Aswe23

While it wasn't on the list, I decided to fly a replica of my favorite spacecraft, Surveyor 1, the first American lunar soft-lander. Just flying a lunar lander was a bit easy (especially something as small as my Surveyor replica), so I also built a replica of the Atlas-Centaur 10 booster. Most of the craft is historically accurate, down to the RCS thruster placement on the Centaur stage. I did have to do a bit of part clipping to get the Atlas looking and flying right, so hopefully that's ok. Mods: ReStock and just about every visuals mod I could get my hands on, as well as Trajectories so I could time the descent burn. In the VAB. I tried to get the lengths of the side cable runs and electronics bays right for an Atlas-D, but they're not perfect. The launch clamps are more or less where the Atlas vehicle was held down. On the pad, ready to make history. Ascent. In the historical orientation ( -y axis pointing downrange) the rocket is very unstable, and I had to clip 4 small fins into the lower booster so it didn't tumble during the gravity turn. Just like the real Atlas, this replica has a stage-and-a-half booster, where the external engines are discarded while the core engine carries the half- empty rocket onwards. Stage 1.5 burn, getting into a suborbital trajectory. Just like the real Atlas, the core engine is shut down early and the LR-101 vernier thrusters are used to ease the rocket up to its target velocity (fun fact: this feature is left over from the Atlas's ICBM days, where a very precise final velocity was required) Centaur separation Ullage burn prior to Centaur ignition. The RCS locations are based on this diagram for Atlas-Centaur 10 and are almost historical ( I didn't bother getting an exact 25 degree angle for the roll jets ) Injection into a direct impact with the Mun. I substituted in a big solar panel in place of Surveyor's planar high-gain antenna for looks. Centaur separation. Firing of the STAR-37 retrorocket. In the real Surveyor, the retrorocket is recessed into the structure of the lander, but due to the size limitations of KSP's stock solids I had to make do. After being slowed to near zero velocity, Surveyor ignites its vernier engines for the terminal descent. Pretty. At an altitude of 5 meters, the velocity is brought to zero and the engines are shut off to prevent contamination of the surface. The last 5 meters of freefall result in a 3 m/s touchdown velocity. And touchdown of Surveyor 1, the first American lunar lander! Hopefully this isn't too far away from the intended list of missions to be included, and apologies for the long post, I just had a lot of pretty pictures Thanks for starting this challenge, it was really fun! I might take a stab at Luna 16 soon!