Binary Aerospace

[rawghi]

CURRENT ACTIVITIES

PERSEUS PROGRAM - METEOR PROGRAM - HORIZON PROGRAM - SUMMIT PROGRAM

 

Company Informations

Introduction
Operating Facilities
Qualification Process
Company Profile
Kerbonauts Roster
The Kerbal Space Center

Programs

Newsfeed

April 8th 2018
April 12th 2018
April 16th 2018
April 20th 2018
April 26th 2018
May 5th 2018
May 7th 2018
May 9th 2018
May 11th 2018
May 16th 2018

Additional Content

Current mods and game version

Products
Space Division
(hangar on KerbalX)
COMET LAUNCHERS SERIES

Jet Laboratories
(hangar on KerbalX)
A-1 AEROJET

F-3 FALCON

B-4 RAVEN

D-5 WATCHMAN

Edited May 16, 2018 by rawghi

[rawghi]

Introduction
Hello everyone!
I’m a long time player of Kerbal Space Program, I believe I started messing with rockets (and learning a little rocket science) since version 0.21 or something. I love this community, especially all the modders that created really wonderful pieces of code in these years and prolonged the life of our beloved KSP.
I love give scope to my games, I countlessly started careers and ended up stuck on Duna or somewhere else, piling up enormous amount of mods and enormous amount of playtime. One thing I always wanted to do was an after action report of some sort, I tried some time ago but failed miserably (as hundreds of differents aar I made for other games, only one became huge and was for Aurora 4x on a foreign language forum).

What I wanted to do now instead is to approach things differently, meaning that I want to move forward from the after action report concept (and the career itself) because I believe that when you do that for the 20x time.. it become repetitive, landing on the Moon is no longer something that you see as a big achievement, ramping up through the initial stage of space exploration is no more satisfactory. So I wanted to move to a “SpaceX like” approach, creating a fictional company which focus would be develop rockets, planes, spacecrafts and make them available to the community, thus forcing me to focus on vanilla assets and rely only on utility mods (that I will later list). Then showcasing them as a company would do, adding flavors and backstory to this fictional organization. (You can see a wonderful example in Raptor’s Craft Download Catalog)

Mods will be no more an option then, especially part mods that I love to death, but this will only allow me to experiment on what it is on the box (and hopefully keep compatibility between each KSP upgrade) and allow people that want to test my creation to do that without altering their installation. I’m sure anyway that what I will create will be terrible, and around our community there are thousands of people that can do better things but my main intent is anyway FUN, for me and for the reader.

The fictional company would be called Binary Aerospace and as you can see it has a mountain logo. There is a little backstory, in my previous fictional run I’ve had a similar scenario and I called the company Alpine Aerospace (hence the mountain logo, I love mountains) but I recently discovered that a real company with that exact name exists! So I wanted to change to something like… Summit, and you know what? Another company exists (Summit Aerospace). I had to change, so I was thinking that since my daughter is called Beatrice (and I love her a lot) and my surname starts with A, it would have been nice create something with BA… and I ended up with Binary, partially because I’m a developer, partially because I’m a big fan of Mass Effect universe and a company there is called Binary Helix.

I know, I have to visit a shrink sooner or later.

Operating Facilities
Binary Aerospace operates mainly from the former Kerbal Space Center, which was dismissed and sold to the company after being extensively used by the Kerbal Aerospace Institute during the early exploration of the Kerbol system.
The complex is composed by several buildings used by the company for various purposes: along a towering Vehicle Assembly Building and a Spaceplanes Hangar, Binary restored a Laboratory, an Astronaut Complex and several other facilities.
Along the KSC, Binary Aerospace bought an abandoned airfield on an island nearby, a launchpad located in the approximately between the KSC and the North Pole on the opposite of Kerbin (at 45 degree of latitude, who le the KSC lies at the equator) and rented rooms on 5 major tracking stations along the whole planet.

Edited April 10, 2018 by rawghi

[rawghi]

Newsfeed - April 8th 2018

Binary Aerospace staff is happy to announce the start of the operations and share the first week accomplishments!
While we're working to prepare all the legal and informative stuff about the company, the directors board kicked off three major program that was already assigned and being worked by each division of the company. The programs are:

Comet Program: Assigned to the Space Division, the program will take care of the development of the first family of rockets of the company (named Comet). The initial goal is to manufacture and test a 1, 2 and 3 ton to orbit launchers. The team reported the successful testing of the first of the three, the 1 ton version, but at the moment we have no further details or images of the launcher. Major operations were performed at the KSC with an additional launch at the Woomerang Launch Site for a total of 4 missions.

Ares Program: The program was assigned to the Jet Laboratories and it will be a long running project aim to deliver a series of military aircraft that will cover most of the market needs, from light fighters to bombers. JL staff reports that 4 mission already took place and details on the first jet will be released soon. Also, two test pilot of the company were able to perform the first flights.

Summit Program: The Summit program is being developed by the Skunkworks and its aim is to develop experimental craft. No informations are available at the moment but we had details about a test performed in this very last days on the runway.

The company is also proud to announce that a partnership program was signed with KerbalX, a craft distribution marketplace, and soon the first vessel will be available there.
That's all for the first, short newsfeed and stay tuned for further news!

 

CEO notes (non-fiction)

I love to create some fictional stories and lore behind the game that I play, so, along with building and testing the first vessels (I'm in the Spacecraft Exchange after all!), I wanted to create some graphics as additional stuff to make the things more interesting, and I probably continue to do so along the way.
My plans are complete each program and then upload to KerbalX the craft files along with adding here some nice images and blueprints, for doing that I'm also waiting for having Kronal Vessel Viewer updated for 1.4.2. In the meantime I'm trying to uderstand what will be the best way for recording telemetry data that I would like to specify on each craft sheet. For images, I've already setup another game instance with a lot of graphical mod that will surely help me in the process of getting nicer shots than the vanilla one (were I keep only minimal utilities mods for having the best possible performances to test the various creations).
That's all for now, if you have read till here, well, thank you!

[rawghi]

Qualification process

Binary Aerospace strive to achieve excellence in built hardware and meeting customer expectation based on the specified operational range and qualities of the products.

For granting the above assumption, a series of rules are in effect and define the qualification process that the company enforce before providing general availability of the mentioned products.
Below you can find these rules organized by product category.

Launch Systems

• Achieve specified whitesheet capabilities, especially related to the payload ratings.
• Provide safe launch when nominal conditions are met, with a failure rate below 5%.
• Specify when the system is not able to reach passivation status, non-specified values mean that the system will have enought energy be able to reentry in atmosphere and achieve destruction either via thermal disintegration or impact to the ground.
• When specifying payload capabilities, assume that:
  • Lower capability missions MUST be applicable (e.g.: a 1 ton to geostationary orbit capable launch system must to be able to reach low Kerbin orbit with the same payload).
  • Lower payload size COULD apply to higher capability missions (e.g.: a 2 ton to low Kerbin orbit capable launch system could reach geostationary orbit with 1 ton payload), Binary Aerospace cannot test each configuration but will provide further details when possible.
• Achieve automatic orbit positioning following the below autopilot profile (MechJeb2):
  • Ascent Profile:
    Gravity turn start at an altitude of 3,500 m or velocity over 98.9 m/s
    Gravity turn end set at 60,000 m
    Gravity turn shape set at 40%
  • Autopilot settings:
    Limit Q at 20,000 pa
    Angle of attack limit at 5% with pressure fadeout set at 2,500 pa
    Force roll climb set at 90° turn 90°
• System will come equipped with his own command computer (can be referred as "command core"), to ensure maneuverability after payload release.

Atmospheric jets

• Achieve specified whitesheet capabilities.
• Able to takeoff safely without special maneuvers when SAS (Stability Augmentation System) is enabled.
• Able to land safely without special maneuvers.
• Able to maneuver safely under service ceiling.
• Able to land unpowered.

Spaceplanes

TBD

Satellites/Probes

TBD

Spacecraft

TBD

Ground vehicles

TBD

Rovers

TBD

 

Edited April 10, 2018 by rawghi

[Atlas2342]

The amount of detail put into this is amazing! I’ll be keeping a close eye on this thread

[rawghi]

21 minutes ago, Atlas2342 said:

The amount of detail put into this is amazing! I’ll be keeping a close eye on this thread

Thank you @Atlas2342! 

[rawghi]

Company Profile 

Below you can find the current company profile of Binary Aerospace:

 

Edited April 10, 2018 by rawghi

[rawghi]

Kerbonauts Roster

Binary Aerospace employs a number test pilots, engineers and scientists that operates directly on the assets that are manufactured by the company. These assets can vary between aircrafts, spacecrafts and rovers and the task of these employee is usually to test or pilot them. These highly trained specialists are called "Kerbonauts" and they spend most of their time inside the Astronaut Complex (AC), a building located at the entrance at the KSC. Inside the AC, Kerbonauts endure both physical training and theoretical lessons that allow them to master the vessels they are intended to staff and manage all kind of unexpected situations that may happen.
Below you can find a list of Kerbonaut hired by the company:

Jebediah Kerman - Pilot - Hired on April 6th 2018

Valentina Kerman - Pilot - Hired on April 6th 2018

Bob Kerman - Scientist - Hired on April 6th 2018

Bill Kerman - Engineer - Hired on April 6th 2018

Geneemy Kerman - Pilot - Hired on April 8th 2018

Wenmore Kerman - Engineer - Hired on April 18th 2018

Joebin Kerman - Engineer - Hired on April 26th 2018

Edited May 5, 2018 by rawghi

[rawghi]

COMET PROGRAM

Operational Unit: Space Division
Start Date: 6th April 2018
End Date: 26th April 2018
Goal: Develop a series of light launch systems able to delivery payload till 5 ton
Status: Closed
Scope: Closed
 

Assets Planned:

• Comet I (R-1A) - 1t to LKO, multistage
• Comet II (R-1B) - 2t to LKO, multistage
• Comet III (R-1C) - 3t to LKO, multistage
• Comet IV (R-1D) - 5t to LKO, multistage
• Comet Mono (R-1E) - 1t to LKO, single stage CANCELLED
   

Program Description

The Comet Program will be the first commissioned to the Space Division and its goal is to allow the company to challenge the rocket market with a new family of light launchers. The program will envision an extensive usage of the VAB and the LaunchPad, plus a possible launch at the Woomerang Launch Site. 
The assets that will be produced will be a series of five rockets: four rockets will be roman rumbered (Comet through I to IV) that will be able to deliver 1, 2, 3 and 5 ton payloads to Low Kerbin Orbit (LKO, ranging from a nominal 70-250 km), and the last one (the Comet Mono) will be an economic version of the Comet I that will feature a single able to reach orbit. Every rocket will be tested and qualified granting that the above conditions will be fully met and they will be equipped with onboard computer and stabilization wheels that will facilitate the ascent.
 

Kerbonauts

The program will not feature Kerbonauts.
 

Launches

A total of 32 launches were performed before the GA of the launchers, one of them from the Woomerang Launch Site. In 9 launches the assets were not able to fullfill the targeted mission goal, 1 launch saw the destruction of the vessel due to issues with the attitude stabilization system, 2 launches were cancelled at launchpad.
 

Produced Assets

• R-1A Comet I - 1t to LKO
  Light launcher and the first developed by Binary Aerospace. Able to carry 1 ton of payload to Low Kerbin Orbit (between 70-200km). It's composed by two stages: the lower S-CLS1 and the pper S-CHS for a total DV of 4,345 m/s. Lower stage is powered by a LV-T30 liquid fuel engine while the S-CHS using a LV-909 liquid fuel engine. It has a total cost of 8,790 Funds, each model is provided with disposable launch clamps and the upper stage has enough fuel to be deorbited after the mission is completed.
• R-1B Comet II - 2t to LKO
  The Comet II is the jewel of the fleet, having applied all the improvement from previous Comet I testings. It cost less than the Comet I due to optimized tail fins. The Comet II feature a total DV of 4,116 m/s with a payload of 2 tons. Both upper and lower stages were improvedm, with the lower S-CLS2 sporting again a LV-T30 engine and the upper S-CHS+ that are also used in the Comet III and Comet IV.
• R-1C Comet III - 3t to LKO
  The Comet III is the first of the series to feature additional boosters. In fact, two CSRB solid rocket boosters featuring a RT-10 rocket motor are attached to the lower S-CLS3 stage that is an upgrade of the S-CLS2 used on the Comet II. The III has a total cost of 12,818 Funds and provide a total DV of 4,214 m/s. The upper stage is the streamlined S-CHS+-
• R-1D Comet IV - 5t to LKO
  The final launcher of the series is the Comet IV, which feature a new "core", the S-CLS32 twin engine and replace the solid boosters with two liquid boosters, derived from the S-CLS3 lower stage itself and named S-CLS3/S. These two additional boosters used a modified version of the LV-T30 engine, the LV-T45 that allows for attitude adjustments. The final cost is higher, with 19,488 Funds, but nearly doubling the previous model payload, in fact the Comet IV is able to sport a total DV of 4,541 with a maximum payload of 5 tons.
   

General Availability (on KerbalX)

Images

Outcome

The program was successfully completed. Four out of five launch systems were successfully developed. The "Mono" version was skipped as it was deemed not cost effective and too much unreliable to make it available to the global market.
 

 

Edited April 26, 2018 by rawghi

[rawghi]

ARES PROGRAM

Operational Unit: Jet Laboratories
Start Date: 6th April 2018
End Date: 4th May 2018
Goal: Develop a series of military aircraft to cover the attack, multirole, bomber and drone role.
Status: Closed
Scope: Closed

Assets Planned:

• A-1 Aerojet - Single seated attack aircraft
  • ER - Extended Range variant
  • R - Rocket Assisted Take-Off (RATO) variant
• A-1S Aerojet - Single seated recon aircraft
• F-3 Falcon - Twin seated multirole aircraft
  • ER - Extended Range variant
• B-4 Raven - Bomber
• D-5 Watchman - Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
   

Program Description
The Ares Program will be developed by Jet laboratories and major operation will take place inside the SPH and on the Runway of the KSC. The intent is to place Binary Aerospace as a major competitor in the military market covering a broad line of aircraft types. For the A-1 and the F-3 an Extended Range variant will be available and will feature extenal disposable fuel tanks for extra mission time. The A-1 will also feature a RATO (Rocket Assisted Take-Off) variant, intended to be employed on short runways for emergency operations. 
The program will have an opened scope, meaning that along with the assets planned and based on the success of the offerings and market reception there will be the possibility of additional assets development before the official closure of the research and testing part of the program.  
 

Kerbonauts

 Jebediah Kerman
 Valentina Kerman
 Geneemy Kerman
 Wenmore Kerman
 Bill Kerman
 Joebin Kerman

Launches

The testing and qualification of the total assets was performed over 22 flights. 4 of the 22 flights were failures with 1 of them due to bad performance of the initial test of the A-1, 2 were failed to take-off of the D5 and 1 a crash of the D-5 after shortly take-off from the runway.
 

Produced Assets

• A-1 Aerojet - Single seated attack aircraft (Main, ER variant, R variant, S variant)
  The A-1 is the first aircraft produced by Binary Aerospace, it's a subsonic plane born with attack role in mind and the capability of air to air attack on low intensity scenario. It's primary feature is an exceptional versatility and maneuverability and an impressive range due to the high reliable J-33 turbofan engine. Along the main variant, three additional variants has being developed. The ER (Extended Range) and the R (RATO, Rocket Assisted Take-Off) can be adapted over the main variant, the ER feature two droptanks attached to the wing that allow for an extended range, while the R variant mount two ternary solid rocket boosters on the wingtips, allowing for a take-off on shorter runways. The final, S variant is a recon craft that mount a sophisticated video and photographic equipment on the fuselage called AIGP (Advanced Image Grabbing Platform), that allows the A-1S to capture images on the ground with a 10 cm resolution at the plane's service ceiling of 11,000 meters.
• F-3 Falcon - Twin seated multirole aircraft (Main, ER variant)
  The Falcon is a powerful multi-role aircraft that feature impressive speed and fast response time. Born specifically as an air superiority fighter, it also can mount Air to Surface missiles and bombs. It sports two J-X4 Turbo Ramjet Engine that push the plane to a maximum speed of over Mach 3 but impact the airplane range significantly. The F-3, like the A-1, feature the ER variant which is equipped with droptanks for extending the range of the plane. The Falcon is twin-seated, with the second pilot role of weapon specialist.
• B-4 Raven - Twin seated bomber
  The B-4 Raven is an high speed, high altitude bomber that can reach Mach 3.5 at over 10,000 meters. With a service ceiling of 17,000 meters is an ideal platform for delivery payloads deep into enemy territory. Is has a two pilot cockpit and a ventral bomb bay that can be safely opened at high speed. WIth a wet mass of over 23 tons is the heavier airplane produced by Binary Aerospace.
• D-5 Watchman - Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
  The Watchman is a UAV vehicle born with reconnaissance tasks in mind. Is a very small vehicle with a maximum range of 350km and is powered by a single J-20 Jet engine.
   

General Availability (on KerbalX)

Images

Outcome

The program was successfully completed. The scope, initially opened was closed due to the satisfaction of the developed assets that covers a wide range of operational roles.

Edited May 5, 2018 by rawghi

[rawghi]

SUMMIT PROGRAM

Operational Unit: Skunkworks
Start Date: D1Y1 (6th April 2018)
Goal: Develop a series of experimental vessels, primarly aimed to high speed and high altitude testings along with possibly spaceplanes.
Status: Ongoing
Scope: Opened

Assets Planned:

• X-2A Dart - Experimental high speed aircraft
• X-2B Dart - Experimental spaceplane  CANCELLED
• X-6 Centaur - Spaceplane
   

Program Description
Summit is an opened scope program that will handle experimental assets. Primary objective of Summit is high speed testing along with the possibility to develop a series of SSTO (Single Stage To Orbit) vessels able to reach space and return to the ground safely. The operational unit tasked with the program is the Skunkworks that will have the possibility to access both the SPH and VAB. Further details are unknown at the moment due to the nature of the project, the assets however will not be available to the market unless productized by Jet Labs or the Space Division but not definitely in this early phase of the program.

May 7th update: Due to X-2B Dart inability to perform as expected, the spaceplane will be cancelled and subsituted by the X-6 Centaur
 

Kerbonauts
TBD

Launches

TBD
 

Produced Assets and General Availability

TBD
 

Images

Outcome

TBD

Edited May 7, 2018 by rawghi

[rawghi]

Current mods and game version

The current game version is:
Kerbal Space Program - v.1.4.2
DLC - Making History Expansion

The current mods that I'm using, mainly for utility purposes are:
Action Group ReExtended - 2.3.3
Blizzy's Toolbar - 1.7.16.5
Chatterer - 0.9.94
Click Through Blocker - 0.1.61
Docking Port Alignment Indicator - 6.8.1
Kerbal Engineer - 1.1.4.7
KSP Alternate Resource Panel - 2.9.3.0
MechJeb 2 - 2.7.3.0
Mechjeb 2 Embedded - n/a
Module Manager - 3.0.6
notes - 0.14.01
NRAP - 1.5.11
S.A.V.E. - 1.5.2.3063
Toolbar Controller - 0.1.5.9

The above list is to ensure that all the craft files will be pure vanilla + official DLC, images and other media that will be published will be taken using a different game folder that will have graphical overhauls mod installed for aesthetic purposes.

[rawghi]

The Kerbal Space Center

[rawghi]

Newsfeed - April 12th 2018

Hello fellow customers and partners!

With this feed we would like to share some accomplishment we managed to reach during the last days. All our three programs are progressing, altough Skunkworks unit progresses were halted to have their teams helping out the Space Division in the final qualification process of the Comet I (R-1A). After several testings, for the 1 ton payload-able rocket, we get problems and strange readings in the last phases of the qualification. We discovered that the test payload was interfering with the SAS (stability augmentations system) of the rocket itself, hence in QA, where the rocket is also tested without the payload, the onboard computer perfermed wrong calculation during the ascent and ended up basically not performing the 40° gravity turn program embedded in the system.

The replacement of the SAS module did the job and then the rocket was fully qualified. The same goes for the Comet II (R-1B), the bigger brother of the aforementioned launch system, which mounted the same SAS and core module and after the replacement was qualified. At the moment the space division is about the qualify also the third of the LS, the Comet III (R-1C).

On the runway, the Ares program is proceeding by the book with the Jet Labs having tested extensively the first jet of the company, the A-1 Aerojet, with both the ER configuration (Extended Range) and the S configuration (Surveillance). The S is not really a configuration but an aircraft per se since the modification of the fuselage to accomodate the surveillance packet is extensive.

We currently cannot share media as our Marketing Division is put on hold by Legal due to some paperwork to finish, but we hope to do that soon!

 

CEO notes (non-fiction)

During this week I found some time to work out some graphics to add to enrich the story, and in the meantime I was testing and building the assets listed above. It was weird what happened with the SAS units, in fact I'm using NRAP to test payload weight and I discovered that NRAP bring his own SAS module (discovered... not really since it's crystal clear if you just take a look at specs ) and before saying "ok this rocket is qualified" I want to ensure to test it also with zero payload because if I say 1 ton payload I want to ensure that the same performance are achieved with less. Hence I discovered that the onboard SAS was too small to apply the necessary force to initiate the gravity turn.
I choose to add both a core unit and SAS to each launch system because even if it can be costly, the benefit of having the upper stage reentry or be put on a graveyard orbit in my opinion are greater and regardless of your payload you know that you can handle the rocket. For example you can add a probe without SAS and don't worry about how to maneuver your launch.

The "paperwork" to be finished before publishing media in reality is just that I'm waiting for KVV to be ported to 1.4, being LinuxGuguGamer the saviour of the mod, and having him maintaning more than 70 mods, I believe that he had a lot of stuff on his plate but the update will came sooner or later.

Thank you for reading and have a wonderful day!

[Raamster]

Wow... I just recently started following this game.. havent even tried it yet - but seeing community passion like this just makes me even more anxious to buy it and try it out. 

Awesome work.

[rawghi]

6 hours ago, Raamster said:

Wow... I just recently started following this game.. havent even tried it yet - but seeing community passion like this just makes me even more anxious to buy it and try it out. 

Awesome work.

Thank you @Raamster !

Edited April 13, 2018 by rawghi

[Walden]

This is absolutely well written and I love it! I used to do this roleplaying kind of stuff too but I wrote everything down in Microsoft Word. I even imagined divisions similar to yours such as the Rocketry, and Aerospace divisions. 

I definitely would like to see more from you in the future!

 

[rawghi]

23 hours ago, Walden said:

This is absolutely well written and I love it! I used to do this roleplaying kind of stuff too but I wrote everything down in Microsoft Word. I even imagined divisions similar to yours such as the Rocketry, and Aerospace divisions. 

I definitely would like to see more from you in the future!

 

Thank you @Walden! I really appreciate your comment!

[rawghi]

Newsfeed - April 16th 2018

Welcome back to BA periodic updates on our activities! Today we will have the first images coming from the KSC, let's view them immediately!

In the first image on the left you can see the A-1 Aerojet performing a flight over the island east of the KSC. The Jet Labs confirms that the aircraft is ready for entering the final qualification stage and all the variants were already developed. The aircaft performed greatly and has impressive maneuverability, moreover the J-33 Torbofan engine pushed the plane to a max speed of 0,94 mach with a service ceiling on 11,000 meters. The upcoming week will probably see the qualification of the plane and the Jet Labs moving to the F-3 Falcon.

The image in the center is the X-2A Dart, parked in front of the SPH. The aircraft is an experimental, cutting edge tech, prototype that is being developed by the Skunkworks. The craft endured two flight so far, where the first was unmanned. It's peculiarity is the ability to reach impressive heights and speed, surpassing over Mach 3. The projec is still in the early stages so we don't have additional details at the moment.

The last image, on the right, is a photo taken from a recon plane of the R-1B Comet II launch system ascending in the atmosphere. The R-1B is able to deliver 2 ton of payload on LKO, and it's the second LS (Launch System) in the Comet series developed by the company. So far all five Comet variants were already developed, and we got information regarding the possible cancellation of the last variant, the Comet Mono, which is supposed to be a single stage rocket. Due to inefficiencies, the price of the Mono (R-1E) resulted superior to both the R-1A (Comet I) and the aforementioned R-1B, therefore there aren't any commercial reasons to keep it in the company offerings, considering that a customer can simply buy a much more efficient and performing R-1B paying less.

You can click on each image to see them in full detail.

We hope to be able to disclose more details as soon as we sort out the legal issues mentioned in the previous update.
 

CEO notes (non-fiction)

While waiting for KVV to be updated, I posted some images anyway of some of the vessel I'm designing. I discovered some strange bugs in these days in my "quasi-vanilla" sandbox, probably related to NRAP when splashing down hard (let's say very hard) or Mechjeb Embedded. I will probably need to port the vassel in a new save file to clean things out, especially considering that all the progresses are tracked on a Google Sheet files, along with crew stats (at the moment only mission performed), so even recruiting back Kerbals will be very easy. Talking about craft files, I discovered that both Action Group Extended and Mechjeb Embedded (so probably also Mechjeb per se) put a lot of code in the file, so I'm really considering to disable both (AGX was used to better remember AG during flight, while Mechjeb to test an "immutable" launch profile and getting displayed telemetries, for the latter I think I will rely on KER for display), plus try to understand the reason of the issues with NRAP, eventually disabling it and create some test payloads. In the end I want that the files are 100% vanilla, so I need to be keen on this.
That's all for this update! Have a nice week folks!

 

Edited April 18, 2018 by rawghi

[SiriusRocketry]

@rawghi 

This is amazing! Thanks to your thread (and Raptor9's, which I only found a few days ago) I will be starting a thread of my own! Good luck to you, the future Binary Aerospace looks good!

 

P.S Did you just use Microsoft Paint to make the brochure stuff? I'd probably make something a little like it, with the help of KVV.

[rawghi]

1 hour ago, SiriusRocketry said:

@rawghi 

This is amazing! Thanks to your thread (and Raptor9's, which I only found a few days ago) I will be starting a thread of my own! Good luck to you, the future Binary Aerospace looks good!

 

P.S Did you just use Microsoft Paint to make the brochure stuff? I'd probably make something a little like it, with the help of KVV.

Thank you @SiriusRocketry!

I will surely follow you back, @Raptor9 as you said is actually what inspired me too!

I use Photoshop, if you don’t have it I suggest you GIMP, believe me it may take some time to master it but you’ll immediately see the benefits of working with layers rather than a plain file like Paint.

And yep, I’m waiting too for an updated version of KVV.

[rawghi]

Newsfeed - April 20th 2018

Welcome to a fresh newsfeed from Binary Aerospace! In this update we will talk about this week accomplishments and progresses.

Space Division's activities were definitely quiet, after qualifying the four variants of the Comet rocket, engineers are waiting to discose the necessary documentation on them along with made them generally available to the market. The Board of Directors is working in these days in planning the next step after the Comet program will be fully completed, rumors talks about the possibilities to focus next SD efforts on satellites or on a single seated spacecraft. Obviously the idea is to leverage on the above rocket family for lifting them to the orbit.

Jet Laboratories were on the contrary super busy in refining and testing the planned aircraft. 9 test flights were performed this week and, after having qualified the A-1 Aerojet and it's variants, engineers are at work with the F-3 Falcon, the D-5 Watchman and last but not least the B-4 Raven, with the maiden prototype flight held just yesterday (with flawless results). 
The D-5 development (D-5 Watchman is a lightweight drone) was not very straighforward as multiple issue were found, in fact 3 different test failed. In two of them, the drone literally crashed to the ground after a couple of meters of altitude, while during the third, the drone lost controls during a turn and again fell to the ground. Luckily these issue were addressed and now the the division can move forward with the development.

The Skunkworks was also very active with 3 flights, one for qualifying the high speed experimental plane X-2A Dart, and two with an unmanned prototype of the X-2B Dart, the spaceplane variant, that provide incredible data for the engineers by touching a speed of 4.5 Mach at high altitude, but unfortunately was unable to reach orbit. Engineers will probably need to apply more radical changes between the X-2A and the X-2B to have the latter reach space.

Some stats for you folks, here a graph with the subdivision of actual tests and flight (we call them "missions") per program:

Today last news is about a new kerbonaut that was hired and took part of the Ares program, Wenmore Kerman. We welcome her and wish her the best!

 

CEO notes (non-fiction)

I'm proceeding well this week with the airplane program, I will have some vacation in the next week so I may refresh a little myself and have some time to think about next steps, hopefully providing finally blueprints and craft files upon my return. In the meantime I experimented a little with KRPC, it's very useful without the need to add specific parts to the vessel for getting telemetry data.

There are quite super nice interfaces to view data, like MOCR, but what I really need is something that, along visualizing the data, grabs all the telemetry "max" that I need, like for example max recorded speed and plot some graph for ascent profiles. Hence I started writing my own telemetry tools, it will take some time (also because I intend to play and create vessel rather than developing all the time) but results so far are very nice. Since I want to create something modern and sleek, I'm developing an NW,js application upon the Vue stack (it's a modern javascript framework), relying on KRPC-NodeJS library since I can inject node being in NW.js environment. I will update you with more information as soon as I move forward.

That's all, thank you for your attention and have a nice day!

[rawghi]

Newsfeed - April 26th 2018

We are happy to announce the General Availability (GA) of the Comet Launchers Series!

Having completed all the legal paperwork needed, we were finally able to bring our first line of products to the market. The GA marks also the closure of the Comet Program and the ability for the Space Division to start focusing on brand new product lines, after an obvious support time dedicated to the market feedbacks on the Comets.
You can find all the details, images and blueprints on the COMET program page.

Here some images from the program page:

Feel free to contact our sales representative for demonstration and ordering, you can find the market link on the frontpage and the program page (KerbalX links)

 

CEO notes (non-fiction)

With the update of KVV (Kronal Vessel Viewer) for KSP 1.4 I was finally able to produce the necessary assets for publishing the craft (or making them "Generally Available" as I say in the fiction). The newsfeed per se has not many information as I spent a lot of time on the program page and the related blueprints and images. I'm very satisfied of the final look, next step will be the completion of the Ares program (planes) and the creation of the necessary art.

Thank you for reading and have a wonderful day!

[SiriusRocketry]

Wow... the effort you put into this is incredible! Looking forward to next update!

[Saxie81]

This is the post that pushed me to create an account here.  I love the fluff mate! great stuff.