Saturn V Parts Pack (v1.1) (NEW: Fixed PNG's)

[tziz]

N1 fuel tank = 1000 fuel, goes from 1m parts to 2m parts. The upper stage apollo engine is 80 thrust with 1.4f/s fuel consumption, which means it's the best upper stage engine/fueltank combo as far as size/efficiency goes

[Frostiken]

Well that sort of defeats the point of using the Saturn V pack, since it's not longer a Saturn V... how does that even fit together, the 2m - 1m is supposed to be a decoupler.

[tziz]

Oh no I wasn't building a saturn V, I was just commenting on the engine itself

[Frostiken]

Right The values on the previous page fix that somewhat...

[hachiman]

If you do it right!

If it's not exploding, slap some SRBs on there at weird angles. That should solve the problem.

How about just shutting off the engines a sec after launch?

[rdfox]

I've been tinkering with the numbers a little:

First, you need to add Breakingforce=100000 to every stage 1-3 cfg

Fuel numbers are Net Mass *250

Stage 1-2 decoupler mass 1.5

stage 2-3 decoupler mass 1.0

f-1 cluster- mass 30, thrust 6000, burn 300

stage1 tank- mass 90/dry 9; fuel 18000

j-2 cluster- mass 10, thrust 1200, burn 60

stage2 tank-mass 20, dry 2, fuel 4500

single j-2-mass 2, thrust 300, burn 12

stage 3 tank-mass 5, dry 0.5, fuel 1125.

FWIW, my final command module stage weighs 4.95

Something else to consider is 'scaling' the numbers to keep them from getting so large. Divide the mass and thrust for the 3m parts by 3, and by 2 for the 2m parts. Fuel and burn can also be scaled.

Tried your numbers, Andras, and not only would it not get off the pad, I had to use Captain Slug's radial lander legs to keep from breaking off the S-IC engine cluster on rollout. Maybe attach the modified .cfg files, so we can see what was different?

[Andras]

Interesting, it wobble like all heck when it hits the launch pad for me, but it\'ll take off at 1/2 throttle.

I\'ll get the cfgs up shortly

ETA- looks like the stage 1 engine was set with BF= 200000 instead of 100000 like I thought, that might be why it was breaking. (ETA2- nope, I set it to 100000 and it lifted off fine, are you sure it isn\'t set to 10,000 instead?)

According to my spreadsheet, the unit at liftoff weighs 163.75, and with a F1 cluster thrust of 6,000 has a twr of 3.66, granting 1.83g at 1/2 throttle.

ETA- cfgs removed

[rdfox]

Well, apparently, it was a combination of the sticky pad bug and my having added in realistic numbers of retrofire engines and ullage engines from Captain Slug's radial booster pack, because right after that post, I tried it with the default parts, and discovered I had the same problem with them. (Cutting down to 4 retrofire motors on the S-IC and two on the S-II solved the problem there.)

[Andras]

Well, actually I've launched it with 12 ullage motors and 4 strakes just fine. Still has a 3.6:1 twr.

How heavy is your upper stage? Mine runs 3.75

I'm going to try knocking the F1 thrust down a little though

4800thr/240brn; 2.75 twr; 75 seconds duration

ETA-

Whoa, that actually worked better. 1st stage burnout was at 31km. The lower thrust requires more throttle so it crowds the redline at first. back it off as soon as it's about to overheat and keep throttling down as the acceleration climbs.

2nd stage pushed me into a 60km orbit with a few seconds of fuel to spare. 2nd stage is still a bear to alter heading so I usually blow it off and fine tune with 3rd.

[rdfox]

I had a total of 12 retrofire engines (Captain's latest version, eight on the S-IC and four on the S-II, plus four ullage engines on the S-II and two on the S-IVB, and as for the CSM, let's see here... KSP Calculator says 5 tons, which may be the problem.

As a side note, I also try to fly it on as realistic a profile as I can, running at full throttle until I either hit 4G acceleration or approach the thermal limit on the first two stages, then pull back to 80% thrust to simulate the real Saturn's early CECO flight profile. None of the real Saturn V engines were throttleable (only one with a variable throttle in the entire Apollo-Saturn system was the LM descent engine), so for realism, you can only adjust the thrust by reducing it to simulate an engine cutoff. (The Saturn V didn't have restartable first- or second-stage engines, either, so no cutting thrust then increasing it again!)

Damn you, Andras... now I want to try and simulate the proposed Saturn V-4X(U) that Boeing came up with in 1968! http://astronautix.com/lvs/satnv4xu.htm

[Andras]

Damn you, Andras... now I want to try and simulate the proposed Saturn V-4X(U) that Boeing came up with in 1968! http://astronautix.com/lvs/satnv4xu.htm

Challenge Accepted!

ETA-

In progress, still working on a succesful stage 1-stage 2 transition

[Andras]

Success!

After several stage 1-stage 2 transition failures, orbit was achieved.

After 3/4 orbit however, Jebs patience ran out and he burned off towards the sun, perhaps hoping for a slingshot maneuver.

Notes- I used my modified cfgs, and I upped the 1.75m radial clamp breaking force.

Had to replace the single j-2 on the boosters since a thrust of 300 wouldn't cut it.

[rdfox]

Heh. I actually got it working, too, but a bit closer to the actual design, with four S-ICs that had four S-IIs atop them, then a combiner structure that connected them to a payload bus. (Quad-coupler that then used four lateral couplers to move them out to the sides enough to clear each other, with 1-to-1.75m adapters below them, followed by *two* Saturn IUs per unit, the S-IVB engine for spacing, and then the standard S-V stack from there down. It was so heavy that I had to put five landing legs per parallel stack to keep it from breaking on the pad, on linear decoupler struts to let me jettison them upon ignition so I was light enough to get off the pad!)

Of course, this doesn't come close to the real proposal's million-pound payload to LEO, but then, what possibly could, OTHER than Sea Dragon? ;P

[Epsilon]

I'm gonna try and make Skylab with this

[rdfox]

That's ludicrously simple. Move the IU between the S-IVB tank and engine (to stop fuel from flowing between them) and put a nose cone on top of the S-IVB. Boom, you've got the Saturn INT-21 configuration, almost exactly as used on Skylab.

[hachiman]

How about making a Soyuz or Shenzhou rocket now?

[Epsilon]

That's ludicrously simple. Move the IU between the S-IVB tank and engine (to stop fuel from flowing between them) and put a nose cone on top of the S-IVB. Boom, you've got the Saturn INT-21 configuration, almost exactly as used on Skylab.

Well yeah, I know the Saturn V INT-21 configuration, but I'm talking about building a replica of the Skylab station using the parts.

[rdfox]

Ahh, OK. That'd involve modding the S-IVB, obviously, and probably a mod to the S-II/S-IVB interstage to allow you to have the proper separation without carrying the S-IVB engine as a spacer.

[Epsilon]

I'll try adding another attach point at the top of the adapter and perhaps I'll do a duplicate S-IVB with a couple extra thing on it and a new texture for Skylab. Having a fairing doesn't seem possible for this at the moment. I'll just have to use a nosecone at the top of the orbital workshop I guess.

[Andras]

Just tried to launch the mega Saturn with an extra 2nd stage tank on top of the first stage tanks to represent the extra long fuel tank on the 4X(u)'s Saturn MS-IC-25(S) first stage .

It /just/ got off the pad. I was leaning hard on the controls to keep it straight, but it flew. At first I thought the extra weight would actually be worse then w/o the extra fuel but it turned out to be slightly better.

I'll have some screen shots up soon.

First run MECO about 40km. The second run, with a little more throttle down at times, went higher but slower.

I did the math, gross t/o weight is 772.7, with a twr of 24.8n/k, or 2.53g

[rdfox]

I considered trying that, but the S-II tank is about twice the length of the MS-IC-25(S)'s extension, and thus twice the mass. To make it behave right, you'd need to make a modified version of the part with half the mass both full and empty... and then a similar one with half that to simulate the MS-II stretch, too. And just pretend it's an early test launch where they used partially-fueled S-IIs to simulate the stretches and accepted the different aero performance, since it would be too long.

My version of the 4X(U) with standard S-IC and S-II needed *two* IUs on each stack to keep it stable, and it still has a constant slow roll during first stage burn...

My attempts at other modified Saturns, though, like the various S-V based INT variants and unstretched versions of the various strap-on booster variants (MLV-V-4(S) and 'test models' of the others), have worked out pretty darned well, other than the bounciness on the pad with the modified .cfg files... maybe we need to scale those down somewhat, to reduce weight?

[Discovery]

Where can I get the parts that go above the Instrument Unit?

[Andras]

Where can I get the parts that go above the Instrument Unit?

The 1m-1.75m adapter is from NovaSilisko's SIDR parts thread.

The original post showed the small orange fuel tank from Sunday Punch's Wobbly Rockets parts. You should also grab the medium or small LFR from that pack.

I posted a cfg edit of Sunday's RCS module so it's a fuel tank in reply # 5 in this thread.

[hachiman]

I've got the download installed but how to put in KSP?

[Capt'n Skunky]

I've got the download installed but how to put in KSP?

There is a sticky in the How To forum on how to install mods.

Arrr!

Capt'n Skunky