefully in the next 51 days.  
 

[GUZooka1]

On 12/11/2022 at 6:00 PM, Pappystein said:

1. Your smol-sat launcher is awesome looking
2. 331st SLDF RCT FTW!

Totally unrelated but I have been playing with TUFX settings... it turned out I liked this one...  Thought I wrote down the settings,  and then totally lost them

And yes that is a Saturn C-2M (monohull first stage) launching a S-IVC to my in orbit Tinker-toy to the Moon train

 

wait does bdb acutally work in rss/rp1?

[Royalswissarmyknife]

I'm hoping it releases on February 23rd 

[CobaltWolf]

On 1/4/2023 at 11:20 AM, Royalswissarmyknife said:

I'm hoping it releases on February 23rd 

We were aiming for a release in time for the holidays, but it didn't happen due to IRL stuff happening for all the devs.

Incidentally, Surveyor is getting close to done, but I'm moving into a new apartment this week - so still no ETA on when it will start becoming available. In the meantime, enjoy this teaser? I suppose?

[Blufor878]

My first rocket on KerbalX to make use of procedural parts is now available. I present the J2-powered JL20 medium lifter!



KerbalX File:
https://kerbalx.com/ManateeAerospace/JL20

Also I want to announce that I am now on Instagram! I have more images and a short video available there.
https://www.instagram.com/blufor878/

Edited January 5, 2023 by Blufor878

[Pudgemountain]

1 hour ago, Blufor878 said:

My first rocket on KerbalX to make use of procedural parts is now available. I present the J2-powered JL20 medium lifter!

Procedural parts are your best friend in Career mode. I tend to use them for extra Monopropellant and battery storage though lately I have been using them for LS as well.

[Pxtseryu]

Heavy - Huma-Huma playing in the distance...

'

 

[TaintedLion]

26 minutes ago, Pxtseryu said:

Heavy - Huma-Huma playing in the distance...

'

 

Hey, I've seen this one before!

[Pxtseryu]

16 minutes ago, TaintedLion said:

Hey, I've seen this one before!

Finally getting around to redoing it. Did it in 2019 and the results were...subpar, but worked.

Life support mods and JNSQ make this a challenging (but balanced) experience.

 

...wait are you the guy with the weird desktop wallpaper?

Edited January 5, 2023 by Pxtseryu

[TaintedLion]

2 hours ago, Pxtseryu said:

...wait are you the guy with the weird desktop wallpaper?

Uhh I can't remember. You'd have to show me it.

[Pxtseryu]

1 hour ago, TaintedLion said:

Uhh I can't remember. You'd have to show me it.

Add on Disc, unless I already have you added from years ago:

Spoiler

PXTSERYU#5132

 

[TaintedLion]

8 hours ago, Pxtseryu said:

Add on Disc, unless I already have you added from years ago:

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PXTSERYU#5132

 

Sent, i’m OhNoBees

[Pappystein]

On 1/4/2023 at 11:12 AM, GUZooka1 said:

wait does bdb acutally work in rss/rp1?

A) I am using KSRSS 2.5,

B) Yes RSS/RP1 HAS in the past utilized BDB, but that is up to them to support.  With all the major changes to saturn I do not know if they are up to date with current BDB release yet however...

again up to the RSS/RP1 community to maintain, not something the BDB team does.

 

[Pxtseryu]

 

Radial tanks attached...refueling in orbit. Turns out even a S-IVB can survive reentry if you land it on its engine. Considering how expensive this entire endeavor is even with Strategia, that's a blessing in disguise.

[Pudgemountain]

Werhner Von Kerman decided instead of sending Voyager 2 to land on Duna's polar caps we should send it to Sarnus' moon Tekto. Hey no use arguing against him since he provides us snacks.

Wow most of the planets are alligned.

[Pxtseryu]

My computer hates this ship...pulling under 10FPS when fully assembled. This is what I get for playing on a M1 Mac

 

Braking to dock in orbit...

 

Now all that's left is the TMI.

What a convoluted mess this thing is. All of this is being done in Career mode, by the way....

 

After injection, popping off the tanks is all that needs to be done. One refused to disconnect due to a bug, until a mysterious pale white cube impacted the port at a few hundred meters per second, severing it...

 

178 days later...arrival. God this ship looks good, even if my game hates it. 

 

What a money shot.

 

After orbit is achieved the CSM undocks and the main module reconfigures itself to allow the MEM to be revealed.

 

And with everything in place, the MEM is revealed...

Don't laugh.

 

NEXT TIME: Landings and science!

 

 

 

 

[Pudgemountain]

Voyager 3 went to Laythe's Polar Region.

Good lord what is happening there?!

[DasherJake640]

Where do you find the development branch for BDB? The Voyager Mars would look really cool to use in my career game but I can't find a release in the github.

[Zorg]

51 minutes ago, DasherJake640 said:

Where do you find the development branch for BDB? The Voyager Mars would look really cool to use in my career game but I can't find a release in the github.

There are no versioned downloads of the development branch.

https://github.com/CobaltWolf/Bluedog-Design-Bureau

Go to the github page, in the top left where it says master, click and switch to 1.11 development (its actually 1.12 but we're didnt open a fresh branch this time). Once that's done click the green button top right that says Code and click download zip to download the most up to date version of the dev branch.

You can click the link that says Commits to see what has changed recently and when.

Edited January 9, 2023 by Zorg

[DasherJake640]

Thanks!

[Royalswissarmyknife]

I have a question how long do you assume BDB 2 to come out for Ksp 2?

[The Dressian Exploder]

This is just a guess, but I think it's probably quite hard to know how long it'll take, as we don't know what the process for modding KSP2 will look like compared to KSP1.