Space Shuttle Atlantis OV-104 STS-30

[selfish_meme]

STS Space Shuttle Atlantis OV-104 is a MK3 scale replica of the Space Shuttle.

Atlantis was the 4th Shuttle built and it's maiden voyage was in 1985, it completed 33 Missions before it's final mission in 2011 which was also the final shuttle flight of all. During it's operating life it orbited the Earth 4,848 times. It deployed the probes Magellan to Venus and Galileo to Jupiter.

Mk3 Fuselage parts are about 64% scale of the real Shuttle Fuselage, this shuttle was built with that in mind and where possible (Length, Width, cargo bay length, wingspan etc) will be faithful to the scaled dimensions of the real shuttle. The External Tank and Boosters are similarly scaled. In the pictures and video I have painted it using a newly updated KerbPaint (get it from the last page of the thread) and retextured the ET Fairing using FairingTextureSwitcher mod (If you want the texture I debatted let me know), these do not effect the stock craft.

When staging the used SRB’s use the ‘w’ button to tilt the shuttle forward so the SRB’s can seperate cleanly, otherwise they may clip the wings because the main engines push the shuttle laterally as well as vertically.

There are three fuel tanks on the orbiter for the OMS, you need to unlock them currently once you have discarded the main tank. I have a fix to add an action group to enable them. A new upload will be up soon.

The maximum payload capacity is one full Orange Tank (36t) to 100km orbit.

Watch the video below to see how to fly it, the craft was flown by Mechjeb in the video (for artistic reasons) when flying manually make sure you begin your roll straight off the pad, you will not be able to roll smoothly once above 100ms, the torque from the SRB’s is too great and you will end up flopping around a bit.

Built with 218 of the finest parts.

Download

 

Sorry about the poor editing, I don't have a lot of free time to do this and I did what I could.

Edit: Haha I just watched the whole video, I missed a capital letter in the end title, that what you get for rushing!

Edited March 23, 2016 by selfish_meme

[Majorjim!]

Yay it's finished! Good job man she looks glorious even with the mod paint .

 I will sit back, cup of tea in hand and watch the video.

[Yukon0009]

Whoa. Best stock shuttle in a long time.

[Majorjim!]

I would have liked to see more in the video mate, I saw you had limited time though so that's understandable. Maybe a few different cargo subs for it? Oh and I would have liked to see a picture of it as it is. Without makeup.

 Nice to see her fly though, and great landing!

Edited March 21, 2016 by Majorjim

[selfish_meme]

5 minutes ago, Majorjim said:

Oh and I would have liked to see a picture of it as it is. Without makeup.

 Nice to see her fly though, and great landing!

Thanks, and here she is neked

[Majorjim!]

Just now, selfish_meme said:

Thanks, and here she is neked

 

Very pretty thanks man, I always thought woman look better without makeup.

   The bottom of the ET fairing is that two open ended fairings?

[selfish_meme]

1 minute ago, Majorjim said:

Very pretty thanks man, I always thought woman look better without makeup.

   The bottom of the ET fairing is that two open ended fairings?

One fairing is open ended, it sort of slips over the bottom one

Edited March 21, 2016 by selfish_meme

[max_42]

this is very nice. A little more dv for orbital maneuvering would be good but I like it anyway 

[selfish_meme]

24 minutes ago, max_42 said:

this is very nice. A little more dv for orbital maneuvering would be good but I like it anyway 

I forgot there are three tanks locked for orbital maneuvering two in the oms pods and 1 in the bay

[Stocchinet]

Wait a moment, the shuttle tail can split up for airbraking? is that stock?

[sgt_flyer]

1 hour ago, Stocchinet said:

Wait a moment, the shuttle tail can split up for airbraking? is that stock?

it's simply two tails clipped together  one of them is set to deploy in reverse, so when you hit the action group key, they split. when non deployed, they simply respond to yaw normally, and move the control surface in the same direction  - you can use the same technique to make roll control surfaces able to also act like split airbrakes  (like the ones on the A-10)

@selfish_meme

mmh, looking at it, there's something a bit 'off' in the proportions. the ET and boosters look slightly too long (or maybe the orbiter is placed too low - based on the position of the nose of the orbiter compared to the top of the SRBs)

Edited March 21, 2016 by sgt_flyer

[Majorjim!]

50 minutes ago, Stocchinet said:

Wait a moment, the shuttle tail can split up for airbraking? is that stock?

Yup, two clipped together with opposing surface movement.

Just now, sgt_flyer said:

mmh, looking at it, there's something a bit 'off' in the proportions. the ET and boosters look slightly too long (or maybe the orbiter is placed too low - based on the position of the nose of the orbiter compared to the top of the SRBs)

I think the orbiter itself is too long, making it look too thin, this extends to the ET and the SRBs. Shortening all of them would bring it back into balance. Maybe @selfish_meme will post a KVV pic of the orbiter with the bay open for scale?

[Stocchinet]

2 hours ago, sgt_flyer said:

it's simply two tails clipped together  one of them is set to deploy in reverse, so when you hit the action group key, they split. when non deployed, they simply respond to yaw normally, and move the control surface in the same direction  - you can use the same technique to make roll control surfaces able to also act like split airbrakes  (like the ones on the A-10)

@selfish_meme

mmh, looking at it, there's something a bit 'off' in the proportions. the ET and boosters look slightly too long (or maybe the orbiter is placed too low - based on the position of the nose of the orbiter compared to the top of the SRBs)

Oh ok now it make sense, i do that trick all the time with the control surfaces, never thought to do that with the big tail piece

[selfish_meme]

4 hours ago, Majorjim said:

Yup, two clipped together with opposing surface movement.

I think the orbiter itself is too long, making it look too thin, this extends to the ET and the SRBs. Shortening all of them would bring it back into balance. Maybe @selfish_meme will post a KVV pic of the orbiter with the bay open for scale?

Like I said above the orbiter and cargo bay are scale, the real orbiter is 37m long and the cargo bay is 18m long, that makes 23m and 11.5m for scale, 11.5m is about 1 long bay and half a small bay. 

The tank may be too far up, for sake of the CoM, also the wings don't have the same chord, as the Big S wings are not big enough.

Edited March 21, 2016 by selfish_meme

[Majorjim!]

Just now, selfish_meme said:

Like I said above the orbiter and cargo bay are scale, the real orbiter is 37m long and the cargo bay is 18m long, that makes 23m and 11.5m for scale, 11.5m is about 1 long bay and half a small bay. 

The tank may be too far up, for sake of the CoM, also the wings don't have the same chord, as the Big S wings are also not big enough.

Oh ok matey. My mistake.

[selfish_meme]

Just now, Majorjim said:

Oh ok matey. My mistake.

I think it's the Big S wings, they are not the right size, but it would take a lot of parts to fix.

[sgt_flyer]

27 minutes ago, selfish_meme said:

Like I said above the orbiter and cargo bay are scale, the real orbiter is 37m long and the cargo bay is 18m long, that makes 23m and 11.5m for scale, 11.5m is about 1 long bay and half a small bay. 

The tank may be too far up, for sake of the CoM, also the wings don't have the same chord, as the Big S wings are not big enough.

which fuel tanks do you have in the ET ? 

if you want the COM to go up, you could clip several of those tanks to the top, without needing to shift the ET's position too much  (after all, they did put the lox tank on top in the real shuttle ET for this reason ;))

on another point, just to know, what kind of problems did you have with the fairing hidden SRBs that made you go with a fairingless version ?

Edited March 21, 2016 by sgt_flyer

[Majorjim!]

Just now, sgt_flyer said:

on another point, just to know, what kind of problems did you have with the fairing hidden SRBs that made you go with a fairingless version ?

After 1.1 we will be able to cover the entire SRB with a faring! And about time too!

[selfish_meme]

28 minutes ago, sgt_flyer said:

which fuel tanks do you have in the ET ? 

if you want the COM to go up, you could clip several of those tanks to the top, without needing to shift the ET's position too much  (after all, they did put the lox tank on top in the real shuttle ET for this reason ;))

on another point, just to know, what kind of problems did you have with the fairing hidden SRBs that made you go with a fairingless version ?

I found that with 1 SRB they worked fine, but with all the clipped SRB,s I would get on or two randomly with the stowed bug,  leading to disastorous results, i tried all sorts of positions. Also the attachment via subbassembly or merge was very painful.

The tanks in the ET are 7200's, I will try shifting them around and any other fixes people can recommend, like how to enable the OMS fuel with a bitton click.

Edited March 21, 2016 by selfish_meme

[selfish_meme]

I'm a bit dissapointed by the video quality might have to reupload it

[Majorjim!]

Just now, selfish_meme said:

I'm a bit dissapointed by the video quality might have to reupload it

Nice idea. Spend a little time on it. When you have some that is.

[sgt_flyer]

1 hour ago, selfish_meme said:

I found that with 1 SRB they worked fine, but with all the clipped SRB,s I would get on or two randomly with the stowed bug,  leading to disastorous results, i tried all sorts of positions. Also the attachment via subbassembly or merge was very painful.

The tanks in the ET are 7200's, I will try shifting them around and any other fixes people can recommend, like how to enable the OMS fuel with a bitton click.

for the oms fuel tanks with a 1 button click, if you use Thuds as OMS, you can put the fuel tank behind a docking port (then pull your fuel lines from the docking port to the engine)

disable fuel crossfeed on the docking port, the crossfeed toggle can be used through action groups (1 single docking port is enough to use that, no need to put two of them :))

here's a quick album for that trick  

for the fairing based SRBs, if you want, i can try to build one to your specifications (through PM if you want) diameter, length, thrust - i'll even break the symmetry inside, so it'll be much easier to place - with 1 additionnal trick for easy symmetric placement)  - i'll just have to know if you're using Claw's stock bugfixes or not (as the fairings can behave a bit differently with or without those bugfixes, especially with drag ;))

 

[Majorjim!]

Just now, sgt_flyer said:

for the fairing based SRBs..

 

Or wait for 1.1 as you may want to rebuild them anyway after 1.1 as you cannot cover the whole SRB with one fairing. It will be infinitely easier.

[selfish_meme]

1 hour ago, sgt_flyer said:

for the oms fuel tanks with a 1 button click, if you use Thuds as OMS, you can put the fuel tank behind a docking port (then pull your fuel lines from the docking port to the engine)

disable fuel crossfeed on the docking port, the crossfeed toggle can be used through action groups (1 single docking port is enough to use that, no need to put two of them :))

here's a quick album for that trick  

for the fairing based SRBs, if you want, i can try to build one to your specifications (through PM if you want) diameter, length, thrust - i'll even break the symmetry inside, so it'll be much easier to place - with 1 additionnal trick for easy symmetric placement)  - i'll just have to know if you're using Claw's stock bugfixes or not (as the fairings can behave a bit differently with or without those bugfixes, especially with drag ;))

 

Thanks for that I had already been thinking about decouplers, either will work, will do that later

Edited March 22, 2016 by selfish_meme

[Comrade Xmir]

Woah, it looks really good!