X-37b+R-7. A tale of two not-really-replicas.

[Rune]

Hello there! This one almost slipped under the cracks, but I rediscovered it the other day, and it's tons of fun to fly. What for, that is more dubious, since it's effectively a very expensive small satellite carrier with a reusable upper stage, but... who cares when you get both a Koriolev's cross on ascent and a hair-rising runway landing at the end of the mission?

See, it started as a X-37b replica, but once I had built the tiny orbiter, I though it would be fun to use the then-new Mk2 fuselages to offset the lifting values on the orbiter on top and not "cheat" with hidden control surfaces or the like. Well, midway through the build, I realized I had built an awesome Soyuz-like launcher, so I went with the full 1.5 stages things (no fuel lines!). So there: much bigger than it probably needs to be (some tanks actually start empty), but it is awesome to launch. And along the way I realized I had invented engine cowlings for on-the-pad inspection, just for the kicks of it.

As to use, well, it has quite the respectable payload capacity. See this picture just after ditching the core, which BTW leaves you in a nice 200x30km suborbital trajectory if you do things right:

The payload is over three metric tons, and you still have more than one km/s in the tanks. That means pretty much the whole kerbin system, or in other words every satellite contract you might choose to pick. But let's face it, if you are launching this, it's not to make money... Anyhow, check the imgur album for a complete mission, and tell me what you think of this: a waste of funds, or something nice to try out for a change of pace?

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http://www./download/h5d8u38q5rtc2dc/X-37b.craft

Rune. Working through the backlog.

[Woopert]

Rune, this looks really cool! I like how you captured the look of the X-37B with a relatively low part count. The screenshot you have there with the cargo bay exposing the engine and Kerbals inspecting it is clever, too.

Questions: do you use Claw's Stock Bug Fix Modules in your install? I noticed some of your craft had issues with booster separation without it, but once installed they worked like a charm (it fixes the radial decoupler bug in KSP).

[Rune]

Rune, this looks really cool! I like how you captured the look of the X-37B with a relatively low part count. The screenshot you have there with the cargo bay exposing the engine and Kerbals inspecting it is clever, too.

Questions: do you use Claw's Stock Bug Fix Modules in your install? I noticed some of your craft had issues with booster separation without it, but once installed they worked like a charm (it fixes the radial decoupler bug in KSP).

Low part count is my thing And about Claw's magnificent Stock Bug Fix Modules, I use that for sure! The radial decoupler bug is definitely an unintended bug, and there is an extremely simple way of getting around it, so why not? I used to edit the decoupler manually, actually, but this is just so much more convenient. And the other bunch of bugs it also fixes, of course.

Rune. Should be easier to find!