stratochief66

that can be an issue, chrisl. there is one specifically for the Apollo that is in an unusual place (read: not with the other heatshields) that specifics it is for the Apollo. I will be posting some of my RO craft files this weekend, which should useful for those having trouble assembling them. I did a little digging, it is under 'Utility'

Any plans to create a Ranger?

Unmanned payloads, like manned payloads, can handle very high acceleration for very short periods of time. During the last few seconds of any stage the Jerk is at its maximum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerk_%28physics%29) the acceleration goes through a wide range of values, and a great deal of velocity is added. This is indeed a stressful period for the payload, manned or unmanned. R&D would determine when these stresses exceeded the capacity of the launcher and/or payload. For instance, NASA determined that it was better to shut down the centre engine of the first and second stages of the Saturn 5 before burnout to reduce the range of accelerations the craft would be placed under. A payload can be built in anticipation of these great accelerations and forces, the greatest threat appears to be to the rocket engine itself in many cases, literally vibrating itself apart. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogo_oscillation)

yeah, pingo is probably dead. he -literally- left an out of office message. come on, guys.

The jettison force for the LMA fairings is quite low, but they always seem to float outward slooowly when I decouple them. I only decouple them under 0 acceleration, once orbit (or for the Saturn 5, TLI) has been achieved. keep in mind, that in reality the LMA fairings were the only things holding the CSM up. Are you decoupling the LMA upper node holding the CSM at the same time as the LMA fairings?

Hi, Motokod. I have been cleaning up some of the FASA parts of late. I am glad you have noticed and enjoyed some of the improvements, like the LMA spacing fix. What leads you to suspect the S-IVb is overweight? Historically it looks to me like there were 2 major versions of the S-IB. I haven't been able to track down exact figures, but I believe the first stage tank was signifcantly lightened up before being used to launch 20.0 ton and 20.1 ton Skylab 2 and Skylab 3 flights. In comparison, prior to the lunar landings, what I believe to be the earlier version of the S-IB lifted the 16.5 ton Apollo 7 mission into LEO. The S-IVb currently in RO also is a few hundred kg heavier than the one used on any S-IB as well, I believe. The reason being that the S-IB version did not include the ability to restart, which was necessary for a Saturn 5 TLI, but not for any S-IB flights. As for the LMA behaviour, the staging of the LMA and LMA fairings is a little strange, but it might explain what you are seeing. There will be staging icons for each of the LMA fairings as well as seperating the CSM from the top attachment node of the LMA. I personally place these all in 1 stage while flying, but you would see strange behaviour if you don't. Would it be possible for you to try to capture a screenshot or two of the strange behaviour you have seen? I am also curious if you are using the SM SPS engine to achieve orbit, or are using a partially fueled SM? - - - Updated - - - Also, I noticed the identical Ullage issue today as you described, Motokid600. http://www.spaceline.org/rocketsum/saturn-v-apollo.html The above sources suggest that solid motors were used to settle the fuel of the S-IVb during ascent, and that the ullage motors in the Saturn APS only provided ullage before TLI of the Saturn 5. There are no solid rocket motors in FASA specifically meant to fulfill this purpose, so please use the SRM of your choosing. I also find it rather cool the wiki page gives you the timing of launch events, as you can see the solid ullage lighting and jettison. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_IB

RO now allows the use of this vostok and voskhod in rss! I love the parts, RaiderNick. Same with the Luna probes, which are quite challenging to launch from the Soviet Union in RSS.

I found a capitalization error in the clouds.cfg file (RVE/EVE/Atmosphere/) that seems to cause my low cloud layer to exhibit no detail. In the section below, the _DetailTex file path should end in detailLow, not DetailLow as it does: Kerbin-cloudsLow { altitude = 4200 speed = 50 scaledOverlay = Geometry layer2D { detailSpeed = 6 offset = 0,0,0 shadow = True shadowOffset = 0,0,0 macroCloudMaterial { _MainTex = RVE/EVE/Atmosphere/Textures/Low _DetailTex = RVE/EVE/Atmosphere/Textures/DetailLow I am not sure if this was corrected at some point, or in some versions. after changing the case of the 'd', my lower cloud layer looks much better! I suggested the change on the github, if you find it to be a desirable change. (Edit) I also found a way to drastically reduce the lines in the clouds before the PQS/Scaled Space switch over. I increased the altitude of the low cloud layer to 4200 meters, which pretty much eliminated the problem for the clouds, but the issue still appears on the ocean and terrain. I also find the drastic difference between the land colour before and after the switch quite distracting. The temp solution I am working on is lowering the altitude at which the game switches to the beautiful Scaled Space version, as PQS rapidly drops in quallity as altitude increases. Re-entry is when I will mostly be seeing the switch over (it appears less ugly during ascent) so I think I will lower the switch to 65-80km.

And why build crazy rockets, piloted by little green men and send them to a fictional 'Mun'? Because it is fun, and challenging! I personally love both historic and un-historic rockets. Both find a time and place in my fun time!

Excellent mod, it really brings up the visuals several notches to complement the vast scale of the RSS! I have been having two primary graphical issues, the CRT/screendooring of clouds and ocean primarily during ascent, and secondly an odd bright spotlight under the ship that changes in scale as you ascent. Is there a thread where people trade config files for RVE in RSS? I have had some luck fixing the cloud black line issue by changing the DetailDist and FadeDist for the Ketbin clodsLow layer. Increasing the altitude of the layer a km or so also seems to help. I have so far had no luck correcting the black lining issue when it comes to the ocean surface. Thanks to those who work on RVE, EVE, and RSS. Any help, advice, or direction anyone might be able to provide would be much appreciated!

Are you pitching over when this happens, or heading straight up? That is a mighty strange failure, given that the mercury retro strap is under the capsule during ascent, so it shouldn't face any aerodynamic stresses.

Epic Hardware! I am working on RSS/RO MM files for some hardware of yours that doesn't already have it. Luna 1, 3, Vostok, Voskhod, Molniya

Nice rocket, immelman! What do you intend to do in your RO Mars mission? I was recently fiddling with making Skylab into a crew habitat for a Mars orbital or flyby mission.

Fair enough. Thanks for the response!

A full Saturn 5 (with or without a LEM) will get into orbit with around 3100 to 3800 m/s left n the third stage (enough for a TLI), but that does take a relatively careful launch. I can get a Titan Gemini into at least a 180km x 180km orbit consistently. The Atlas Mercury I can generally get pretty close to orbit, depending on the quality of my ascent. I always fire all 3 engines at the ground and stage off the two outer booster rockets at 2 minutes 15 seconds into flight, as suggested by the Astronautix numbers. How much Delta-V do you have left in orbit with your Saturn 5 in orbit, and with or without the LEM?

Hello, Frizzank! I have been enjoying your mod for a long time now! I am working on cleaning the a few mods to work more consistently together. In particular, I am noticing that The Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo capsules do not work consistently with DRE (Deadly Re-entry) in RSS with RO. Currently, the Mercury capsule has a heat shield, the Gemini capsule has the code for it in the part, but it has been commented out of action, and the Apollo capsule heat shield has no heat shield code or abilities. Here is the commented out Gemini code: // MODULE // { // name = ModuleHeatShield // direction = 0, -1, 0 // bottom of pod // reflective = 0.05 // 5% of heat is ignored at correct angle // ablative = AblativeShielding // loss // { // loss is based on the shockwave temperature (also based on density) // key = 650 0 // start ablating at 650 degrees C // key = 1000 320 // peak ablation at 1000 degrees C // key = 3000 400 // max ablation at 3000 degrees C // } // dissipation // { // dissipation is based on the part's current temperature // key = 300 0 // begin dissipating at 300 degrees C // key = 500 90 // maximum dissipation at 500 degrees C // } // } // RESOURCE // { // name = AblativeShielding // amount = 1000 // maxAmount = 1000 // } // MODULE // { // name = ModuleDecouple // ejectionForce = 80 // //explosiveNodeID = top // isOmniDecoupler = true // staged = true // } } A consistent behaviour is preferred as many other mods rely on your excellent mod at the base. Modifications could certainly be made to those other mods, but I think it is more elegant if a consistent behaviour is selected and put into place in the FASA mod. If you agree to that, please let me know which behaviour you prefer and I can adapt the code as necessary. So, no heat shields on all capsules, or heat shields on all capsules? Thanks!

Very pretty, I like the art style. What is the blue panel that sticks out starting in image 6? My best guess would be a single solar panel?

I have done some personalizing tweaks since upgrading my FASA RSS RO build to 0.90, but the basics work fairly well. Is there something in particular failing you sp1989?

Here, I launch a fully lunar capable Saturn 5 to the surface of the moon and back. The closest real missions would probably be the Apollo 11 or Apollo 12 flights. I do not show off the lift generator abilities of my Apollo capsule in the pictures, but I certainly make use of them to force a water landing. Sometime I will have to share a video of my decent and the code I borrowed from a Soyuz mod in order to better emulate the actual Apollo capsule. I hope you enjoy. Past here, I intent to show off the power of my modified Apollo CM, as well as my supersized garage of Saturn MLV and Nova rocketry. Here is an example of my Saturn V 1A MLV, employing more than the usual number of first and second stage engines.

My first sizable post. I hope to showcase my full collection of Saturn 5 and IB MLV hardware, but I will start with my S1B launch. Here, we are testing a partially fuelled Apollo CSM, entering a Medium Earth Orbit and re-entering at an elevated velocity. In reviewing the Apollo missions as flown, this seems to be a combination of the unmanned Apollo 4 launch, re-entering at high speeds to test the heat shield, and the Apollo 11 manned shakedown of the CSM in earth orbit. I haven't seen many Challenge responses making use of the excellent hardware found in FASA, so I thought I would give it a shot. I have spent a lot of time tweaking and building hardware in the FASA mold, and I just really love the look of the hardware. Please let me know what you think. If you love or dislike the FASA hardware. Also, I am a numbers monkey, so as such, I will come back and edit this post with some highlight factoids about this mission, such as the max endured G forces at Centre Engine Cutoff and others. Also, please let me know what you think about the look with the data overlays. Personally, I would love to glimpse a bit more of the detail of what is going on behind creating the images when i see people's albums, so I kept the overlays in my pictures so people get a more full picture of what is happening in each of them. Thanks!

Thanks for that, the album is excellent! I looked at the original forum for the Cup, and don't feel up to digging through 110 pages of posts. Was there by chance ever a video of a launch? I would love to see the exhaust and thrust plumes evolve. I attempted to use the information in this thread to recreate those effects, and did not have any luck.

Excellent hardware, I would love to see more pictures of it in action! I will fiddle with this a bit. I -love- the engine exhaust effects as shown in the picture and look forward to seeing them in action. As my interest in KSP has deepened, I have learned some rocket science, and about some of the things inaccurate in base - KSP. For instance, ISP will vary with atmospheric pressure, and is partially dependent on the rocket nozzle shape. Thrust can be under-expanded, optimally expanded, and over-expanded. An F-1 rocket engine is at least somewhat optimized for producing high levels of ground level thrust, and this will inevitably result in the exhaust gas being under-expanded when operating in a vacuum. I am curious if reflecting that was your intention with what we see in the exhaust gasses here?

Wow, amazing that this was just posted today! ++ That you are building it such that it works with RSS, that is where I truely can't plan a transfer if my life depends on it! Might have something to do with the planet inclinations, Earth equator offset, etc. It would be amazing if this could also help plot flyby (and return!) missions for manned space flight in RSS, but I am not sure if the original was able to help with that. It would also be amazing if it can generate a Maneuver Node from the data. I will keep a close eye on this thread, as it will really help me up my RSS game!

Sorry if I missed it in the comments, but does anybody know how well this might work with Real fuels and/or RSS? Has anyone seen someone working on this? I have yet to experiment with this mod, but it looks like an amazing collection of mods is coming together, already very mature!

Good to know. I have considered using that, and I might actually now that I have worked out placing geostationary satellites in RSS. I wouldn't expect RT2 to power the animation of these antennae, but I will try that. Any idea about the ejection seats for gemini? I have seen the code, they seem to be intended to actually function as historically designed, I just haven't found the mod that powers them.