Every Launch. Real time.

[sevenperforce]

AFSPC-11

Not a lot is known about this mission, and there are a LOT of components, so...I did the best I could.

Love how well the Atlas V 551 comes together, though.

Spoiler

I don't really know entirely what AFSPC-11 is. I know it's a military relaysat comanifested with EAGLE, a geostat experimental deployment platform, and I know EAGLE has MYCROFT, which presumably stands for Mushroom Yellowstone Creamsicle Reversion Orbital Flight Test. So I made it up as I went along.

Here's the Centaur SEC.

And the Atlas Common Core with the 5-meter fairing.

Boosters.

All five.

And here we go, ready for launch!

Will post the rest of the mission after the mission.

And on to launch!

RD-180 ignition:

Boosters lit, and away!

Burn time on my core is not as high as Atlas V, so I need a really lofted trajectory. The real thing starts pitch-over almost immediately, more noticeably than this.

Supersonic and booster sep. I did them all at once rather than in sequence.

With a shorter burn on my core than I should really have (the core has to launch only partly full or the engines can't quite manage a good TWR) the challenge was getting high enough before blowing the fairing.

There goes the fairing! 

The fairing recedes and I'm preparing for stage separation.

Separation and RL-10 ignition!

My Centaur has really ridiculously low TWR. At least apoapse is past 100km.

Onward and upward.

All right, I think I'll make it.

TWR still very very low. I think that for realism I should be putting less prop into Centaur and more into the core.

It was a long, long burn.

Finally!

Now to coast around (really to periapse, though in reality it would be to the equator) for the GTO burn.

All systems go.

Ullage burn:

RL-10 restart!

Nice closer  view of AFSPC-11 and EAGLE.

Well on my way.

Almost done.

That'll do it!

Now for the long coast.

Up at apoapse with my KSO circ burn planned.

Third restart!

Slowly...

Looks good to me!

Sep-1!

Centaur will flip and deorbit.

Ullage...

Back to "home"!

Next sep:

Money shotttttt!

Getting my solar panel out on EAGLE.

So here's AFSPC-11. What does it do?

Well, it does this:

And this:

So that's cool, right?

Closeup of various experiments on Eagle:

And, finally, MYCROFT away:

AFSPC-11 was circularized in KSO. MYCROFT was placed in circular supersynchronous orbit just above KSO so it will listen in on each of the orbiting comsats as they circle beneath it. EAGLE will...well, do whatever EAGLES do.

 

Edited April 15, 2018 by sevenperforce

[sevenperforce]

Blagovest 12L

This mission's payload is technically classified, but earlier versions of Blagovest are available to see online, so I built it around that.

The version I built ended up being much lighter than the actual sat, so I had to heavily sandbag the Proton-M. Proton-M is much, much more capable than what we see here. 

Spoiler

So, the real thing looks something enerally like this. A few antennae, etc.

The Briz-M upper stage is really neat to build. A core with a recessed engine, and a toroidal drop tank. The new hollow decouplers come in handy. I really should have put these inside of one of those structural tubes but I'm not sure if it would be the right size, and I can't tweakscale it.

Upper stage with one fixed engine and four verniers.

Second stage with four engines matching the third engine's size, but with gimbal.

Finally, the first stage. Did a lot of tweakscaling here.

Completed stack!

Ready on the pad.

Liftoff!

Ascending fast.

Pitching over quickly.

Approaching staging at Mach 1.8.

Staging!

With the real Proton, the fairing probably comes off during this portion of the flight, but obviously I can't do that.

Proton-M is very capable. I would have probably made orbit on this stage alone if I hadn't cut the fuel lines early.

Third stage ignition!

Slightly closer picture of the verniers.

Fairing away.

Nearly orbital, so it's time to fire up the Briz-M.

And we're in orbit!

Warping around to my periapse for the GTO burn.

GTO insertion burn. I believe that Briz-M is supposed to perform GEO insertion for Blagovest, so that's what I planned to do here.

Continuing the burn. I suppose I could have wrapped the drop tank in tweakscaled radiator panels to make it look better.

And, finished the burn, warping out to apoapse for the circ burn.

Drop tank dropped.

Continuing inclination change and circularization.

Now just circularizing.

Payload jettison!

Opening everything up.

We're about 200 m/s short of kerbostationary orbit at this point.

That should do it!

 

[sevenperforce]

Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS)

I accidentally flew this one several days early, on the day it was originally planned. Oh well.

The payload here was neat to build, because I think I got it pretty close to the real thing, but the mission planning was just as cool. I had to use Falcon 9 to place it into a high elliptical orbit, then use its onboard thruster to raise its periapsis just high enough to get the right phase for the Mun gravity assist. Then, one orbit later, I had to boost again into a TLI for a moon flyby to bring me up into a bi-elliptic transfer. After the moon flyby, I did inclination adjustments at apoapsis and then brought my apoapse down at periapse (this was actually the longest burn) so that I had a 2-resonance with the Mun.

Meanwhile the Falcon 9 upper stage left the Kerbin system.

Spoiler

Here's TESS. Using a fairing to approximate the sunshield (I suppose I could have used radiator panels but they wouldn't have been quite as pretty) and everything else was pretty straightforward. Using just a single tweakscaled-down linear thruster for propulsion. The real TESS has four auxiliary thrusters for pointing in addition to its four reaction wheels, but that would have been overkill.

Putting together the Falcon 9 is easy at this point.

Lower stage, reusable version:

Ready on the pad! I realize I'm launching at dawn rather than dusk...oh well.

Brisk coming off the pad!

Pitching over immediately. This payload is VERY lightweight.

Falcon is supersonic.

Not going very lofted because I'm landing downrange.

Just about bingo on fuel.

Separation!

MVac ignition.

Leaving the upper stage to burn and switching back to the first stage.

Airbrakes out and beginning the flip.

Boostback burn...not that it's really necessary.

Three engines up.

And, boostback shutdown.

Back up to TESS and the second stage. Fairing deployed. Engine should be running at this point but it shut down, obviously.

And we're in a stable orbit!

S1 is rapidly descending.

Entry!

Nice clean entry burn.

Landing burn in 3, 2, 1....

Single-engine landing burn start.

Two adjacent engines started. The actual mission used a 0-1-0 landing burn but I didn't realize this.

Legs deploying...

Legs down!

Splashdown! 

One of these days I will try to get a barge out there, but today is not that day.

Falcon 9 upper stage is coasting.

Node set, time for the apoapse-raising burn!

That was quick. This is just a REALLY lightweight payload.

Separation. Note that the payload was mated upside-down.

S2 performs its heliocentric insertion burn.

That's a good escape!

Testing out the thruster on TESS.

Closeup.

I couldn't do all four, but...

Planning the phasing orbit very carefully.

First burn for phase orbit.

I've got the flyby.

Here comes the flyby!

Getting out to the top of the bi-elliptic transfer.

Now, lowering my apoapse to get timing right.

Fine adjustments:

This should do it!

Because I'm now in an ellipse tangent to a perfect circle with a period exactly half of that of the circle, I end up being exactly the same distance from the Mun at all times:

All done!
 

A couple more shots:

 

 

Edited April 19, 2018 by sevenperforce

[sevenperforce]

Sentinel 3B

This is my first time with Eurockot, but I'd already built the Briz upper stage, so it went quickly.

Spoiler

The payload was an interesting build:

Another view:

I built the Briz-M before, so converting to Briz-KM was as simple as removing the drop tank:

The upper stage has a fixed vacuum nozzle and four verniers. The verniers fire at separation; the fixed core nozzle fires thereafter.

Saving the subassembly:

And here's the four-engine first stage!

Just the build for now; I'll upload the rest of the mission later.

It was pointed out to me by @tater that I need a launch tube, so:

The DLC structural tubes are GREAT.

On the pad.

Liftoff!

TWR wasn't QUITE what it should be but I couldn't very well tweak those engines much larger and still have it look right. I hate using Vectors for everything.

Starting the gravity turn. Targeting a near-polar sun-synchronous orbit.

Well past Mach 1 and climbing.

Approaching S1 burnout.

Separation! The four verniers ignite with staging.

Apologies to everyone living north of the KSC.

Ignition of the core gimbal-locked engine.

This was the worst of the heating effects.

Climbing, throttling down.

Fairing jettison.

This is the Briz-KM, without the drop tank. On reflection, I'm not sure I like the way it looks. I may add some structural elements tweaked down for extra realism the next time I fly it.

Setting a circ node.

Here's the Briz-KM circ burn.

Glamour shot.

And we made it!

Separation.

Deorbit burn for the Briz.

Solar panels out and ready to start surveying!

 

 

Edited April 26, 2018 by sevenperforce

[Ultimate Steve]

Nice, are you planning to build a launch tube for Rockot?

[sevenperforce]

11 hours ago, Ultimate Steve said:

Nice, are you planning to build a launch tube for Rockot?

Yep, I did. @tater pointed out that it needs a launch tube so I added that. See above.

[sevenperforce]

Apsat 6A

This launched today on a Chinese Long March 3B, which I had already built once so it was a quick mission.

Sandbagged for the LM3B, though.

Spoiler

This is supposed to have three antennae and a known bus. I matched the bus pretty well.

Cryo upper stage:

Hypergolic second stage:

Fixing up that readily-recognizable fairing between S2 and S3:

The second stage hot-stages off the first.

Those four boosters:

And now it's all put together!

On the pad.

Hypergolic engine ignition!

Climbing quickly.

Throttled down (ostensibly to reduce gee-loading; really to sandbag the LV's capabilities):

Right after staging:

Approaching S1 burnout:

S2 ignition and hot staging!

Continuing the ascent on the hypergolic second stage.

Fixed center nozzle; four verniers. I set a node so I can do this properly.

Burnout a few minutes later. Blowing the fairings.

Cryo stage ignition:

GTO burn setup.

Starting the GTO burn at periapse.

Rounding it out. Will have a nice supersynch transfer.

Separation, array deployment, and comms out!

Warping around to my inclination fix node.

Inclination correction burn. With a bi-elliptic transfer, is it more efficient to do the inclination fix first, and then raise periapse, or do them both at once?

I did them in pieces.

Periapse-raising burn.

Warping around to lower apoapse:

Turning down the engine for fine adjustment.

This should do it!

 

[sevenperforce]

NASA InSight Launch

This was a long-anticipated mission! I built the lander and cubesats and tested them separately. Then, when I went to test the launch, I realized that this was the first time I had launched an Atlas V without any strap-on boosters and there simply wasn't nearly enough thrust, so I uprated the CCB's engine significantly.

This mission will be split into two posts: one for the launch, and one for Duna EDL.

Designing the trajectory and transfer window on this one was REALLY challenging.

Prelaunch:

Spoiler

The transfer and EDL vehicle:

This is my first time using the Atlas V 400 series fairing.

The two cubesats:

Common Core booster:

Completed stack:

On the pad, and warping to my launch window:

The rest of the mission will post after the launch!

Launch:

Spoiler

Liftoff!

Cleared the tower.

Pitching south. I went more for an exact polar orbit than the coast-hugging approach for the real mission, because my trajectory was less assured.

Go Centaur, go RL-10.

RL-10 has a really poor TWR.

Fairing away

Can you spot the kubesats?


And there's our parking orbit.

Transfer node set.

This is close enough.


Timing is everything.

Ullage burn.
RL-10 startup 2!

Really nice trajectory shot.


Wider view.

Looking good.


InSight separation!

DunaKo-A away!
Opening solar panels.

Antenna deployed.
DunaKo-B away!

All systems go.

And now, the long, long journey.



That's all, folks!

 

Edited May 5, 2018 by sevenperforce

[sevenperforce]

CRS-14 Return

This one didn't take long at all.

Spoiler

CRS-14's mission is almost complete!

I had to start by undocking and remating the external payload:

Then it was time for spacecraft separation.

Burning clear of the ISS:

Deorbit burn:

Good entry trajectory!

Entry and splashdown in a few hours.

<timeskip>

Nice silhouette shot here...


Closeup of chute system.

Trunk jettison.

Entry beginning.

Getting hot in here!

I think I will come down in a good place.

Yeah, looks good.

Drogues out.

Drogues released; popping the mains!

Splashdown in 3, 2, 1...

Here goes.

Home!

 

 

Edited May 6, 2018 by sevenperforce

[NSEP]

I sort of want to try this in Realism Overhaul, hmmmmm.

Nice work!

[sevenperforce]

6 hours ago, NSEP said:

I sort of want to try this in Realism Overhaul, hmmmmm.

Nice work!

It's more work than I thought it would be!

[Ultimate Steve]

@sevenperforce I'm guessing you've moved on, which is fine. Not pushing you or anything. Just making sure it's not anything else.

[sevenperforce]

5 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

@sevenperforce I'm guessing you've moved on, which is fine. Not pushing you or anything. Just making sure it's not anything else.

Yeah, I got too slammed between work, home, and law school to keep it up. Sucks, because I enjoyed this. It was a good 3-4 months tho!