Goozeman

I probably found a bug that no one would ever find with Principia because you shouldn't use impulsive maneuvers in the maneuver planner, right? I use them to set up SRM apogee kick stages and similar, though, so I was able to come across this. I ran the numbers ahead of time and calculated the inclination of the GTO orbit needed to achieve GTO with a fixed dV on the SRM apogee kick stage. I used my launch vehicle's upper stage (and Principia's maneuver planner with an extended maneuver) to enter the prescribed GTO. I then used the Principia maneuver planner w/ an impulsive maneuver and the orbit analyzer to approximate the apogee kick. However, when I perform this maneuver using MechJeb to align the axis to the nav-ball node marker, I end up with a higher than desired orbital energy and a lower than desired inclination change. I tried instead to actually calculate the maneuver by hand and enter the numbers directly into the maneuver planner, and again use MechJeb to track the node marker; this results in the maneuver being spot on. My hypothesis is that the maneuver is getting displayed on the nav-ball correctly, but there's an error in propagating it to the predictor. My guess is that it is an angle complement error. (Pitch angle should be 37 degrees when it is being interpreted by the predictor as 90 - 37 = 53 degrees or something like that.) I did a test run to show screenshots of the problem. (Google drive link.) Flight plan A is my hand calculated values. I forgot to open the dV planner, but the split is 1.3851 km/s tangential, -0.7518 km/s binormal. Flight plan B is just using Principia to calculate the "correct" values. I then did the burn using my hand calculated values and show the results as being largely correct. (The SRM over-boosted me a bit, but was well within the capabilities of the RCS to correct.)

In stock, you really can't get going fast enough to burn up on reentry. The difference between 2.2 km/s and 7.5 km/s is substantial. Eventually, I hope to include difficulty scaling for stock and 6.4x configs, but that's not in yet.

1950 is year 1, not year 0. Therefore 1954 is year 5.

There is no heat addition from things like NTRs or life support systems yet. When there is, I'll make sure that there is a way to remove it. Currently heating only occurs from atmospheric interactions. In space, you're fine.

Radiator friendly? I'm not sure how you mean, but yes, you will need radiators of some description to radiate heat into space if your heat load is too high.

First and foremost, there is no such resource as "Waste Heat." "Waste heat" simply makes a part get hotter. Eventually, this will mean that probes may need considerations for cooling. Additionally, probes may stop working below a certain temperature and require heating from an electrical source (or an RTG/NTR). Thanks for adding ideas to the To-Do list. Also eventually, the electrical energy that probes consume will be converted to heat, a la 1EC/s = 1kW. Still a WIP. So yes, there will eventually be coolant systems that run on ammonia, water, ethanol, or sodium depending on your preferred power transfer rate and operating temperature.

It isn't yet. Climate control may require some cross dependencies with TAC life support or something similar. I'll add it to the list. Also, 0.90 compatible, make sure you get FAR .14.5

Huh? It says .25 right up there. Better description to come.

There are plans for most of the items you speak of. NathanKell and I were talking about tying part temperature to cryo boil-off. I have been considering how to inside/outside temps. There are also plans for things that generate heat (e.g. NTRs) to radiate that heat to the other parts. Where you put your cryo tanks may also be a concern. So much to do, so little time.

Introducing Real Heat! The mod where we've got all your heat transfer modes. Convection? Laminar and turbulent! Radiation? Solar and blackbody. Conduction? Well... we're working on it. Currently without difficulty scaling for stock KSP, so you can't get much above 300*C on all but the most violent reentries. Will probably work with RSS. Try it and find out, someone let me know? Anyways, here are the links: https://github.com/KinglyRedLion/RealHeat/tree/master Instructions: 1.) Install FAR if you don't already have it. 2.) Download the zip from github and copy the RealHeat folder into your GameData folder. Notes: Use this OR Deadly Reentry. Not both. Thanks: To NathanKell for bringing me onto the project. To Ferram4 for putting up with my questions and for a lot of help. To egg. For being a general pain in the butt. Features: Implemented In Progress Planned Basic convective heating/cooling Basic radiative cooling of parts. Solar radiative heating Ablative heat shields Better atmospheric modeling to get local temperatures. Radiative heat transfer between parts Conductive heat transfer between parts Flow field mapping to provide better heating estimates, especially at M>1 Tie tank temperature to boil-off rates of cryo propellants (RealFuels) Interaction with Kerbals. Don't let them freeze/fry! Electronic components cease to function outside certain temperature thresholds. Electrical usage also produces heat. Licensed: CC-BY-NC-SA

The more interesting (and realistic) vision of something like this would be a ducted fan driven off of rocket propellants. Jet engines don't work on extraterrestrial bodies even if they have atmospheres (with the possible exception of Laythe) because there is no Oxygen. One could conceivably make what is a turbofan engine driven by fuel/ox mix instead of fuel/intake air mix. It would be far more efficient at low speeds than a rocket. Such a propulsion method has been proposed for use on a Mars airplane.

Quick question: Is Tweakable Everything compatible with RO and/or DRE? I had some... issues when I tried to use it. Basically, it made everything explode on the pad due to (I think) aerodynamic heating. I don't want to dump data here if it's a known issue.

Thanks for the replies, all. I guess for now, I'll just rely on keeping "Time to Equ. AN/DN" lined up with "Time to AP." The map view would just be a nice visual short-cut. The "add point at AN" doesn't really work because I'm trying to manually tweak the relative positions of the node line and apse line. Nathan: here's a trick for doing both at the same time:Set up MJ to do the inclination change. Take your circularization burn prograde dV and multiply by cos(delta_i) and sin(delta_i). Manually add these values to the prograde and normal components using precise node. The radial component is straight up addition or subtraction. Until Sarbian adds stuff anyways.

I do as well, but since MJ does "impulsive" maneuver calculations, keeping it dead on with, say, a Centaur stage that burns for 5-6 minutes for a GTO burn requires a little bit of hand finessing on top of MJ. I love MJ to death, but it needs a little massaging (that I am more than happy to give) on longer burns.

I've done some Google searching, but I can't for the life of me find a mod for this. Is there a mod that adds an Equatorial (not target relative) AN and DN indicator to the map view like the AP and PE indicators? It would be nice to have for RSS, where the launch site is not equatorial. Thanks!

You may want to try reducing the mass ratio of your first stage; let the second stage do more work. The mass of the rocket after expending the first stage fuel but before staging should be about 1/5 the lift-off mass. If you are still having TWR problems, either pull an Atlas I/II and drop away two engines part way through the burn, or pull a Saturn-V and shut down an engine or two early.

Are there any heat-shielded RCS thruster blocks that are compatible with R.O.? I'm trying to re-enter a space plane, but the RCS thrusters keep burning up long before anything else does. Needless to say, it causes some problems. B9 had some great ones, but those aren't compatible yet...

That's the spiral mode that Farram was talking about. Try a touch more dihedral or a slightly smaller vertical tail.

Some SRBs have flexible seals which allow the nozzle to pivot, I believe typically somewhere in the neighborhood of 10*, though I'm sure you could do more or less as necessary.

860*C is cool. Space shuttle thermal tiles can withstand the force of an acetylene blowtorch. Some modern TPS materials are good to 2000*C.

From the studies I've read, a mission to Mars with 4 people would be on the order of 500-750mt. Using a 950s nuclear engine. Not something to take lightly. That's still over 4 launches with a Saturn-V class launch vehicle. Obviously, it could be done for less in KSP because you can cram 4 kerbals in a kerbal can and call it good, but still.

You're talking about fowler flaps and slotted flaps. You can't do those in KSP yet, but you can use plain flaps and split flaps. While not quite as effective as those that increase wing area, they do still work.

Don't give up quite so easily. The trick to precise landings with FAR is to design such that your reentry vehicle has a stable axis. If you do that, then Cd is a function of Mach number only, so it is possible to do some calculations. Basically, check out the 7 Minutes of Terror video that NASA put out for the Curiosity rover. Aeroshells and powered landings are your friends.

How is wing sweep accounted for? I looked through a plane with pWings and couldn't figure it out. The problem that I'm having is that no matter how much I sweep the wing, the NP remains pretty much in the same place. Stability derivatives seem to update correctly, but that may be simply due to the control surfaces hanging way out back.

Setting the ablation term with a ridiculously high B and T_0 could have the same effect as a catastrophic failure at a prescribed temperature. A very low B and T_0 would ablate slowly, but also start at relatively low temperatures.