Pappystein

Originally RIFT was supposed to be on the Saturn D-2 Rocket. Since the Saturn C-2 rocket was never Built, the D-2 was likewise never Built since they are the same basic stages up to the S-IV stage. There WAS a D-1 (which as you can guess was based off of the Saturn I rocket,) but there were multiple directives from both NASA and the Office of POTUS ***NOT TO FLY IT*** and that was in 1961-62. POTUS = President of the United States of America (sorry for those not in the know!)

This was from Jso who designed the balance for the mod. The Hypergolic Tanks do not take the full volume of each "stage" there is significant space under the skin not occupied by fuel IRL. Compared to most LFO rockets it is about 87-88% the USEABLE volume of a LF/O tank set. The alternate LFO tanks would need to be larger to match the mass-density (and therefor stored deltaV) of the Hypergolic fuel. Since KSP uses Volume for burn rate instead of mass (Mass is 100% how real rockets work,) we have to increase the volume of the LFO because it is Less dense than Hypergolic. So basically the volume of LF/O to equal the performance stored in Hypergolic fuel is larger than the Hypergolic fuel. To me it is kinda funny but the more efficient the fuel the more volume it take sup. Hydrofloric Acid (Lqd Florurine + Lqd Hydrogen) takes more volume than Hydrolox, Takes more volume than LFO takes more volume than Hypergolic. Totally a guess here but could this be related to mass of the decoupler vs the stage? That was the problem back in the day with the smaller SRMs and BDB decouplers. IIRC COM or COP needed to be adjusted to compensate. I do not know how you could do that in this case since the tank is "universal." Maybe make the decoupler drag ignoring and also reduce the mass to near nothing (0.0001 would be a good number.) Also a big bump in the thrust of the Seperation motors is probably a good idea!

For what it is worth, I did a PR last week for fixing the RL10B-3 as well as fixing some minor tweaks to bring into line with performance documents directly from Pratt and Whitney on the RL10 family. Also the Real Name names were corrected to proper nomenclature deleting extraneous hyphens (there should only be hyphens after the Letter A or B not anywhere before them.)

Sorry for the late reply, not a Dev but Calling it Gamma Centaur is like Calling it Atlas Centaur. You are naming two stages as if they were just one. This can lead to confusion (after all NASA has made people confused for years doing it!) Did you try disabling MechJeb's safety interlocks? (an option on the Docking Autopilot Menu)? I have problems with the SLA myself until I do that. You wouldn't be able to lift much if you did that. The Existing S-IC tanks are too big and heavy for 3 engines only with any sort of payload as well. So neat thing Purposes COOL. Actually practical thing for in game... Not really

@Zorg The 25KW Power Tower, Is there supposed to be a 3rd Axis bearing like the ISS has or is there thoughts to make one?

It is working fine on my end. Can you PM me a screenshot of the Pafftek folder in Extras? Oh and also: A3 vs B3

That should be working. If you choose say the LR87-AJ-11K, you should have a Kerolox engine meaning the tank needs to be switched to LF/O

Just verified the files. The B-3 is better but the Flavor text is wrong. (21kn vs 16.5) However the ISP on the A-3 is also wrong (431 was highest achieved during Apollo for example) and it is at 444 which is the ISP of the B-3 If you look at the B-3 vs the A-3 in game (not in VAB) and running you will see the higher performance listed. I will attempt to get this sorted soon(tm) EDITED ASSUMING that the data on BBOW is what is used, RL10A-3 should be 15000lbf or 66.72kn Real world thrust... /4 = 16.675kn for KSP ISP for the RL10-A3 varies from 427 to 431 (depending on pre-cooling the engine would be my guess as the 427 is for Atlas launches and the 431 is for Saturn with it's better insulation for the engine bay) RL10A-3-1 is 431 ISP for Atlas launches so I assume they used Saturn level of pre-cooling for the Centaur... the RL10A-3-3 of 1978ish being 16.675kn and 444 ISP RL10B-3 which is 20,000lbf or 88.964kn /4 = 22.241kn in KSP @ 444ISP out the gate. I will submit a PR for fixing the entire RL10A family including proper RL designations (right out of P&W documents rather than the web)

Thanks for the heads-up. The B-3 should be 20,000 vs 15,000 units of force. I will do some digging, but a lot of comments on web-searches state the A-3 was "upgraded" for use on the Saturn and I am willing to bet that somewhere someone thought that meant the THRUST was upgraded (not the rocket interface which IS the difference between the A-3 and the A-3S.) And you are correct I do not default LDC to Hypergolic. For one reason... There are more LDC proposals for Hydrolox than Hypergolic. They just are not as popular in history.

That actually explains quite a lot! Thanks! @Zorg Thanks for answering the questions about my patch while I was away. All BDB Hypergolic engines *SHOULD* have a proper patch. I would appreciate anyone finding one that is missing letting me know so I can update. And as I stated previously, rather than 20 different fuel combos with 20 different burn ratios, this is a simplified Hypergolic Patch that only use AZ50/NTO since they work in the 0.9/1.1 ratios similar to LFO. And as you are building your Titans, YES they are not supposed to be full!

Yes yes yes, You have a Nice GE 405H powered Vega there But in some respects, I have used the Vega for just such a role (no boiloff... it should have LOX boiloff but everyone would loose there *STUFF* if that was in game because of all the "stockalike fuel" people.) But by the same token that is why my Hypergolic patches are in the Extras Folder now YES you too can now fuel your titan with 50/50 (AKA Aerozine50 and NTO)! I did not go into all the different fuel types because B9PS, while awesome, does not have an easy interface for 22 different fuel combos that is easy for a neophyte player. If it was a Hypergolic rocket in BDB it is now AZ50/NTO fueled. You also get the RL10B-3 (aka the XLR-119) that was canceled for Saturn and Centaur C. if you are using the AJ-9 Titan engine patch you get the Kerolox versions of that... and if you are like me and like Saturn II. My thrust reprofiling of the Agol to mimic the Minuteman M55 until a real one is made. (on the Dev Branch not the release or master branches)

Why not use a REAL J-2X instead of the fake one!? in 2x of it's 4 forms it is already in BDB (J-2T and J-2X)

Blinded em with Science?

Unless you are me and PVG ALWAYS crashes your rocket and Stock-A-Like works great You just have to know how to adjust Stock-A-Like to work well, and sadly that is an ART not a Science so I can't just write up how to do it because I do each rocket differently!

I have the data on them all. I have a PR up for my Hypergolic patches for BTA to be in BTA Extras. In it I edited Zorg's AJ9 Patch adding a AJ9K variant and creating a "new mod" so as to provide controllable exclusions for my Hypergolic patches. I didn't want to update the main list of engines more than that until the PR is accepted into the Extras folder (or refused.) But I have all the data ready to dump with another PR latter.

Revenge of the SCHNOZ! Looks good

Depends on the Mission. I am about equally split for big payloads between Titan and Saturn II... except Station building then I am either LDC or 6.25m Saturn V derived. Prior to unlocking the Titan III parts I am exclusively on "Big Redstone" (1.5m Quad engine Redstone) and Atlas... I am a Huge fan of flexible "modular" launch systems and both Titan and Saturn II provide capability in spades in that way as you have already alluded to. For Satellite launches where the satellite is self contained, Centaur & Vega variants... For long duration flights either Growth Agena (kitbashed Titan Upperstage tank and a Dual Engine mount scaled down from the LDC one with Tweakscale.) Or Ascent Agena. I have some custom configs altering the 8096-x family so that the missing big bell one is now covered. While I love the Thor rocket family, I am not really a fan of the Delta Upper stage latter in life, So I am more likely to do a Thor-Burner or Thorad than say a Thor Delta-P or Thor Delta-K But certain missions require certain parts to be used so in those cases... I build it out of what I NEED to instead of want too. Late Careeer I tend to launch what is "Right" for the situation. You don't see too many RD-180 launches from my pool of launchers however. I will still be Launching Atlas D, E, F, F', G, and H rockets If they are more efficient for the payload. Basically I play the "It has to work" ballance act several times and then choose the cheapest choice for the most Delta V

Short version (since we really do not know the long version) They changed the combustion cycle to increase chamber pressure for more thrust. IRL the engine never reached the design requirements and was canceled. And thus S-V never existed and S-IV was switched from a 4 engine to a 6 engine stage. Most EASY TO FIND documents and web pages list the engine just with the DOD/USAF designation of LR-119 (RL10A-3 is LR-115 for comparison.) By the standards the USAF sets that means the RL10B-3 had to be signficant enough different to denote a new engine type.... Ignoring all the modern civil engines that are purchased and given new designations like candy when I type that... LR-119 was to be used with Centaur C (S-V) Centaur E (re-designated Centaur C after NASA took over direct control of Centaur program) "Growth Centaur" which was to be used with "Big Atlas F" and Centaur JR For the longest time the only document I had in my possession that referenced any of these was the document Ed Kyle used to draw the above image up. And yes, that is also where I first heard about the H-2 engine. Which we now know is basically a H-1 engine with a so called "Mk XIV" turbopump in place of the stock ones.

Are their plans by anyone to redo the RL10 family? If there isn't I am going to submit a Pull request for the RL10B-3 on the basic RL10A engine. For those of you who didn't read my document posted on Easter Morning, the RL10B-3 is the oft quoted but never put into production RL10 variant for the Saturn S-V (super centaur) and the S-IV stage with 4 Engines. It had a Higher thrust with a similar efficiency as the RL10A-3 and RL10A-3S used on Saturn did. The document in question is the Saturn C-2 and C-3 article in my archive in the signature below.

Yeah, this design never made sense to me. The Station is actually 10ft diameter... and you move it deeper into the former Lqd Hydrogen tank. Only reason to do that was because the LqdHydrogen tank provides extra radiological and micrometeorite protection. Given we didn't launch skylab with this extra protection and it survived fine until we decided we didn't need it..... Zorg, AMAZING work as always and thanks for the PLF with a colider-less center. I can see lots of uses for that including a "safe" launch option for these stations. You can also launch a S-IVB Wetlab and boost it to a slightly HIGHER orbit

Yeah I will back that. Titan IIIC-- or Titan IIID--- maybe

Thanks for compiling them. I actually didn't consider a few of those my historical documents but I will expand them before I post (LR79, Agena LR87/91 series.) As it is, my most recent documents are up on the Wiki.

So I hate to admit this. But I have lost some things. If any of you know the page/url to any of the old Historical Articles I have written on things like Titan etc, could you please share them. I am trying to upload all my documents to my very rough (just starting out and not real professional yet) Wiki that is in the link below. The Goal is to have a pretty solid archive for modders to have some history. Maybe a few drawings and inspiration for their craft. Thanks in Advance! (if you have copied documents and can share them back please PM me!) ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++EDITED BELOW++++++++++++++++++++++ While they are not up on the GitHub, I have now recovered the entire swath of Titan Documents, the J-2 Engine Documents and all my Saturn Documents that I have published. Over the next few days I will re-edit them, update them (several documents predate Zorg's discoveries about the HG-3 rocket engine for example.) and then add them to my Github and Wiki. Currently I am only uploading PDFs of the documents. Latter I will work to make a fully readable on Github wiki

Two things on the INT-16 1) How the HECK did you build your S-I stage? 2) All SRMs can be thrust profiled to perform differential. This is done by Shape, Baffle Size and thickness and fuel composition. I read in (I believe) a MOL document where they talked about using less aluminum powder in the SRM solid fuel slurry to reduce impulse and provide for a longer burn. We can do this in a limited fashion in KSP by adjusting the Thrust limiter down. But it dose not stop peak thrust change... just lowers the maximum number you can reach.

The Saturn D series of rockets had their Nuclear stage based off of S-IV and S-IVB. But those were meant mostly as test rockets (and not well defined at that so think of the Saturn D series as the Placeholders for the future S-xN family) The Saturn D-2 Rocket ( a Saturn C-2 comprising of S-I(C-2) or S-IM(C-2) S-II-260 and the Un-named Nuclear stage based off of the Hydrogen Tank from the S-IVB stretched and ending in a small diameter at the top where a small GCU unit would reside completing the conic nature of it. No nose cone no nothing else. The Tank is most of the nosecone itself. Reducing lego-ablity MSFC was told to NOT contemplate the Saturn D-1 rocket as the Nuke would be ignited in atmosphere. Although drawings of it do exist. D-3 existed and later became C-3N. But I have found zero drawings as D-3 Something to remember about the Saturn Program, While technology sharing was a thing, Douglas Aircraft Corporation had the best Insulating of any company for the Liquid Hydrogen, the S-IV and S-IVB having significantly lower boiloff points than the NAA S-II-396 stage for example