[WIP/Planning] SDHI AeroFairings - incrementally tweakable clamshell payload shrouds

[ZobrAA]

If you had read my OP, you'll see that the boattail variants will have a base diameter of 1.25/2.5/3.75m, but also a max diameter of ~125%.

(SDHI Boattail AeroFairings = KW Extended Fairings)

Oh, I get it now! Sorry, english is not my native, so I misunderstood things time to time...

[Sufficient Anonymity]

Sounds awesome. Slightly concerned about the lack of interstages though - I find them really useful for putting a fairing around an engine (cluster) that's a size smaller than the tankage - NTR upper stages for example.

[sumghai]

Sounds awesome. Slightly concerned about the lack of interstages though - I find them really useful for putting a fairing around an engine (cluster) that's a size smaller than the tankage - NTR upper stages for example.

In a future update, perhaps - for now, I'm trying to avoid feature creep, especially at this early stage of this add-on's development lifecycle.

[Moon Goddess]

This might be out of scope, but I'm currently using stock fairings over e-dog's, despite loving e-dog's. The only reason for this is the turn transparent move out of the way. That feature is so amazing that when testing your service module last night I was suddenly snapped back to reality when had to go back to the old way of remove fairing make a change.

So what's the likelyhood of this being possible (I have no idea how it works in stock if you can tie into that or not.)

[tater]

What are you thinking in terms of max fairing diameter as a function of base diameter? 1.5X? 1.75X as max?

[sumghai]

This might be out of scope, but I'm currently using stock fairings over e-dog's, despite loving e-dog's. The only reason for this is the turn transparent move out of the way. That feature is so amazing that when testing your service module last night I was suddenly snapped back to reality when had to go back to the old way of remove fairing make a change.

So what's the likelyhood of this being possible (I have no idea how it works in stock if you can tie into that or not.)

This is definitely planned, as per the OP:

Features

- Shrouds move out of the way when editing payload

What are you thinking in terms of max fairing diameter as a function of base diameter? 1.5X? 1.75X as max?

For the boattail fairings, the max diameter is ~125% of base diameter.

The standard fairings' max diameter will remain equal to the base diameter.

[tater]

125% seems small, Titan IV has had 160% fairings, though the norm is smaller. A suggestion: measure a few nominal payloads in game, and see if 125% is useful. Say a typical lander someone might want to use. If a 2.5m lander with legs is 126%, it would be a shame to arbitrarily contain to 125 (if that makes sense).

[sumghai]

125% seems small, Titan IV has had 160% fairings, though the norm is smaller. A suggestion: measure a few nominal payloads in game, and see if 125% is useful. Say a typical lander someone might want to use. If a 2.5m lander with legs is 126%, it would be a shame to arbitrarily contain to 125 (if that makes sense).

Since I can't run the game on my outdated laptop right now, I'm instead examining the KW Rocketry models using Blender to see what proportion they're using.

And yeah, ~125% is an off-the-top-of-my-head value. It might turn out to be 130~135%

[tater]

Cool, when I get a chance tonight, I'd be happy to make a few stock landers and post images for you.

[sumghai]

I'll also add that, whereas KW Rocketry Expanded fairings have the boattail built permanently into the fairing base, SDHI AeroFairing's boattails would be jettisoned along with the fairing halves. This means I only need to make one fairing base model to be scaled for the three different base diameters.

[slightly crazy]

Glad someone is looking to replace those stock fairings. They have some neat ideas in them but do need some improvements. I do have some ideas that I wanted to throw out their.

Make the base a decoupler. I know you can't make multiple actions on one part but kw does this by making the fairings themselves have the decouple action.

Put a small solid rocket motor at the top of the fairing. I don't know about you but I sometimes have a horrible time getting the fairing away from the payload for both kw and pf. The bottom usually breaks away but the top stay together and drags along the payload. If your fairing had small node at the top that you can put a solid rocket nosecone to push the fairings apart would be great. Plus you would have a node for use in some kind of interstage.

Last but not least, the ability to make your flag to appear on the side of the fairing. I'm surprised nobody else thought of this.

[raidernick]

Would this plugin be useful for older fairings that now add drag and do not technically "cover" the payload according to the game, like the KW fairings, novapunch. From reading about this it appears that it will use the node-type fairings rather than the new modules which would make it very useful for other mods that use the same fairing types and are not affected by the new aero in the proper way.

[sumghai]

Make the base a decoupler. I know you can't make multiple actions on one part but kw does this by making the fairings themselves have the decouple action.

As I explained earlier, this isn't possible, because KW fairing sides are separate parts with their own built-in radial decouplers that are still staged independently of the fairing base's own stack decoupler.

SDHI AeroFairings will "spawn" fairing sides from the base, and so they are effectively part of the same part and stage.

Put a small solid rocket motor at the top of the fairing. I don't know about you but I sometimes have a horrible time getting the fairing away from the payload for both kw and pf. The bottom usually breaks away but the top stay together and drags along the payload. If your fairing had small node at the top that you can put a solid rocket nosecone to push the fairings apart would be great.

The fairing halves will have built-in solid rocket motors. You won't need to worry about adding your own.

Plus you would have a node for use in some kind of interstage.

Again, as mentioned previously, interstages weren't part of the original vision of this add-on.

Last but not least, the ability to make your flag to appear on the side of the fairing. I'm surprised nobody else thought of this.

I had some ideas on flag decals on the fairings, although I wasn't quite ready to discuss that. But since you forced my hand...

Basically, when using the stockalike and clean fairing materials, the flag decals will be oriented one way, while for the heatshielded fairings, they will be oriented in another way. This will require tricky plugin work to tell the model which sets of flag transforms to show/hide depending on the fairing material chosen.

Would this plugin be useful for older fairings that now add drag and do not technically "cover" the payload according to the game, like the KW fairings, novapunch. From reading about this it appears that it will use the node-type fairings rather than the new modules which would make it very useful for other mods that use the same fairing types and are not affected by the new aero in the proper way.

No, SDHI AeroFairings will not be using the node-type fairing system. It will work similar to the stock fairings, except that rather than dragging and drawing the fairing profile, you are limited to some set sizes and dimensions, as well as the two-way clamshell fairing separation.

AeroFairings is intended to work both with stock and nuFAR aero.

[johnsonwax]

Just as an FYI, NASA does use somewhat larger fairings than you've indicated. They'll take payload fairing diameter as high as 160% of the upper-stage diameter (1.3x radially). So going slightly larger is not unrealistic.

[slightly crazy]

Ah, sorry. I thought that the fairings themselves would be a part entity and that you would edit them like procedural parts. This way will be interesting to see how its going to work.

[rhoark]

I'd use it.

re: interstages, a complete fairings solution for KSP should be able to recreate the Apollo missions.

[Pulsar]

This is really promising. Can't wait for the final product!

[sumghai]

Just as an FYI, NASA does use somewhat larger fairings than you've indicated. They'll take payload fairing diameter as high as 160% of the upper-stage diameter (1.3x radially). So going slightly larger is not unrealistic.

Apparently, fairing diameters greater than 150% of the core diameter may cause aerodynamic stability issues.

In an attempt to determine what sort of maximum diameter to use for the expanded/boattail fairings, I considered the following:

- The real-life Falcon 9 v1.1 version has a base diameter of 3.7m and a fairing diameter of 5.2m (~140%)

- I've been trying to devise a use case involving one of my 2.5m diameter FusTek station modules with hypothetical strap-on kit of landing legs / rockets, which would be protected by a heatshielded version of these fairings during atmospheric re-entry before landing horizontally on Duna as part of a Duna surface outpost.

I'm tempted to say that the final value of the expanded/boattail fairing diameter is now closer to 130~140% than my initial estimate of 125%.

[ZobrAA]

I'm tempted to say that the final value of the expanded/boattail fairing diameter is now closer to 130~140% than my initial estimate of 125%.

More space means more goods! And that means MOAR BOOSTERS, all that we love in KSP

[FireFaced]

Woo new thread!

So question: will this fairing generation system have an option to replace the nosecone segment with an LES (i.e. generate a noseless fairing with a 1.25m attachment node like your Mk1-2 pod cover)? I mean, strictly speaking, when pairing this with your kerbalized Orion parts kit, an LES on this fairing system isn't really necessary as the Mk1-2 upgrade kit covers all your crew launch needs. But in case you want to build something fancy like, say, a kerbalized Soyuz or some other crazy custom crew ferry using this fairing system.

This would work for the SDHI FusTek resupply module SM. SDHI saves the day again!

[sumghai]

This would work for the SDHI FusTek resupply module SM. SDHI saves the day again!

Yes, SDHI AeroFairings was conceived with this in mind.

[SpaceLaunchSystem]

Can't wait! I really like the concept!

[sumghai]

Progress Report, 9 May 2015

Number of days without a KSP-runnable laptop: 101

I bodged together a nice little diagram describing the scope and key dimensions of the fairing system:

Figure 1 - SDHI AeroFairings Dimension Study

One (possible) idea that I thought of after uploading this doodle was that the fairing base's internal payload adapter could be available in strutted and covered variants - this will be yet another a tweakable option that simply shows/hides the "skirt" mesh. The strutted version will not allow crew transfer, while the covered one will (the lack of a payload decoupler on the SDHI AeroFairing bases will allow users to stick a docking port on it)

Of course, bear in mind we're still in the early days in this add-on's development, so nothing is set in stone.

[johnsonwax]

That looks pretty much exactly what NASA would approve. It's a bit longer than they would do in the 3 segment variation, but it's also more conservative than they would do on the diameter relative to base.

It'll still be too short and narrow for many players (like me) but if you're looking for realism (without being perfectly historically accurate) then I think you've really got it dialed in well.

[MDBenson]

- I've been trying to devise a use case involving one of my 2.5m diameter FusTek station modules with hypothetical strap-on kit of landing legs / rockets, which would be protected by a heatshielded version of these fairings during atmospheric re-entry before landing horizontally on Duna as part of a Duna surface outpost.

Just a random point, but FWIW I have done exactly this in the past (was way back in 0.18.1 before p-fairings) with your modules and B9 aerospace landing legs. It work's very well I never worked out how to aeroshell them though, nothing around at the time worked satisfactorily.