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

[Castille7]

46 minutes ago, pTrevTrevs said:

 

This thread...

Somehow I'm reminded of the episode of TNG where he lost his powers and went to the Enterprise for help, then Data let him eat like ten chocolate sundaes in one meal. 

This is Q, right?

Anybody willing to make a signature badge for the Great Starfleet Bandwagon of 2016?

Yes Q, he is one bad dude in the universe!

[He_162]

Lunar Lander coming soon to Heinkels heavy lifters!

9,600 deltaV lifter takes a small lunar lander, and uses it's probe core as a lithobreak!

http://imgur.com/a/60agU

 

I'll put the lunar lander / return vessel + satellite on my V2 of the He964 heavy lifter, and put it up on kerbalX in about ten minutes.

[pTrevTrevs]

59 minutes ago, He_162 said:

Lunar Lander coming soon to Heinkels heavy lifters!

9,600 deltaV lifter takes a small lunar lander, and uses it's probe core as a lithobreak!

http://imgur.com/a/60agU

 

I'll put the lunar lander / return vessel + satellite on my V2 of the He964 heavy lifter, and put it up on kerbalX in about ten minutes.

Your lack of Star Trek disturbs me.

[He_162]

1 hour ago, pTrevTrevs said:

Your lack of Star Trek disturbs me.

Your obsession is clear, star trek is not currently in my interests.

[He_162]

There. I did something star trek.

http://imgur.com/a/4HTwi

[fourfa]

I'm working on a Laythe SSTO that can fit in a 4-unit Mk3 cargo bay.  Succeeded with a design that clips wings heavily into the Mk2 fuselage, but aesthetically it just doesn't do it for me.  More excited about this prospect:

Which uses a little Klaw RCS probe tug to remove, stow, and re-dock the wing assemblies.  I put the intakes there simply to hide the shame of the exposed docking ports; strangely they seem to occlude drag on the ports as well.  The drag on those sideways-mounted ports is the biggest problem with this cute little ship, actually.  More study required.  Second biggest problem is landing on Laythe's hills without crashing - I've resorted to deploying chutes at low elevation over the target.   Third problem is reattaching the wings at a precise matching angle - no problem using MechJeb to do the job, very hard by hand, and impossible to control if they're not exactly the same. Again, the sideways drag is a problem if I double up on the ports (and it's kinda fun to be able to change wing AoA between testing runs to the mothership).

Full load of science in the cargo bay, also removable by tug to be transplanted into other landers.  Still working on landing leg / fuel modules to turn the core into a low-grav lander.  I think Tylo modules are out of the question though, at least for SSTO.

If you haven't tried the "MuddrTech" function with docking ports in 1.1.3, you should.  Currently landing gear or legs on both sides of docking ports act to add invisible struts between heaviest parts.  This arrangement of ports and landing gear on the wing modules is *rock solid*.  Opens up a lot of interesting design space, I think

[Eldrad_Ulthran]

I am making a long-distance atmospheric exploration plane aka: The Kestrel.

KerbalX with pics: https://kerbalx.com/owenmaley/Kestrel-shining-star

Please give me lots of (constructive) criticism.

[hempa2]

On 2016-08-05 at 4:50 PM, Frozen_Heart said:

Are standard rocket tanks able to survive re-entry heat?

Also if you turn the Mk3 tanks on their side the cargo bay doesn't line up anymore. This is really making me wish that SpaceX style boosters were viable but they just end up despawning before landing.

Working on a badge right now.

EDIT: Messed up on it.

Edited August 24, 2016 by hempa2

[SpaceCommanderNemo]

I unintentionally made an SR-71c...

I think somewhere a wing got attached with radial symmetry and now it just yaws hard to the left on takeoff. That or the CoL is too far back and the front gear is taking all the weight. Flies fine, just doesn't land or takeoff straight. Not sure if it needs a complete rebuild or just some tweaking.

Once I work out those bugs, I'm going to use it to scavenge the remaining science on kerbin. Thanks to the wonders of the BD Armory autopilot, I'll be making sub-orbital hops from biome to biome, bombing science drop-pods for all those remaining temperature and barometer readings.

Edited August 19, 2016 by SpaceCommanderNemo

[He_162]

So, I finally managed to make a 15,000 deltaV lifter. This is the He-965 prototype. Expect it to be taking station parts to Duna soon.

That is far from the final cut, but when it's done, I expect it to be much larger, and more expensive, and the thrust to weight ratio should allow it to take 500 tons to low kerbin orbit, or possibly, to Duna. Oh, as of right now, it weighs 1,286 tons.

Edited August 20, 2016 by He_162

[PointySideUp]

I've been tweaking a prototype carrier for my Ant Science Landers.  The carrier holds 4 Ants, a Science lab, and an ISRU.

Ore Scanners and Claws in cargo bays:

Spoiler

Optional surface refueler and some ore in tow

Spoiler

First test mission coming up soon!

[He_162]

The lifter I was working on earlier is complete.. doesn't look anything like the finished product, and about 1/3 the deltaV, but it can put 500 tons into orbit successfully.

The download has a 500 ton refueling dock (500 tons of fuel that can be put into Kerbin orbit)

Edited August 22, 2016 by He_162

[Talos]

I've been working on a supersonic passenger plane. Inspired by the Concord with a few changes.

 

[He_162]

 He966 6000 ton payload, 32,000 ton lifter.

Nice plane Talos

Edited August 22, 2016 by He_162

[Azimech]

Stock propeller plane with unlimited range flying above Duna. Reliability is still low compared with the Eve version.

[ScriptKitt3h]

Working on some jets while at college- one old, one new-ish, one brand-new (and strangely twitchy, may be due to how SAS/avionics nosecones function as of now).

Bottom one's inspired by a mix of the Boeing X-32, F-16, and F-22.

Edited August 23, 2016 by ScriptKitt3h

[Rune]

I'm still working now and then on my Mk3 ring. And actually, I think I finally have a good launch option... which is not as crazy as it seems. I mean, it's pretty crazy. But if one chemical SSTO will lift ~16mT, eight of them should lift, well, moar.

See it emerge majestically form the smoke... Yeah, that is maybe a bit too much smoke, we could do with a slightly less sluggish ascent. But the funny thing is, it kinda works much better than any of the alternatives I've tried:

 

Rune. It may drain wrong until 1.2, but with Vectors involved, that's pretty irrelevant.

[Castille7]

Mini Enterprise Project Update

Mini Enterprise AC-2

Plans are to release four stock Mini Enterprise Craft, two will be Aircraft and the other two will be Spacecraft. This is one of the Aircraft Mini Enterprise AC-2

 

 

 

[Castille7]

SpaceDock-7

Another refuel station without all the elaborate and useless components like Omega 7. My goal is to have something with only necessary equipment needed for refueling craft. I like the looks of a Spacedock and docking into one should be exciting, I like the precision maneuvers involved. I had to reduce it's part count because it was too large to launch or was taking much too long to get on the launch pad. I decided to take a few pictures before it fell back to Kerbin, I don't have it in Orbit yet. Also considering something more oval shaped instead of the octagon shape because it still looks too circular. I will also add fuel tanks with a transport craft after the project is complete. 

Photo Album

[Castille7]

On 8/18/2016 at 8:07 AM, He_162 said:

Lunar Lander coming soon to Heinkels heavy lifters!

9,600 deltaV lifter takes a small lunar lander, and uses it's probe core as a lithobreak!

http://imgur.com/a/60agU

 

I'll put the lunar lander / return vessel + satellite on my V2 of the He964 heavy lifter, and put it up on kerbalX in about ten minutes.

I've been playing for a long time now and I still haven't worked on a project like this yet. Nice work He_162

[Noname117]

Been experimenting with this:

So far I'm having both control issues and issues with the rotor exploding...

 

Will probably have a helicopter for release using a similar bearing sometime in the near-ish future.

 

EDIT: Older tech demonstrator:

Edited August 24, 2016 by Noname117

[pTrevTrevs]

8 hours ago, Castille7 said:

....Star Trek?

[Castille7]

17 minutes ago, pTrevTrevs said:

....Star Trek?

Na! Another Sector 7 project, I only have the Mini Enterprise for that. I am thinking about making that badge.

[He_162]

11 hours ago, Castille7 said:

I've been playing for a long time now and I still haven't worked on a project like this yet. Nice work He_162

Thanks!

[EpicSpaceTroll139]

On 8/16/2016 at 6:43 PM, pTrevTrevs said:

 

14 hours ago, Noname117 said:

So far I'm having both control issues and issues with the rotor exploding...

What kind of control problems? Is it not turning as fast as you want, or turning in a direction 90° clockwise from where you want it to? Or something else? If it's one of the first two it is likely caused by gyroscopic effects of the rotor. You can either override these by adding moar reaction wheels, or try to minimize the rotor's moment of inertia by trying to keep most of its mass near the hub (remove fuel from the mark0 tanks at the ends, and if needed, put the fuel tanks at the blade root or in the center). If it's the latter, what's going on?

 

As for the rotor exploding: Is it expanding before exploding? Such may indicate it is spinning fast enough to rip apart. Solutions could include removing fuel from the Mk0 tanks (so as to reduce tension on the blades) and/or adding more blades without adding more torque (tip jets) so the rotor will get more lift while spinning at a lower speed. If the rotor is exploding in a different manner I have no idea what's going on.

Anyways, hope some of this is helpful! Let me know if you have any questions for a turbohead.