Spacey 3: My first space shuttle orbit, reentry, and landing (with pics!)

[jayther]

Hi everyone! This is my first post! (and I will do an introduction in the Intro forum eventually). There\'s a bunch of (small) pictures, so I apologize if it lags your browsers! I wish I was able to record a video of this, but I didn\'t actually expect to have a successful flight. I have yet to try again, but I\'ll record it next time. And I\'m not sure if recording will work because the game already sort of lags when the camera is not looking at the ground/Kerbol.

A not-so-little back-story (you can skip ahead, I won\'t be offended x]):

So, I just started playing this two to three weeks ago (playing the demo), and only this last weekend that I bought KSP (that snap to angle option is a godsend). I do have some physics background, and I love fighter airplane games and some flight simulators, so this prior knowledge and related experience does help me out a whole lot when I was making the, uh, Spacey series. That\'s not to say there were a lot of lost Kerman lives for my trial and error (though I do try to get them to at least land and still be alive), but I learned a lot.

Anyway, I wanted to make something that\'s visually and functionally close to the Space Shuttle (the Atlantis, Endeavor, Discovery, those shuttles) with stock parts (actually I\'m not too interested in mods and plugins, so I don\'t have anything other than stock parts...for now). I had to use structural fuselages that are jettisoned at the start of the launch so the space shuttle setup won\'t tip over. Came the birth of Spacey 1.

Spacey 1 featured the space shuttle with the avionics package at the nose and 3 LV-T45 Liquid Fuel Engines (mid-size liquid fuel engines) connected by a stack tri-coupler, 7-stack FL-T500 Fuel Tanks (the full-size rocket tank) for launch fuel (as the big orange fuel tank) with 3 RCS thrusters and 2 RCS fuel at the top, and two solid rocket boosters for launching. I do remember seeing someone use the Mk2 or Mk3 fuselages as the big orange fuel tank used in the real space shuttles, but I\'ve already made and done tests with Spacey 1 before I searched for anyone doing anything similar to what I was doing and I didn\'t want to change the overall design (plus, the space shuttle that I found in these forums had problems with achieving an orbit, which is probably because of the Mk2/Mk3 fuselages\' drag). However, I did have to add a rocket engine at the bottom of the 7-stack because it would immediately pitch at launch otherwise.

Unfortunately, Spacey 1\'s highest height was 5000m before it starts going haywire (the space shuttle\'s 3 mid-size engine were far too powerful and tended to pitch down a lot, and simply loses control). When I sense it is about to lose control, I just jettison all of the stages and at least be able to land the space shuttle, uh, somewhere. I took this time to practice flight and landing with the space shuttle, but I forgot to put landing gears on it, so I wasn\'t entirely sure what I was going to do when I\'m over land. I always landed on water, though, but at all times it splashed down hard. This is when I learned I needed a canard because I couldn\'t control the shuttle much when it was just gliding.

Spacey 2\'s changes from Spacey 1 was the 3 LV-909 Liquid Fuel Engines (small liquid fuel engines) for its main engines, the canards, and the addition of a full-sized tank attached outside of the 7-stack with a liquid fuel engine (I tried all sizes for this but it still ultimately didn\'t work). This time it achieved 10,000m, but it still pitched down considerably after that height. After trying different configurations of engine sizes for the 7-stack\'s engine and the extra outward engine and rolled the shuttle during launch to counteract the pitching (like the real space shuttles!), I managed to get to the 70,000m mark, but still no orbit because the shuttle now uncontrollably pitches up and goes out of control when it escapes the atmosphere (no drag on the wings, so that extra outward engine to help counteract the downward pitch in the atmosphere is now making it pitch up too much).

Like Spacey 1, I jettison the 7-stack when I know Spacey 2 is not going to achieve orbit and attempt to land the space shuttle. I try to land on the water because I still don\'t have landing gears (I was just trying to achieve orbit/I keep forgetting until I launch). During these tests is when I learned the dangers of a pair of large canards in the front of the shuttle: when I\'m falling in the atmosphere at a high speed and usually at a steep angle, the shuttle tends to flip around and approach Kerbol backwards, and it likes to stay that way. Anyway, one time, I was able to land on water and keep the cockpit intact (and the Kerbins alive). The wings, the canards, and the engines were stripped off, but the cockpit and the fuselage were fine.

So, I figured I needed to jettison the outward engine when it starts to pitch up (cue is the RCSs trying to counteract the upward pitch), add an SAS to get a bit more stability, and have a one-engine setup for the space shuttle itself.

We now have Spacey 3: a detachable outward engine, an additional SAS at the top of the 7-stack, a Mk3-to-Mk2 adapter at the back of the space shuttle, and a mid-size liquid fuel engine attached to the adapter. The advantage of the adapter is it holds fuel as well, so I have more fuel while still looking aesthetically nice. After several failed tests, I had one successful full flight, including landing on the runway (failed tests include splashing down too hard, landing on the terrain too hard, flying and crashing backwards, and a stable orbit with no fuel left). With some aggressive controlling, this setup works.

Onto the story of Spacey 3.

---

First off, some pictures of Spacey 3 in the VAB (I don\'t have any pictures when it was still sitting in the launch pad). The structural fuselages with the radial decouplers on the wings and the stack decoupler on the extra outward engine are only there to keep the shuttle standing on the launch pad. It\'s detached as soon as the launch starts. This is all stock parts!

I attached Spacey 3 if anyone is interested.

Also, if you skipped over the back-story, that little outward engine is there to counteract the ship\'s tendency to pitch down. Even with this extra engine, an advanced SAS, and a normal SAS, it still pitches down if left alone, so I hold the pitch-up key pretty much the entire launch. The canards are also there to get better control of the shuttle when gliding, but there is a risk of having the ship flip around and descend backwards when the descend is too fast and too steep (this happened a couple of times in other attempts).

The first successful orbital journey of Spacey 3!

I rolled right away so I can already start approaching east:

SRBs are already gone at this point. I pitched to a 45-degree angle to adjust the trajectory into an orbit and increase the height of the orbit:

I forgot to screenshot a picture without the extra outward engine, but I detach it at around 50,000m, where drag on the wings decreases and the outward engine starts to pitch the shuttle up. Without this extra engine and the 7-stack still attached, the shuttle pitches down again when we\'re above the 70,000m mark. There\'s a little bit of fuel left in the 7-stack, so I use that intermittently to adjust the orbit to be more circular, then I detach the 7-stack and start using the shuttle\'s fuel to adjust the orbit.

Some nice views during the orbital flight and the orbital map:

Time to decay the orbit and land on the runway! I make the necessary adjustments so there is no more orbit and the atmosphere aids in slowing down the shuttle while still keeping a low angle of descent:

I used the mountains as a reference, but I realized a little late that I was going to go past the runway (in the image, the space center is behind the shuttle). So I flipped the shuttle around and did a retro-burn to slow down and go descend a little faster. I knew this was a risk since there was the probability of a steep and fast descent, causing the shuttle to stay backwards, but I knew I couldn\'t turn back around if I went past the runway.

Whew! The angle of descent and speed are just fine and I was able to flip the shuttle back around and gained flight control. I used up all of the fuel on the shuttle, though, so I can\'t use the engines to do some immediate correction. It was now or never.

But as you can see, I\'m not lined up with the runway. A little bit offset. I\'m actually surprised I wasn\'t too far off (and the structural fuselage debris left by the lift off proved to be helpful). Nevertheless, I turned the shuttle slower than a Boeing 747 (I had SAS on. I didn\'t want to risk turning so fast that it will flip and get stuck flying backwards).

Now I\'m more or less lined up with the runway. It\'s a little off, but it\'s manageable. At this time, my heart was pumping because previous attempts with landing on land with the landing gear all failed (one time the cockpit survived but not the rest of the shuttle). I mean, I was able to land with space planes, but not with this space shuttle. Whatever the case may be, I had to land this flying brick.

And...touchdown!

The log/statistics:

Yay! I was quite happy and proud that I was able to be pretty damn close to the space center on the return, let alone actually land in it. During all of the Spacey attempts, I\'ve never been that close on the return. I was always short, splashing down in the ocean before the space center. But man, talk about accomplishment! <]

I was so happy that I had to post it here. x]

And job well done, Matsy Kerman, Genevin Kerman, and Rowin Kerman! Even though all of you were freaking out the entire time like Bill Kerman, you guys have shown bravery!

[togfox]

Epic post! Welcome to the forum. I consider myself an accomplished ksp\'er but I\'ve yet to achieve a mission like that.

[jayther]

Hehe thanks. -]

I tried searching for topics where people have done the same thing (rocket launch, orbit, then land on the runway as a plane of sorts), but I wasn\'t able to find any. Of course I could be using the wrong keywords to search for. x]

I quite excited that I was able to do this haha. I never had a successful landing with the space shuttle before this, and to do it with a full trip was even more exhilarating (and heart-pumping). x]