totm june 2018 Work-in-Progress [WIP] Design Thread

[Yukon0009]

Making my Falcon 9 reusable.

[GusTurbo]

http://i.imgur.com/Mk4IZqF.png

now all i have to do is stop the second stage from randomly going kaboom.

Nice! As far as the kabooms, you're not using the 3.75 decouplers, are you? They tend to cause problems.

[Frozen_Heart]

Annnd ready to go! Once this space trial is done then it will be ready for full production.

Already snapped one of the probes solar panels off while docking :/

I don't see many motherships that are fully reusable like this one.

[Keldaria]

Annnd ready to go! Once this space trial is done then it will be ready for full production.

Already snapped one of the probes solar panels off while docking :/

I don't see many motherships that are fully reusable like this one.

http://i.imgur.com/bG8a9Tl.png

I must say, the simplicity of the design is nice and ever since you started posting these pictures I've been following this. I like the idea of using that as multimission interplanetary craft with configurable cargo and such (which I'm sure has been done before), but its soo nice to see one designed with such a sleek looking primary hull (so used to seeing mine looking like its pieced together from generic spacestation parts with no thought of design).

I think I'm going to try redesigning an old craft of mine with the shuttle parts similar to yours, while I like your overall design, I think something a bit more flexible and interchangeable in the engines department would better suit my needs. The 4 Nukes are nice, but I'd rather have the flexibility to pop them off and replace them with another engine configuration (less nukes if you don't need to carry the weight of 4 or even other types of engines). Not entirely sure what it will end up looking like as I know you've got the creative juices in my head flowing but they are going in every direction right now =P

[Rune]

Annnd ready to go! Once this space trial is done then it will be ready for full production.

Already snapped one of the probes solar panels off while docking :/

I don't see many motherships that are fully reusable like this one.

http://i.imgur.com/bG8a9Tl.png

I would be careful with stacking docking connections on the front of a pusher mothership: that's a recipe for the "wet noodle" syndrome. Better to pull, and even better yet if your fuel load is modular so you can tailor it to the payload (i.e: KER says you lack delta-v, no problem, slap more tanks):

In your case, add dorsal and ventral docking for extra tankage, carry most of the payload laterally (so, mostly in pairs for balance), and keep the mass hanging from the front docking port to a minimum.

Rune. Look at that train of payloads going to Moho... doing the burns with that TWR and part count is FUN! Nowadays I'm trying to go smaller

Edited January 19, 2015 by Rune

[Guest]

Another rotor, lighter and more secure, antennas are just here to help place precisely wheels. It's not near perfect yet, but fun to build;

Yes, I'm a bit autistic and i hate asymmetrical parts!! xD

Edited January 19, 2015 by RevanCorana

[Frozen_Heart]

4 Nukes are nice, but I'd rather have the flexibility to pop them off and replace them with another engine configuration

It actually has 6. It makes for a good TWR but pays heavily with dV. That's the main problem with a reusable mothership.

I would be careful with stacking docking connections on the front of a pusher mothership: that's a recipe for the "wet noodle" syndrome.

For some reason it showed almost no wobble at all. The small piece with the probes on is because I forgot to add jr. docking ports to the main ship.

Well the trial mission has been counted as a partial success. I got to the Mun fine and the plan was to undock the rover and carry it down with the lander. However the second I pressed the undock button the entire rover disintegrated and left a spray of pieces on a suborbital trajectory. I had to do a landing without the rover. Probes went off fine and the mothership went to a polar orbit before releasing the second, and then went to a retrograde orbit to go home (I got lost) Aerobraking was fine but the ship is very low drag so the recommended altitudes are too cautious to be effective with this.

I've had to retire this particular vessel as the rovers docking port is still stuck on and won't budge. I'm a whole node down for later missions.

[Fellow314]

New thing...

[Captain Sierra]

Prepare for awesomeness.

The single most unorthodox craft I've ever designed:

The thing can take 12 tons to orbit and has the most perfect glidescope of any plane I've ever flown.

[Keldaria]

I would be careful with stacking docking connections on the front of a pusher mothership: that's a recipe for the "wet noodle" syndrome. Better to pull, and even better yet if your fuel load is modular so you can tailor it to the payload (i.e: KER says you lack delta-v, no problem, slap more tanks):

In a slightly related topic, I've recently been experimenting with a "Puller" type SSTO for launching payload into LKO. I was hoping to create a new, unique type of lifter that would launch mounted on top of its payload, something that with minor adjustments could also be used to return cargo or land cargo on the various planets. The prototype I was developing was based on a jet / rocket hybrid lift booster I had developed to augment other lifters when I routinely overloaded them (essentially my last resort before completely ripping the lifter apart and rebuilding it for a higher capacity).

Unfortunately, as I'm sure you guessed, it becomes unstable while performing the gravity turn, I think the CoM just catches up with it when attempting to do the turn eventually causing it to spin out of control if I'm not careful, or it gets stuck at too high of an angle. I had tried to slap on some RCS thrusters and additional SMS systems to compensate, but they just didn't cut it. So I decided to flip the design instead and go back to a traditional rocket.

Although, I did like the look of this design better

I still need to tweak it some. It will carry an orange tank into an 80k LKO with only sipping like 100-150 Oxidizer from the orange tank (no fuel since I drained most the oxidizer from the crafts standard tanks to save weight due to jet power being used most the lift.) I'm sure I can tweak the oxidizer levels in the standard tanks to compensate or even a better refinement in my gravity turn might do the trick, but I figure I should just add some more Delta V anyways since I still technically need to add landing systems for craft recovery.

EDIT: Oh, and if you didn't catch it the lift system completely separates from the cargo section. I'm intending to set this up to be able to launch a full cargo container, detach in orbit and reattach to a used (old) cargo container already in orbit and return (or return without one). The cargo containers are also intended to be utilized as a swappable mission module for interplanetary missions.

Edited January 19, 2015 by Keldaria

[Spartwo]

Been rebuilding this with a turret to keep up with newer tanks for a week now.

The mass has increased by 2 tons and the custom-built rotor has inflated the part count by 46 to nearly 150 but I love it nonetheless.

[zekes]

Haven't played KSP in a week but this is my last screenshot and i'm two points from another rep bar so have an XB-70

[Technical Ben]

A reusable dropship lander I'm building. It handles almost as well as Cupcakes designs though is pretty fuel limited. I plan to leave it orbiting the Mun for future missions.

This mission is going to have the lander, a rover, and a pair of ion satellites. I've never done a mothership mission before so its guaranteed to end in disaster...

http://i.imgur.com/Egjqv9f.png

http://i.imgur.com/kR6nzgI.png

Love the transfer/launch stage there. Very sleek and nice use of basic parts in an elegant way!

[xoknight]

No comment

[inigma]

:D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

she made orbit with a heavy+ cargo! and ooh boy what a first run it was...

Space Shuttle Intrepid made heavy plus cargo delivery to 172km. Second run made it to 182km. Landed her at KSC. Then I ripped out everything in the cargo bay leaving the bare floor making her as light as possible, and turned her around back to orbit only by reducing the fuel amounts in the external tank and lower liquid boosters (solids are nearly impossible at this time to lift heavy+ cargo - I should know - I spent 12 hours fighting it lol)! Success!!! A newb-friendly shuttle (hopefully) capable of simple empty flights to space, to capable of anything you can fit into the Mk 3 cargo bay without tweaking anything but fuel amounts! This thing is powerful. Easy. And beautiful. She's a dream to fly. The pictures don't do it justice. :D

She can also return abort to KSC with any cargo, including the heavy+ you see above. Pics and vid later for that piece of engineering sweetness.

275 parts empty. 304 parts with the heavy+ cargo. Not bad. I hope to reduce part count further once I tweak it further. After tweaks, and a video run, she'll be ready to publish. I'd do it now, 'cept its 1:30am. heh.

Edited January 20, 2015 by inigma

[Yukon0009]

Nice! As far as the kabooms, you're not using the 3.75 decouplers, are you? They tend to cause problems.

No, the second stage just spins out of control randomly. I'm pretty sure those are the 3.75 decouplers tho.

[Rune]

In a slightly related topic, I've recently been experimenting with a "Puller" type SSTO for launching payload into LKO. I was hoping to create a new, unique type of lifter that would launch mounted on top of its payload, something that with minor adjustments could also be used to return cargo or land cargo on the various planets. The prototype I was developing was based on a jet / rocket hybrid lift booster I had developed to augment other lifters when I routinely overloaded them (essentially my last resort before completely ripping the lifter apart and rebuilding it for a higher capacity).

http://i.imgur.com/GFpN6Vi.png

Unfortunately, as I'm sure you guessed, it becomes unstable while performing the gravity turn, I think the CoM just catches up with it when attempting to do the turn eventually causing it to spin out of control if I'm not careful, or it gets stuck at too high of an angle. I had tried to slap on some RCS thrusters and additional SMS systems to compensate, but they just didn't cut it. So I decided to flip the design instead and go back to a traditional rocket.

http://i.imgur.com/Pg7p0RM.png

Although, I did like the look of this design better

http://i.imgur.com/pCyQUrs.png

I still need to tweak it some. It will carry an orange tank into an 80k LKO with only sipping like 100-150 Oxidizer from the orange tank (no fuel since I drained most the oxidizer from the crafts standard tanks to save weight due to jet power being used most the lift.) I'm sure I can tweak the oxidizer levels in the standard tanks to compensate or even a better refinement in my gravity turn might do the trick, but I figure I should just add some more Delta V anyways since I still technically need to add landing systems for craft recovery.

EDIT: Oh, and if you didn't catch it the lift system completely separates from the cargo section. I'm intending to set this up to be able to launch a full cargo container, detach in orbit and reattach to a used (old) cargo container already in orbit and return (or return without one). The cargo containers are also intended to be utilized as a swappable mission module for interplanetary missions.

I know exactly the problem, and it has nothing to do with CoM. See, the problem is the code to handle engine gimbal on the game: it assumes your engines are behind the CoM at all times. So in a puller system, the gimbal doesn't work out at all, in fact it tries to throw you off course at the slightest deviation. Just lock all the gimbal, and steer through other means. I do hope that Squad take a look at that at some point.

she made orbit with a heavy+ cargo! and ooh boy what a first run it was...

[snip]

It's always a good day when you finish a Shuttle replica and the darn thing works. Kudos!

Rune. It's one of the marks of being a veteran, knowing that kind of stuff about the code of the game.

[Frozen_Heart]

Working on an improvement to my Freighter. Range isn't much better (~6500m/s) and the TWR is worse (0.55) but the payload capacity to the Mun (return) has gone from 18 tons to 36 tons! If you only take the payload one way and come back unburdened its much higher!

[Yukon0009]

Sometimes I wonder what I am doing.

[Keldaria]

I know exactly the problem, and it has nothing to do with CoM. See, the problem is the code to handle engine gimbal on the game: it assumes your engines are behind the CoM at all times. So in a puller system, the gimbal doesn't work out at all, in fact it tries to throw you off course at the slightest deviation. Just lock all the gimbal, and steer through other means. I do hope that Squad take a look at that at some point.

I will say that it did seem like sometime the controls seemed like would flip on me and left would be right and up would be down in mid flight.. but it was strange because for a good deal of the flight everything always seemed to function appropriately then the controls would all the sudden seem to flip. I do understand what you mean however, I had wondered the same thing but dismissed it because it wasn't until well into the gravity turn that control problems developed and I had figured that when my lifters main tanks were partially drained that the CoM just shifted down even further or something. .. I think I'll revisit the design with a few refinements I've made to the standard format model I was crafting...

Ideally I was hoping to keep all the control functions with the lift unit on top so I wouldn't need to worry about adding and tweaking the cargo's control systems and that way the lift unit would be plug and play with cargo. Do you think thats still a possibility or will control elements be needed at the base to avoid that programming issue?

Also, I started a sketch this morning for a new multi purpose launch system.. hoping to have some time this afternoon to build a test rig and see if the core concept is a functional one (I know, I'm being sketchy with the details but I want to flesh out the base of the concept before one of you masters shows me something similar and I end up trying to recreate it =P )

Anyways, Thanks for the info Rune.

Edited January 20, 2015 by Keldaria

[Rune]

I will say that it did seem like sometime the controls seemed like would flip on me and left would be right and up would be down in mid flight.. but it was strange because for a good deal of the flight everything always seemed to function appropriately then the controls would all the sudden seem to flip. I do understand what you mean however, I had wondered the same thing but dismissed it because it wasn't until well into the gravity turn that control problems developed and I had figured that when my lifters main tanks were partially drained that the CoM just shifted down even further or something. .. I think I'll revisit the design with a few refinements I've made to the standard format model I was crafting...

Ideally I was hoping to keep all the control functions with the lift unit on top so I wouldn't need to worry about adding and tweaking the cargo's control systems and that way the lift unit would be plug and play with cargo. Do you think thats still a possibility or will control elements be needed at the base to avoid that programming issue?

Also, I started a sketch this morning for a new multi purpose launch system.. hoping to have some time this afternoon to build a test rig and see if the core concept is a functional one (I know, I'm being sketchy with the details but I want to flesh out the base of the concept before one of you masters shows me something similar and I end up trying to recreate it =P )

Anyways, Thanks for the info Rune.

Hum. You could rely on reaction wheels alone, and then those can be on the lifter. But you know what would be cool? To supplement them somewhat with control surfaces. I say control surfaces, and not wings, because as I'm sure you are thinking right now, aerodynamic stuff on the top would make it inherently unstable. But. If they are control surfaces only, you can trust the SAS system to use them like the best fly-by-wire system out there and correct slight deviations before the induced torque is higher than what they can handle. You will still need reaction wheels for when you leave the atmosphere, and beware sudden turns...

Oh, and vernors on the very top would also work, of course. Kind of a low-isp gimbal in fact, and with a lot of torque so little fuel consumption. Probably the simplest idea, and you know the engineering acronym: KISS. So yeah, maybe my second thought was the best .

With action groups, you could put also a RCS system and switch between the two in order to make sure you have some reserve fuel for docking manoeuvres. I say that last part because when I don't have it, I'm always scared boopless I will accidentally run the tanks dry while I'm doing the rendezvous, and be unable to dock.

Rune. Then again, KSP taught me long ago to put reserves on the reserves.

[RogueMason]

Big-time WIP. I've got to work on the design a little more before I'd even consider it ready to fly.

I basically just took Endurance, reduced the module count, and added a central hull. The engine that's currently there won't be for much longer as I want to have two in the centre instead of one on the end (effectively a half-push, half-pull configuration), and I'll increase the ring diameter, too.

It won't fly for a while, either, as I've already put Stargazer into orbit, but it's nice to plan ahead.

[Guest]

Going to release soon:

OSLO a hollow hull VTOL/SSTO project

and a stock helicpoter

[GusTurbo]

Something I'm messing around with, a new Soyuz.

[Frozen_Heart]

Something I'm messing around with, a new Soyuz.

Damn that's a smooth looking craft.