How to make interesting satellites...?

[SpacedInvader]

So I've been playing this game on and off for years (usually take a break after each major update for my favorite mods to get updated) for years, but one of the things that has always bothered me is the fact that pretty much every last one of my satellites / probes ends up looking like a tube with science experiments bolted to it. Unfortunately, I believe part of this is the limitations of the way the game's craft system is built, but are there any techniques that help make probes look a little more realistic?

Thanks.

EDIT: I'm aware of the mods that recreate the US and Soviet probes with love, but I'd prefer to be able to design my own.

Edited February 2, 2017 by SpacedInvader

[DerekL1963]

You could try the Universal Storage mod.

[SpacedInvader]

Just now, DerekL1963 said:

You could try the Universal Storage mod.

I've had that installed basically since it was released, however the result is still much the same... You still end up with a tube with science bolted to it, now its just on the inside.

[ottothesilent]

You can always study existing satellites for inspiration, or even something out of sci-fi. KSP is a great creative tool, but it definitely does have limitations.

[septemberWaves]

If you're willing to use mods, do that (Fuel Tanks Plus has some excellent probe tanks, and DMagic Orbital Science adds a lot of science equipment). Don't hesitate to use structural parts; they may add more mass, but they're excellent for aesthetics. Look at real space probes for ideas, and try to find parts that allow you to get a similar appearance (they don't have to look identical, but the process of thinking about what parts would work in what situations is important).

[SpacedInvader]

2 hours ago, ottothesilent said:

You can always study existing satellites for inspiration, or even something out of sci-fi. KSP is a great creative tool, but it definitely does have limitations.

I usually do, but the point of this thread is to try and find the techniques that people use to emulate some of those appearances in KSP.

1 hour ago, eloquentJane said:

If you're willing to use mods, do that (Fuel Tanks Plus has some excellent probe tanks, and DMagic Orbital Science adds a lot of science equipment). Don't hesitate to use structural parts; they may add more mass, but they're excellent for aesthetics. Look at real space probes for ideas, and try to find parts that allow you to get a similar appearance (they don't have to look identical, but the process of thinking about what parts would work in what situations is important).

I don't think I've had less than 100 mods since 24.5, with DOS being one of my must-haves, that said, I'll have a look at Fuel Tanks Plus. As for trying to fit KSP probes to match real-world counterparts, the biggest problem I run into is balancing for thrust. Because of the way KSP physics work and the fact that there are no trim weight mods, I often find that just to make the thing fly straight I need to have symmetrical or near symmetrical designs which then results in the same "tube with science bolted to it" appearance.

[regex]

One thing you could do is develop a few standard satellite buses on which you can put a payload, much like we do IRL. The bus would have fuel, engine, power, and station-keeping gear (and/or RCS), the payload would be the antennas, science equipment, and probe core. You could easily come up with a few models with differing delta-V and payload expectations, and resulting masses.

[Leafbaron]

10 minutes ago, SpacedInvader said:

I usually do, but the point of this thread is to try and find the techniques that people use to emulate some of those appearances in KSP.

I don't think I've had less than 100 mods since 24.5, with DOS being one of my must-haves, that said, I'll have a look at Fuel Tanks Plus. As for trying to fit KSP probes to match real-world counterparts, the biggest problem I run into is balancing for thrust. Because of the way KSP physics work and the fact that there are no trim weight mods, I often find that just to make the thing fly straight I need to have symmetrical or near symmetrical designs which then results in the same "tube with science bolted to it" appearance.

Use the .625m reaction wheel, that should counter the torque of any offset thrust. If you don't like the look of just clip it into the probe core. Thats one technique I use to make probes. 

[MinimalMinmus]

My tip: relay antennas are pretty good for look

[KerikBalm]

Well, this is a really unusual satellite... but its certainly not a standard look.

I've installed Outer Planets Mod, and got rid of its buffs to antenna range... so communicating with the outer planets can be a bit of a problem - large relays are needed:

Granted, I'm going to make 2 even larger ground stations as I realized that array falls just a little short of reaching the relay I've sent to plock. (Plocks SMA is 535 Gm, the antenna pair has a range of 637.9 GM, but plock Apopasis is 675 GM, and when kerbin is on the other side of the sun from plock, its 688 Gm away)

 

[Harry Rhodan]

Satellites with attitude (control)?

[Daripuff]

How do you make satellites interesting looking?  

You give up on making them efficient. 

In real life the reason interesting looking satellites like Voyager have those spindly arms is because need,  not want.

 They have to keep certain instruments away from the RTG or comm dish, otherwise the instrument won't work properly.  They have to install the RTG prominently out in the open because it needs to be able to cool itself with the fins, and the radiated heat can't be directed at the ship.  

There are so many requirements that force designers into those "interesting" satellite shapes.  Ones we don't have in KSP. 

If they could make the satellites compact and efficient,  and make them into a tight cylinder shape,  so as to be able to fit them into a smaller faring,  so as to be able to use a smaller,  cheaper launch vehicle,  they absolutely would. 

But they can't ignore many of the laws of physics quite like we can,  so they can't make satellites with as efficient of shapes as we can. 

 

 

 

So...  If you want your satellites to look cooler,  impose yourself some artificial restrictions.  Make it so an RTG always has to be standing on end,  and be isolated.  Make it so that a gravioli detector always has to be at least 1 meter from any electrical part.  Make sure that solar arrays can never obscure scientific equipment.  Make it so that you never use reaction wheels,  you only use RCS thrusters to orient your probe.  

Only by putting artificial yet realistic limitations,  or simply deciding to eschew efficiency for aesthetics will you ever step away from cylinder probes. 

 

Edited February 3, 2017 by Daripuff

[SpacedInvader]

21 hours ago, regex said:

One thing you could do is develop a few standard satellite buses on which you can put a payload, much like we do IRL. The bus would have fuel, engine, power, and station-keeping gear (and/or RCS), the payload would be the antennas, science equipment, and probe core. You could easily come up with a few models with differing delta-V and payload expectations, and resulting masses.

This is an interesting idea, but aside from cookie cutter comsats or satellite contract fodder, I'm not sure how it would work in practice. In most cases I find myself building probes to suit their current mission which is usually stuffing them to the brim with as much science as is available currently, supplying them with enough power for their mission, and then giving them enough dV to get it done. In practice this means that a bus design that can hold everything I need today will probably be too small for tomorrow's application. That said, I guess it could have some potential if the design were easily extensible, though I'm immediately drawing a complete blank on how to go about doing that without ending up with an ever lengthening tube...

 

21 hours ago, Leafbaron said:

Use the .625m reaction wheel, that should counter the torque of any offset thrust. If you don't like the look of just clip it into the probe core. Thats one technique I use to make probes. 

I'm currently using a mod that reduces the maximum authority of reaction wheels quite a bit, so the 0.625m version only produces 0.5 torque in each axis. Not sure that this would be enough to counteract offset thrust. That said, is 5 torque enough to handle the kinds of offset thrust I'm likely to experience with a non-symmetrical, non-tubular design? I guess I could always load in a bunch of radial wheels instead...

 

1 hour ago, Daripuff said:

How do you make satellites interesting looking?  

You give up on making them efficient. 

In real life the reason interesting looking satellites like Voyager have those spindly arms is because need,  not want.

 They have to keep certain instruments away from the RTG or comm dish, otherwise the instrument won't work properly.  They have to install the RTG prominently out in the open because it needs to be able to cool itself with the fins, and the radiated heat can't be directed at the ship.  

There are so many requirements that force designers into those "interesting" satellite shapes.  Ones we don't have in KSP. 

If they could make the satellites compact and efficient,  and make them into a tight cylinder shape,  so as to be able to fit them into a smaller faring,  so as to be able to use a smaller,  cheaper launch vehicle,  they absolutely would. 

But they can't ignore many of the laws of physics quite like we can,  so they can't make satellites with as efficient of shapes as we can. 

 

 

 

So...  If you want your satellites to look cooler,  impose yourself some artificial restrictions.  Make it so an RTG always has to be standing on end,  and be isolated.  Make it so that a gravioli detector always has to be at least 1 meter from any electrical part.  Make sure that solar arrays can never obscure scientific equipment.  Make it so that you never use reaction wheels,  you only use RCS thrusters to orient your probe.  

Only by putting artificial yet realistic limitations,  or simply deciding to eschew efficiency for aesthetics will you ever step away from cylinder probes. 

 

I've known for a long time that IRL probes weren't designed to look cool, but are instead 100% functional (after all, who cares what they look like after launch when they probably won't be seen by another living creature for a billion years, if ever), but it didn't occur to me to try imposing the same rules on myself when building in KSP. I feel like I'll still be running into significant balancing issues though, thanks to the inherently course way in which trimming of the vehicle happens in KSP. 

[Leafbaron]

yeah with the stock reaction wheel 5 torque in each axes seems to be able to handle it. Though i guess i depends on how asymmetric the thrust is. but for most of my designs its seems to work well.  

[septemberWaves]

One way to end up with satellites that look interesting is to impose restrictions on yourself that aren't really necessary.

This satellite was vaguely inspired by the first American satellite to orbit Earth, and like that satellite, I decided that it had to be launched entirely using solid rocket motors. This led to more influence on the launch vehicle than the probe itself, but the spacecraft design was influenced by the Explorer 1 satellite as well, with its pointed nose (it's launched with the nose sticking out of the fairing) and four antennas at the back.

This was a magnetometer satellite which I put around the Mun for a DMagic survey contract. Its only real design specification was that it had to be a cubesat. It's mainly based on early technology, hence the static solar panels (they are on all sides of the cube to ensure that it can always receive solar power).

More recently, the design of the same sort of satellite has evolved thanks to cubic tanks added by Fuel Tanks Plus.

This satellite has the same purpose and I think also has about the same amount of delta-v, but is cheaper to launch and I think it looks better too. These tiny cubesats are easy to send to just about anywhere with the right launch vehicle.

I usually try to make my spacecraft look interesting, and I cut no corners when making probes. I have some very interesting ideas for probe exploration of the giant planets in my current long-term career, since I have two gas giants each with several moons, plus an enormous terrestrial world with two moons. Probes designed to explore them will probably be fairly unique, and will most likely draw inspiration from the Cassini space probe amongst other things. Efficiency isn't too important even though I'm playing in a scaled-up version of the Kerbol system, so I'll use a reasonable amount of structural parts as well as doing other things to make it interesting.

One thing I've considered doing on larger probes is using RCS thrusters instead of reaction wheels for maintaining the correct orientation. This would probably lead to some interesting design choices to ensure that the usable lifetime of the vehicle is enough for it to accomplish its mission. Speaking of which, a good method of mounting RCS thrusters is to attach them to the end of cubic octagonal struts, as the parts line up almost perfectly.

[Tyko]

On 2/2/2017 at 2:31 PM, SpacedInvader said:

I don't think I've had less than 100 mods since 24.5, with DOS being one of my must-haves, that said, I'll have a look at Fuel Tanks Plus. As for trying to fit KSP probes to match real-world counterparts, the biggest problem I run into is balancing for thrust. Because of the way KSP physics work and the fact that there are no trim weight mods, I often find that just to make the thing fly straight I need to have symmetrical or near symmetrical designs which then results in the same "tube with science bolted to it" appearance.

I changed surface mount batteries so that their mass affects weight trim. Now I can use batteries to balance. It's helped a lot. Also, solar panels can be attached asymmetrically. structural parts can add balancing weight too.

[Superfluous J]

4 hours ago, Daripuff said:

If they could make the satellites compact and efficient,  and make them into a tight cylinder shape,  so as to be able to fit them into a smaller faring,  so as to be able to use a smaller,  cheaper launch vehicle,  they absolutely would.

Also, we have hinges and telescoping trusses, while Kerbals have only thought to use them on landing gear and ladders.

[Daripuff]

2 hours ago, SpacedInvader said:

I've known for a long time that IRL probes weren't designed to look cool, but are instead 100% functional (after all, who cares what they look like after launch when they probably won't be seen by another living creature for a billion years, if ever), but it didn't occur to me to try imposing the same rules on myself when building in KSP. I feel like I'll still be running into significant balancing issues though, thanks to the inherently course way in which trimming of the vehicle happens in KSP. 

You don't need to worry about balance issues if you use the CoM and CoT display when designing the satellite.  You can offset the main engine to the center of mass quite easily, and that solves all balance issues of the satellite.

The only downside is that the faring might be larger than it otherwise would need to be.

[septemberWaves]

@SpacedInvader I have a challenge thread that might interest you. The Fancy Probes Challenge. Its entire purpose is making interesting-looking space probes, and I imagine it'll probably end up becoming quite a good source of inspiration once there are more entries (although even the current few entries are very good).

[Sharpy]

My approach?

1.  Mods with stuff to put on satellites.
2. mods that have absolutely nothing in common with satellites
3. combine as much of 1 with as little of 2 as possible, and if that's still not enough add a small pinch of stock parts to get it moving.

examples:

Spoiler

Moho ore scanner. Since the sat requisites were minimal, the whole thing is a small clump of propulsion and control strapped to the big scanner.

Kerbin Spysat. I added some unnecessary parts (like the radiator or Stayputnik) because it wasn't kerbal enough yet.

Absolutely Perfectly Keostationary. A perfect example of the paradigm, although not recommended due to krakenbaitism.

Duna scansat. A rather standard, based on a wing chine from MK2 expansion; carries a small flyer/biome hopper.

 

Gilly Relay network. Three small relays, about four parts each, plus a large relay for a highly inclined very wide Eve orbit to provide link to the three. Plus a scansat to be put in polar orbit, a really tight clump of scan utilities.

 

Edited February 5, 2017 by Sharpy

[tg626]

I find the biggest thing hampering interesting designs is the lack of "unfoldability".  There's no way in stock to do a pioneer 10/11 voyager 1/2 style probe where it's all tucked in for launch and deploys in space.  Blue dog Design Bureau and Coatl Probes Plus help a lot with that.  Take a look at my AAR website and you'll see some of what they offer.

Edited February 5, 2017 by tg626

[Wjolcz]

Take a look at some RL examples. I, for example, wanted to have only one RTG on my probe and a big antenna. What I could do is either clip things, put them inline and strut everything or add asymmetrical thrust. And the third thing was what I did.

If you look at Cassini/Huygens spacecraft engine layout you will see the designers did just what I did. The probe has two engines to counteract the mass movement before and after Huygens was detached.

So if you want asymmetry use more than one engine and adjust their thrust on the go. Just think about how the CoM will move. Also KER has the thrust offset calculator, so you might want to use that too.

Edited February 5, 2017 by Veeltch

[linuxgurugamer]

5 hours ago, tg626 said:

I find the biggest thing hampering interesting designs is the lack of "unfoldability".  There's no way in stock to do a pioneer 10/11 voyager 1/2 style probe where it's all tucked in for launch and deploys in space.  Blue dog Design Bureau and Coatl Probes Plus help a lot with that.  Take a look at my AAR website and you'll see some of what they offer.

I did a lot of that using Infernal Robotics and tweakscale.  

[nascarlaser1]

Turn your satellites into modular Space stations!!!!!!!!!!!!

[samstarman5]

I always like to include a habitat module or capsule of some kind with my satellites. If they are going to stay around a certain place, then they can also double as an emergency shelter for errant kerbals.  Interplanetary probes, not so much.  Those I actually prefer to keep as small and light as possible, depending on what the mission is.  Further out from the Sun, then there will be more of a power requirement, of course.

On 2/3/2017 at 1:36 PM, SpacedInvader said:

(after all, who cares what they look like after launch when they probably won't be seen by another living creature for a billion years, if ever), but it didn't occur to me to try imposing the same rules on myself when building in KSP. I feel like I'll still be running into significant balancing issues though, thanks to the inherently course way in which trimming of the vehicle happens in KSP. 

Who cares what they look like?  Only everyone who is even remotely interested in space travel.

Courtesy Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explorer_1

This was the kind of thing kids stayed up for or snuck into theaters to see, and that was just a skinny cylinder with loose antennae.

Then there were the Voyagers.

I lived to watch videos about Voyager 1 and 2 as a kid, especially those that recreated the probes as they passed each planet, even showing it shift on its axis to bring each instrument to bear.  The Voyager probes are weird, asymmetrical, and awkward, but so beautiful.  And still working today, 40 years later, practically in interstellar space now.

 

Maybe they were built with efficiency and specific functionality in mind, making sure each part and instrument performed at the top of its potential, but there was still an engineer's love put into how they ultimately came to be.

Hell, there was an entire climax to a movie culminating with this very reveal:

Still gives me goosebumps.

 

So you ask, who cares?  Everyone.

Make your probe how you wish.  Take pride in what you produce. Doing any less in a game about constructing air and space vehicles is a disservice.