KSat

Hi marqush, the "mod" is just really a part. You should create a folder with 67P in your game folder. \Kerbal Space Program\Parts\P67 In this folder you should have the following files: 67_P_Chury-Gera.mu 67_P_Churyumov–Gerasimenko_texture.png part.cfg The fourth file is to make 67P to appear in your game. (If anybody knows how to make this automatic please help.) You need to edit a savegame of yours, so make a backup of it. Open a persistent.sfs file and add it to it, the data for this you can find in the file: add to persistent.sfs.txt . To do this properly without breaking your savegame, look for Exactly before this copy the following data: This will put chury in an orbit around Kerbin with 100km orbit height. If you want more realistic comet behaviour you should try the following orbit parameters. If there are anymore problems, let me know. Cheers, Ksat

Hello again, due to request, if you want the model: Link! Cheers, KSat

Hello Captain_Party of course you can. Link! The model is only one 10th of the real size, because Kerbal Space Clipping Distance is 2.3km. And you wouldn't see a 4km comet before being inside it. And you have to cheat it into orbit. So there is a file with text that you can copy to your persistent file. Cheers, KSat

Hello Sovereign Winter, very nice video indeed! Would you be interested to have the real 67P Model for KSP? I made the model for KSP fo a video of myself, but your Rosetta is sooo much better than mine! Cheers, KSat

Hello fellow Kerbonauts, in light of todays upcoming events, I made a complete mission visualisation of the Rosetta mission, including the landing of Philae. The only part that is not stock, is the original comet model of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. If you like to play with the comet yourself, contact me for the KSP Model. Cheers, KSat

Hello Kerbonauts, I should have done this some time ago: For the cubesat frame: I already did the 1U and 2U CubeSat Frames for KSP and astropapi did some textures. If you need a editable CATIA-Model just ask. Cheers, KSat

Hello deljr15, for a quick search I found two acceptable sources. First the corresponding wikipedia entry Verification (Spaceflight) and a ugly NASA presentation: NASA and AQEC cmse04.ppt Problem for custom made stuff is that you need to qualify it yourself and the qualification procedures itself needs to be accepted by the launch vehicle operators. Usually this includes some virtual simulations and at least one experiment in a vacuum chamber with thermal loads. For the moment I do not have any specific pointers to documents that describe these requirements, I'm sorry. Cheers, KSat

Hello deljr15, nice to see a fellow engineer in the KSP forum. I suppose you are currently not working in aerospace industry? The prices for space qualified components are usually about ten times (or more) than the prices for normal earth-based stuff. Mostly because of the qualification process, every component need to be qualified and verified to sustain the loads and forces of launch and in orbit. Also you have to check every possible failure mode that might occur, and prove that this failure mode means no harm to other systems like your launch vehicle or the ISS. It is very likely that custom made components are better and the material cost is cheaper, but they surely wont be cheaper when you take the qualification process into the calculation. Even a simple shaker test will cost about 1k €/$. Cheers, KSat

Hello astropapi, I made some more pictures. I think your textures do look great. Thank you. Maybe the models and textures should find its way to to the CommunityCubeSat Homepage? Cheers, KSat

Hello NERVAfan, I would recommend, if you want to use a smartphone camera with extra lens as microscope (which is cool), that you do not take the camera out of the phone, but put the phone into the cubsat. Smartphones make good onboard computers, but use one that needs only small amount of power , so no iPhone i guess. Cheers, KSat

Hello astropapi1, i quote again some Akins Laws (I like them): 9. Not having all the information you need is never a satisfactory excuse for not starting the analysis. So just give it a shot with the stuff we already know. And for the rest: 10. When in doubt, estimate. In an emergency, guess. But be sure to go back and clean up the mess when the real numbers come along. So you have the artistic freedom for the design, as long as it its not utterly implausible. But be also aware, when the project progresses and cleaning up in progress the design will change: 4. Your best design efforts will inevitably wind up being useless in the final design. Learn to live with the disappointment. But having a first design, that is going to change, is better than having no design. Also if the kickstarter campaign is launched, it is much much better to have a video with a spacecraft than some textual description. Cheers, KSat

Hello henryasia, I hope I am not confusing your post for irony. The "latin" you mean is a commonly used as a place holder for layouting news papers etc. See here :Lorem Ipsum Cheers, KSat

Hello again, just to sooth the mind of the people who worry about the orbit littering. And to conform with Akins first law of spacecraft design: "1. Engineering is done with numbers. Analysis without numbers is only an opinion." In the graphic you will find the time of operation time till reentry. Find here information for the ballistic coefficient. I took the graphic from a space systems lecture from Prof. Fasoulas University of Stuttgart. Maybe one technical detail, the deorbit time depends on the solar activity because high activity means more radiation, means denser highatmosphere, means higher drag, means faster decay. Cheers KSat

Hello Nicholander, So are there any volunteers to make a cool texture for the 1U CubeSat? You Nicholander? If somebody need the blend or unity-files to refine the models contact me. Cheers, KSat

Hello, my models are ready to deploy. Feel free to texturize the CubeSats as you wish them. I made the texture maps easy so you can edit them without any hassle of UV mapping. There are Side A, Side B , Side C , Side D , Back and Front. Also you can give the truss and the feet the color you like. Also every face could have an engine. For further details look into the Howto file inside the package. The pack includes a 1U and 2U CubeSat. You can download the pack here. Cheers, KSat

How many CubeSat Units does the current baseline assume? 1U/2U/3U??

Hello Majorgim, even though you sound like you are not willing to discuss, more like accusing people of being bad, I am going to further explain my point. Yes there are surely many papers and articles about this topic, but if you want to discuss something specific you need to reference it. The Kessler syndrome is a known problem, but that CubeSats are a major factor to this is in doubt. Even the article you referenced states: "Still, other researchers say Lewis's findings may overestimate the problem. "There is always a choice of model inputs and the spin put on interpretation," says Sara Seager at MIT." There is no clue if their simulation has considered orbital decay, if not then the article is nothing more than attention seeking. You state that the orbit is littered for no good reason, but this is wrong. Most, if not all, CubeSats are for science and most of them will deorbit in a relativ short amount of time. As previously stated, CubeSats with very long deorbit times are much further away and there is a lot more space before anything gehts crowded. Please dont get me wrong. Orbit littering is a problem, but accusing CubeSats for it is, in my opinion, way over the top. Cheers, KSat

Hello Nicholander, I was more like requesting sketches of how it should look like. I then would do the CAD/Blender/Unity3D/Kerbal Stuff. Or maybe I make a generic cubesat pack, with place holder textures for easy editing the graphics. Cheers, KSat

Hello Majorjim, The article you posted is somewhat exagerating the problem. LEO vehicles will deorbit themselves after some time (weeks, months, for some of them years), due to drag of the residual atmosphere. Stuff that is going to deorbit in "hundreds of years" is rare and there is more distance between objects in that orbit. Furthermore the article loses credit for mentioning Gravity but not the Kessler syndrome. Cheers, KSat

Hello from KSat again, I found some time at my hands and would like to provide you with some Kerbal Models of your planned CubeSats. Can somebody, who has the overview, provide me with details (the more the better) how the models should look like? Hand drawn sketches might be enough. Some ideas about the textures on the sides of the cubesat would be good. Here is an example of a real sounding rocket, that I did in a few days. I am sure the first drafts I am going to provide will change over time, but it is very good for PR purposes to have videos of the idea. Changing texures later is pretty easy without knowledge of modding/creating KSP parts. Cheers, KSat

Hello Stinger771, the parts were originally in CATIA. I then exported them as .STL Files to import them into Blender. If you are also working with CATIA, do not use the standard export as STL option, because there normals are often screwed up and I was not able to repair all of it. Better you use the surface tesselation and export as STL options ,from "Start-> Machining->STL Rapid Prototyping". The rest is the usual modding way (I guess). The UV-Map exported from Blender is then edited with photoshop. Reimport the UV-Map to get the texture to work. Then Unity-3D with part tools. Then export these parts and define them for KSP with the .cfg files. I do not know if I will find time to make a tutorial that shows how to make a part from catia to KSP. If you are willing to invest some time, these 3 links provide everything you need to know. You only need to workout where to put what. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/25013-Compilation-of-modding-information-links-for-0-19-20-21-22-23-Last-update-24th-Jan---%20PartTools%200.20%20--- One more complicated thing is the solar panel animation, for that you need to implement a rig and make an animation in blender. Cheers, KSat

Yes you should decide for a name. Its just better for propagnada err PR purposes to have a clear label for something, then always refer to it as the cubesat the ksp forums wants to build... Open a thread to discuss the name and create a poll so most people are satisfied.

This is not true, but for more complex reasons. The light of the sun has a certain distribution, with a peak wavelength of 500nm. Your spacecraft (as long as it is not as hot as the sun) radiates thermic radiation. Which can be calculated with the Stefan-Boltzman Law. So your cubesat will radiate for [0°C - 80°C] or [273K -353 K] mainly within the wavelength of [10.6 - 8.2μm] What you mean is the Kirchhoff Law of thermal radition. But this says emission of certain wavelength = absorption of certain wavelength. But as you see the wavelength of our body radiation and the incoming radiation from the sun is different, so a good insulator from the sun can also be a good radiator for the ship. One example for this is a second surface mirror. Your common everday mirror with glas pane infront. The glas has the same temperature as your space craft and radiates the heat. The glas transmits the sunlight to the mirror which reflects the sunlight into space. Parts of sunlight might be absorbed, so you heat up until your thermic radiation is in equilibrium with your absorption. One very easy solution is to paint your spacecraft surface white. This will reflect most of the incomming sunlight. And you will still radiate thermic radiation. If this is not enough you might need to think about passive heat pumps that transfer core heat to the surface. It is a pipe filled with a liquid. When heat is high the liquid evaporates, as the outer surface should be cooler than the core the liquid condenses on the wall and thereby transfers heat. This heat on the outer surface is then radiated into space. Third option is a heat sink. When you are in earth orbit, you will have shadow and sun cycles. So in worst case during a shadow phase you would even need heater not to freeze. Better is to use a heatl sink. Usual aluminium, as it is lightweight and has high heat capacity. If the surrounding is hotter than the sink it absorbs the heat, when the surrounding is cooler it gives of heat, leveling your temperature fluctuation. So if your structure is made of aluminium fine, but maybe you need some more. The problem is, I do not think you can not surpass the thermal calculations, because every components has certain heat capacities, absorption rates and every temperature changes influences the surroundings, so sooner or later somebody needs to tell the computer to do the math. Most universities have free licences for very expensive software (example ANSYS), you need somebody who knows how to use the software, provide a CAD model, have material properties and provide expected heat loads. Then you have to let the computer do its thing for hours to days and hope that you are lucky or you need to redesign. You might be able to skip this step to get approved for launch, because your cubesat is in passive mode during launch till orbit, but you might not have fun with if for a long time if you do not check the thermal conditions. I talked to a testing provider at the ILA Berlin, who told me they already did shaker tests for cubesats for 1000-2000 €. This is already pretty cheap. The test is done within hours. Basically a shaker test is testing your spacecraft about the capability to sustain the vibrations during launch. Our professor told me, when his ISS experiment was on the shaker he was not able to look at it, because the tests are brutal. So turned around and hoped everything will weigth the same as before and no lose parts where to hear when the test was over. I would go for magnetorquers. Other stuff that might be of help, but probably have a small impact in LEO. Yarkovsky-Effect and Poynting-Robterson-Effekt , which uses radiation pressure to change angular momentum. I am not sure I do understand the question 100%. What debris? Danger to the tether from debris? Or the tether becoming debris? Cheers, KSat

Hi Mazon Del, Yes, this would be great. It might even help NASA to get more goverment funding, when they can get beaten by a bunch of space enthusiasts. But one thing we learn from the beginning in our studies. Spaceflight is highly political, so if you go for taking a record by NASA, maybe some people by NASA might be not willing to help you. They might not want to let you take their cookies, or fear that they even get budget cuts because one record was taken by a bunch of space enthusiasts. So just keep in mind, if at some point there are negotiations with officials, do not rub it under there nose you do better than them. Cheers, KSat

Hello Nicholander, We have a project seminar in our university where we have to write code from scratch for a spaceship in orbiter 2010. I also have a instruction how to set up visual studio and basic start code, but unfortunately it is completly in german. Also I would not recommend making it in orbiter for visualisation /out-reach pruposes because you need to code stuff, which can consume a lot of time. As I did it is much easier to do stuff for KSP than for orbiter. told me a lot of spaceprojects with low budget use KSP for visualisation. So there is no "unseriousness" attached to KSP, as long as your video does not contain some kerbals fooling around or other unphysical stuff. Better do it in Kerbal, the community will love/have fun with it and the modders can help with every problem you stumble upon. Cheers, KSat