Shuttle Adventures: An Album of Kerbalized Space Shuttle Missions

[Spaceman.Spiff]

1 hour ago, Kuiper_Belt said:

I have taken the profiles in the TUFX Profile folder and uploaded them to google drive. You can find them here. Enjoy! Remember these aren't mine! I've just found the on the internet in the past and I cant find them now.

Thank you!!!!

[AmateurAstronaut1969]

On 5/26/2021 at 8:24 PM, Kuiper_Belt said:

I have no how I would get my hands on them again at this p point as they've seem to have vanished. Perhaps I am not looking well enough or in the right places... Hopefully this helps!

Well I’m sorry to say but Alverro doesn’t really want to share them because people he gave them to would share them around without his permission. You could possibly ask him and he might say yes

Also I don't really want to answer on his behalf, but he hasn’t answered so far

[lemon cup]

STS-34: October 18th, 1989

Besides being integral to the Shuttle-Mir Program and the construction of the ISS, Space Shuttle Atlantis is also distinguished as having launched 2 of the 3 interplanetary spacecraft of the Shuttle era. The first was the Magellan Venus probe on STS-30 in May 1989. Just 5 months later, it deployed the Galileo probe to begin it's 6-year long journey where it would become the first man-made object to orbit Jupiter. 

Originally designed to be launched atop a Shuttle-deployed Centaur G Prime upper stage on a direct Hohmann Transfer to Jupiter, the Challenger disaster caused NASA to deem the Shuttle/Centaur too risky, and abandoned the program. In it's place the safer - but less powerful - two-stage IUS solid rocket was adopted, which required a drastic redesign of the Galileo mission. Eventually JPL engineer Robert Diehl discovered the Venus-Earth-Earth gravity assist maneuver, which allowed the spacecraft to pick up velocity from the inner planets before being flung out to Jupiter. 

Despite protests from anti-nuclear groups over Galileo's Plutonium RTGs, STS-34 launched from LC-39B in the late afternoon of October 18th, 1989 with a 5-person crew. After successfully deploying Galileo, Space Shuttle Atlantis landed at Edwards Air Force Base five days later.

*Note: No EVAs were performed on the real-life STS-34 but I do get a kick out of watching my Kerbals un-strutting the payload.

Galileo came within 16,000km (about 4,000 in KSRSS 2.5x) of Venus' night side on its gravity assist. It had to re-fold its high-gain antenna to shield it from the intense radiation of the inner Solar System.





 

[Spaceman.Spiff]

1 hour ago, lemon cup said:

but I do get a kick out of watching my Kerbals un-strutting the payload.

Well they look like they’re having a blast!

Great mission!

[Kuiper_Belt]

11 hours ago, lemon cup said:

STS-34: October 18th, 1989

Besides being integral to the Shuttle-Mir Program and the construction of the ISS, Space Shuttle Atlantis is also distinguished as having launched 2 of the 3 interplanetary spacecraft of the Shuttle era. The first was the Magellan Venus probe on STS-30 in May 1989. Just 5 months later, it deployed the Galileo probe to begin it's 6-year long journey where it would become the first man-made object to orbit Jupiter. 

Originally designed to be launched atop a Shuttle-deployed Centaur G Prime upper stage on a direct Hohmann Transfer to Jupiter, the Challenger disaster caused NASA to deem the Shuttle/Centaur too risky, and abandoned the program. In it's place the safer - but less powerful - two-stage IUS solid rocket was adopted, which required a drastic redesign of the Galileo mission. Eventually JPL engineer Robert Diehl discovered the Venus-Earth-Earth gravity assist maneuver, which allowed the spacecraft to pick up velocity from the inner planets before being flung out to Jupiter. 

Despite protests from anti-nuclear groups over Galileo's Plutonium RTGs, STS-34 launched from LC-39B in the late afternoon of October 18th, 1989 with a 5-person crew. After successfully deploying Galileo, Space Shuttle Atlantis landed at Edwards Air Force Base five days later.

*Note: No EVAs were performed on the real-life STS-34 but I do get a kick out of watching my Kerbals un-strutting the payload.

Galileo came within 16,000km (about 4,000 in KSRSS 2.5x) of Venus' night side on its gravity assist. It had to re-fold its high-gain antenna to shield it from the intense radiation of the inner Solar System.





 

Another beautiful mission!

[QuantumNight12]

On 5/23/2021 at 9:42 PM, Kuiper_Belt said:

I would like to apologize for the wait of this one. I have had multiple issues with this mission which necessitated a restart. I also was playing around with the mods again and lost track of time. Those with keen eyes will have noticed that the Space Center look completely different from different missions AND this launch! I have installed Katniss Cape Canaveral for KSRSS and boy is it beautiful. More missions to come! Hopefully faster than last time... 

 

Hiya, quick question, was wondering if you could provide a link for the patch for Katniss Cape Canaveral for KSRSS because I honestly can't find it anywhere haha? Thanks!

[Kuiper_Belt]

2 hours ago, QuantumNight12 said:

Hiya, quick question, was wondering if you could provide a link for the patch for Katniss Cape Canaveral for KSRSS because I honestly can't find it anywhere haha? Thanks!

Here you go! It really changes the way the game feels

[QuantumNight12]

5 hours ago, Kuiper_Belt said:

Here you go! It really changes the way the game feels

Thank you so much!

[Kuiper_Belt]

Sneak Peak! 

STS-31 coming soon...

[Kuiper_Belt]

STS-31 April 24, 1990

STS-31 was the launch of the now legendary Hubble Space Telescope (HST or Hubble). Carrying a crew of 5, Space Shuttle Discovery would deploy the HST with the Canadarm. At the time of deployment, Discovery would break the record orbit altitude of the program.  Discovery would lift off from Pad 39 in the morning next to her sister ship, Colombia awaiting launch for STS-35.

The Hubble Space Telescope is a joint project between NASA and ESA.  Housing the largest primary mirror designed for near-infrared, ultraviolet and of course visual light, Hubble is the largest optical space telescope in history and is intended to take high resolution pictures of the universe to study it. Though after a flawless deployment, ground control discovered that the primary mirror was ground incorrectly,  which caused an effect called spherical aberration to manifest in all picture taken. Hubble was designed with the ability to be serviced by the crew but not to the extent of removing and replacing the primary mirror. Luckily the mirror was wrong very precisely, allowing equally precise optical instruments to be designed and launched to Hubble on a future flight.

After 5 days and 1 hour in orbit, discovery would land at Edwards Airforce Base Runway 22 in California. Discovery would fly back to Kennedy Space Center to be refurbished and fly again on STS-41. With the problem with Hubble discovered it would wait until STS-61 in 1993 before it would be serviced by Space Shuttle Endeavour. 

I had a lot of fun with this mission! The Canadarm is always a bit of a challenge but when it works out it is always rewarding. For the most part I'm happy with my Hubble design but I feel like the solar arrays are lacking compared to the actual ROSA esc arrays. If anyone has any suggestions to make the more like them I'm all ears! More missions coming soon!

[Spaceman.Spiff]

17 minutes ago, Kuiper_Belt said:

If anyone has any suggestions to make the more like them I'm all ears! More missions coming soon!

I think Near Future Solar has a Hubble-esqe array. 

[lemon cup]

On 6/3/2021 at 6:12 AM, Kuiper_Belt said:

April 24, 1990

STS-31 was the launch of the now legendary Hubble Space Telescope (HST or Hubble).

Breathtaking... The bar has been raised! 

On 6/3/2021 at 6:30 AM, Spaceman.Spiff said:

I think Near Future Solar has a Hubble-esqe array. 

Yep it does have a large rotating array (the Aries I think?) that can be Tweakscaled down. Though it doesn't look totally correct either because the panels become paper-thin at that scale, and looking at the real-life Hubble its panels are quite chonky. (EDIT: Just learned that Hubble was originally equipped with large roll-out solar arrays, I’ve only ever seen the rigid ones so apologies for the confusion.)

Oh and interesting fact, some may wonder why STS-31 flew after STS-34 and STS-36 for example. NASA changed the numbering scheme after STS-9 to use a code designating the Shuttle Program's fiscal year and a letter to indicate their sequence within the year. Many high-profile missions were planned to launch on Shuttles in the mid-1980s - Magellan, Ulysses, Galileo, and Hubble to name a few - but the Challenger disaster caused NASA to halt everything and reassess the entire program. When the fleet was cleared to fly again, they went back to naming missions in sequential order, HOWEVER that sequence was based on when the mission planning started. Therefore Hubble received the mission number 31, but because of technical problems and delays, actually flew after several other missions. (Shuttle missions eventually got back on track late in the program)

Edited June 22, 2021 by lemon cup

[Beccab]

Would a Shuttle II mission and/or the ELA proposal Shuttle launch fit this thread? I'll always prefer doing proposed missions to the ones that actually flew

[Kuiper_Belt]

19 minutes ago, Beccab said:

Would a Shuttle II mission and/or the ELA proposal Shuttle launch fit this thread? I'll always prefer doing proposed missions to the ones that actually flew

This would absolutely fit! I have been thinking about doing the Skylab reboost mission but I'm waiting for the BDB retexturing to go live... I saw your amazing rendition of Early Lunar Access and was blown away! I'd love to see what else you've got. If you have any questions get in touch with me in DMs!

[Beccab]

November 16, 2009
First Operational Shuttle II flight (Fictional)
Carrying the commercial Bigelow-1 touristic station, the mission was a complete success, preparing the station for the B-1 mission that will carry the first tourists to the inflated module.

Edited June 6, 2021 by Beccab

[SpaceFace545]

2 hours ago, Beccab said:

November 16, 2009
First Operational Shuttle II flight
Carrying the commercial Bigelow-1 touristic station, the mission was a complete success, preparing the station for the B-1 mission that will carry the first tourists to the inflated module.

Uggh! Why don't you use the payload doors like the rest of us! 

(said in a Napoleon Dynamite voice)

[Beccab]

5 hours ago, SpaceFace545 said:

Uggh! Why don't you use the payload doors like the rest of us! 

(said in a Napoleon Dynamite voice)

Blame the Johnson Space Center for that!

But seriously, the way the payload bay was going to open is dumb: no way to put a Canadarm, can't put separate payloads in there, much less area from where the payload can come out...

[lemon cup]

21 hours ago, Beccab said:

November 16, 2009
First Operational Shuttle II flight
Carrying the commercial Bigelow-1 touristic station, the mission was a complete success, preparing the station for the B-1 mission that will carry the first tourists to the inflated module.

Great looking mission, it was just very recently that I tossed around trying out a Shuttle II build... but the engineering challenge seemed really intimidating to me. 

Not only did you seem to find a great engineering solution but you also managed to make it look epic!

13 hours ago, Beccab said:

can't put separate payloads in there, much less area from where the payload can come out...

I figure the idea behind Shuttle II was probably to revisit and try to successfully realize the original idea behind a near-fully reusable space plane. At the program’s inception, Shuttle was never meant to carry huge payloads - it wasn’t until the DOD got involved that the vehicle became a huge space truck, and required huge expensive hardware to get into space.

[Beccab]

Fictional mission of the film "Space Cowboys"
The mission's plot is, roughly, that the massive Soviet communications satellite "IKON", a relic of the cold war, of which the electronic system was based on stolen Skylab schemes, is now out of control and soon to reenter. The government insists on sending a crew on a Space Shuttle to attach boosters to it and send it to a stable orbit. Naturally, being a film (and a shuttle mission in general ) it doesn't go as intended and stuff happens.

Heavy spoilers from the film, so I've put it under one
 

Spoiler

Liftoff from Cape Canaveral!


Booster separation.

Tank jettison.

After the orbital insertion, payload bay opening, revealing the four small boosters that are going to be installed on IKON for the orbit boost

Visual contact with IKON and beginning of the (slow) rendezvouz

As the shuttle comes closer to IKON, the arm is extended preparing for the final approach

Contact!

The Shuttle and IKON together.


Beginning of the space walk.

Woah, Earth.

Inital inspection of IKON.

Wait. Those are nukes!

IKON getting angry because of people messing with its electronics

IKON extending its nuclear missiles preparing for a possible launch.

Ready for his destiny, William "Hawk" Kerman goes to the top of IKON, with the objective to pilot the satellite to the moon and crash it

Separation of the Orbiter.

Ignition.

Deorbit burn.

Preparation for reentry.
Reentry.

 

[QuantumNight12]

Was wondering, how do you get the ReStock SSME's to use LH2/O2? I'd assume a b9partswitch patch or something but I was trying to figure it out and got nothing, thanks!

[lemon cup]

11 minutes ago, QuantumNight12 said:

Was wondering, how do you get the ReStock SSME's to use LH2/O2? I'd assume a b9partswitch patch or something but I was trying to figure it out and got nothing, thanks!

The mod CryoEngines includes a patch that converts the Vector, Mammoth, Rhino, Skiff, and Skipper to use LH2/Ox. But the patch is not in the GameData portion of the mod download, it is included in the “Extras” folder where you can take the patches that you want and manually place them in your own GameData folder. 

Also make sure you have the latest versions of CryoTanks, CommunityResourcePack, and B9PartSwitch.

 

[QuantumNight12]

14 minutes ago, lemon cup said:

The mod CryoEngines includes a patch that converts the Vector, Mammoth, Rhino, Skiff, and Skipper to use LH2/Ox. But the patch is not in the GameData portion of the mod download, it is included in the “Extras” folder where you can take the patches that you want and manually place them in your own GameData folder. 

Also make sure you have the latest versions of CryoTanks, CommunityResourcePack, and B9PartSwitch.

 

Oh really awesome, can't believe I didn't notice it I use CryoEngines all the time haha, thanks a lot!

[Kuiper_Belt]

A new definition of serenity.

STS-41-B coming soon!

Edited June 8, 2021 by Kuiper_Belt

[Beccab]

Can anybody find any picture of Zubrin's Athena Mars Flyby? The only information i could find was this http://astronautix.com/a/athenamarsflyby.html and the original document, but no pics. It's the mission I never knew I wanted to replicate, I really hope it at least reached inspirational drawing stage
If there isn't any, I'd be forced to replicate the Shuttle-C or even worse the Shuttle-Z to make any of the other planned shuttle based mars missions

Edit: My backup plan in case no drawing is found is now this http://www.astronautix.com/p/planetarysoxpedition1983.html, using **18** shuttle launches to assembly a mars spacecraft

Edited June 7, 2021 by Beccab

[lemon cup]

 

On 6/6/2021 at 2:50 PM, Beccab said:

Fictional mission of the film "Space Cowboys"

Oh sweet, I am somewhat ashamed to admit I have never seen Space Cowboys, so I did some searching on that. Great job replicating the IKON!

12 hours ago, Beccab said:

Can anybody find any picture of Zubrin's Athena Mars Flyby? The only information i could find was this http://astronautix.com/a/athenamarsflyby.html and the original document, but no pics. It's the mission I never knew I wanted to replicate, I really hope it at least reached inspirational drawing stage

I also couldn't find any graphics on this mission, I think it never left the proposal stage. It sounds like it consists of just a few habitation modules and a basic propulsion module, so if I were to try to create it I'd make a craft using SSPXR, CryoEngines/Tanks, in the 50 ton range, and then break it up into Shuttle-sized modules. 

12 hours ago, Kuiper_Belt said:

STS-41-B coming soon!

Can't wait. Looks like Challenger is going to be getting a double feature, I've got the proposed but unflown STS-61-F coming later this week.