German RP-0 career (Deutsche Luft- und Raumfahrt)

[grosser_Salat]

Introduction:

Hello fellow kerbonauts!

Wellcome to my mission log of about 80 missions flown from 1936 to 1941 by the early german space agancy. While the real spaceprogram is well known for the infamous V2 (Aggregat 4) and people like Werner von Braun, my story is fictional. Nevertheless, I tried to involve historic events like the start of the 2nd world war. However, this does not propagate ideology of that time but rather focuses on the engineering aspect of early spaceflight, that happend to start under evil leadership. My progress is much faster because I overfunded my spaceprogram from the start to loosen constraints since this was my first RP-0 career. I created a launchsite at Peenemünde to start from as historically correct as I could make it. We will fly planes and rockets and shoot for the moon. Did you know, that the first human in space was a woman, put up by germans? Well, let's see how that happened...

Flightlogs - 1936:

Spoiler

 

Total number of flight	Name	Number of flight	Date	Mass (t)	Stages	Mission profile	Flight log
1	Konzept 1	1	09.01.1936	0,261	1	First launch - techdemonstration	Rocket tiped over on the pad
2	Konzept 1	2	10.01.1936	0,261	1	Relaunch the very same rocket.	Reached 20km, got data, destroyed on purpose over Denmark.
3	Konzept 1/plus	1	21.01.1936	0,801	2	Reach the upper part of the atmosphere.	Second stage failed to ignite due to unstable propellant. Upper winglets broke.
4	Konzept 1B	1	02.02.1936	1,052	2	Reach the upper part of the atmosphere.	WE MADE IT INTO SPACE! (over 300km) Our electricity run out during transmitting data, so we could not destroy it savely. It crashed down near Berlin. We might use it as propaganda...
5	Konzept 1B	2	13.02.1936	1,052	2	Get more data from space.	Success. This time we intentionally blew the rocket up before reentry.
6	Konzept 1C	1	27.02.1936	2,964	3	See how high we can get.	The rocket tiped over seconds after launch, so we had to destroy it over the pad.
7	Konzept 1C-2	1	13.03.1936	2,976	3	See how high we can get.	We reached 1000km! This time the atmosphere destroyed the vessel on reentry with 400m/s.
8	Konzept 1D	1	01.04.1936	5,918	4	Probing the space high over the Earth.	The fins on the second stage broke, which nearly disintegrated the rocket. We skipped the second stage and therefore faild our mission.
9	Konzept 1D	2	20.04.1936	6,022	4	Probing the space high over the Earth.	Success. But we missed the goal of 2,7Mm by 0,8Mm.
10	T-1 Möve	1	24.04.1936	3,256	1	Proof of concept of an aircraft.	Success. Takeoff at 50m/s; topspeed 80m/s; altmax. 618m; duration 8min.
11	Konzept 1E	1	03.06.1936	10,82	5	Probing the space high over the Earth.	Failure. The rocket tiped over on launch. We had to destroy it over the peninsula.
12	Konzept 1E-2	1	27.06.1936	10,849	5	Probing the space high over the Earth.	Failure. The rocket tiped over again, than disintegrated over Germany. We had to destroy the remaining upperstage.
13	C-1 Kondor	1	08.07.1936	13,27	1	Test an advances aircraft with 3 engines, expanded flighttime and transportcapabilities.	Success. We reached 12km altitude and a speed of 900km/h (takeoff at 75m/s). Now we can take 6 men and small cargo anywhere 1,5 fighthours away.
14	Konzept 1E-3	1	22.07.1936	11,507	5	Probing the space high over the Earth.	The rocket tilted towards the south, dropping all of its stages over german motherland. We have to be more careful about that in future missions. Going south, we only reached close to 400km altitude, but got valuable data from the lowe latitudes. The rocket than crashed into the rainforest in africa od burned up. Since we lost connection with it. Another problem, we might want to consider in future missions.
15	X-1 Schwalbe	1	12.08.1936	3,519	1	Testing our forst jet aircraft and reach Mach 1	We did not reach Mach 1, nor 15km altitude, but wa came home savely burning all the fuel we had. Takeof at 55m/s; topspeed 990 km/h; altmax. 14,5km.
16	Konzept 1E-4	1	21.08.1936	14,928	5	Probing the space high over the Earth.	The rocket tilted to the east this time. We reached 2Mm, than burned up over Russia. MaxQ at 13km.
17	X-2 Phönix	1	16.09.1936	9,068	2	Rocket and jet in one to reach Mach 1.	Takeoff at 90m/s; altmax. without rockets 12,5km; topspeed 1000km/h without rockets. We nearly crashed at the coast of Denmark because the plane gets unstable when only draining kerosene.
18	Konzept 1E-4	2	17.09.1936	14,928	5	Reach 2.2Mm.	Success. We reached 3,35Mm. This time the rocket did not tip over.
19	X-2 Phönix	2	17.09.1936	9,068	2	Rocket and jet in one to reach Mach 1.	Various problems with unstable propellant. We only reached 295m/s (1062km/h).
20	X-2 Phönix	3	17.09.1936	9,068	2	Rocket and jet in one to reach Mach 1.	Technical problems. Mission aborted on the runway.
21	X-2 Phönix	4	18.09.1936	9,068	2	Rocket and jet in one to reach Mach 1.	315m/s. We will not make it with this design...
22	X-2 Phönix	5	26.09.1936	9,1	2	Rocket and jet in one to reach Mach 1.	Takeoff at 100m/s; topspeed 391m/s or 1407km/h - WE REACHED MACH ONE! And landed savely.
23	X-2 Phönix	6	10.10.1936	9,1	2	Test the limits of the design.	Today we commiserate the death of Jebediah Kerman, pioneer of maned flight. In his final flight he reached 490m/s (1764km/h), but the craft disintegrated due to G-forces on his way back to the runway. the parachute for emergencies departed from the cockpit and was therefore useless.
24	X-2 Phönix	7	26.10.1936	9,014	2	Fly over Mach 1 for a minute, reach 15km altitude.	WE REACHED A SUBORBITAL TRAJECTORY! but lost our jet engines. They are not mach-rated. Maximum speed 810m/s (2916km/h); altmax. 55,788km; flighttime 16 minutes and 43 seconds. Valentina Kerman managed to land the craft without engines coming from 55km altitude savely back on the runway!

 

 

What a exciting year that was. We had a great start by reaching space early and our aircraft designs started out nicely as well. We were able to accomplish incredible things like going Mach 1 with a human, but also faced some huge challenges that have to be overcome in the next years. We are still very sad about the tragic loss of Jebediah Kerman, the first human to go faster than the speed of sound and a brave hero.

For next year we expect a new engine technology that might enable more controled flights. We really need that.

Flightlogs 1937:

Spoiler

Totla number of flight	Name	Number of flight	Date	Masse (t)	Stages	Mission profile	Flight log
25	Konzept 3	1	04.01.1937	39,919	5	Studieing a new engine technology that will eventually enable us to make orbital flights.	We lost the craft due to insufficient avionics...
26	C-2 Storch	1	12.02.1937	24,512	1	Maiden flight of a 6 engined cargoplane.	Takeoff at 80 m/s; topspeed 250m/s (900km/h); altmax: 14,5km
27	Konzept 3	2	16.04.1937	39,669	5	Studieing a new engine rechnology that will eventually enable us to make orbital flights.	Various problems with engines and decouplers and fueltanks... altmax: 600km. But we got valuable data from space and the atmosphere.
28	C-2 Storch X-3 Bullet	1	24.06.1937	~25	2	Carried up to 15km by a C-2, the X-3 will than decouple and shoot for space.	Brakes of the C-2 failed on landing, but we landed on the grassland nearby, taking nearly no damage. The X-3 is aerodynamically unstable. We lost controle but landed with the emergency chutes savely at the coast of Denmark.
29	Konzept 3A	1	25.07.1937	38,768	5	Refined version of the Konzept 3 that can go to orbit on paper.	We still had some staging issues. Some debris even hit the astronaut complex, luckily noone was hurt.
30	X-3 Bullet	2	22.08.1937	classified	1	Regular takeoff to proove aerodynamical stability.	Stability is better now, but we still had to land it with the parachutes
31	Konzept 3A	2	24.10.1937	38,934	5	Reach orbit.	Random failures. All 3 upperstages could not ignite.
32	Konzept 3B	1	06.12.1937	39,034	5	Reach orbit.	Apoapsis: 1,2Mm and periapsis: -0,3Mm. We nearly made it. Just some more refinements...
33	C-2 Storch X-3 Bullet	2	06.12.1937	27,857	2	Reach 100km altitude.	We had a decouling issue, but landed savely like the previous mission. No success so far.

 

 

(Picture will follow)

This was a weak year in terms of flight success. The mission design of a carrier aircraft bringing a smaller aircraft up for high altitude andsupersonic flight testing is giving us alot of troubles. But we have no other way of achieving those flights so far. The new engines were also much more unreliable than we thought. But we caught up on most of the failures and we are sure to achieve orbit with small refinements next year.

Flightlogs 1938: 

Spoiler

Total number of flight	Name	Number of flight	Date	Mass (t)	Stages	Mission profile	Flight log
34	C-2 Storch X-3 Bullet	3	16.01.1938	27,857	2	Fly a crewed vessel on a suborbital trajectory.	We decoulped at 15,5km altitude but the rocketengine was to weak and the design was still not aerodymanically stable. We will abandone this design for now.
35	Konzept 3B	2	12.02.1938	39,994	5	Reach orbit.	Too many engine failures...
36	X-4 Donnerpfeil	1	16.02.1938	10,294	2	Fly a crewed vessel on a suborbital trajectory.	We had problems on takeoff. Aborted on runway.
37	X-4 Donnerpfeil	2	22.03.1938	10,294	2	Fly a crewed vessel on a suborbital trajectory.	We had promlems on takeoff. Aborted on runway.
38	Konzept 3B	3	05.05.1938	39,994	5	Reach orbit.	The reaction control system did not work as planned and we have not had enough deltaV.
39	X-4 Donnerpfeil	3	12.05.1938	12,101	2	Fly a crewed vessel on a suborbital trajectory.	We had problems on takeoff. Aborted on runway.
40	C-2 Storch X-4 Donnerpfeil	1	02.07.1938	37,181	3	Fly a crewed vessel on a suborbital trajectory.	We have not had enough thrust.
41	T-2 Arrow	1	31.07.1938	3,936	1	Hold Mach 1 for several minutes.	The engine did not ignite, we need to do some refinements.
42	T-2 Arrow	2	02.08.1938	3,936	1	Hold Mach 1 for several minutes.	The craft looks promising, but we put it into a spin and had to land with the emergency parachute.
43	Konzept 4	1	14.08.1938	75,603	4	Reach orbit.	WE ACHIEVED ORBIT! (0,2x9,3Mm) After a circular orbit, we still had 1000m/s of deltaV left. Germany was the first nation to put an object into orbit! MaxQ was 31,5kPa at about 11km.
44	X-5 Arrow	1	06.09.1938	5,801	2	Hold Mach 1 for several minutes and reach 100km altitude.	Altmax: 43km; topspeed 600m/s. The design is really good, but we did not reach the 100km mark. We had to emergencyland at the island not of Peenemünde, but it went well.
45	X-6 Nightwing	1	12.10.1938	8,045	2	Reach 100km altitude.	The wings ripped, due to high G-load at over 500m/s. Valentina and the capsule could be rescued by parachute, but we created a large debrisfield on the island north of Peenemünde.
46	X-6 Nightwing	2	10.11.1938	8,149	2	After we made the center part of the wings stronger. We hope to achieve the goal of reaching 100km altitude within this year with this design.	The rockets put the plane into a flat spin, but Valentina recovered it and went back to the airfield. The fuel ran out just on landing. Good thing, we just upgraded the flighttime from 17 minutes to 20.
47	X-6 Nightwing	3	15.12.1938	8,149	2	Reach 100km altitude.	We had an engine failure again, than we had a wingrip. Valentina, however, survived both incidents.

 

 

This was a remarkable year! Germany is the first nation to put an object into space. The signs are on war unfortunately and it is hard to imagine yet, what an advantage and potential gamechanger this capabilty might be. This year was also the year of very risky flight experiments. Valentina Kerman, the sister of the famous Jebediah Kerman, is a national hero. Her flight capabilities are legendary and the designs, she flies are the most difficult in the history of engineering. We are all very proud of her.

 

(further update when I can get to it)

Edited December 9, 2016 by grosser_Salat