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This is a Mission Thread to contain my submission to the Shuttle Challenge v5 being caretaken, stewarded, custodian'd, and otherwise presently managed by @michal.don, to avoid going pic-heavy in the main Challenge thread, because way too many pictures to drop in the challenge forum. This is a snippet of what's been going on as I try to pick up back where I left off with the Sunshooter Program two years ago and finally finish some unfinished business... except in 1.3, from Year One Day One Minute One Second One Square One Mobius One Fox One Splash One, and disqualifying myself from the Apollo Challenge by using my own architecture. Here I'm revisiting one of the last things I did there, creating a Shuttle-derived heavy crew vehicle. Pics behind spoilers because be kind to smart phones. Oh, as per mandate of the challenge, the mod list for the craft involved lies behind the spoiler: Back in the wilderness of 1.0.2 when I was doing the Apollo 1.0 challenge (and before I hit pause on KSP due to school demands), I made a Dream Chaser-style Mk3 profile reusable crew shuttle for my Apollo program analogue called the Cadenza, capable of transporting up to 18-19 kerbals to a Munbase or station because launching multiples of 3-kerbal Apollo CSM equivalents would be quite the drag. It was a craft I was quite happy with, but I was not sure it would have qualified for the STS challenge at the time, as it had zero cargo capacity (and I think the crew-only rule was only very recently?). Come KSP 1.3 and a whole metric ton of modding thanks to 64 bit later, and in the sequel to Sunshooter, I wanted to revisit the Cadenza, but she needed a serious upgrade to provide crew support for a Deep Space Gateway and ship construction facility on Minmus, the Minmus Orbital/Surface Shiyard Complex (MOSS). Meet KSP-Project EVANNA's Cadance ADCAP (Advanced Capability) crew shuttle, its first model the OV/CDN-01 Astoria Greengrass pictured arriving at the Minmus DSG station Gabi Diamond. Yeah, she's already operational in my playthrough, having already delivered station crew to LKO and now to Minmus. And it wasn't until I recently paid a visit to the Challenge thread to see what's up before I realized she might qualify for STS-1a. (Might. I must defer to the judge @michal.donfor the authoritative answer.) A closer look at the orbiter and launch system: Cadance + SA-IF Manual Launch Profile: But wait, what about Shiny? [AUTHOR'S NOTE: As I don't have the FMRS mod installed, I actually capped the flyback booster portion of the mission by flying the mission twice: first, to follow Shining Armor back to KSC and drop him there, before reverting back to zero and doing that ascent all over again to follow the Cadance to LKO.] SA-IF Flyback Operations: Anyway, back to our regularly scheduled LKO program. Cadance LKO operations and Reentry: Cadance initial approach, final approach, and landing: And that's that. Two more pilots are certified to fly the Cadance, and a flyback booster's now been operationally proven and equally certified. And all that remains is michal's verdict, if this meets STS-1a. But this is all the Cadance can get; being designed purely as a crew transport, she cannot qualify for missions above that. There is on the drawing board a Cadena-derived cargo bay-based transport design to carry assorted payloads (KIS containers, CxAerospace/Habtech modules, even a munar lander), which could be used for future STS attempts if CoM issues could be surmounted, but for now, this is where I leave the Challlenge. Bonus pic: