My lifting-body goddess of injustice.

[XB-70A]

Hi everybody,

 

I released yesterday my small X-38 inspirated shuttle, the X-35A Adikia :

 

As I wrote on the craft desription page on KerbalX, that puppy was built for spaecial reason to me and is absolutely inspirated from Flakbadger's X-38 which got a particular place in my memory.

 

Made with 77 parts the X-35A is a small 5-seats space shuttle system named in honor of the Greek goddess Adikia a minor divinity representing the injustice.

It is available here : https://kerbalx.com/XB-70A/Sleg-X-35A-Adikia

And the whole flight album here : http://imgur.com/a/ll0nx

Small but capable the whole shuttle system is made of an Atlas V-like launcher amde of two stages, the first one gets a pair of Vector engines to represent (roughly) the powerful RD-180 and the second two Swivel to simulate the Centaur stage. All together they get a total of 4775 m/s of delta-V in the atmosphere.

The orbiter for its part got two Spark engines giving her enough thrust to accelerate and jump to another orbit pretty quickly. Her total delta-v represent 1688 m/s once in vaccum.

But images are better than words :

 

The first seconds can be a bit hard as the whole system is a bit instable, but once 40 m/s reached you can already start your gravity turn.

 

Also the first stage is coming with two pairs of legs and eight parachutes for recover (as I hate wasting funds). In the qualification flight used for the album I dropped the stage with more than 1000 fuel units still onboard, more than enough so deccelerate before (sea)landing. I cames with a RC-L01 Remote Guidance Unit and more than 800 units of electricity to ensure some flexibilty.

The second stage for its parts is non recoverable.

 

On the demonstration flight I dropped it just after it put the AP to 200 km but it should have still been much more than usable. On KerbalX the user kitmatthews take a screenshot of the orbiter in the Mun SOI :

 

For my part once in orbit I tried to join the docking training space station Orbital Target Alpha on its 300 x 300 km orbit. Everything went well and each maneuvers cost around 58-60 m/s :

 

Once we got bored enough it was time to be back home!

 

I recommend to start the re-entry maneuver by not deccelerating over an orbit of 150 km. More is feasible but prepare for the BBQ.

 

Taking an angle of 45 degrees and transfering the fuel from the front tank to the back one will ensure a stable re-entry without even touching the commands :

 

Now with her ridiculous lifting surface an horizontal landing is well... still possible but not really recommended. Like X-38 the landing should be made with parachute : one small breaking chute can reduce the speed to 50 m/s and two radial parachutes reduced it to approx 10 m/s. It is still a lot but the landing gears will support the shock without any problem.

 

Once landed there was still enough delta-V available to realize some maneuvers while in orbit :

One small 2-stars pilot for my hall of Fames.

[Frank_G]

Very nice and compact design. Well done!

[Hast5250]

SOOOO CUTE!

I want one!!

[XB-70A]

Thank everyone it's really cool to read that.

The Eos is finished and will comes next :

 

Ironically she was supposed to be a cheap and technically affordable (level 4 nodes) connecting vehicle costing no more than 30 000 funds at launch. But the problems with the Thumper SRB plus the inneficiency of the Thud main engines made me multiply their number, requiring more fuel and so now it cost around 50 000 funds. Too expensive for a new and moneyless career...

But I don't know, I just love it. These events actually makes me think about a much more real story in our world...

[Nothalogh]

1 hour ago, XB-70A said:

These events actually makes me think about a much more real story in our world...

So it goes, hindsight is 20/20 and consists of nothing but Project Orion

[Sharpy]

Looks cool. I'm really tempted to give her the tiny jet engines from Jetwing (Buffalo mod).

Wait... WHAT rear tank?

[XB-70A]

12 hours ago, Sharpy said:

Looks cool. I'm really tempted to give her the tiny jet engines from Jetwing (Buffalo mod).

Wait... WHAT rear tank?

There is a short Mk2 to 1.25m Adapter coupled between the cabin and the rear docking port, I moved it a bit in the cabin to keep the craft short and place the engines aside. Globally it was to give the craft more operational capabilities once in orbit, the look and also to displace the CoM before re-entry.