Shuttle Adventures: An Album of Kerbalized Space Shuttle Missions

[Kuiper_Belt]

An End of an Era...

STS-135 and a special announcement coming soon!

[Kuiper_Belt]

STS-135 July 8, 2011

10 years ago at the day this is released, Atlantis would fly STS-135, the Final Shuttle Mission. STS-134 was the final scheduled mission for the program but Atlantis was stacked to fly as STS-335, a contingency mission what would be flown if STS-134 had a problem which resulted in it being unable to reenter.  NASA decided that the fully stacked Atlantis could be flown as STS-135. The smaller crew of 4 was chosen as a result of it being the Final mission with no backup. Due to the small crew size, they could be brought back over time by a series of Soyuz flights. Thus they launched with Sukol space suits and Soyuz seat liners. STS-135 carried the Raffaello MPLM which carried supplies to stock up the ISS one last time using The Shuttle. The Crew of STS-135 consisted of Chris Ferguson, Doug Hurley, Sandra Magnus, and Rex Walheim launched from Pad 39-A at 11:29 AM EDT. 

Once in orbit, the crew used the Orbital Boom Sensor System to examine the leading edge of the wing to make sure Atlantis was fit for reentry.

In addition to using the OBSS, the Rendezvous Pitch Maneuver was performed prior to docking to photograph the Thermal Protection System so personnel on the ground could examine the tile and make sure Atlantis was fit for landing.

After docking, Canadarm 2 extracted the MPLM to attatch it to the ISS allowing the combined crews to unload the cargo to the ISS.

On flight day 5, during a Space Station EVA, Ron Garan became the last person to do an EVA inside of a Shuttle payload bay

For the final mission, The ISS rotated 90 degrees so they could get an alternate for photographs view during fly around. 

Atlantis also released the final satellite of the Shuttle Program, PicoSat.

Atlantis and the Shuttle Program was retired at wheels stop on Runway 15 of the Shuttle Landing Facility at 5:57 EDT, right before sunrise. No person would enter the ISS from the Russian segment until SpaceX's Demo 2 mission where STS-135 crew member Doug Hurly would be the first to enter along side his crewmate, Bob Behnken. STS-135 capped off in my opinion the most exciting NASA program to date. No spacecraft has matched the beauty and grace of the Space Shuttle and it will be a bit until it is eclipsed if ever.  

On this anniversary of STS-135 I would like to announce ISS Adventures, a sister series to Shuttle Adventures where myself and @lemon cup are recreating every mission and the construction of the ISS. These are two massive projects to run next to each other and I'd appreciate it if you check it out! 

I'd also like to thank you guys for nominating the thread for TOTM! It means a lot!

More missions coming soon!

[pTrevTrevs]

On 7/8/2021 at 1:44 PM, Kuiper_Belt said:

STS-135 July 8, 2011

10 years ago at the day this is released, Atlantis would fly STS-135, the Final Shuttle Mission. STS-134 was the final scheduled mission for the program but Atlantis was stacked to fly as STS-335, a contingency mission what would be flown if STS-134 had a problem which resulted in it being unable to reenter.  NASA decided that the fully stacked Atlantis could be flown as STS-135. The smaller crew of 4 was chosen as a result of it being the Final mission with no backup. Due to the small crew size, they could be brought back over time by a series of Soyuz flights. Thus they launched with Sukol space suits and Soyuz seat liners. STS-135 carried the Raffaello MPLM which carried supplies to stock up the ISS one last time using The Shuttle. The Crew of STS-135 consisted of Chris Ferguson, Doug Hurley, Sandra Magnus, and Rex Walheim launched from Pad 39-A at 11:29 AM EDT. 

Once in orbit, the crew used the Orbital Boom Sensor System to examine the leading edge of the wing to make sure Atlantis was fit for reentry.

In addition to using the OBSS, the Rendezvous Pitch Maneuver was performed prior to docking to photograph the Thermal Protection System so personnel on the ground could examine the tile and make sure Atlantis was fit for landing.

After docking, Canadarm 2 extracted the MPLM to attatch it to the ISS allowing the combined crews to unload the cargo to the ISS.

On flight day 5, during a Space Station EVA, Ron Garan became the last person to do an EVA inside of a Shuttle payload bay

For the final mission, The ISS rotated 90 degrees so they could get an alternate for photographs view during fly around. 

Atlantis also released the final satellite of the Shuttle Program, PicoSat.

Atlantis and the Shuttle Program was retired at wheels stop on Runway 15 of the Shuttle Landing Facility at 5:57 EDT, right before sunrise. No person would enter the ISS from the Russian segment until SpaceX's Demo 2 mission where STS-135 crew member Doug Hurly would be the first to enter along side his crewmate, Bob Behnken. STS-135 capped off in my opinion the most exciting NASA program to date. No spacecraft has matched the beauty and grace of the Space Shuttle and it will be a bit until it is eclipsed if ever.  

On this anniversary of STS-135 I would like to announce ISS Adventures, a sister series to Shuttle Adventures where myself and @lemon cup are recreating every mission and the construction of the ISS. These are two massive projects to run next to each other and I'd appreciate it if you check it out! 

I'd also like to thank you guys for nominating the thread for TOTM! It means a lot!

More missions coming soon!

I just…. I just miss her so much, fellas. Life ain’t the same without a shuttle launch to look forward to..

[AmateurAstronaut1969]

On 7/8/2021 at 7:44 PM, Kuiper_Belt said:

STS-135 July 8, 2011

10 years ago at the day this is released, Atlantis would fly STS-135, the Final Shuttle Mission. STS-134 was the final scheduled mission for the program but Atlantis was stacked to fly as STS-335, a contingency mission what would be flown if STS-134 had a problem which resulted in it being unable to reenter.  NASA decided that the fully stacked Atlantis could be flown as STS-135. The smaller crew of 4 was chosen as a result of it being the Final mission with no backup. Due to the small crew size, they could be brought back over time by a series of Soyuz flights. Thus they launched with Sukol space suits and Soyuz seat liners. STS-135 carried the Raffaello MPLM which carried supplies to stock up the ISS one last time using The Shuttle. The Crew of STS-135 consisted of Chris Ferguson, Doug Hurley, Sandra Magnus, and Rex Walheim launched from Pad 39-A at 11:29 AM EDT. 

Once in orbit, the crew used the Orbital Boom Sensor System to examine the leading edge of the wing to make sure Atlantis was fit for reentry.

In addition to using the OBSS, the Rendezvous Pitch Maneuver was performed prior to docking to photograph the Thermal Protection System so personnel on the ground could examine the tile and make sure Atlantis was fit for landing.

After docking, Canadarm 2 extracted the MPLM to attatch it to the ISS allowing the combined crews to unload the cargo to the ISS.

On flight day 5, during a Space Station EVA, Ron Garan became the last person to do an EVA inside of a Shuttle payload bay

For the final mission, The ISS rotated 90 degrees so they could get an alternate for photographs view during fly around. 

Atlantis also released the final satellite of the Shuttle Program, PicoSat.

Atlantis and the Shuttle Program was retired at wheels stop on Runway 15 of the Shuttle Landing Facility at 5:57 EDT, right before sunrise. No person would enter the ISS from the Russian segment until SpaceX's Demo 2 mission where STS-135 crew member Doug Hurly would be the first to enter along side his crewmate, Bob Behnken. STS-135 capped off in my opinion the most exciting NASA program to date. No spacecraft has matched the beauty and grace of the Space Shuttle and it will be a bit until it is eclipsed if ever.  

On this anniversary of STS-135 I would like to announce ISS Adventures, a sister series to Shuttle Adventures where myself and @lemon cup are recreating every mission and the construction of the ISS. These are two massive projects to run next to each other and I'd appreciate it if you check it out! 

I'd also like to thank you guys for nominating the thread for TOTM! It means a lot!

More missions coming soon!

Amazing mission, but I want to ask how did you get modular Launch pads working with Katniss’ cape, 2.5x KSRSS Configs? I literally have no clue how

[lemon cup]

5 hours ago, AmateurAstronaut1969 said:

Amazing mission, but I want to ask how did you get modular Launch pads working with Katniss’ cape, 2.5x KSRSS Configs? I literally have no clue how

Figured I’d go ahead and chime in while I’m online. Kuiper_Belt taught me that if you want to use Modular Launch Pads with Katniss, you MUST make your craft’s Root Part something that, once spawned, sits to the left or right of the “Flame Trench.” This is because the bottom of the trench has colliders and KSP judges that to be the “ground” therefore Kraken-ing your ship into the pads left-and-right colliders on spawn, unless you have the root part clear of the trench. For example, the MLP tower base makes a good root part.

The only obstacle this introduces is it messes with the staging between your rocket and the MLP launch base. To solve this you must add a decoupler between the base and your rocket (instead of relying on the pad’s built-in decoupler) and cleverly clip it into either the base or your rocket.

Hope this helps!

Edited July 11, 2021 by lemon cup

[AmateurAstronaut1969]

3 hours ago, lemon cup said:

Figured I’d go ahead and chime in while I’m online. Kuiper_Belt taught me that if you want to use Modular Launch Pads with Katniss, you MUST make your craft’s Root Part something that, once spawned, sits to the left or right of the “Flame Trench.” This is because the bottom of the trench has colliders and KSP judges that to be the “ground” therefore Kraken-ing your ship into the pads left-and-right colliders on spawn, unless you have the root part clear of the trench. For example, the MLP tower base makes a good root part.

The only obstacle this introduces is it messes with the staging between your rocket and the MLP launch base. To solve this you must add a decoupler between the base and your rocket (instead of relying on the pad’s built-in decoupler) and cleverly clip it into either the base or your rocket.

Hope this helps!

Ah that’s perfect thanks. Do you think there could be a way to delete the colliders at the bottom of the pad?

[lemon cup]

7 minutes ago, AmateurAstronaut1969 said:

Ah that’s perfect thanks. Do you think there could be a way to delete the colliders at the bottom of the pad?

Well I sure don’t have the expertise to answer that positively, but I believe that the colliders are defined in the 3D model mesh for the pads. So unless you’ve got experience with Blender, I think not. 

[AmateurAstronaut1969]

13 minutes ago, lemon cup said:

Well I sure don’t have the expertise to answer that positively, but I believe that the colliders are defined in the 3D model mesh for the pads. So unless you’ve got experience with Blender, I think not. 

Ah okay.

Thanks

[TruthfulGnome]

4 hours ago, lemon cup said:

Figured I’d go ahead and chime in while I’m online. Kuiper_Belt taught me that if you want to use Modular Launch Pads with Katniss, you MUST make your craft’s Root Part something that, once spawned, sits to the left or right of the “Flame Trench.” This is because the bottom of the trench has colliders and KSP judges that to be the “ground” therefore Kraken-ing your ship into the pads left-and-right colliders on spawn, unless you have the root part clear of the trench. For example, the MLP tower base makes a good root part.

The only obstacle this introduces is it messes with the staging between your rocket and the MLP launch base. To solve this you must add a decoupler between the base and your rocket (instead of relying on the pad’s built-in decoupler) and cleverly clip it into either the base or your rocket.

Hope this helps!

i found a better way

you can use the free standing pads that are found in the Extras folder of MLP, you have to put like 6 stock clamps on the bottom and raise it a bit, much easier and cleaner

[Kuiper_Belt]

STS-96 May 27, 1999

STS-96 was the second crewed mission to the ISS. Following STS-88 Discovery, would fly with her crew of 7 to the orbital outpost and continue work to build it out. Carried on this mission were various components that were meant to be added to the exterior of the station to aid in its construction. Several tons of cargo was carried as well by The SPACEHAB Double Module. In addition the Shuttle Vibration Forces Experiment was carried for the second time and was active for the first 100 seconds of flight. The Orbiter Integrated Vehicle Health Monitoring HEDS Technology Demonstration or IVHM-HTD was carried to help make decisions on potential upgrades to the Orbiter.  Last but not least, Discovery carried STARSHINE. A satellite that was designed to be tracked on the ground by students across the Earth via its highly reflective surface. Discovery would wait until dawn and lift off from Pad 39-B and begin her mission.

The only EVA of STS-96 consisted of crew members Tamara Jernigan and Daniel Barry. They were tasked with installing, among other things, the Russian STRELA cargo crane and the US cargo crane, the Orbital Transfer Device.  At the time, this EVA was the second longest ever recorded.

Discovery touched down at SLF Runway 15 at 2 AM EDT after her 9 day mission. Discovery spent nearly 6 days docked to the ISS. Afterwards, Discovery would be refurbished and reflown as STS-103 and service The Hubble Space Telescope. 

The early mission to the ISS are fun to make! Also the part count is less  so that makes it better. More missions coming soon!

Edited July 13, 2021 by Kuiper_Belt

[chaos113]

your missions are amazing and i hope to one day be able to reach the level you are at

[lemon cup]

Trying to figure out what this monstrosity might be good for, if anything...

I thought it might be enough to put the shuttle on a Trans-Lunar injection, but not quite!

It CAN easily send the Shuttle to GTO. Then potentially deploy a large payload with its own circularization motor. But the prospect of reentry afterwards would be a little... uncertain.

[KeaKaka]

10 hours ago, lemon cup said:

Trying to figure out what this monstrosity might be good for, if anything...

I thought it might be enough to put the shuttle on a Trans-Lunar injection, but not quite!

It CAN easily send the Shuttle to GTO. Then potentially deploy a large payload with its own circularization motor. But the prospect of reentry afterwards would be a little... uncertain.

Science has gone too far!

[JoeSheridan]

On 7/20/2021 at 10:06 AM, lemon cup said:

Trying to figure out what this monstrosity might be good for, if anything...

I thought it might be enough to put the shuttle on a Trans-Lunar injection, but not quite!

It CAN easily send the Shuttle to GTO. Then potentially deploy a large payload with its own circularization motor. But the prospect of reentry afterwards would be a little... uncertain.

This gives me some "Armageddon"-vibes

[SpaceFace545]

On 6/29/2021 at 2:21 PM, pTrevTrevs said:

It’s just cursed.

well your cursed 

[e of pi]

On 6/29/2021 at 3:15 PM, lemon cup said:

I’m personally very glad you took the time to put this together and think it turned out great! I love the station livery on the side of the ET.

I got curious and read through some of the posts about this on AlternateHistory.com. Very fascinating and well thought-out concept, especially the accommodations for the inflatable passageways in the intertank. Was this idea based on a real proposed concept or is it fictional?
 

Sorry for the old derail/tangent, but it was based a lot on a couple real studies, interpreted to play up the cursedness of the whole idea. You can read some descriptions and samples of those sources here.

[Kuiper_Belt]

An Update:

As you've probably been aware, this place has been rather quiet! It's a regret of mine to not have been working on this as much as I'd like to but I've been grinding out ISS Adventures with Lemon cup. I originally felt like posting ISS Shuttle Missions to here and ISS Adventures but I feel like that would be redundant. Perhaps I'll make a post with a list of the completed ISS Shuttle Missions with links so you can view them. Just an idea. But do not worry for hopefully this drought will soon end! I've got some ideas in the pipeline, for starters the closest to done is STS-86, Atlantis's last flight to Mir. But I've got STS 51 A and a Shuttle - Skylab Mission in the conceptual stages and a post dedicated to The Venture Star. I've thought about doing other Shuttle Derived Vehicles such as Ares, DIRECT, SRB-X, and SLS but I feel like they'd be a little far from the Shuttle part of the thread. I've got very little free time as of late but I want to keep this alive and well! Any feedback on what I've said here would be appreciated as well as and ideas you may have! Catch you later!

Actually... It wouldn't be a post from me without a picture so...

Endeavour on approach to the ISS (top right corner ) from STS-100.

Edited August 31, 2021 by Kuiper_Belt

[Neebel]

11 hours ago, Kuiper_Belt said:

I've thought about doing other Shuttle Derived Vehicles such as Ares, DIRECT, SRB-X

I would very much love to see this, possibly some Shuttle evolutions and proposed projects involving the Shuttle as the main LV as @Beccab already impressively did. 

 

But regardless of how you and Lemon are going to continue the thread, I'm very happy it's not being abandoned!

[Kuiper_Belt]

Sunbathing

STS-86 Coming soon!

[Jim123]

Anything you guys are doing to get the shuttle robotic arm from wobbling around and able to carry habtech modules to build stations?

[Kuiper_Belt]

STS-86 26 September, 1997

STS-86 was flown by Atlantis and would be Atlantis's seventh and final mission to Mir. Flying from the U.S. to the Russian Station had been the sole job of Atlantis since it first made the voyage to dock on STS-71. This specific Shuttle-Mir mission was special due to the fact it was the first Shuttle mission to the dock after the collision with Mir and Progress M-34.

Atlantis carried the SPACEHAB Double Module to ferry up cargo and experiments to Mir. Atlantis also had the task to replaced Michael Foale with David Wolf. Standing by at Pad 39-A at Kennedy Space Center, STS-86 waited for a 10:34 PM EDT launch to Mir.

Authors note: Gamma is turned up for this portion of flight for your enjoyment

After Atlantis reached orbit, the crew imedielty began phasing orbits with a rendezvous with Mir planned in 2 days time. 

Gamma returned to normal levels after this point.

After docking, the crew began work exchanging cargo and eventually switched out Wolfs seat for Foale to return to Earth. Astronaut Scott Parazynski and Cosmonaut Vladimir Titov both prepared for the EVA where they would retrieve experiments mounted on the side of the station and sealed leaks on the damaged Spektr module.

After the EVA, the crew continued work on Mir and prepared to undock. Atlantis, undocked from the outpost on October 3rd at 17:28 UTC after being docked for 5 days 21 hours. Atlantis would never again see Mir. Endeavour and Discovery would carry out the final two Shuttle-Mir missions.

After backing away, Atlantis waited in orbit for 3 days to deorbit and land at Kennedy. 

Atlantis landed at Shuttle Landing Facility Runway 15 at Kennedy Space Center on October 6th at 5:55 PM EDT. Atlantis would be temporarily removed from service for maintenance and to become the first orbiter to receive the glass cockpit, modernizing her systems for future flights and preparing her for missions to the future ISS. Her next mission STS-101 would be to the new ISS with the upgrades.

It feels good to be back! This mission had been the first to use my own custom TUFX configs. I'm quite pleased with them so far. If there is demand for them to be released for public use I wouldn't be opposed, I would need to round out some things before releasing them though. My upcoming plans for the series is to have the second Shuttle Skylab mission, STS-51-A. I have decided that I want to cover DIRECT and the Jupiter rockets at some point so look out for that!

I'll be posting a list of myself and Lemon's completed ISS related Shuttle missions soon!

 

Edited September 3, 2021 by Kuiper_Belt

[pTrevTrevs]

On 9/1/2021 at 8:18 PM, Kuiper_Belt said:

Sunbathing

STS-86 Coming soon!

What is that SPACEHAB actually made of? I know it’s a kitbash, but is it made of custom flag decals or what?

[Kuiper_Belt]

On 9/2/2021 at 9:41 AM, Jim123 said:

Anything you guys are doing to get the shuttle robotic arm from wobbling around and able to carry habtech modules to build stations?

So generally what I do is set the traverse speed to 1. Whenever I want to move a joint I lock all the others so they can’t go too wild too easily. NEVER EVER use physics time warp when manipulating a payload. And lastly and certainly most importantly is to have Patience. Waiting and taking everything slow is incredibly good at keeping everything running smoothly. 

19 minutes ago, pTrevTrevs said:

What is that SPACEHAB actually made of? I know it’s a kitbash, but is it made of custom flag decals or what?

Nobody knows! It’s a mystery on how it came into existence…  All jokes aside, Lemon made it out of a Cormorant Shuttle Satellite Dispenser that’s upside down and open. Its texture comes from custom conformal decals painting it to look like it does. Inside it there’s a clipped hab module from Benjees surface base mod so crew can be stored in it, though I never really put anyone in there. It’s masterfully done and some of the finest kit bashing that I’ve ever seen!

[Kuiper_Belt]

Missions To The International Space Station - Volume 1: Nov 1998 - Apr 2001

In myself and @lemon cup's sister series ISS Adventures, we've flown several missions in the process of it assembly. It wouldn't really make sense to post 2 missions that are the same to two different threads. I don't want to leave a massive void of missing missions from this catalogue especially since ISS missions were almost the only missions a shuttle flew in its final years. My solution to the problem is this! A table of contents of sorts, linking all of the shuttle missions to the ISS. Do note that this only has 1998 - 2001  because that's how far we currently are as of writing. Every so often I'll list out the missions we've done so you could pop open a new tab and have read and look at some nice screenshots! Every mission will be linked in the missions designation and date.

STS-88 & Unity - December 4th, 1998 By: Lemon Cup

STS-96 - May 27th, 1999 By: Kuiper_Belt

STS-101 - May 19th, 2000 By: Lemon Cup

STS-106 - September 8th, 2000 By: Kuiper_Belt

STS-92 Z-1 & PMA-3 - October 11th, 2000 By: Lemon Cup

STS-97 & The P6 Truss - November 30th, 2000 By: Kuiper_Belt

STS-98 & Destiny - February 7th 2001 By: Lemon Cup

STS-102 & The MPLM - March 8th, 2001 By: Lemon Cup

STS-100 & CanadArm 2 - April 19, 2001

As of writing this is where we are! I would highly recommend reading through the entirety of ISS Adventures as the Soyuz, Progress and Russian Module launches are just as important to its progression.  Hope you guys enjoy!

Edited December 28, 2021 by Kuiper_Belt

[Jim123]

On 6/1/2021 at 8:18 PM, 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.





 

What version, TUFUX  config and subflare?