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4472TJ

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Welcome to Mission Complete where I post the missions I have done with pictures, tutorials and the craft I use for download. The way the forum works is the earliest missions are towards the start (eg pages 1, 2, and 3) and the missions done nearest to the time of reading are at the back (eg pages 25, 26, and 27). 

Happy Reading!

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  • 1 month later...
  • 1 month later...

Finally after 17 hours of KSP over 3 days I have completed what I'm set achieve. A shuttle.

There were many setbacks but I persevered. Setbacks include, real life, people and natural bodily functions (I learned from last time that a wet computer is a computer less for you). 

The basic phases of development were as follows: air tests, these were used to test the shuttles capability in the air, mainly for landing and pitching in re-entry, then came booster development, it took a while to figure liquid is better than solid, so two "custom" boosters were fashioned with two vector engines per booster. I launched and the second the boosters fell the craft (that is the shuttle plus the main fuel tank) span out and died. So to fix the issue I added two (you guessed it) vector engines on a structural Mk1 fuselage and limited the thrust to 45, lo and behold it worked until I detached the main tank. I tried accelerating just the shuttle in space and it span out. So I added two smaller liquid engines the back that could gimbal (the three I placed couldn't) and that was fixed. After that a long, shallow re-entry angle tested the heating of the craft to the limit, but it survived and was in the atmosphere in one price. The only problem now was landing, as in first stage development, the weight of the craft was different so it handled better, now it was impossible to pitch up the nose, so that was fun slowing down from over 2000 m/s, also me not being any sort of pilot and never drove any vehicle I think I did a good job, only the front half survived and so did the crew, so in Kerbal standards that was a success! 

However not all missions went as well...

Like the Columbia disaster (2003) in an earlier version of my shuttle the right wing was struck by a piece of debris, the right booster and the whole wing was destroyed the craft however was so high in the atmosphere that there was no aerodynamic effect. We decided at mission control to attempt re-entry

1 because I had heard of a fighter pilot land a craft with a wing sheared and

2 because I can't do orbital rendezvous 

As the craft performed the deorbit burn the accelerator jammed open and instead of a nice shallow angle it was steep and over land and not water so not good news. The craft rolled to the non wing side with the winged side stuck out backwards. After re-entry the control was appalling and I couldn't control it, so I deployed the drogue shoots and it slows to 30 m/s but the nose crashed into the ground and all crew were killed.

A lesson to be learned here, be careful with your booster debris!

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