[1.12.5] Bluedog Design Bureau - Stockalike Saturn, Apollo, and more! (v1.14.0 "металл" 30/Sep/2024)

[x170doom]

anyone having issues with the mariner 10 probe core not allowing controll, the commnet icon and signal strength dont appear on the ui (thought there is a gap where they should be). and this error is appearing in the log "Cannot find a Module of typename 'CNCCommNetScenario'"

 

edit:resolved the issue, was being caused by centaur avionics ring, removing it in the VAB and replacing it resolved the issue. not sure why it was happening but apparently that fixed it

Edited December 27, 2022 by x170doom

[TaintedLion]

Can the Helios antenna have homeworld tracking like the Mariner 10 antenna? Would be good since it's a spin-stabilised probe and all.

[Blufor878]

Just testing my old JARVIS build with Photon Corp boosters...


Also testing my Gemini Block V spacecraft on an Atlas V derived rocket.

Edited December 28, 2022 by Blufor878

[CobaltWolf]

On 12/24/2022 at 11:09 AM, DaveyJ576 said:

Excellent work as always. I have been using the Coatl version for some time and it is an excellent render, but I am looking forward to adding this version to my VAB.

I would like to take the opportunity to pass on my sincerest thanks and appreciation to all of the Bluedog dev team: @CobaltWolf, @Jso, @Zorg, @Invaderchaos, @Rodger, and @akron, with special mention to @Friznitand his excellent Wiki. I am probably one of the older KSP players, having watched Neil and Buzz walk on the moon when I was a wee lad. I became fascinated with space travel at that moment, and KSP/BDB allows me to tickle that fascination whenever I choose. The attention to detail in this mod is over the top, and the dev team's dedication to getting it right and the willingness to respond to player requests is commendable in the extreme. I am always stunned at the BDB team's eagerness to spend so much time perfecting a product that they do not get paid for, working long hours simply for the fun of it. Believe me when I say that it is greatly appreciated.

It is a bit bittersweet to realize that development of BDB1 is rapidly coming to an end, but there is an anticipation of very cool things to come with the looming introduction of KSP2. I look forward to what President Kennedy referred to as "setting sail on this new sea", and spending (my wife would say wasting ) many hours exploring the new BDB mod when it comes.

Once again, my sincerest gratitude to the entire dev team and all the users of this forum. Wishing you all the very best holiday season and a great new year!

Just wanted to say thank you - I appreciated this message (and the other well wishes) a lot! Sorry for the delay in replying, my wife and I both came down with some sort of horrific disease that's lasted over a week at this point. Thankfully finally on antibiotics and starting to feel better.

By the way, I've seen you on the NSF forums, right? I don't ever post there but I recall seeing yours.

[DaveyJ576]

5 hours ago, CobaltWolf said:

Just wanted to say thank you - I appreciated this message (and the other well wishes) a lot! Sorry for the delay in replying, my wife and I both came down with some sort of horrific disease that's lasted over a week at this point. Thankfully finally on antibiotics and starting to feel better.

By the way, I've seen you on the NSF forums, right? I don't ever post there but I recall seeing yours.

Yes, I am a member at NSF, but I do more lurking than posting. It is a great source of info, but since I am a USN sailor by trade many members there are on a level of expertise that far exceeds mine. I consider myself a very well informed and enthusiastic amateur in the spaceflight genre. The “golden age” of spaceflight has always fascinated me, so BDB fits right in. 
 

No worries on recovering from the crud. My wife and I had it for almost 2 months. A lot better now!

[The Dressian Exploder]

Just a quick question about the upcoming Surveyor, will the legs be separate parts or a part of the probe body?

[TonyT]

Having issues with the lunar rover deployment. When the lrv is stowed the wheels are clipping into the decent stage (j-class). Trying to deploy it makes the LM spin and the rover is stuck, still in place. I have tried to shift it around but it's not working. Am i doing anything wrong?

Edited December 30, 2022 by TonyT
clearity

[septemberWaves]

13 hours ago, TonyT said:

Having issues with the lunar rover deployment. When the lrv is stowed the wheels are clipping into the decent stage (j-class). Trying to deploy it makes the LM spin and the rover is stuck, still in place. I have tried to shift it around but it's not working. Am i doing anything wrong?

The nodes on the robotic parts which attach the rover to the lander aren't quite in the right places if I remember correctly from my own testing. If you connect it as normal, and then adjust both the place where the robotic part connects to the descent stage, and where it connects to the lunar rover, you should be able to get it to a place where it doesn't clip.

Additionally, while I've not encountered the exact problem you describe, I am aware of one thing which consistently causes problems with robotic parts: autostruts. If anything at all on the lunar rover or the robotic parts themselves are autostrutted to anything at all on the main spacecraft, it will malfunction. If you are using autostruts to keep the lunar rover stable relative to the descent module, disable all of those autostruts before activating any robotic parts.

Edited December 30, 2022 by septemberWaves

[TonyT]

1 hour ago, septemberWaves said:

The nodes on the robotic parts which attach the rover to the lander aren't quite in the right places if I remember correctly from my own testing. If you connect it as normal, and then adjust both the place where the robotic part connects to the descent stage, and where it connects to the lunar rover, you should be able to get it to a place where it doesn't clip.

Additionally, while I've not encountered the exact problem you describe, I am aware of one thing which consistently causes problems with robotic parts: autostruts. If anything at all on the lunar rover or the robotic parts themselves are autostrutted to anything at all on the main spacecraft, it will malfunction. If you are using autostruts to keep the lunar rover stable relative to the descent module, disable all of those autostruts before activating any robotic parts.

i'm not using autostrut from the game, but i'm using kerbal joint reinforcement, i suppose that it causes the same issue. Thanks anyways!

[Echo11]

1 hour ago, TonyT said:

i'm not using autostrut from the game, but i'm using kerbal joint reinforcement, i suppose that it causes the same issue. Thanks anyways!

Which version of Kerbal Joint Reinforcement are you using? I personally use KJR:Next, and have pretty much no issue with the LRV. Though, I also set up the craft in VAB like this: disable steering and motors on all four wheels, keep all hinges on the LRV unlocked with motors engaged, and disable the reaction wheel on main rover chassis. That way, it should still be able to deploy normally, even whit the wheels clipping into descend stage.

[TonyT]

3 hours ago, Echo11 said:

Which version of Kerbal Joint Reinforcement are you using? I personally use KJR:Next, and have pretty much no issue with the LRV. Though, I also set up the craft in VAB like this: disable steering and motors on all four wheels, keep all hinges on the LRV unlocked with motors engaged, and disable the reaction wheel on main rover chassis. That way, it should still be able to deploy normally, even whit the wheels clipping into descend stage.

I'm not sure what kjr version i have, however the hinge doesn't want to move at all at any position. I will try reinstalling kjr and see if it works!

Edit: It worked! Thanks for the help!

Edited December 30, 2022 by TonyT

[biohazard15]

8 hours ago, TonyT said:

i'm not using autostrut from the game, but i'm using kerbal joint reinforcement

7 hours ago, Echo11 said:

I personally use KJR:Next

Is KJR actually needed today? I haven't used it for years - in my experience, autostruts are more than enough to ensure that your craft wouldn't pull a RUD. Use KER for 2-click solution.

[Echo11]

1 hour ago, biohazard15 said:

Is KJR actually needed today? 

I still prefer KJR, personally, especially after I started using KJR:Next. I did try out autostruts when I updated the game to 1.12, but went back to KJR after a while. Thats mostly because autostruts are rather painful to set up, especially for someone like me who enjoy building massive crafts, and switching out parts constantly. There's also the fact that I could never figure out which autostrut mode to use. Besides, my crafts would still wobble excessively in flight, despite using autostrut. Lastly, I also had a lot of issues with boosters detaching on launch pad when using autostrut, which stopped happening after I went back to using KJR.

[CalvonVulcan]

Do you have plans on adding the F-1 Saturn V exhaust flammes, bc it would fit very Nice along side the fire start up When igniting a Saturn V F-1
 

 

[Echo11]

45 minutes ago, CalvonVulcan said:

Do you have plans on adding the F-1 Saturn V exhaust flammes, bc it would fit very Nice along side the fire start up When igniting a Saturn V F-1
 

 

Both are already present in the mod, as long as you have the bundled Waterfall mod installed.

[CalvonVulcan]

8 hours ago, Echo11 said:

Both are already present in the mod, as long as you have the bundled Waterfall mod installed.

Oh thank you

[Pudgemountain]

Ok I know I am really late for the Voyager/Mars Bandwagon but after many flybys of planets and manned landings on the Mun and Minmus, I was finally able to get enough science for all the parts with Skyhawk's Tree.

No cool reentry effect it wasn't going that fast.

I am starting to believe I am very lucky on landing landers right between huge rocks.

[CalvonVulcan]

so im Getting a waterfall/realplume Exhaust mix when using the F-1 engine, is that suppose to be or not?

 

[DaveyJ576]

SORTING OUT THE MERCURY BOILERPLATES AND PROTOTYPE SPACECRAFT

The basic premise of Project Mercury, putting a man into orbit and returning him safely to Earth, was a radical and completely untried concept in the 1950’s. No one knew exactly how to do it. One of the most difficult decisions was deciding on the basic shape of the spacecraft. Should it be pointed, aerodynamic, or blunt shaped? Which shape would be stable in flight, and most importantly which shape would best resist the extreme heat of reentry into the atmosphere? Physicist H. Julian Allen’s research strongly indicated that a blunt shaped vessel would best resist the reentry heating, and backed up by extensive research headed by NACA’s Maxime Faget, it was this shape that NACA/NASA and eventually NASA’s Space Task Group settled on.

In a conference at the Ames Research Center in March 1958, four blunt shapes were proposed for further study. These are shown below:

Spoiler

Further testing showed that the A and B shapes were unstable in some flight regimes, so research concentrated on the C and D shapes.

Through the fall of 1958 and into 1959 a series of aircraft drop tests were made to test the aerodynamic stability of a full scale craft, and to develop the parachute recovery system proposed for Mercury. Several C-shape capsules were constructed in-house by the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia for these tests. These were deliberately simple sheet metal affairs, constructed (supposedly) from boilerplate steel obtained from the nearby Norfolk Naval Shipyard. These craft were colloquially referred to as “boilerplates”, the first use of this term. A circular access hatch was cut into the side, to allow access not only for interior construction, but for subsequent placement of instrumentation.

Spoiler

These craft were unpressurized and contained no crew provisions, avionics, or control systems, only the most basic electrical equipment needed to support whatever testing was underway. As it can be seen, other than the basic overall shape, these craft bore little resemblance to the final Mercury production spacecraft, but they were adequate low-cost test rigs to prove out the basic concepts. Most of these boilerplates were painted white, some with “United States” on the side. The aircraft drop tests were conducted mostly out of the Wallops Station on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, with the type C boilerplates dropped from helicopters. These tests went a long way towards demonstrating the basic stability of the craft, along with the parachute systems.

On March 11, 1959 a type C boilerplate participated in the first Launch Escape System test. This test was meant to confirm the basic concept of a tractor-type LES (favored by Max Faget), and even though the configuration did not match that of the planned production Mercury version, it provided valuable data that showed that the concept worked. The tower was a simple tripod design, and the rocket was a single Recruit motor refitted with three nozzles, its center of thrust slightly offset to ensure the craft would clear the launch area. The craft launched as planned, but it spiraled three times before crashing into the sea just off the Wallops coast without the parachute deploying. A problem with one of the rocket’s nozzles was the culprit. A second test, also with a C-shape, occurred on April 15, 1959 and it was entirely successful. The series of photos below, often mislabeled as the much later BA-1 test, shows this April flight.

Spoiler

Wanting data from a higher fidelity design, Langley also constructed at least two D-shape boilerplates concurrent with the C-shapes. While these craft much more closely mimicked the final Mercury design, they were still of simple construction, lacking nearly all of the Mercury systems and the distinctive Inconel corrugated shingles on the exterior. One was used in a series of aircraft drop tests. In these tests a D-shape was rolled out of the back of a C-130 aircraft on a sled. It promptly separated from the sled and free fell a distance, demonstrating the basic aerodynamic stability of the design. The parachute system had all of the basic elements of the proposed system for Mercury, and when activated, it was entirely successful. The D-shapes were the first to have a separable top canister (later called the antenna housing) with its drogue chute, along with the main chutes packed underneath it in the cylindrical section. These tests were conducted between April and July 1959.

On July 22, 1959 another beach abort test was conducted, this time with a D-shape and the full production version of the Mercury LES. The only missing element was the aerospike at the top of the LES motor. In the photos note the circular hatch, a sharp contrast with the standard Mercury semi-rectangular design. The test was entirely successful. Apparently, John Glenn and Gus Grissom observed this test, as one of the photos below shows them with the recovered boilerplate. 

Spoiler

It should be noted that several sources badly mis-identify this test. Wikipedia has a listing for the Beach Abort, with all of the accompanying pictures showing the C and D-shape tests, but with the text referring to a later beach abort test, the official BA-1 flight shown here on May 9, 1960 using McDonnell production spacecraft #1. In this test the spacecraft had some painted orange banding over an unusual silver color. The top canister (antenna housing) was painted silver and black. Also notice that the LES, while essentially complete, was still missing the aerospike on top. All told, as noted above, there were a total of four beach abort tests, but many sources get this all confused and mashing them together into just one test.

Spoiler

 This has been part one. I will post part two tomorrow that will cover the Little Joe and Big Joe prototype spacecraft.

Edited January 2, 2023 by DaveyJ576

[Blufor878]

I noticed some guys on Instagram using procedural parts. Decided to give it a go. Happy with the results so far.

[Zorg]

On 1/1/2023 at 8:55 PM, CalvonVulcan said:

so im Getting a waterfall/realplume Exhaust mix when using the F-1 engine, is that suppose to be or not?

 

Its not a realplume. I added a waterfall effect that uses particles within the waterfall mesh on the F1 and E1 engines. However eventually realised it only looks good under certain conditions and looks bad in others (and also has a big performance impact for some people). In the next update this effect will be removed. This has already been done in the github development branch but if you don't use that it will be fixed in the next official update.

[CalvonVulcan]

19 minutes ago, Zorg said:

Its not a realplume. I added a waterfall effect that uses particles within the waterfall mesh on the F1 and E1 engines. However eventually realised it only looks good under certain conditions and looks bad in others (and also has a big performance impact for some people). In the next update this effect will be removed. This has already been done in the github development branch but if you don't use that it will be fixed in the next official update.

Ah Well ive seen to come to like, gives it that F-1 engines fire alike plume, such really keep something like, it i mean its not the best High up But at the Ground and the buttom its looks amazing

Edited January 3, 2023 by CalvonVulcan

[Zorg]

2 minutes ago, CalvonVulcan said:

Ah Well ive seen to come to like, gives it that F-1 engines fire alike plume, such really keep something like, it i mean its not the best High up But at the Ground and the buttom its looks amazing

It looks good generally when used as a single engine. But in a Saturn V when clustered together it doesnt work when it starts expanding. We still use the particle shader for the startup fireball though.

[CalvonVulcan]

10 minutes ago, Zorg said:

It looks good generally when used as a single engine. But in a Saturn V when clustered together it doesnt work when it starts expanding. We still use the particle shader for the startup fireball though.

Well, its just a suggestion But it would look hell of amazing if it was possible to see the flame alike plume bc the one waterfall give isnt the most realistic, But idk how to make a mod But i love the flame plume and other likely dont, But your the dev so you pick What you want in a Update, But keep up the great work

Edited January 3, 2023 by CalvonVulcan

[DaveyJ576]

SORTING OUT THE MERCURY BOILERPLATES AND PROTOTYPE SPACECRAFT PART 2

 

There were two other extremely important test objectives in the early phase of Mercury development. The first was proving the LES under actual flight regimes, especially in the critical region of maximum aerodynamic pressure. The second was showing that the ablative heat shield for the spacecraft would actually work. Max Faget was very confident in his heatshield calculations, but he knew that an actual flight test would be needed. Two support programs were drawn up to conduct these vital tests, Little Joe and Big Joe.

The Little Joe rocket was developed by Max Faget and a team at Langley. It was a simple cylindrical airframe with four large fins at the bottom, powered by combinations of Castor and Recruit solid rocket motors. Once the design was finalized, a contract was awarded to North American Aviation to produce seven airframes and one mobile launcher.

These tests would encounter actual flight conditions and high altitudes and would require a much more sophisticated craft than the simple sheet metal boilerplates. A pressurized compartment was needed for instrumentation, and for the Big Joe test a rudimentary RCS was required to properly orient the spacecraft for reentry.

There was an urgency to get the Little Joe and Big Joe programs underway, as it was desirous to incorporate the data from these tests into the final design of the production spacecraft. The contract for the production of Mercury spacecraft was put out to industry in mid-December 1958, and McDonnell was chosen as the prime contractor on January 9, 1959. However, the Little Joe and Big Joe sub-programs predated the McDonnell contract, with their origins all the way back in early 1958, when the shape of the Mercury spacecraft was still to be determined.

The Space Task Group gave the job of developing the prototype craft for the Little Joe and Big Joe tests to Langley in late 1958. The configuration is shown in the diagram below.

Spoiler

The original design is on the left, with the final two different designs on the right. Construction of the prototypes was joint effort, with Langley building the upper sections and the Lewis Research Center in Cleveland building the lower pressurized section. Final assembly was at Langley and Wallops. The lower section was built from fiberglass and contained mission instrumentation and a primitive RCS. It was even capable of supporting a pressurized primate couch. The top of the pressurized section was hemispherical and could be unbolted to allow access to the interior. Once sealed, the ribbed sheet metal upper section with the recovery system was bolted to the top of the pressurized section. These prototypes were not intended for orbital flight, they flew mid and high altitude sub-orbital missions only.

Spoiler

In these photos taken at the Langley shop the separate sections can be clearly seen. Small camera pods were mounted on the sides of the pressurized section. Although not nearly as sophisticated as the McDonnell production spacecraft and never intended to carry an astronaut, these craft were much more than the simple sheet metal boilerplates that preceded them and thus should be properly called prototypes. The term boilerplate has been genericized over the years to describe both craft, even though this is technically incorrect. The coloration of the prototypes varied, with the top canister and the pressurized section usually painted in orange or orange and white, with the upper metal ribbed section usually silver in color. A prototype is shown atop a Little Joe mockup at the Airpower Park in Hampton, Virginia with a production style LES. The exact number of these prototypes that were built is not known to me, but there was a least five, and these were used on the Little Joe, Big Joe, and MR-BD flight tests. It also appears that they were not numbered or serialized in the same way that the Apollo boilerplates were.

The first flight of one of the prototypes was to be Little Joe 1 (LJ-1). This test failed when a stray electrical current fired the LES while the booster was being prepped on the pad. Luckily, no one was hurt and the booster was essentially undamaged, but the capsule sustained heavy damage when it crashed into the surf just off shore. Desirous of getting in a basic test of the Little Joe rocket, and without an immediate replacement for the damaged prototype capsule, the booster was quickly recycled with one of the D-shape boilerplates atop (painted to look like a prototype) and successfully launched as LJ-6 on October 5, 1959.

Meanwhile, the much-anticipated test of the ablative heat shield was flown as Big Joe 1 on September 9, 1959. A full Atlas D missile was used as the booster, and the prototype capsule used was built specifically for the test.

Spoiler

The pressurized section was painted black, with the upper section silver with vertical white stripes. Notice in the diagram photo the conical section is referred to as the “afterbody”. This is because the Mercury spacecraft was intended to fly in a retrograde position for all phases of the flight except for the boost phase. Any Mercury spacecraft that you may fly in KSP/BDB should be flown with the heatshield forward at all times to be historically accurate, with the obvious exception of when it is mounted to its booster. In essence, you could say that Mercury rides uphill upside down!

Color photos of the Big Joe capsule prior to launch are quite rare, so it is often hard to determine exactly what the color scheme was. The photo atop the Atlas booster is one of the exceptions. Notice also that the capsule was launched without a LES tower. The sub-orbital flight of BJ-1 was mostly successful as it fully demonstrated the capability of the ablative heatshield. However, the booster section of the Atlas failed to separate and that negatively affected the overall performance of the rocket, but not to the point where it was considered a failure. The photo of the recovered Big Joe prototype gives a good detail view of how the upper section was constructed, and how it was bolted to the lower fiberglass pressurized section. The very small pitch and roll RCS thrusters can be seen near the base of the pressurized section. Only two of the protoypes survive to this day, the one mounted to the Little Joe mockup in Virginia, and the Big Joe variant at the NASM. The rest of the prototypes were either destroyed in testing or broken up once no longer needed.

Three more prototype capsules flew on Little Joe flights before that program transitioned to using production spacecraft from McDonnell. The prototype used on the LJ-1B flight was reused on the Mercury Redstone Booster Development (MR-BD) flight on March 24, 1961. This was the last flight of a prototype capsule. It flew with an inert LES and the capsule stayed attached to the rocket for the duration of the flight. It was intentionally destroyed at the end of the flight when the entire assembly crashed into the Atlantic. The photo below is a very rare color shot of the MR-BD liftoff. The prototype spacecraft can be clearly seen. 

Spoiler

Once McDonnell’s production came on-line, they produced several boilerplates. These were used in additional drop tests, as egress trainers for the astronauts, as trainers for the recovery forces, as facilities checkout vehicles, etc. The exact number produced is not immediately known. The configuration for each was unique based on what it was built for. Some (the egress trainers) closely mimicked the production spacecraft while others (facilities checkout vehicles) were just basic sheet metal affairs with no internal equipment. None of these were intended for powered flight. Some of them survive today in museums.

Spoiler

None of these boilerplates or prototypes are represented in BDB, although there are some color changes for the Mercury spacecraft that somewhat mimic the configurations seen here. I once posed the question of incorporating the boilerplates and prototypes to @Invaderchaos and he stated that there were no plans to do so. His reasoning was valid and I fully respected it. At this late point in BDB1 development it actually makes a lot of sense not to waste time to do so, but perhaps the dev team can look into it once KSP/BDB2 is up and running later this year.

Edited January 3, 2023 by DaveyJ576