SFJackBauer

Had some time in my hands, nothing else to do, so I recorded this: The external tank and boosters are mass and delta-v identical to rl. The orbiter is lighter by about 15t, but its aero reentry profile is working so I don't want to mess with its CG position... yet. This perhaps is leading to MECO being 1 minute earlier than RL. Obviously using RealKerbin, FAR and MFS, besides B9, KW and the 1:1 SRB made by 1096bimu. (I think at this point anyone has noticed I'm a bit obsessed with the space shuttle )

I agree. My advice regarding overly pessimistic people - get as far as you can from them! Now, a bit of pessimism is healthy to keep your feet on the ground a bit.

As with most rocketry-related questions, the answer is "it depends". Posting a pic of the rocket can help, as well as the gravity turn parameters.

Strange, did the Kerbin rotation period reverted to 6h or its just the map info wrong? The .cfg value seems correct (86164.1)

Been working on converting the Magellan shuttle to FAR and, most importantly... to Real Kerbin! NASA lended some boosters...

Did you try adjusting the top radius of the interstage adapter (Y key)?

About to launch-test this badboy. The external tank is re-sized to the real-life counterpart in mass (760t) and its a 10-meter part. The boosters are the 1:1 replica made by 1096bimu, comes with a custom engine controller that does a thrust curve similar to the real SSRBs. And the orbiter looks a bit smallish since its payload bay is for 2.5m instead of 4.75m, but its mass (100t), the payload (30t of cupolas, who ordered 30t of cupolas?!) and delta-v are fairly close to the real one. Oh and the SSMEs are hand-edited to give their real thrust and isp as I couldn't find a good enough counterpart. The result is that the burn times, total delta-v and TWR looks fairly realistic. EDIT - Ermm.... actually delta-v of the orbiter is way higher than the real-one, I must correct it later.

The station fans continualy breath air (and oxygen) into the fire, until the automated fire detection shuts them down. And yes, there has been fire on Mir. And since we're at it, there has been also a collision in orbit, where a Progress resupply vehicle collided with (also) Mir. The video below contains some footage from inside Mir made in the moment of the collision. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZsO7r99L0s&t=27m54s

Whoever dismiss the entire movie just for its (few) scientifical inaccuracies misses entirely the point. It is a story of survival, perseverance and coming to terms with yourself. It happens the plot is in space, and the writer is fan of space and wanted to give it a proper representation, but that is not the main point of the movie.

To people using Quantum Struts - be extra careful to not have them hit any cubic or hexa struts (parts that are massles physically). It makes things behave crazily, independently of Ferram's mod.

To anyone having trouble launching from the launch pad, try launching from the spaceplane runway, for some reason the launch clamps there are firmer and the craft doesnt move much during settling.

Perhaps it is Spanish with an Irish accent?

There is a huge difference between having the brain inside the aircraft and having the brain outside. In a low intensity conflict zone like 'Stan, where the enemy is unlikely to have any effective countermeasure against the drones, their use is effective. However if we picture a large scale conflict between two superpowers, lots of electronic countermeasures (and counter-countermeasures) of every level will be in place. A drone force could be rendered ineffective by a large scale signal jamming unless it has an autonomous capability of making decisions itself. So to say that the fighter pilot is only worth sitting there to watch the gauges is a huge understatement. (I would even like to venture into the territory of the enemy side hacking and taking control of the drones, but I will leave that for now).

No worries mate, I don't doubt about the quality of the designs, including quite a bit yours that I have seen. However being a "craft exchange" thread I couldn't find/don't belong there the precise answer to what I am looking for - how to design a wing in FAR for high-drag, high AOA reentry that also is maneuverable for landing. Regarding the engine angling - the key is giving the engines a large gimbal range (around 10 degrees, instead of most stock engines at 1). SAS will take care of adjusting the gimbal through the center of mass. However the static angling is still necessary to give it some headroom. This way, its perfectly possible to launch a piggyback shuttle with varying payloads that is stable at ascent. Now, SSTOs have advantages and disadvantages... well lets not bring this discussion to this thread. Appreciated! Although credits should be given also to Maxime Faget Now back to the problem, slightly good news! I have come to terms with a reentry profile, after switching to Procedural Wings it gave me more flexibility, less weight and the stall problem is reduced, although still looking to improve it. Here are the "FAR lines" at Mach 6: Notice the center of lift has been moved further back, so the pitching moment (yellow line) has been reduced drastically in relation to the B9 wing. (Note - the engines placement don't have much effect in the graph - the wings overpower their drag and their aero effects, so I don't worry about it anymore). So now my reentry profile is this: - In a 80km orbit, plan a 100m/s retro burn so that MJ reports landing at 130km west of KSC - Mach 7.5 to 5.0 - 35º pitch on navball (corresponds to roughly 40º AOA) In this phase the wing is between 30/50% stalled. - Mach 4.9 to 2.5 - reduce to 25º pitch / 25º AOA - Below Mach 2.5 - just fly and land. If overshooting, apply airbrakes. G loading is low, and thermal load is low since most of the braking is done at upper atmosphere. Now since the center of lift is further back, the low speed handling suffered - I countered adding more control surfaces to the back (there are 5 elevators and 2 elevons in the pic above). And these add drag and reduce lift when operated, so landings have to be at higher speeds. I still need to tweak this. The truth is I have managed now the full cycle with FAR - ascent, orbit, reentry and landing - twice. So I'm happy

Thanks, but... 1) I am not looking for a baked solution. I want to understand how to make my design flyable, by going through the process. 2) my design constraints were not satisfied by the crafts I looked (frankly I didn't went through the entire forum, cause of point 1). Anyway, I didn't said my craft isn't flyable in FAR - I mentioned the high AOA regime, which generates more drag and makes the reentry quicker and more predictable. I am going by the same trouble tech_op2000 is going - on high AOA, the rear parts of the wing stall first than the front. Up to 20 AOA I can fly the re-entry just fine, it just takes longer and I have to guess better when to make the deorbit burn (hint - one of my design constraints is unpowered reentry/landing). I wonder if with procedural wings it will be different? I will give it a shot next. On the way to understand better, I've been analyzing the FAR steady-state analysis. One of things I find odd is the fact that the way I attach the engines to the back influences the way the craft handles. It does not makes sense to me. For example, these are the curves I get with three engines surface-attached and slightly angled: And these are the curves I get with these same three engines attached with a tri-coupler: Perhaps its nothing, since the curves change completely with the wings attached.

Its a mass driver. I am having the same troubles converting my space shuttle designs to far - they are heavy in the back, due to the engines, and I can only design a wing that is either stable on high AOA re-entry, or stable on landing. If I get good results I will post here.

The service engine looks like a real Apollo SM vacuum engine. See that's the problem. With resizing you end up with a bunch of things of different sizes that look the same, losing identity. When in real-life they will probably look completely different. For example the KW Wildcat XR makes for a good J-2/J-2X model - a high-thrust, high ISP vacuum engine. You can't just downsize it and pretend it is its smaller counterpart, the RL-10 - well you can, but that defeats the purpose of having different models (I'd say the KW equivalent for the RL-10 would be the Vesta VR9D for the dual version and Wildcat V for the single). The same about tanks - the NP 5m tanks are kerolox, Saturn-V style. You see KW actually included two variants of their largest tanks - a white and a orange one - because the orange large first stage is always correlated to a cryogenic stage like in Delta IV or the shuttle, due to the insulation. I know you can't judge what is inside the tank from the appearance only, but it counts. And lastly, we could give things their real names and their real stats directly into the part configs. This way you could quickly see - ah I want to use an F-1 engine, then I need a kerosene/lox tank - without the plethora of configurations and overrides present in MFS, with different tech levels, different modes for some engines, and different fuel for tanks. IRL you wouldn't take a Delta IV first stage and fill it with kerosene - you would design a completely new tank.

Oh yes, those are KW engines with gimbal 10. The SAS in 0.22 handles better gimballing from what I could test. If you could put an alternate download link it would be good for some people that, for some reason, can't download from spaceport. Mediafire is a good option.

I did it on my craft with just editor extensions and surface attachment, like this: @OP Spaceport download is not working for me at the moment, are the engines itself inclined, or it is part of the adapter? Are you intendend to make higher thrust ones, in the mainsail range for example?

Although it is good to reuse existing models from a practical standpoint, in the long-term, isn't it better to develop an independent pack, with real-life modular parts possessing the correct size, mass, and fuel amount? For example, building a Delta IV could be broken down into assemblying: - RS-68 - 5m x 25m tank with 40t of LH2 - 5m x 10m tank with 160t of LOX - 5m interstage with decoupler - RL-10 - 5m x 6m tank with 22t of LOX - 5m x 2m tank with 5t of LH2 - 5m payload and fairing adapter Those parts could be mixed and reused to create other realistic rocket models. The shuttle external tank for example, its about the same length of the Delta IV first stage, only exchanging the round cylindrical LH2 tank for a conical one, and a bottom round seal. Also the Ares or SLS could be built from it since they had/will have cryogenic cores. The solid boosters could be built from individual segments. The same philosophy could be carried through everything else. What I wonder is what is more demanding - keeping track of all the released rocketry packs, tweaking their mass/fuel values as Modular Fuels does now, and also resizing them as it is being proposed, or develop pre-built modular parts from scratch?

Step 1 - Call my operator. Step 2 - Get off the matrix. Step 3 - Inform Zion Council that the humans don't need salvation anymore.

Hah! I choose to abstain from choosing Seriously, I will be happy with whatever choice that you, as the creator, makes. I'm satisfied to see that you are aware of it and made a conscious decision. And thanks for explaining in a graphic way, I'm a 99% visual kind of guy.

Alexustas, first of all excelent job! I've been thinking how... bad... are the lander capsules, and wondering if there were any custom one... and then I see your thread While I'm at it, may I ask if you are going to work on the discrepancy between the external windows and the internal ones? Judging by your above shots you didn't changed their layouts yet in IVA. This is what I'm talking about: As you can see, I put a micro engine attached radially to the capsule, and judging from outside, it shouldn't block the view from inside, but it does. Also the instruments could be moved to the empty painel above the square window, and reduce the fuselage between the windows from the inside. Again, those are just suggestions, not nitpicking as I know how laborious is 3D modelling. Btw, Ive made a single-stage lander using monoprop as fuel, that looks good even as an habitat module perhaps... In the interim I was using sumghai's Cupola as a makeshift lander

For those with wobble problems, Kerbal Joint Reinforcement might be of utility.

I have tried 20 times on launch pad and 20 times on runway - none of the times in the runway the launch clamps detached. 15 of 20 times on launch pad it detached. And this with three KW heavy struts between each clamp and the craft.