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Work-in-Progress [WIP] Design Thread


GusTurbo

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I am also working on a little N1 rocket and lander with my tiny rover. Definitely fallen in love with the Russian space program.

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Progress is good. No major faults to fix just some little things. I did run into the "turning east" bug that GusTurbo mentioned. I discovered that it was a fuel flow bug.

So I replaced all the fuel lines by hand, that fixed it.

MJ

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Cool stuff in general guys, keep it up! :)

So, a little update on Phoebus. Remember that really close margin on the S-IVb? Probably not, but the thing is, the margin on the service module was a bit too tight. I'm lacking 30m/s to do the return burn! And the only sliver of fuel or RCS left is on the descent stage, I managed to empty all other tanks. Really, really close, and once I fix that small shortcoming, the final thing is going to be sweet! The delta-v is going to be really close to perfect. Well, besides the lander staging being a bit iffy, I might have to take a look at that (which I'm pretty sure is going to make me change everything, again).

But damn! It's a shame. So far the mission had survived disconnected fuel lines, a lander staging event where I had to wiggle the upper stage free with torque before starting the engine, and the upper stage having to complete the orbital burn on RCS. Only 30m/s are between my guys and home. Well, I guess I'll have to dock at the lunar orbit station to rescue them, good thing it's there... but wait, they are flying retrograde. :rolleyes:

Rune. See you guys after a couple of rescue missions!

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Decided to take a shot at the "land and take off with an SSTO from EVE" challenge...and things got kinda out of hand.

I'm using the interstellar mod and build this antimatter thermal turbojet SSTO. Works like a charm, can land on wheels or landing legs...and flip over from landing legs to wheels. Plenty of deltav and great TWR.

However, I didn't want to just cheat antimatter into tanks, so I build a bit of an operation around it.

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First an antimatter collector station with a lab and refinery in Kerbin orbit. I'm using water as fuel for the turbojets, so there's plenty of water on that station too. The lab is manned by Ronbro and Doodsted who both excel in courage AND stupidity...just what you want when it comes to antimatter production.

Not sure how yet, but the plan is to move this monstrosity to Jool as a permanent antimatter station. A large reactor and tugger is on the launchpad ready to go. Will cost me a lot of water though...

I tested the SSTO by taking it and a small antimatter collector pod to Jool. Refuelled really quickly. Still need to figure out how to "mine" water in the Jool system to be totally self sufficient there.

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6 water tanks...2 on the SSTO, 4 on that collector pod. Pretty crazy deltav, but the burn to Jool took a bit over 4min.

Burbald couldn't wait and took his SSTO to Eve already. I'm pretty sure he could land and get back into orbit because once I'm in the atmosphere I'm free rolling...but I'm not sure he could make the trip back to Kerbin.

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Not sure I want to sacrifice him as a crash dummy. Jeb will join with spare water once the Jool station's up and running.

Edited by John Crichton
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After fulfilling all government provided missions related to space exploration,

The KSC had lost it's merit of existence in the harsh economy of today..

after all,

No Bucks, no Buck Rodgers

Out of desperation, the KSC took some shady government contracts for future aircraft development and testing

also known as the Vehicle-Experiment series..

Here is the latest model in testing, the VX-60

The government says they need it to be able to carry heavy modular loads, some fuel tanks that were welded together were used in the testing.

They say that the craft will be used to carry heavy weapons, and also heavy(?) troops.

The engineers say that the aircraft could eventually be unmanned, letting a machine to control it.

It looks familiar, maybe it's just a hunch.:P

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Edited by Unknownman
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Setting up a ridiculously large antimatter operation just to fuel 2-3 antimatter SSTOs is nuts...I know this now. Won't be moving my large station to Jool because it's too much of a pain.

Instead, I built this nifty antimatter collector ship with plenty of extra water and monopropellant for my SSTOs. 2 large antimatter tanks will fill up easily once I get it to Jool. Technically it's an SSTO because I launched all 161 tons with the thermal turbojet.

And yes, that's an Alcubierre drive on there. I figured I might just as well take advantage of the antimatter I already have and get a free transfer to Jool. For those who think it's OP...it's a pain to get enough antimatter for a trip and I have enough fuel to take the trip with my turbojet if I wanted to.

Plenty of docking ports, so I guess I'll use that as my new Jool base. Will use the SSTO to ship supplies back and forth.

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PS: Don't really need that many intakes...but it looks better than just having 3-4.

Edited by John Crichton
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Are those RAPIERS?

I considered using them for my Soyuz.

yes they are ... trying to get them work proberly. a bit hard to balance the fuel consumption, my Vostok has barly enough juice to get into orbit and sadly RAPIERS tend to overheat a lot.

Edited by Darth Lazarus
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uwnYBLw.png

Antimatter thermal jet SSTO theoretically able to land and take off from Eve (will test asap). Can land on wheels or landing legs. Docked to an alcubierre drive tugger with a bit of extra monopropellant and an antimatter collector. Should be able to make it to Eve, land, take off and get back to KSC...in theory.

Getting enough antimatter is a pain...

Around Jool to stock up on antimatter. The best orbit seems to be around 9,000K.

UDnOjCy.png

Edited by John Crichton
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More of a failure than a work in progress. Perhaps a little less ugly than the last go and the lander flies on its own, which is nice.

Uses far too much fuel on the way up leaving no way enough to get to Duna and back and any more fuel and it'll need more engines and it gets heavier and it messes the balance up etc, etc et, inevitable, cetra.

Back to the drawing board.

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