Pappystein

An update, yesterday I announced my Agena Document. I have been collecting lots and LOTS of data. I am 4 word document pages into writing the article and I still haven't gotten to AGENA A yet. This is going to be a long process so please don't get your hopes up that I will be pumping article out daily starting today or tomorrow for that matter. I might be able to get the first chapter out by Monday. But no promises. I love how FOIA documents don't have to be of good quality to be held in secret..... Just reading some of these gives me a headache due to the repeated memographing then photocopying then scanning of a photocopy of a memograph! Heck Microfiche may have been involved in the process... the docs are so blury it is hard to tell.... or maybe I forgot my glasses again nope it is the docs themselves! An interesting conclusion can be drawn from my reaserch as is. Most of the side view drawings released publicly before say 1990 seem to have dimensional issues. They provide in-correct lengths for the Forward rack (what conceals the forward fuel tank dome and is below the Guidance Section) Now in BDB, the forward rack is in part on the fuel tank itself and in part on the GCU. The issue is there is about 8 inches missing.... or if we want to use the MON3 fueled Agena there is 16" missing (the fuel tanks are 8" longer for a MON3/NTO Agena) Now we have a part, the GATV Agena Battery, which is ABOUT the right size to replicate the rest of the missing forward rack... on Agena B. On Agena D it would only need a 4" slice... The Forward rack was included on Agena to fit the overflow from the GCU on the hand built Agena A and Agena B rockets. each rocket could have a completely different GCU from the previous due to each GCU needing mission specific hardware. Agena D with it's "digital" GCU using a couple basic integrated circuits instead of things like mechanical clocks, did not need this space. YES that means Agena B is about 4 inches longer than Agena D, if you ignore the engine. I want to be clear, I did this by looking at two stages side by side. I have not actually measured the photos yet... mostly because I am out of Toner for my printer (I won't make the mistake of measuring on my monitor ever again! ) With the longer engine bell on Agena D, they are back to the same length. Lazy people who didn't know better saw Agena B was ~24 feet long and Agena D was ~24 ft long and just copy pasted Agena D drawing (with the Agena B aft rack added)..... This is just ONE problem I have had to solve in the past couple of days during my research. we won't talk about how hard it is to pin down all the Bell Engine Company 8xxx Engines! Oh and don't ask what came first. 8096C or 8096L. You would guess the C but I think the L actually is 10+ years older of a design... The 8096C is basically an Agena 2000 engine proposal that was not chosen for Agena 2000. Now if I could just PROVE THAT!

So a couple of weeks ago, Cobaltwolf accidentally got me started on a new project. Re-researching Agena because he found Agena E. I am going to try to include as much info as I can on the following versions: RAND 9ft stage Pied Piper Discovery Pied Piper Standardized Agena A Agena B Agena C Agena D Ascent Agena Agena E Shuttle Agena And possibly even Agena 2000. I will also be discussing my opinion on why the less capable Agena was foisted by the USAF onto NASA. I have facts that tie my opinion together but most of it is reading between the lines (thus me calling it an opinion.) What I won't be doing is re-hashing any or all payloads that the Agena carried other than maybe mentioning that Payload X flew on Agena version Y.

Been there, done that, Skipped the T-Shirt for the entire wardrobe. Welcome to the wonderful world of "Did I choose the right part" Which is a huge reason I use real-names patch for BDB! Beale, AMAZING work! From here on I am totally joking in this post. This is NOT a request. But... Space Station Enterprise LOX wetlab when? again. TOTALLY joking! Thank you for your amazing looking IVAs! Please be a new post... Yeah, Cobalt made that tank part to not allow surface attach no matter what. You were both correct in how to get a surface attach over (I didn't even think about it until Zorg's post.) I was on stream when that tank was being made that way (and the Bluestreak tanks were being made this same way.) If you use Cobalt's old BREXIT Bluestreak you will have the same problem. Surface attach will work on the congregated looking part of the main tank but not the smooth part if I recall. It is a 3D modeling software setting (or a Unity setting IDR)

Honestly it sounds like the stickers are disappearing into the tank. if you attempt to place the stickers and then move the tank, do the stickers remain behind?

Yeah, the Burner 2 kit could use a TLC remake as it was made for STAR48 instead of 37. Now that B9PS has well learned "part switching" it would be nice. Of course it would be nice if the existing model could get a Scale switch (is that even possible in B9PS?) Of course it would be nice if there was a burner I kit as well. But IIRC that was just a spin-table with a small SRM. And I will apologize because I think the size was based on my request for a Burner II type RCS system to work with the PAM (Star 48). Of course now I want a STAR 63 (aka Giant PAM or PAM II!)

You mean the THOR parts? Look for Thor that after all is what Delta is just a bad rename of (Delta is the upper stage not the whole rocket)

Appreciate the concise answer... and the ability to put those under BDB Atlas booster skirts (not that I would normally... but it is the part I judge all engines by!)

I have to say that is one of the nicer looking NK-33s I have seen. So I have asked this question of many modders and I want to ask it again of you. What is the point of a ring on-top of an engine? The real life versions do not have such a device. I ask, not as a criticism but rather as a quest for the ultimate legoability. The Ring can show up in places where the engine fits fine but the ring is too big of diameter for the space it occupies (I am looking at you Atlas Booster skirt!) I can not wait for this and your Angara mods to fill out a lot of missing spots in my KSP playthroughs.

All true. And My previous statement you quoted was all satire. Just because the world, for COMMON use measurements only, decided on a standard that was invented by a group of map makers that wanted nice round numbers for mapping earth as a whole instead of those unsightly decimal points.... It make only a tiny bit more sense than a King declaring the unit of measurement as based upon the length of his foot (walking device). Well neither standard really works when you start thinking about leaving the planet which we are talking about doing. Both have an Arbitrary measurement standard based upon earth only. It is very Planet-ist If, for example you look up any Shipping measurement scale it is almost always Nautical Miles. I think the Eastern Block tried to push for KM in the 1960s, but it isn't used by 80+% of the sea going world (I am going from memory on this. ) I know that once you get into Riverine and possibly inland sea/lake shipping it is either Statue Miles (or standard 'Merican miles if you will) or kilometers. Per ICAO altitude is in Feet or Meters depending on the country of radio contact, and international aircraft MUST have a readout in BOTH measurements for altitude. Distance covered is always Nautical miles. But I think, based on voice transcripts from actual flight incidences in Europe, that most of the world uses Feet for altitude.... That is excepting the un-educated Press reporting on such incidents "help" their viewers/listeners/readers by "helpfully" converting from the ft measurement in the actual cockpit-ground communications to Meters... sometimes with funny results! I remember an e-mail conversation about such an incident in the early 1990s where the conversion wasn't done and the reporter stated that the Airliner was flying at 38km of Altitude... Well over the altitude where a HBPR Turbofan engine can even operate. FTR it is about 15km altitude where you will start needing a full pressure suit even in a pressurized aircraft to avoid many issues The point of the original satire as well as this post is simple. Just because your area's common form of measurement is what you are used to... That does not make it the RIGHT form of measurement for the subject matter. United States of America uses the foot and inches to measure the rocket. Therefor we will use the foot and inches to describe the rocket when talking actual rockets (not KSP tom-foolery.) Cringe, groan and complain all you want. It is ALWAYS more accurate and precise (two key things when flying rockets or even attempting to do so.) to use the standards of measurements they were designed for. That being said, if I am describing a rocket designed using the IS/SI standards, you better believe I will be talking in Meters/Millimeters, and kilograms or liters as pertinant! and no, these statements are not a judgement of what measuring standard is superior. IF anything I think all 4 standards I mentioned suck! (two basic standard sets and two derived standard sets are covered above!) I am just saying stick with the measuring standard used to design what you are talking about.

Really? You should. A Foot is a lot easier to estimate with than a meter. Look at your foot (walking tool), realize it is ABOUT a foot (measurement) in length and then go from there! 3.05m then for you "lets make a new standard that makes no sense unless you are measuring the planet for large scale mapping purposes" standards user... Oh and it has the enviable side effect of every other measurement is scaled on a 10x factor of it instead of a variable 3x scale factor!

Probably more correct to say "Mini SLS" Notice that the SRBs are actually SRMU which is 1.875 (10ish feet Real world) And SLS would fly with 2.5m (aka 156" or 13ft SRBs) BUT, that was my first thought too! Last I checked Isaac Asimov's Foundation book was written in the 1940s and published as an anthology in 1951. 73 had Sci-Fi too *Wonders where his Foundation series of books are....* And CRAP is a 1st Edition of the Foundation from 1951 REAL expensive ($12,500.00 USD)

I know Starhelperdude already stepped in with the simple answer of the name and commenting on the FACT that it is a great mod. Simple Adjustable fairings allows for REAL WORLD like fairings to return to KSP with a vertical insertion possible (but not width insertion) The fairings are all (in BDB) based on a scale of the real fairings that flew on real rockets. compared to stock and stock-a-like fairings the SAF fairings have too big benefits to my mind. they look like real life you can make rocket correct payloads a little easier with them. The single disadvantage is you can't make 10m fairings on a 1.25m rocket... (but wait why would you want to!) Hope that helps Adam-Kerman

Well I have Titan adjacent posts to do yet... like Centaur Then again, Centaur is more of a hot mess than Titan! But the Core of the production and limited-alteration What Ifs are done. awe just for me! Will be there Will start spamming the refresh button at 6:45AM

Those of you interested in this have waited patiently enough. I have done literally more research on the engines for the Titan IV and CT3 than any other rocket in the last 3 years. Vexing to find accurate information, I will admit the numbers I present here are at best a guess because it appears publicly released documents from the USAF, NASA, Aerojet et al may have a typographical error when it comes to the thrust of the Titan III's LR87-AJ-11A. I won't bore you all with the how and why. I will just say that even though this is probably the best reaserched piece I have presented in a long while, errors, and worse out right wrong statements could be included. Titan IV and Commercial Titan 3 (Titan CT3): Previous post: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/122020-181-1101-bluedog-design-bureau-stockalike-saturn-apollo-and-more-v171-огромный-18oct2020/&do=findComment&comment=3918520

So I was trolling for some final data for my Titan IV article and found a reference to a McD paper on "reusing thor" rockets The document is not share-able but it refered to a SLV-2A (basic TAT thor IIRC) with the "SGS" upper stage. SGS is a two engine kick combination of a STAR-48 and a STAR-37XF. The kicker for this is the SLV-2A was combined with a boat-tailed Delta Straight 8 (1.5m) fairing! Of course my attempt to orbit an OGO based comm-sat failed miserably. Now the Structure starts with your payload. Place a decoupler below the payload, then use the Delta P interstage. Below the Delta P interstage attach a Star 37FMV (almost identical in performance to the XF listed above) Place a 0.9375m spin table below that (with the despin weights on the engine caseing itself. Place a 0.9375m decoupler below that. Attach a Star 48BV below that. On the Delta P faring adapter choose Delta 1000 as the faring type and leave it set to 0 segments. Your payload needs to be below 0.25 tons in KSP scale to fly a 200km orbit (I believe.) I was at 1.48tons and well I crashed. Below the Delta P Fairing adapter you will use the Delta K interstage, Below that fit an upside down customizeable (non Simple Fairing) 1.5m fairing. don't bother setting the fairing up yet other than to disable staging. Below that attach a Thrust Augmented Thor (SLV-2A) Viola SLV-2A/SGS is complete! IRL performance for the SLV-2A + SGS 2020lbs (about 1 short ton) to 100nm orbit (or about 112 mile orbit) 1900lbs to a 200nm orbit 1780 to a 300nm orbit and 1650 to a 400nm Orbit

er, um, you mean "We got SLS, what truly dark times we live in." Right? and news: Titan IV article coming tomorrow.

Yes, and it works great on-top of the Titans in BDB I posted above. A fun bit of Apollo history most people do not know about.

really? REALLY???? Two weeks in a row... WHILE I AM WORKING! Darn you Cobaltwolf! I keep trying to respond to the text chat in the now archived stream!

So yet further followup on the Titan CT3 and Titan IV propuslive question. Is there an LR87-AJ-11A and LR91-AJ-11A and do they differ in performance from the AJ-11s? Now I hate to cite documents because I always invariably and continuously screw the cites up. I have several documents used as well as some Web Pages: Ok now that the CRAP is out of the way.... I want to first say that I do not have every source I could. There is a, I believe NASA document that covers the engine changes to the Titan IV (specifically the IV.) Unfortunatly I didn't copy it from my old computer (and the hard drives were wiped.) LR87 Titan IIIM PDF credits 520000 lbf, or ~2313kn. Wikipedia (for production AJ-11s) quotes 2413kn and that is congruent with the Titan 23D and 34D User guide data (2353kn for ground ignited version and 2413 for Air ignited version.) Now wait. I said 2353 for ground ignited version...... Simply put the AJ-11 was designed first and formost to get MOL into space. It needed to be more efficent in a Vacuum. Well after the AJ-11 was ordered into production, Aerojet, realizing they couldn't maintain two distinct LR87 production lines for long and ecconomically, proposed a short skirt version of the AJ-11 that returned the total expansion ratio of the engine back to the 8:1 ratio as seen on every LR87 since the AJ-3. That is why we have two thrust ratings. 2353kn is vacuum performance for 8:1 bell, and 2413kn is Vacuum Performance for 15:1 bell. So AIAA-86-1631 and the UK CT3 document above cite the LR87-AJ-11A as having a thrust of 2429kn (both the Titan IV and CT3 are Air Lit so...) Also there was a 40kg mass reduction by removing old "man rating" test equipment and replacing it with more modern test equipment that largely replicated the previous system. As stated previously a de Laval nozzle was added to the turbopumps (I believe this is where the thrust increase comes from, as initially the engine was quoted as same thrust with the slight weight loss vs the LR87-AJ-11. LR91 From the LR91-AJ-5, -7 and -9 are all argumentatively the same... The -9 uses the brown vs "clear" bell but is otherwise identical to the -5 or -7 in performance. of the 3 the -7 is the heaviest at 76lbs heavier due to NASA required Test Equipment. The LR91-AJ-11 is where the first "big" changes occur since the AJ-5. The ISP is increased significantly by way of a Dr Rao optimized bell design. The "Chonky" -5/-7 and -9s were replaced by a slightly slimmer bell, that like the AJ-9 before it is brown/red in color vs "clear" translucent of the -5 and 7. To the un-aided eye, the changes are not preceptable unless the two engines are side by side. The ISP of the LR91-AJ-5/7/9 was 309.2 while the new LR91-AJ-11 was 318! The new LR91-AJ-11A for both the CT3 and the Titan IV is quoted as 5% thrust increase and 16kg mass loss (removed/replaced man rating test equipment!) Summation: As of currently I show a 1 second ISP gain (that could be rounding error!) a 0.6% gain in thrust and a 40kg mass reduction for the LR87-AJ-11A. The LR91-AJ-11A is cited as having a 12kg mass loss, and a 5% boost in thrust. I will be making my own patch for these two engines to see what changes would happen in a Titan IV stack dV wise.

Zorg, you are exactly right. The red you see in many pictures is NTO that is burning outside of the Hypergolic reaction with UDMH, Hydrazine or 50/50 (aka AZ-50 or Aerozine 50.) IE the NTO is acting as an oxidizer to other "contaminants" and not exclusively reacting with the fuel (UDMH/50-50 etc.) *and yes Jso, I did just finish my hard copy of IGNITION!* Most books I have describe the proper burn as a clear with blueish white hues before turbulence interferes, then some red hues emerge. You can see that pretty clearly in the one photo I left in the original quote from Zorg. Note that the spray from the pad angled up and toward the rocket is water... and it is significantly DARKER than the actual exhaust from the LR87s! Water is clear RE the orange fireball. That picture was developed incorrectly and or had film decay. The entire rocket is orange from the side Opposite of the big "fireball" The bare metal parts have a ornage-red glow and the white paint is almost pink in color. Those colors can be safely ignored And if you want to get into a bunch of science on how to set up cameras and why it is important to do so: https://www.mysterybox.us/blog/2017/9/7/display-calibration-color-management https://imagingscience.com/ I deal with reproduction of colors on a daily basis in my career. I want to be clear the above photo is the best in the original quote for the almost clear looking exhaust of the 50-50/NTO burn as described in various sources including IGNITION listed above, but it is over exposed because when the camera was adjusted the RED of the service tower was a primary color (notice how the top of the Rocket is noticeably brighter than the bottom, yet the entire rocket is bathed in direct sunlight! ) 1.11.1 still has the mass bug, but it is REDUCED from what it was... I wrote a post on it like 3 or 4 pages back. Any really light part can break a craft because it's mass could be significantly higher than it was prior to 1.11.

Just a friendly update on the Titan IV engine saga. I have found proof... that I can't share (but at-least I can cite it!) of the AJ-11A engines! YAY. Sadly the document in question predates the actual Titan IV order. So I still don't know IF they were ordered or flew. But 1 step closer! So a conversation had on one of @CobaltWolfs streams during the Titan Dev cycle is going to come back to bite me. If what Ed Kyle says is correct.... there is an easy visual clue as to the LR87-AJ-11A... Per Ed Kyle the turbo-pump exhaust was fitted with De-Laval nozzles on the -11A (which would generate more thrust!) and those are only visible on the Titan IV and CT3 . All previous Titan III family members with SRMs the Turbo-pump exhaust was flush with the bottom of the " boat-tail" On the Titan CT3 and IV, they extended below... and latter had the bell shapes added on. The Black bag looking thing above the two engine bells is the Turbo-pump exhaust for the engine closest to the camera. notice the bell shape. and the pinched waist above the bell? Notice on this older LR87-AJ-5 or 7 the Turbo-pump Exhaust is basically a straight pipe....

If you are getting a "Massive TRW spike" then you have a patch to disable engine spool. If you have such a patch then there is almost no way to get a replica flight of Titan. ALTERNATIVELY, you might have a patch that is affecting the SRMs because they are at about half thrust when the LR87 should be turning on. On the other hand, nice looking Titan III-M (the Titan IIIM replcia/prototype) Sadly that flight was just to "waste the extra money we have" As it served almost zero informational/scientific improvement to the Titan program. The only thing that was from the actual MOL was the Gemini II (aka BLUE-Gemini) capsule test. Oh it did provide an almost correct size for a "Fit test" on the ground... Didn't need to launch it after doing that however! the III-M (aka OPS 0855, aka OV4-3) is a Titan IIIC with the 2nd generation UA-1205s and the standard tank lengths for Titan IIIC (and it flew on LR87-AJ-9 engines instead of AJ-11s!) Conversely as is probably well known at this juncture.... The "real" Titan IIIM (or more probably correct 24M!) would have flown with 2nd generation UA-1207s, The Stretched 1st stage tank and the LR87-AJ-11 engines. The LR87-AJ-11 PARTS (as in to test them in flight) did not start flying on Titan IIICs until the flight before the Titan III-M flight. It would be almost 2 years before the LR87 and LR91 would fly with full up AJ-11 engines. That would be the start of the Titan 23 family for those of you keeping score! However mass media loves to quote the -11 engines on all Titan IIIs. Because the Titan IIIB and Titan IIIC flew with different parts (eg bigger hydraulic actuators, wider spaced combustion chambers, skirt extensions, a lot of other things,) but never with more than 2 of any of the various "upgraded" parts. And with the exception of the bell-skirt extensions and wider spacing they were all single part replacements.

Engine and tank combos almost had to be specifically setup... EG agena Engine needed Agena tanks. Mind you, that was BEFORE BDB really existed, or if it did exist it was when I was still being all "1.5m is not a stock-alike size" Of course the last rocket I flew was a Atlas F (the proposed never flown one that would make Atlas II look short!) Flew it with a full Centaur / Centaur Jr stack... 1.5m for Centaur JR because at 1.25... well lit looks like Thin Man to Little Boy.... H-2 Booster engines FTW!

I have zero issue with this. Just remember to let the engine spool up before launching. Real life there are no perfect orbits... Why should they be so in KSP!

I did, Prior to B9PartSwitch being a thing. At the time, RF seemed to "lock" your stages... harder to do Lego-building. I like Lego building. Also I don't care that the rocket has the EXACT same burn ratio as the real rocket. IF I can get close enough... in a Close enough universe... I am A-OK. Which Is part of the reason I use AZ-50 and NTO for ALL my Hypergolic rockets... Several things, You fly the flightpath as needed for your payload and your orbit. You do not fly the same launch on a Titan 2GLV/IIIB for both Gemini and Keyhole do you? So you change your flight profile to match your payload. Look at tools like MechEngineer(Redux) or MechJEb. You do not need to use the auto pilot in MJ for example. There are a lot of good indicators added by those mods to help you fly even if you are flying yourself. Awesome... While I am at work. AGAIN skimmed through the recording on twitch. Looks like you did some fun work!