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What did you do in KSP1 today?


Xeldrak

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1 hour ago, Fearless Son said:

Grats on a lovely spaceplane!  Looking at the engine configurations, I would estimate that this is one of the "aggressive ascent" types.

It is. She reached orbit from a 50-degree ascent, with 500 LF+ox to spare for orbital maneuvers.

 

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Those six Whiplashes will produce almost too much thrust for the lower atmosphere, so you would have to get up quickly before the spaceplane self-incinerates.

Heheh.....funny you should mention that. A previous test design was running with four Whiplash engines and a total loaded weight of 20 tons. That was just way too hot. She hit 1300 m/s in a matter of seconds, then the wings exploded off the plane. And we know where things go from there--once that first part comes off, you want to keep going and see how much longer until the plane becomes a funeral pyre.......

 

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The Poodle seems like just the right balance of weight, size, thrust, and efficiency for this kind of design, so that seems like a good choice.  Though looking at its fuel tank, it does make me wonder, do you have a "lip" between that tank and the passenger compartments?

Yup. Haven't figured that out yet. I could probably switch out the big fat Rockomax tank for four FL-T800 fuel tanks in two stacks of two, to get a flatter design, and replace the Poodle with a pair of aerospike engines. But that's more weight and more out-of-atmosphere thrust than is needed (for a 40-ton plane, 250 Kn on the LF+ox engine is just about right). For now I'm not gonna mess with it, because it actually works. ^_^

The other minor design issue is very low ground clearance. She's parked in orbit right now, and I'm expecting some issues when she comes back down.......

 

15 minutes ago, Kitspace said:

What mods do you use for decals and markings if any?

None. Those "wings" are actually stock FAT-455 tail fins.

Edited by GeneralVeers
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1 hour ago, Fearless Son said:

If that truly was Dune, there would be no surface liquids.  Shai Hulud would not tolerate them.  The sandtrout will find them, and the Little Makers will encyst them.  

 

1 hour ago, Fearless Son said:

If that truly was Dune, there would be no surface liquids.  Shai Hulud would not tolerate them.  The sandtrout will find them, and the Little Makers will encyst them.  

Then hmm, desert, rocky land, canyon water... It's Space Arizona!

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On 3/5/2016 at 10:34 AM, ShadowZone said:

I tried out a new SSTO design... went a bit haywire during reentry :P

Actually, doing a little more thinking about that kind of spaceplane design makes me think that is the perfect situation for a single drogue chute.  Watching your video, you could not recover full control by the time you touched down (even if it was a survivable crash.)  But a little drogue chute near the back of the plane would be ideal for stabilizing your control once you get into the lower atmosphere.  It will create a point of drag well aft of the center of mass, getting the nose pointed prograde.  Then you turn on the airbreathing engines, wait for them to spin up, and as they gain sufficient thrust to maintain lift you cut the drogue chute and come in for a powered or glided landing.  

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2 hours ago, GeneralVeers said:

Yup. Haven't figured that out yet. I could probably switch out the big fat Rockomax tank for four FL-T800 fuel tanks in two stacks of two, to get a flatter design, and replace the Poodle with a pair of aerospike engines. But that's more weight and more out-of-atmosphere thrust than is needed (for a 40-ton plane, 250 Kn on the LF+ox engine is just about right). For now I'm not gonna mess with it, because it actually works. ^_^

The other minor design issue is very low ground clearance. She's parked in orbit right now, and I'm expecting some issues when she comes back down.......

Try that adapter part I linked, it should be perfectly shaped for this and is a lifting-body surface, and there is only a minor difference in mass.  It carries less fuel, true, but being more aerodynamic it should be more efficient in atmosphere.  Maybe you could strip off a pair of Whiplashes to save some "dead weight" mass once you are past the airbreathing envelope to make up the difference.  Just some ideas to experiment with.  :)

As you are about to discover, while getting a spaceplane to orbit is one thing, but actually landing it is quite another.  Try not to come in nose-first, as though it feels the most natural, your aerodynamic front silhouette will actually work against you, cutting through the air without shedding speed fast enough and leading to an eventually re-entry incineration.  Try to come in belly-first, nose pointing radially outward.  You maximize the aerobreaking silhouette that way, slowing down faster and spreading the atmospheric compression forces across a greater surface area so no one part of the vehicle has to bare the brunt of the temperature build up.  Obviously with your low clearance for the tail you will pretty much have to land at the KSC runway, as you will need a very long, very flat landing surface so you can come in at the most gentle angle possible.  Set your wings to fully deploy when you engage the breaks so you can use them to slow down without flaring too much.  

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1 hour ago, musicpenguin said:

I'm currently working on a F-14 style plane for the BD armory 'Top Gun' contest, Making progress but keep on getting side-tracked by other things.

Nice, we need fighters. :cool:

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Made my first non-total-loss Mun landing with a basic habitat/base, but landed bad and lost four of seven crew. So now I've got one Kerbal in a Cupola and two in a mk2 Lander Can stranded on the Mun while I return to the drawing board for the habitat's landing system, it was too top-heavy.

After that, got a multi-module stack into a parking orbit for later rendezvous with my orbiting station, three new modules in one assembly for launch.

Edited by DonaldPK51
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I worked on this SCANsat-Sci delivery vehicle. Delivers 2 scanning satellites to a system. A bit unique.

k01bdhX.png

Started with a 3 drop, 3 drop booster and ended up with a 4 drop 2drop booster. Much better use of fuel :-)

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Finished off my mining base today, sent the last parts up, loaded them onto a tug and took them over to the Mun. The ore tanker, rover dock and hab all landed without much trouble. (The hab landed somewhere relatively flat!) The launch of the rover dock module completed a space station around Kerbin contract, the mine finished off a mine ore on the Mun contract, did a couple of take readings here and there contracts with the science rover, and did a rescue a Kerbal from around the Mun contract. Quite profitable. Still not seen any contracts for mun ore to Kerbin since I started building this. Also sent off some Kerbals to Minmus.

lFVIClj.jpg

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Also tested a small crew transfer pod to see if it was any good for rescues. Mono-propellant powered ~560m/s ∆v, while fine for shifting crew between stations it's poor at rescues. Needs ladder things to grab.

 

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16 minutes ago, Jolly_Roger said:

I'm working on something special... Yes that is the Medical Frigate from Star Wars with the Millennium Falcon docked to it...

LZc1V2Z.png

JR

The eye of some people, to be able to put together a bunch of completely unrelated parts into a model this accurate, never ceases to amaze me. :cool:

 

Now get it into space WITHOUT Hyperdit ;) 

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11 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

The eye of some people, to be able to put together a bunch of completely unrelated parts into a model this accurate, never ceases to amaze me. :cool:

 

Now get it into space WITHOUT Hyperdit ;) 

The Falcon gets into space without Hyperedit, but I have to hack gravity to get the Medical Frigate into orbit.  The way I see it, ships like that are supposed to be built in space so hacking it into orbit is one thing but once you're there it's a ship like any other.

JR

Edited by Jolly_Roger
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