Spice Launch System [SLS] 0.74

[Drakenex]

the SLS curse took it!! jokes aside I hope it will get developed again, best SLS parts ever and one of the best modeling on KSP

[Rocketfeline]

Its been a month. Has there been any progress/resumed work?

[Drakenex]

Hey Maccollo I know you may not have the time and/or lost interest on KSP, but can you please release the 4 segment SRB?

Just built my constellation program using your SRB, best model ever!

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[maccollo]

I did make some progress actually. I basically have most of the big stuff modelled, although some of it is very crude. I need to make a detailed model of the RS25 though... The thought of doing that is somewhat daunting after the RL10.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/22015656/SLSModel.png

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/22015656/SLSModel2.png

I tried to implement these parts into the game, but I'm having problems getting things to work properly, I as always do :/

Edited July 30, 2015 by maccollo

[_Augustus_]

I did make some progress actually. I basically have most of the big stuff modelled, although some of it is very crude. I need to make a detailed model of the RS25 though... The thought of doing that is somewhat daunting after the RL10.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/22015656/SLSModel.png

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/22015656/SLSModel2.png

I tried to implement these parts into the game, but I'm having problems getting things to work properly, as always do :/

I might be able to help. I really wanna play with that...

[maccollo]

Help would be very much appreciated ^^.

Here's the whole stack in KSP. Can't view the whole thing when it's vertical so I have to put it on it's side. If it weren't for the fairings smashing the rocket upon separation, and the EUS interstage disappearing, and the particle effects being completely out of wack I could release and update. I'm gonna have to throw in a temporary color texture on all the untextured parts. That white default material hurts my eyes >.<

Here are two of the problems I just can't seem to sort out. The interstage mesh correctly displays in the VAB and initially during flight, but as soon as I stage it goes away. The fairing is a bit more critical however. I've been trying to get the impulse direction to point sideways, but whatever I do it seems determined to shoot itself downwards to collide with the rocket at maximum speed, often destroying what it hits :/

Edited July 30, 2015 by maccollo

[Drakenex]

Thank you very much for coming back!! What can I say, is not idle flattery, your models are impressively detailed yet efficient and carefully textured, I can help with a stock kerbin version if some one wants it (not a RSS player here).

Thanks again and keep the good work!

[Joshwoo70]

@maccollo

i recommand CC-BY-NC-SA

here is the link if you want to know more : http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

[TheShadow1138]

Here are two of the problems I just can't seem to sort out. The interstage mesh correctly displays in the VAB and initially during flight, but as soon as I stage it goes away. The fairing is a bit more critical however. I've been trying to get the impulse direction to point sideways, but whatever I do it seems determined to shoot itself downwards to collide with the rocket at maximum speed, often destroying what it hits :/

Is the interstage part of another part, like the EUS, that is does it use ModuleJettison, or is it a separate part you have to add to the stack manually? As for the fairings, how do you have the thrustTransforms setup? You have to treat them like engines, that is the thrust will be along the positive Z-axis of the transform. That's really all I can suggest from what I saw in the video and what you described. Your models and textures are fantastic and I hope you can work our the kinks.

[maccollo]

Is the interstage part of another part, like the EUS, that is does it use ModuleJettison, or is it a separate part you have to add to the stack manually? As for the fairings, how do you have the thrustTransforms setup? You have to treat them like engines, that is the thrust will be along the positive Z-axis of the transform. That's really all I can suggest from what I saw in the video and what you described. Your models and textures are fantastic and I hope you can work our the kinks.

The interstage is part of the EUS tank. I figured out why it disappeared though, it's a setting in the RO main config with regards to the moduleJettison function. When I commented out that section the interstage remains visible after staging. I didn't set up a thrust transform for the fairings. Is that necessary for all decouplers?

[TheShadow1138]

The interstage is part of the EUS tank. I figured out why it disappeared though, it's a setting in the RO main config with regards to the moduleJettison function. When I commented out that section the interstage remains visible after staging. I didn't set up a thrust transform for the fairings. Is that necessary for all decouplers?

Glad you got the interstage working. A thrust transform is not necessary for decouplers, but for the fairings it might be helpful. I have fairings around my mod's Orion service module that use ModuleDecouple and ModuleEngines. I assume that your fairings attach at the bottom, so that your ModuleDecouple "explosiveNodeID" is set to "bottom". If this is the case you could add a thrustTransform to the fairing with the z-axis pointing inward, then add ModuleEngines and a Resource node to your fairing config.

Here's the ModuleEngines code from my OrionSMFairing:

MODULE
{
	name = ModuleEngines
	thrustVectorTransformName = thrustTransform
	throttleLocked = True
	exhaustDamage = False
	ignitionThreshold = 0.01
	minThrust = 0
	maxThrust = 0.05
	heatProduction = 3
	useEngineResponseTime = True
	engineAccelerationSpeed = 5.0
	allowShutdown = False
	fxOffset = 0, 0, 0.0
	PROPELLANT
	{
		name = SolidFuel
        	ratio = 1.0
		DrawGauge = False
	}
	atmosphereCurve
 	{
   	 key = 0 290
  	 key = 1 360
 	}

}

RESOURCE
{
 name = SolidFuel
 amount = .011
 maxAmount = .011
}

Of course, you will probably need to tweak the thrust, amount of fuel and so on to get the performance you want. It should help push the fairings away from the vehicle and prevent them from impacting. Hope this helps.

[Nuke]

the spice must flow

[_Augustus_]

I want to fly this!

Is it possible to make a stock scaled version?

[maccollo]

@TheShadow1138

Worked like magic! Thanks!

After I implemented it everything else kind of broke down when I updated to the most recent version of real fuels, so I spent an entire day trying to figure out the configs. Now it works though, and besides some minor components that must be borrowed it can now throw things. Here I launched a space station to the moon. altough after I finished the TLI burn I realized that I forgot to use a pressurized tank for the lunar orbit injection burn, so... No spice flowed to the moon this day.

Anyway, as you can see, TWR isn't exactly abundant in this launch system. After booster separation it has to fight gravity really, really hard. The whole flight to LEO takes 17 minutes for TLI payloads like this.

@_Augustus_

Oh certainly, but I don't have time to focus on that ATM. first and foremost I wanted to finish all the parts. With my temporary victory against the part configs I'm gonna go back to texturing the parts that are already in, but if someone makes a scaled down config for stock I'd gladly stick in OP

Here's the current state of if anyone wants to play around with it, maybe try to throw a lander to Europa!

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/22015656/SpiceLaunchSystem.rar

Edited August 4, 2015 by maccollo

[TheShadow1138]

@TheShadow1138

Worked like magic! Thanks!

After I implemented it everything else kind of broke down when I updated to the most recent version of real fuels, so I spent an entire day trying to figure out the configs. Now it works though, and besides some minor components that must be borrowed it can now throw things. Here I launched a space station to the moon. altough after I finished the TLI burn I realized that I forgot to use a pressurized tank for the lunar orbit injection burn, so... No spice flowed to the moon this day.

Anyway, as you can see, TWR isn't exactly abundant in this launch system. After booster separation it has to fight gravity really, really hard. The whole flight to LEO takes 17 minutes for TLI payloads like this.

@_Augustus_

Oh certainly, but I don't have time to focus on that ATM. first and foremost I wanted to finish all the parts. With my temporary victory against the part configs I'm gonna go back to texturing the parts that are already in, but if someone makes a scaled down config for stock I'd gladly stick in OP

Here's the current state of if anyone wants to play around with it, maybe try to throw a lander to Europa!

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/22015656/SpiceLaunchSystem.rar

Glad I was able to help out. Again, it looks amazing. My SLS has the same TWR behavior after booster separation having to really fight for a while to get back to a 1.0 or greater TWR. I figure it might be a realistic behavior as the Space Shuttle had a less than 1.0 TWR after booster separation, so I don't think it's beyond the realm of possibility for the SLS to behave similarly.

[Insanitic]

Glad I was able to help out. Again, it looks amazing. My SLS has the same TWR behavior after booster separation having to really fight for a while to get back to a 1.0 or greater TWR. I figure it might be a realistic behavior as the Space Shuttle had a less than 1.0 TWR after booster separation, so I don't think it's beyond the realm of possibility for the SLS to behave similarly.

Yes I noticed that with a 100 ton payload, after SRB jettison, I end up flying with a TWR of only 0.80 only 2 minutes into the flight. My vertical speed plummets.

Even the EUS has a low TWR (for me around 0.38) with 4 RL-10b's. I find that reaching orbit is pretty tough with the SLS.

[TheShadow1138]

Yes I noticed that with a 100 ton payload, after SRB jettison, I end up flying with a TWR of only 0.80 only 2 minutes into the flight. My vertical speed plummets.

Even the EUS has a low TWR (for me around 0.38) with 4 RL-10b's. I find that reaching orbit is pretty tough with the SLS.

I imagine that's probably part of the reason for wanting advanced boosters to make that TWR a bit more manageable. I also saw some statistics (I think it was on nasaspaceflight.com) that seemed to indicate that the Block IB would not use a full propellant load on the Core Stage. I'm not sure how accurate that information may have been, or how accurate it is now, but it makes sense to me. When you think about it, the Block IB is identical to the Block I with the exception of replacing the ICPS with the EUS, which is heavier. So, if you want similar performance to the Block I, decreasing propellant load in the Core Stage may help provide a liftoff TWR for the Block IB as with the Block I.

[maccollo]

I imagine that's probably part of the reason for wanting advanced boosters to make that TWR a bit more manageable. I also saw some statistics (I think it was on nasaspaceflight.com) that seemed to indicate that the Block IB would not use a full propellant load on the Core Stage. I'm not sure how accurate that information may have been, or how accurate it is now, but it makes sense to me. When you think about it, the Block IB is identical to the Block I with the exception of replacing the ICPS with the EUS, which is heavier. So, if you want similar performance to the Block I, decreasing propellant load in the Core Stage may help provide a liftoff TWR for the Block IB as with the Block I.

If you drop the propellant load on the core stage you also lower the deltaV significantly. The ascent is slightly more efficient but it doesn't make up for the loss in deltaV. The core TWR isn't super high, but it is manageable. The real limit for massive payloads to LEO is the EUS. This can be mitigated by launching it half empty, but I recall the SLS program manager said that if they're launching to LEO they would launch with the EUS completely empty, which puts the max payload at about 90 tonnes.

Anyway, I decided the throw in a couple more missing parts, and I'm again running into problems. I got the decoupler in, and it is super weak and struts are completely ineffective. I put one right at the top where the thrust beam is located, and it does absolutely nothing at all :/

Edit*

Managed to fix it. Apparently the mass of the parent part has a huge impact on the strength of the conection. If I attach it to the hydrogen tank, the most massive part of the stack, the conection is nice and stiff, and I can launch at 4x time acceleration with no problem. This isn't where the seperation ring is supposed to be attached, so I just offset the surface attach node so that it could appear to be attached to the bottom of the stack while actually being attached to the hydrogen tank.

Edited August 7, 2015 by maccollo

[brickmack]

This is awesome, can't wait for proper texturing to be finished. Any plans for the advanced boosters or Orion-specific fairings (Something like this, with an opening for Orion on top and space/attachment nodes underneath for other payloads)?

[maccollo]

This is awesome, can't wait for proper texturing to be finished. Any plans for the advanced boosters or Orion-specific fairings (Something like this, with an opening for Orion on top and space/attachment nodes underneath for other payloads)?

I began to work on this mod to allow myself to simulate the best launch capacity that is likely to exist in the near future, so I'm definitely adding the dark knight boosters since there's a reasonable chance that those will be made.

If they wont get made that the most probable reason is that the SLS program was cancelled. Adding in USA functionality shouldn't take to much work, so I will most likely be doing that as well, but I'm not going to be modelling any payloads, so I will have to see what Orion mods are available.

[brickmack]

but I'm not going to be modelling any payloads, so I will have to see what Orion mods are available.

If you need an existing Orion to base the measurements/attachment points on, I'd recommend the one from CMES. As far as I know CMES is the only mod with Orion currently supported by RO (The current release doesn't support it very well, but theres a patch on github to fill in the missing MM configs), so thats probably what most people will be using. That should give you the right sizes for the fairing and such

[Yukon0009]

Oh man that looks beautiful mac.

[maccollo]

Trying to model the orion USA adapter, and I've realized that the way this thing is designed is going to be highly important. The highlighted object in the image below is the fairing shroud that the Orion rests on top of with the service module inside the smaller shroud. I'm assuming this thing is most likely going to be load bearing, holding the 20 tonne Orion on top of it... And it's tall. Regular fairings aren't exactly light, so the mass is going to be substantial. Unless the load can be shared with the payload so that it can be ditched after core burn out it would seem like it's really going to eat into payload margins.

*edit

Oh well, got it working kind of. In this example there is nothing inside the cargo fairing, and with KSP physics being what it is, it is possible to ditch the fairings and have Orion float 9 meters above the EUS. The idea is to attach the cargo to the bottom one of the two attachment nodes, and then conect it to the Orion with struts so that it at least appears as if the Orion is connected.

Edited August 12, 2015 by maccollo

[maccollo]

Everything is more or less functional now. The boosters don't have the decoupler rings or the septratrons modeled into them, The CMES Orion adapter works and has no problem hauling cargo while time accelerating through the launch. New version will be released shortly.

In the meantime:

Edited August 12, 2015 by maccollo

[VenomousRequiem]

Wow, everything is looking very cool! Now only if I actually knew how to do things in RSS...