Info & Diagrams for Rockets and their payload/craft

[jimiticus]

I'm working on a very simple 2D animation of several spacecraft from launch to deployment of the craft, but I'm having a hard time finding resources for finding images of how the spacecraft is attached to the rockets.

For example, I couldn't find how New Horizons was attached to the Atlas V, but I saw some kerbal users new exactly how, and how it was deployed through the various stages of launch and through it's trajectory.

Specifically I'm looking for the Helios probes and the Titan IIIE Centaur.

Thanks! 

[Ten Key]

Some of this may be useful. . .

http://www.alternatewars.com/BBOW/Boosters/Centaur/1973_Titan_IIIE_Centaur_Summary.pdf     ----  Figure 2-3 is probably what you're looking for.

And then I found this. . .

http://spaceflighthistory.blogspot.com/2015/08/preparing-for-halley-1974-plan-for-slow.html

Which is talking about a different probe, but that probe was based heavily on the Helios design, and if you read down the article there's a diagram of how the comet explorer would have attached to the Centaur upper stage, followed by a photo of the Helios B spacecraft that shows the same cylindrical adapter. That adapter would have gone into the circular socket on the Centaur upper stage shown in the diagrams from the above PDF. 

 

[jimiticus]

3 hours ago, Ten Key said:

Some of this may be useful. . .

http://www.alternatewars.com/BBOW/Boosters/Centaur/1973_Titan_IIIE_Centaur_Summary.pdf     ----  Figure 2-3 is probably what you're looking for.

And then I found this. . .

http://spaceflighthistory.blogspot.com/2015/08/preparing-for-halley-1974-plan-for-slow.html

Which is talking about a different probe, but that probe was based heavily on the Helios design, and if you read down the article there's a diagram of how the comet explorer would have attached to the Centaur upper stage, followed by a photo of the Helios B spacecraft that shows the same cylindrical adapter. That adapter would have gone into the circular socket on the Centaur upper stage shown in the diagrams from the above PDF. 

 

This is extremely helpful thank you! How were you able to find this so quickly? Is there a resource besides google, you can find the technical information on missions where you can actually see how they configure the rocket and spacecraft for launch and deployment?

Thanks again!

[Ten Key]

18 hours ago, jimiticus said:

How were you able to find this so quickly?

I used Google's "image search" feature instead of the usual web search. It's pretty good about digging diagrams and photos out of articles and even archived PDF manuals, and from there I can click on "visit page" and dig up all sorts of interesting stuff. I started with an image search for the Helios probe, which took me to the "spaceflight history" article, and then I started in on the Titan IIIE. The first hit I got there was actually a thread on this forum for the Tantares part pack, which then led to a 3rd party site that had an archived pdf of a manual for the Titan IIIE Centaur.

You do have to be careful. . .sometimes the images are mislabeled. For example, this came up in a search for "Titan IIIE Centaur", but I'm pretty sure that's a Centaur G, which was used for space shuttle payloads. It is a good shot of the payload adapter though, which looks very similar to the one the Titan IIIE would have used.

 

If there'a s central repository for this sort of thing, I'm not aware of it. But some of the individual contractors seem to have a lot of stuff-- it looks like the ULA has a lot of information available on their Atlas and Delta rockets. I have a feeling if you went looking for information on Space X, you probably wouldn't find as much.

 

[StarStreak2109]

You might also look here. This is awesome if you want to recreate Kerbal replicas of real rockets...

www.andegraf.com/rockets

[SuperFastJellyfish]

6 hours ago, StarStreak2109 said:

You might also look here. This is awesome if you want to recreate Kerbal replicas of real rockets...

www.andegraf.com/rockets

Thank you for this. 

[jimiticus]

18 hours ago, Ten Key said:

I used Google's "image search" feature instead of the usual web search. It's pretty good about digging diagrams and photos out of articles and even archived PDF manuals, and from there I can click on "visit page" and dig up all sorts of interesting stuff. I started with an image search for the Helios probe, which took me to the "spaceflight history" article, and then I started in on the Titan IIIE. The first hit I got there was actually a thread on this forum for the Tantares part pack, which then led to a 3rd party site that had an archived pdf of a manual for the Titan IIIE Centaur.

You do have to be careful. . .sometimes the images are mislabeled. For example, this came up in a search for "Titan IIIE Centaur", but I'm pretty sure that's a Centaur G, which was used for space shuttle payloads. It is a good shot of the payload adapter though, which looks very similar to the one the Titan IIIE would have used.

 

If there'a s central repository for this sort of thing, I'm not aware of it. But some of the individual contractors seem to have a lot of stuff-- it looks like the ULA has a lot of information available on their Atlas and Delta rockets. I have a feeling if you went looking for information on Space X, you probably wouldn't find as much.

 

I always do this type of image search with google to, you just did a much better job than me

[jimiticus]

7 hours ago, StarStreak2109 said:

You might also look here. This is awesome if you want to recreate Kerbal replicas of real rockets...

www.andegraf.com/rockets

Awesome, thank you this is perfect!!