United Nations Space Administration - reaching out to the real solar system

[TrooperCooper]

On 21.5.2016 at 8:04 AM, CatastrophicFailure said:

Perhaps wise to let actual crewmen sit this part out...

Yep, I got a dedicated test-pilot now for launch escape tests. Poor guy, I'm sure we'll hear of him at some point.

=================================================

 

Episode 9: One step closer to the Moon
(click spoiler below pic to open)

 

Spoiler

After a series of tests and preparations, the RX 9 with the now named "Pulsar"-Spaceship on top took off from the Kourou Space Center.

 

In the new 3-man capsule: space veteran Connie Armstrong, who had been the first Astronaut to perform a docking maneuver in LEO, as commander of the mission. Her engineer was Ricky Baker and they took the russian scientis Alisa Tarnovetskaya with them. Their mission: testing the new space ship in a long range mission and achieving a stable orbit around the Moon for the first time.

 

The RX 9 cleared the pad and rappidly accelerated, pushed by four of the new massive F-1 engines...

 

Despite the fact that it had almost three and a half times the mass of the next smaller UNSA-rocket, the RX 9 proved to have an incredibly good handling in manual flight - especially compared to the bulky RX 8. Thanks to improved strutting techniques and widened internal connections, there was no wobbling at all during the gravity turn.

 

Two and a half minutes after launch, the rocket had nearly burned out the fuel of its first stage.

 

After separation and ignition of the 2nd stage, the crew pushed for orbit...

 

...propelled by four of the new J-2 hydrolox engines.

 

After seven minutes at an altitude of 260 km the RX 9 had almost reached orbital speed and the third stage with a single hypergolic engine took over.

 

After one more push, the Pulsar established its com-uplink and began coasting for the apoapsis...

 

The crew was already preparing for their eject to the Moon. Ricky took a look at the life support systems...

 

On the dark side of the Earth: trans luna injection burn and separation from the last lifter stage.

 

Shooting up to altitude, following the path of the Voskhod-crew.

 

But in contrary to them, the Pulsar Astronauts would stick to the Moon for a while... Mission control was a little anxious whether or not the new ship would stand up to its expectations, considering that it was supposed to play a key role in the further upcoming Moon exploration efforts...

 

On the way to its target, the Agena-engines were lit up again to push the apoapsis near the Moon down to about 40 km.

 

Since the engines are unthrottleable, fine adjustments had to be made with the RCS thrusters...

 

Incoming to the target...

 

Luna Orbital Insertion burn, loosing 820 meters per second of speed...

 

Then they had achieved a stable orbit and fullfilled their primary mission objective... with plenty of fuel to spare. One hour later they got to see their first Earth rise with their own eyes...

 

Connie and her team stayed for twenty hours in a stable orbit and made sure the Pulsar would be able to operate as specified. Then it was time to fire the engines again and head home...

 

Course set with a planned life support buffer of three days...

 

We will be back...

 

Closing in on the good old Mother Earth. After ten days in space already, the three Astronauts were pleased of this sight...

 

Periapsis set to 60 km, preparing for re-entry...

 

Into the darkness again, huh?

 

Now in range of the orbital com relay network, the service module was separated while the CM stayed in touch with mission control through its own antennas...

 

Eleven days after launch, Connie's team returned back home by splashing into the Pacific just off the coast of Australia. Though, the aerodynamic performing during re-entry was not very pleasant. The capsule had to be set into rotational motion in order to keep its heatshield pointed...

 

With the Pulsars test in Luna space done, the UNSA kept going with their preparations to safely land a team on the moon surface. After many debates about competing concepts, the planning department had finally decided against the early ideas of establishing an orbital hub with a re-useable lander near the Moon. While such a base would allow for lighter regular transit-vessels from the Earth, it would require a serious ammount of resupply operations which just dont seem efficiently feasible. Instead, the higher ups settled for the Lunar Orbit Rendezvous concept, which was proposed and pushed through by a single american engineer.

The UNSAs development department designed the gear that was required for the so called "Nexus" system. After the experiences with the Pulsar in the prior mission, it saw some minor modifications and would serve as CSM for the Nexus.

 

The Americans also came up with a lightweight lander design, but the Russians voted against it. They were intrested in the ability to stay on the surface for an extended period of time and also wanted to bring all three crewman on the ground. So a much heavier two-stage landing vessel was designed, weighting more than 22 tons, with three seats and enough on-board supplies to keep the crew alive for three weeks. LuLa was the name of the vehicle, obviously standing for Luna Lander.

 

The CSM and LuLa would be strapped up within a fairing with the Pulsar and its launch escape system on top. Below the lander, the engineers intended to use a newly developed super-cooled HydroLox tank for the TLI kicker stage. The whole setup that would have to be carried into low Earth orbit by the Nexus lifter would weight 220 tons.

 

A full scale blueprint of the setup...

 

In order to bring this massive payload into orbit, the UNSA had been developing the pinnacle of its history in lifter design. The all-mighty RX 10 would weight more than 4,400 tons on the launchpad. For this super launcher, the engineers followed the lessons learned with the prior rocket design approaches, keeping her slim but powerfull. And stable connected on the inside. Mainly powered by five F-1 engines just like the historical Saturn V, the first stage would be supported by four huge liquid auxiliary launch boosters, based on the RD-270, the heaviest russian engine ever built. Upon ignition, this whole power package with nine engines would burn up more than twenty tons of fuel... per second. The second hydrolox stage is based on the heavy J-2 engine,... and features no less than ten of those.

 

With 104 meters height three meters shorter than the real Saturn V, the Nexus RX 10 is still a rocket of an entirely new dimension. Full scale blueprints with the Moon mission setup on top... with and without fairings...
...............

 

And the sheer scale of this monster becomes obvious with this updated UNSA Rocket Evolution chart and comparing it to the previous lifters...

 

Shown costs of the RX 10, like for all displayed vessels, are just for the lifter rocket itself. The Nexus setup itself costs another 70 million $. The UNSAs upgraded VAB has begun construction of the first two of these giants. If everything goes as planned, they will soon be flown and tested for the first time...

 

 

Edited May 27, 2016 by TrooperCooper

[TrooperCooper]

Episode 10: Test Flights
click spoiler below pic to open

 

Spoiler

The UNSAs engineers worked extra hard and with some more upgrades for the VAB, the first Nexus rocket was completed three month earlier than anticipated. A roadmap for the coming operations was presented to the public. The Agency planned to have several test flights before the first humans would land on the Moons surface. Each step would be followed by evaluation of the results and possible adjustments to the overall plan. The two production lanes in the VAB would continuously build more RX 10 / Nexus crafts and smaller improvements to the gear could be integrated during the process.

On the 6th of November 1968, Nexus One took off from the Kourou Space Center...

 

On board was an all US-american crew. Commander of the mission: Denise Rice, first human in space with Mercury 1. Martin Kelly as engineer and Johnny Thomas as scientist were her crewmates. Their mission objectives was to test the Nexus in low earth orbit.

 

Pushed by 60,000 kN of thrust, the 4,400 tons heavy rocket propelled into the clear sky over the Atlantic coast.

 

After two minutes the Nexus had already burned off more than half of its mass and the empty auxillary boosters were tossed away.

 

Less than three minutes after take off, already at an altitude of 110 kilometers, the Go! for staging was given and the Nexus separated from its initial launch section.

 

A few seconds later the aerodynamic shielding and the launch escape tower were also removed...

 

Spotters from the ground were able to pick up a stream of debries coming off from the accelerating vessel...

 

...which was now powered by its cluster of ten hydrolox J-2 engines of the 2nd stage.

 

After less than 8 minutes the RX 10 lifter had reached a stable orbit and the Nexus setup, with more than 220 tons clearly the largest payload sent into orbit thus far, was released.

 

The first task for the crew was easy and uneventful. For two weeks in orbit they ran routine checks of the Pulsar capsule while primarily testing the boil off rate of the fuel in the TLI kicker stage. After 14 days they were sattisfied to report back to mission control that just a marginal ammount of liquid hydrogen had vented off into space. The ammount of delta V lost due to this was almost completly compensated by the consumption of life support goods during the same period of time. Mission control was more than happy by the performance of the cryogenic tank.

 

The next step was a test-burn with the kicker stage, simulating a shortened TLI burn to ensure the Pulsar CSM and LuLa could cope with the impacting forces.

 

Just like on a real Moon mission, the CSM now separated from the lander and the kicker stage below it.

 

It swung around and docked up with the lander [my first IVA docking ever ].

 

Then the kicker stage was separated from the LuLa. A design flaw was revealed as the decoupler still had quite some ejection force, which could distort the Astronauts trajectory to the Moon later on...

 

With the lander hooked up to its nose, the CSM simulated a Luna Orbital Insertion burn.

 

Shortly afterwards, the highlight of the mission came up for the crew of Nexus One: booting up the LuLa and taking it for a spin. However, when Denise and her team floated through the airlock into the lander, they had to realize that the third seat was not mounted within it [bug - ugh! ]. The 3-man lander was in fact a 2-man lander. The Astronauts contacted mission control and informed them about their little issue. It turned out that, while the Russians had pressed hard for a bigger lander and ultimately took over the design-process of the vessel, their engineers must have been drunk at work. The Soviet High Commissioner for Chair Production was contacted and asked if production of a dozen appropriate chairs could be pushed into the 4-year master plan of the Soviet Unions industry. Unfortunately he was unable to ensure delivery in time for the Moon landings...

 

In orbit, Denise and Martin crawled back into the Pulsar capsule after just a short test drive with the incomplete lander. The first LuLa was then pulled into an orbit with negative perigee and the Astronauts prepared for their own re-entry...

 

The capsule still offers a rough ride when thrown into the hot plasma. With the inability to keep it pointed, there is still a lesson to be learned here...

 

But the crew made it back, even though sweating... and received their well deserved scrap-metal. They had disclosed numerous minor issues with the Nexus setup. All but one seemed to be fixable in time. The missing 3rd seat in the LuLa however left everyone at the UNSA baffled. The lander was an integrated component of the system. Radically changing it, with the rocket equation lurking in the background, would most certainly require an extensive re-design of the whole concept. Sticking with the current unit and relying on the soviet industry to produce the chairs in time could mean one less person on the Moon surface per flight. In the end the UNSA decided to go with the latter and hope for the best...

 

While the Nexus project was making progress, the UNSA still kept going with their unmanned interplanetary exploration. Mercury Visitor had reached its fly-by target and informed mankind that they would certainly not need to bring a heating installation, should they ever be able and decide to wander out here...

 

Shortly after the return of the first Nexus crew, a transfer window to Jupiter opened up and gave the UNSA a chance to send a probe out to take a look at one of the two remaining unvisited targets that are within reach of the current com technology. Jupiter Visitor was launched on a RX 8, the worst performing lifter in the agencies arsenal.

 

And just as if it wanted to confirm everyones disbelief, the rockets control system was unable to cope with its wobbling behaviour. During atmospheric ascend, it flipped out of control...

 

...and a rapidly expanding cloud of debries began falling back down to the surface... the interplanetary probe in the center, hoplessly trying to regain altitude...

 

Soon it crashed into the ocean. While the UNSA of course was unable to hide this accident from the eyes of millions of tourists along the carribean beaches, they better not told them the automated vessel that ended up in their big swimming pool was equipped with a set of newly developed radioisotope thermoelectric generators...

 

This accident put the final nail in the coffin for the RX 8. It was decomissioned after a brief investigation. That also ment that the planned Mars orbiter, which was scheduled to launch within a few weeks, was put on hold as well. The UNSA was in need of a new 20 ton lifter and turned to the young and enthusiastic russian engineer Mikhail Lyasin to design a replacement, designated RX 11. Mikhail had been urging his superiours to adress the wobbling issues that several of the existing lifters had to cope with. Now he had a chance at proving his skills.

While nobody really understood the fundamental cause of these material instabilities, he approached the problem in a strictly scientific way. After clearly identifying the RX 9 (see previous Episodes 8 and 9) as the lifter with the least suffering from the soft banana syndrome - and that while beeing the second largest rocket of the UNSA so far - he tried to downscale its design for the new RX 11 while keeping its strength. At first he failed to achieve a similar stability. So he took the RX 9 design and undertook marginal steps to destroy its internal stability, hoping to identify that single cause of it. He ripped out the pre-installed struts within the fairings that come with them from the fairing-producer already, as well as the struts that got installed afterwards by the UNSA, he maximized the gimbling on the engines, reduced the cylindric fairing-connections to the extend of narrow strings, experimented with the coning of the whole rockets structure. But nothing seemed to crush the RX 9' inherent profile stability.

Mikhail could not give up. His career depended on fixing this issue. And who knows what he would be in for when returning to Moscow after failing at the UNSA. Possibly he would get to count trees in Siberia together with the poor comrade who forgot to install a 3rd chair in the Luna Lander.

After countless sleepless nights and hard working days, he finally considered to have found the root of the RX 9 strength in its inter-part connections. By maximizing those, he intended to develop a completly new structure hardening design approach that potentially could revolutionise the UNSAs rocket building process. The result of Mikhails findings was the new RX 11.

The higher ups within the UNSA did not believe in his arguments and denied to use the new rocket on a real mission with expensive payload for its first launch. But that did not bother the young russian engineer. Afterall an already written off dummy as payload would mean he could pull agressive maneuvers in flight to further prove his designs stability - if he was right -  without having to care about reaching a certain orbit. With a provoking grin Mikhail watched as the rocket was put up on the launchpad.

 

The RX 11 cleared the pad and accelerated to 100 m/s vertical speed. At that moment the regular gravity turn was initiated. The rocket responded smoothly and without a sign of flexing. Instructions were given to stress its stability by applying strokes of full gimbal force. Mikhails design took them all and accurately pointed its vector into any direction it was ordered. It became obvious that the soft banana syndrome had been overcome and a new era in UNSA rocket design had begun. On top of it, they got a new 20 ton lifter which was much more stable, lighter, and even cheaper than its predecessor.

 

Mikhail was promoted and got an own staff in the lifter design department. His new technique is probably coming to late to be utilized in the Nexus project, but will certainly have an impact later on. On his desk, Mikhail already has plans for a new generation of lifters, starting with a modern looking 100 ton launcher, which would reduce the gap between the RX 9' 55 tons capability and the 220 tons of the giant RX 10.

 

 

Edited May 27, 2016 by TrooperCooper

[TonyC]

Very well written, cheers

[Dman979]

Is there any way you could put the images in spoilers? It's getting hard to scroll down the page.

Other than that, nice work!

[UnusualAttitude]

Awesome work, and very good looking rockets.

[TrooperCooper]

 

Thank you guys. I'm glad you like it and I am not just writing for myself. I'm actually considering to do videos as well, but I'm not familar with that at all yet and I prolly should buy more HD space first.

Played some more and got the next Episode's pics gathered together. But now its bedtime first...

 

11 hours ago, Dman979 said:

Is there any way you could put the images in spoilers? It's getting hard to scroll down the page.

Other than that, nice work!

 

I'm putting each whole episode into a spoiler now. See if that that makes it better. If I put every single pic into a spoiler, I think its to much click-work...

 

[CatastrophicFailure]

1 hour ago, TrooperCooper said:

 

<missing seats>

You see, Ivan, when astronaut sit on lap is half mass and twice fun!

 

no but seriously, um.... Where is your VAB in that last one??

[TrooperCooper]

5 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

You see, Ivan, when astronaut sit on lap is half mass and twice fun!

 

Haha! You'd be suprised. Its going in that direction.

 

5 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

no but seriously, um.... Where is your VAB in that last one??

 

That is the hangar extender mod. It takes the VAB graphics away and lets you scroll through the roof. So you can build super large rockets - especially compared to stock scale.

 

Edited May 27, 2016 by TrooperCooper

[TrooperCooper]

Episode 11: Agressive Reconfigurations

(click on the spoiler below the picture to open)

 

Spoiler

Three month after Nexus One, in february 1969 Nexus Two with an all-russian crew launched from Kourou. Commander and pilot Yefim Yakovlev and scientist Dmitry Genkin were new to space flight. Along with them flew the ambitious engineer Mikhail Lyasin to gain first flight experience as well.

 

With Nexus Two heading to the Moon, they left Low Earth Orbit for the first time. Their mission was to establish a stable Low Luna Orbit in an equatorial plane with the whole gear setup. Since the UNSA does not launch from a Moon-inclined orbit around the Earth, there is usually quite some maneuvering to be done on the way to the target. So this mission was to ensure that the Pulsar CSM would have enough fuel under real conditions. As safety backup, the lander itself had no fuel for its own engines loaded on this flight. Instead, it was used as a backup bunker for the Pulsars fuel type (with exactly the same mass as LuLa-fuel on a normal mission), should the need for a safety net come up.

 

Since the prior mission had shown such good results in testing the cryogenic isolation of the hydrolox tank, the flight profile for the Nexus missions had been changed slightly. From now on the kicker stage would stay attached, after  leaving LEO, to make use of all the remaining fuel buffer during the flight. And so Nexus Two began its LuLa hookup maneuver in mid flight after a correction burn had used up the remaining hydrogen.

 

Swinging around...

 

...and grabbing LuLa.

 

After two more burns...

 

...Nexus Two had established a stable low equatorial orbit around the Moon with a sufficient fuel buffer.

 

Mikhail Lyasin went on an EVA to inspect the lander from the outside. He also opened its airlock to take a look inside. "Stoopid Amerikans!" he said and tossed out a secondary console from within the lander can. "Dhere is enouf roohm here to sit on tha floar!" [the bug seems to be only a visual problem, with the 3rd crewman beeing accessable through the crew hatch but not shown with his face at the bottom right]. The engineer also spotted an issue with the landers 2nd stage with his bare eyes. The engines were mounted right at the center of its mass, giving them no ability to work with the gimbal.

 

Since LuLa was just a backup fuel tank and test payload on this mission, the crew of Nexus Two already had completed its task by now.

 

And after leaving the lander in low orbit behind (it might serve as a tiny fuel depot later on), the three Cosmonauts headed back home.

 

Another three month later, Nexus Three lifted off. The mixed crew of Joyce Edwards, Marta Tikhonova and Eduard Gruzinsky were supposed to follow the path of the prior missions and take the LuLa on an extended test flight around the Moon to try out all relevant stages of the upcoming landing operations - without the landing itself.

 

After arriving at the Moon, the three were able to confirm Mikhails assumption. Eduard could sit on the floor, even though unable to look outside from there...

 

After leaving the CSM, the three tested the equipment of the LuLa, including its main engines. To their suprise they had to realize that the gimbal of the ship was not working. A problem that the CSM was also suffering from [bugs and more bugs - ugh! Well, I guess mod-problems is a better description]. But for the Pulsar it was considered a minor issue that would not matter much. The lander however was in crucial need of gimbal support to enhance maneuverability during the final stages of the Moon landing. This was something the engineers at home would have to figure out...

 

And they found more food for the engineers: after they came back to the now unmanned floating CSM with the upper stage of the LuLa, they noticed that their docking target was slowly spinning around its own axis, making it impossible to dock. The Pulsar design itself dated back to the assumption of the US Americans to use a lightweight two man lander in the Moon operations, with the 3rd crewman staying within the CSM and keeping control over it. Since the UNSA had decided to go for a full 3-man landing, the CSM would have to be equipped with autonomous avionics and remote control abilities in the future. For the Nexus Three crew, there was no other way back home than to EVA-jump over to their ship...

 

After the return to Earth of Nexus Three, the UNSA had enough experiences with the Moon gear to warrant an overhaul of the setup and, most importantly, try to fix the gimbal problem of the lander. In the meantime, Mikhails RX 11 got the opportunity to launch its first real payload into LEO [due to com restrictions it had to be a night-time take off - so just one pic of it].

 

The cargo to be sent into a polar orbit was a new long range com satellite. With its large antenna dish that had just been developed, it offers a theoretical range beyond Pluto and the border of the solar system for future deep space exploration efforts.

 

It took the engineers three month to overhaul the Nexus gear. They installed a remote-controllable probe core on the CSM and optimized its antenna layout. The engine positioning on the 2nd stage of the lander had been changed and the engineers had also experiemented with the gimbal of the descend stage. After a series of tests, they claimed it was working now. The whole system received a new strutting setup within the launch fairings and was ready to go. While this work was going on, Mikhail got the chance to refurbish the RX 10 lifter, turning it into the new RX 13 by applying some elements of his structure hardening technique and generally modernizing the whole rocket. The unecessary tail fins were removed and an improved system of separation motors installed. In the end, the lifter also received a new paintshop. It grew by one meter in size, now was 10 tons heavier and 15 million $ more expensive than before. But increased reliability and safety for the crew made this slightly higher price well worth it for the UNSA.

 

An updated rocket chart, including the new lifters based on Mikhails work:

 

Nexus Four in August 1969 was the first flight of the overhauled design. Commander Connie Armstrong with her engineer Ricky Baker and scientist Elena Anisimova were supposed to repeat the Nexus Three mission and confirm that the whole system was working now. Connie was picked for this crucial mission, because she had proven that she gets things done no matter what, during her first flight with Mercury Three (see Episode 6: Misjudgements). If everything went as planned, the UNSA intended to do the actual moon landing with Nexus Five...

 

Launch of the improved RX 13 went well. Wobbling had been clearly reduced, although not completly eliminated. But that was to be expected, considering there are numerous thin connections below the rooted command pod, including a docking port.

 

Within no time, Connie and her crew were on the way to the Moon...

 

With five burns along the way, they had the most complex orbital insertion plan so far. Thanks to proper planning, dV needs stayed well within the 2,000 m/sec restrictions for a low equatorial orbit insertion though.

 

Nexus Four took its hydrolox stage all the way till behind the Moon untill it had a first inclined and excentric but stable orbit. Then, while the Earth was sinking behind the Moon, the CSM grabbed the lander.

 

Travelling quite a bit around the far side of Luna, this crew is now holding the record of beeing the ones who went the furthest away from home...

 

After a series of adjustment burns, Nexus Four settled for LLO.

 

Then the crew moved over into the LuLa and booted up its systems. First thing they tried out was of course the gimbal on the descend stage. It was not responding at all [stoopid bugs ugh!] and Connie freaked out. "Get out of here!" she yelled at her engineer Ricky and the scientist Elena. "Get back into the CSM! I'll handle this!"

 

Worried that a failure of the mission would delay or even end the Nexus Project, Connie undocked with the lander all by herself, after the two others had gone back into the Pulsar. What she intended to do now, she better did alone...

 

After moving a couple hundred meters away from the CSM, she fired up the engines again. While those were running, Ricky and Elena were able to hear the sounds of crashing metal, vaporating gases and a cursing Connie over the coms. At some point the cabin seemed to be illuminated by a fire shine from the within, while Connie randomly pulled cables and cut pipelines.

 

Then they heard her saying "I got this. Its working!" Connie was able to maneuver under full gimbal thrust [seems like re-loading the craft temporarily fixes the bug... hopefully consistently]. "Wanna head down to the surface?" she asked with a grin. "What in gods name did you do?" asked Ricky. "Well..." she replied... "I had to... hmmm... re-configure some instrumentation."

 

They all calmed down again and after testing the other systems of LuLa, the Nexus Four crew left the lander cabin behind to continue with their mission. For a brief moment Connie had the feeling that she had forgotten something. But it cant have been important enough if it slipped through her mind...

 

Mission control had ordered them to do another prolonged in-orbit test of the upgraded Pulsar spaceship. And it was a good decision, as the crew realized that the newly installed probe core at the back of the ship was demanding enough power to slowly drain the ships batteries dry. The engineers had calculated correctly, that the four solar panels would provide enough energy. But they overlooked, that the Pulsar would spend half its time within the shadow of the Moon during its low altitude missions. With every orbit the batteries showed a considerable net loss, even while fully pointing the panels at the sun whenever possible.

 

In the end, the crew was only able to make it by shutting off multiple vital systems, including long range coms. At the end they even switched the lights off...

 

After these tests, their mission was complete and they set course to the Earth. Connie decided to go with a low speed return. "Lets see,..." she said... "if we loiter arround a bit, we might get another medal for long endurance space ops." She convinced the two others with the argument that more space time and experiences would improve their chances to be picked for further missions. So they burned out of Low Luna Orbit, destined for an Earth re-entry in over eight days.

 

Almost one week later they were still 330,000 km from home. Elena asked Connie whether or not she had moved the life support supplies from the lander into the CSM before leaving the cabin. "The fridge is empty!" she said. Ricky checked the supplies and came to the conclusion that they had a little over one day and eight hours of food, water and oxygen remaining. And that while their time till re-entry was about two days and thirteen hours. "You and your decorations!" he pointed at Connie. "We are doomed!".

 

Connie was worried, too... but only for a brief moment. Untill she noticed the fuel gauge. "Hey, no problem!" she smiled. "Thats what we got a fuel buffer for - we can still speed this up. Just gonna put the pedal to the metal." They did the math and it turned out that they had just enough dV reserves to get back in time. With a buffer of just a few hours. But there was another problem...

 

"Do you really want us to accelerate almost 2 km/s into a re-entry?" Elena asked with growing fear. Engineer Ricky Baker agreed: "The heatshield has never been tested under such extreme conditions. And prior crews already reported problems with stability at regular speeds." But Connie insisted on the maneuver. "We have no other choice but to take our chances. Else we will be a bunch of lifeless bodies when the recovery teams open the pod." Mission Control agreed and so they fired up the engines...

 

...accelerating with everything they had towards Earth...

 

One day later, as supplies shrinked, they closed in on the planet with growing speed...

 

While they were approaching the dark side of the Earth, the crew of Nexus Four transmitted some last words to their loved ones before re-entry... in case they would not survive this...

 

Diving down over east Asia, the command module split from the service section.

 

"Set it into spinning motion before we hit the atmosphere" Ricky said, "that is our only hope!" Connie fired the pods RCS multiple times and the capsule began to rotate...

 

As soon as they hit the upper layers of the Earth atmosphere and the heatshield began to quickly warm up, they were able to see the already exploding service module in the distance...

 

Then the little pod was engulfed in flames and hot plasma while the paralized crew watched the navball in fear as the rearside veered off course...

 

Mission controls capsule communicator continuously called for the crew over radio. While they knew that no radio transmission could be send through the re-entry plasma, they were expecting the worst for the returning crew...

 

Then they heard a crackling sound over the speakers... "Hello Kourou... this is Nexus Four. We made it!"

 

 

Edited May 27, 2016 by TrooperCooper

[Combatsmithen]

ignore this post

Edited May 28, 2016 by Combatsmithen

[TrooperCooper]

 

Episode 12: Landing on the Moon

(click on the spoiler below the picture to open)

 

Spoiler

 

On the 28th of December 1969, the RX 13 with Nexus Five stood ready on the launch pad.

 

Denise Rice, Mikhail Lyasin and Kim Fletcher took off on the ambitious mission to land on the Luna surface for the first time ever.

 

Launch booster drop...

 

Proceeding into 2nd stage...

 

Pushing for orbit...

 

After reaching a stable orbit around the Earth, the Nexus setup separated from the upper lifter stage...

 

...and accelerated on a trajectory towards the Moon.

 

Climbing up over South America...

 

Target in sight...

 

While closing in on the Moon, the CSM grabbed the Luna Lander.

 

The Pulsar had been equipped with a less power-hungry probe core and a cluster of solar panels at its backend, to help with energy stability later on, during its autonomous mission process.

 

Descending into low luna orbit around the equator.

 

The three spacefarers boarded the LuLa and undocked from the Pulsar CSM.

 

Denise took manual control over the ship.

 

And began with the descend burn...

 

Soon they were descending almost vertical...

 

Almost there... and almost out of fuel...

 

A few seconds later, the first manned UNSA ship had safely landed on the Moons surface.

 

The big moment: Denise had the honor of exiting the vehicle first...

 

But within minutes she was joined by the other two. It was the culmination of twenty years of rocket engineering and space exploration: a group of humans rammed their flag into the Luna dust.

 

On this first landing the crew only stayed for about eight hours on the surface. After running their few scientific experiments and grabbing some samples, the upper stage of the Luna Lander was launched when the Nexus Five CSM came around the Moon again (if you look carefully, you can actually see it as a faint dot on this image, just to the left of the exhaust plume).

 

Gaining altitude to catch their taxi back home...

 

One orbit later, they rendezvoused with the Pulsar.

 

The crew loaded the surface samples and remaining life support goods from the lander cabin into the CSM.

 

Then the remains of LuLa were left behind as the Pulsar with the crew climbed into a higher orbit...

 

After the eject burn, they were on their way back to the Earth...

 

Diving down over east Asia again. Clearly visible the illuminated island of Japan, Korea and China with Taiwan...

 

Command module seperated, diving into the atmosphere...

 

After a rough ride through the heat, the crew was hanging on their chutes...

 

Splash down in the south eastern Pacific and completion of the high profile contract.

 

After these first steps on the surface, the UNSA is now preparing for a series of Luna landings and beginning to look beyond the Moon.

 

 

Edited May 29, 2016 by TrooperCooper

[OrbitalBuzzsaw]

Awesome! Although maybe an Earth-orbit docking of Lander and CSM before TLI would have been cooler.

[Combatsmithen]

14 hours ago, OrbitalBuzzsaw said:

Awesome! Although maybe an Earth-orbit docking of Lander and CSM before TLI would have been cooler.

Well IRL the Apollo missions docked to the Lander after completing their burn to the moon

@TrooperCooper What mod do you use to show the actual year and day. Because for me its just the elapsed time since I've started my world. By judging that I started in 1945 I can say im sometime in 1957 because 12 years have passed. But I don't know exactly what year it would be unless I wen't through and counted all the days

EDIT: NVM found the mod

Edited May 30, 2016 by Combatsmithen

[TrooperCooper]

 

Yeah, the Apollo missions did the maneuver closer to the Earth. However, my intention is not to create replicas of historic crafts or missions. This is just me finding my way into space (and putting some story elements around the events). And the only reason why the Nexus flights resemble the Apollo mission profile is the fact that this approach is the most efficient one. And when you read back during the earlier epsiodes, I mentioned why I detach from the TLI stage later. Its just a result of an earlier test of the cryogenic tank which isolates the hydrogen fuel much better than I expected. It allows me to use the remaining fuel buffer for follow-up maneuvers at a point in time where I figured all the fuel would have vented off into space already when I designed the gear.

About the time format, just in case anyone else who reads this wants to know which mod it is:

 

Edited May 30, 2016 by TrooperCooper

[CatastrophicFailure]

Kerbaldom needs more slick black rockets. 

 

but where are the fuel tanks on that ascent module?

[Dman979]

1 hour ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

but where are the fuel tanks on that ascent module?

Probably internal. You can get a lot of fuel in those suckers, even without clipping.

[TrooperCooper]

 

Yes, about one third of the ascent stages fuel is inside the lander cabin itself. And there are two additional tanks. The thin black disk at the bottom and the wide brown cap at the top around the docking port.

[TrooperCooper]

 

After some mod updates, my install is currently riddled with bugs.... up to the point where I am considering a re-install and starting over with a fresh career.

 

Edited May 31, 2016 by TrooperCooper

[Dman979]

On 5/31/2016 at 6:39 PM, TrooperCooper said:

 

After some mod updates, my install is currently riddled with bugs.... up to the point where I am considering a re-install and starting over with a fresh career.

 

aw, naw!

I think the problem might be that you're using the wrong version of KSP for the mods.

[TrooperCooper]

18 minutes ago, Dman979 said:

aw, naw!

I think the problem might be that you're using the wrong version of KSP for the mods.

 

That is true, yeah. I had to de-install AIES. Its not updated to 1.1 yet but was supposed to work. So far it fixed some issues. But I have to re-design LOTS of previously used gear, which is the reason why I havent posted any new content since sunday. When I am done with that, this hopefully will continue.

 

[TrooperCooper]

 

Episode 13: Rising like a Phoenix

(click on the spoiler below the picture to open)

 

Spoiler

After the first Luna landing, the UNSA continued with its Moon project by landing Nexus 6 and Nexus 7. Many more surface operations were planned...

 

But in mid 1970 the Agency faced its biggest crisis so far. An equipment-supplier, the AIES aerospace company, announced that numerous of their products were produced with faulty materials [mod-deinstall, see post above]. The related gear was grounded and it included most of the UNSAs lifter rockets and also the Nexus setup. The Agency was considering to re-build what was needed to continue with the Moon project. But public interest in Luna operations dwindled when the re-development costs were compared with the potential further scientific gains. Some critisists even called for an end of manned space flights. The UNSA was not able to justify returning to the Moon again.

Instead it reverted back to fundamental material research and developing new equipment. The leading engineers Mikhail Lyasin and Ricky Baker were assigned to work out a completly new generation of launcher rockets with the ALV-Project (advanced lifting vessels), based on the ground-breaking new design approaches that came up with the past development of the RX 11. In total, eighteen new lifters were designed. They started with basic small-scale rockets for 5 ton payloads and worked their way up. In the end, Mikhail and Ricky used the state-of-the-art computer Datapoint 2200 to simulate the largest super lifter ever considered so far. The ALV 500 would weight 10,000 tons and be able to deploy a 500 ton payload into Low Earth Orbit. The following images are illustrations based on their simulations.

 

Simulated ALV 500 ignition and take off.

 

Six UA1205 solid rocket boosters on top of 16 russian super heavy RD-270M engines would cause quite some dust...

 

Thanks to a structure-hardened design, the 140 meters tall rocket did not show any sign of lifter-induced wobble during the simulated ascent with a payload-dummy. Although, payload-induced instability can not be ruled out in the future with real cargo strapped on top of narrowed connections.

 

Solid rocket booster technology is very new for the UNSAs mission controlers. During this first simulation, the UA1205 cluster was released a split second to early and they shot up ahead. Luckily, no damage was caused to the lifter rocket.

 

It gave the ALV 500 the opportunity to fly through its own Korolev Cross.

 

Without the SRBs, the simulation continued with the lifter pushing towards space on its cluster of RD-270Ms.

 

Separation and ignition of the 2nd stage with 26 J-2 hydrolox engines.

 

After jetting the payload fairings and reaching almost orbital speed during a long horizontal burn, the third and last stage with a cluster of ten LR87-LH2 Vacuum engines on a cryo tank was ignited.

 

It made the last push into orbit.

 

After reaching an apoapsis of 300 kilometers, the ten meters wide simulated payload was released and the technical demonstration ended. Final orbit corrections were not made, since the simulation costs were extremly high and it was clear that with 1300 m/sec of dV remaining, the upper stage of the ALV 500 would have no trouble to fine tune the trajectory.

 

Stats of the largest projected super lifter:

 

A look at the enormous engine section. The central core at the bottom without the radial boosters is 16 meters wide, which is at the technological limit of what the UNSA can build as of today. This is also the main reason, why radially attached boosters had to be used to provide additional thrust, since no more engines would have fitted on the main section.

 

The UNSA is hoping to one day actually build and use the ALV 500 and the other super lifters (downscaled versions for 400 tons, 350 tons, 300 tons, 250 tons, 200 tons, 175 tons and 150 tons were in development as well) in future large scale operations (and Mikhail is even dreaming of a 1,000 tons lifter version already). But right now, in the light of the AIES crisis, the public opinion would not allow investments of such scale. Due to this, the Agency at first would be forced to re-vitalize public interest in space exploration using unmanned technology and on the side prepare for the future with low Earth orbit operations, possibly learning the basics of long-term space habitation in oribtal stations...

 

Edited June 3, 2016 by TrooperCooper

[LeuZ]

Looks very nice!

But I have one question: Which mod allows you to get rid of the VAB?

[TrooperCooper]

19 minutes ago, LeuZ said:

Looks very nice!

But I have one question: Which mod allows you to get rid of the VAB?

Thanks!

Its Hangar Extender:

 

[Combatsmithen]

That is the largest rocket I have ever seen....... Also when you were landing on the moon, is that 4 Agena engines propelling the CSM? Do you have versions with lots of or unlimited relights? At the point I am in my career the Agena only gets 1 light,

Edited June 3, 2016 by Combatsmithen

[TrooperCooper]

27 minutes ago, Combatsmithen said:

That is the largest rocket I have ever seen.......

 

Thanks!

There are larger ones. Biggest one I built myself ever in RSS/RO thus far was a lifter with 31,000 tons for a manned fly by on Mars. Mass in orbit was about 1,300 tons. But that thing was a nightmare to fly. I learned so much during this UNSA-career... the current ALV 500 is a joy to fly, part-count induced lagginess aside.

 

27 minutes ago, Combatsmithen said:

Also when you were landing on the moon, is that 4 Agena engines propelling the CSM? Do you have versions with lots of or unlimited relights? At the point I am in my career the Agena only gets 1 light,

Yes, those are Agena engines. As said in the OP, I play with unlimited relights. IMO we are lacking the tools they have in RL to make limitted engine ignitions appropriate. But if you decide to play with that limit, hats off to you.

Though you can get more ignitions for that engine through test-flight I believe.

Edited June 3, 2016 by TrooperCooper