Shuttle Challenge v5 - The STS thread [Stock and Mod Friendly] - MAJOR CHALLENGE ANNOUNCEMENT! - 30.3.2020

[Agent Awesome]

Looks like a stretch limousine

[4x4cheesecake]

1 hour ago, Agent Awesome said:

Looks like a stretch limousine

Premium cargo delivery with style

[qzgy]

12 hours ago, 4x4cheesecake said:

It is still a rough prototype but I like the my new orbiter already

Shiny. Don't see why you need the big monoprop tank. Puffs are kinda bad for OMS, and at that size you'd want to use vernors for RCS anyways. Also slapping on a touch more LF/Ox to account isn't that bad especially when you consider anything not used by RCS goes into dV margins. 

Also... Looks quite similar to an old shuttle of mine.... 

[4x4cheesecake]

2 minutes ago, qzgy said:

Shiny. Don't see why you need the big monoprop tank. Puffs are kinda bad for OMS, and at that size you'd want to use vernors for RCS anyways. Also slapping on a touch more LF/Ox to account isn't that bad especially when you consider anything not used by RCS goes into dV margins. 

I was hoping that I can use the puffs instead of vernors but placing puffs like RCS thruster looks pretty ugly...so yes, the monoprob tank will be removed or replaced with an additional LFO tank. I barely used vernors in the past, so I don't know yet how much LFO is required to use them properly.
(btw. the main purpose for the big monoprop tank on my old orbiter was to shift the CoM forward^^)

[qzgy]

15 minutes ago, 4x4cheesecake said:

I was hoping that I can use the puffs instead of vernors but placing puffs like RCS thruster looks pretty ugly...so yes, the monoprob tank will be removed or replaced with an additional LFO tank. I barely used vernors in the past, so I don't know yet how much LFO is required to use them properly.
(btw. the main purpose for the big monoprop tank on my old orbiter was to shift the CoM forward^^)

Ohhh. Thats an interesting use for the puff.

From my experience, if you have overkill amounts of dV, I wouldn't worry about having vernors eat into the fuel supply. Budgeting something probably like.... 100-200 m/s extra might be enough. (this is coming though from a guy who thinks 4000 or something dV on the orbiter is maybe not enough)

Also, thats pretty good use of monoprop as a ballast. Clever.

[4x4cheesecake]

6 minutes ago, qzgy said:

Ohhh. Thats an interesting use for the puff. 

Unfortunately, it looks like this:
 

Spoiler

Maybe, if the bell was half the size...

[qzgy]

2 minutes ago, 4x4cheesecake said:

Maybe, if the bell was half the size...

Yeah..... In old verions it used to be smaller. Now its gigantic.

[Kerbolitto]

How can you use Puffs as RCS, aren't they regular engines controlled with throttle only ?

Btw, nice wing design !

Edited July 13, 2018 by Kerbolitto

[4x4cheesecake]

7 hours ago, Kerbolitto said:

How can you use Puffs as RCS, aren't they regular engines controlled with throttle only ?

Btw, nice wing design !

Thanks (the finished wing design is a bit smother in the front)

It is complicated but with severeal actions groups to toggle each direction, you can use them similar to RCS thruster. I've done it before with some Spider engines and the 'Action Groups Extended' mod to bind the action groups to the numpad to be a bit more intuitive. Num8 fires the engines pointing down (so you will move up), num2 the opposite and the same for num4 and 6 to move to left or right. Roll left/right to 7 and 9, pitch up/down to 1 and 3. 5 to shutdown all of them (panic button if something goes horribly wrong :D). I never use yaw so no big deal to have no binds for it. Obviously, the main engines must be shutdown and you have to use the throttle while maneuvering.

[iAMtheWALRUS]

STS-9 completed.  Mission report here..

My goal is no redesign, and Bahamut is set up with the main cargo bay facing down, so I had to go bowling on the lawn to get the asteroid down.

 

[4x4cheesecake]

@michal.don I guess, I've finished my new design and I actually want to use the higher payload capacity during the Mun STS-1 mission. So I'm going to design a new research facility as well, but I wonder if it is allowed to fly into a low mun orbit, assemble the research facility in space, grab the whole thing with a claw and land the orbiter with the grabbed research facility on the mun or is it required to land first and assemble the parts on the ground?

Edited July 16, 2018 by 4x4cheesecake

[michal.don]

On 7/14/2018 at 6:02 AM, iAMtheWALRUS said:

STS-9 completed.  Mission report here..

My goal is no redesign, and Bahamut is set up with the main cargo bay facing down, so I had to go bowling on the lawn to get the asteroid down.

Asteroid football, asteroid bowling, what will come next?

Good job, nice trip to a solar orbit to get your rock, and pretty controlled atmospheric flight!

Here's your badge, and good luck on the next mission tiers!

 

6 hours ago, 4x4cheesecake said:

So I'm going to design a new research facility as well, but I wonder if it is allowed to fly into a low mun orbit, assemble the research facility in space, grab the whole thing with a claw and land the orbiter with the grabbed research facility on the mun or is it required to land first and assemble the parts on the ground?

Good question.

After thinking about it for a bit, I'm going to give you a "go" - you can assemble the facility in orbit, as long as the orbiter actually lands it on the Mun. But be wary, there's no way around surface assembly in the next mission  

Michal.don

[4x4cheesecake]

4 hours ago, michal.don said:

After thinking about it for a bit, I'm going to give you a "go" - you can assemble the facility in orbit, as long as the orbiter actually lands it on the Mun. But be wary, there's no way around surface assembly in the next mission

Nice, thanks I have actually no idea if I can manage to land such a construct but at least I can try it now^^

Should be no problem to do some surface assembly in the next mission, I'll have more shuttles which means more space for payloads which means I can fit one or two rovers inside^^

[4x4cheesecake]

After many hours of designing, building and fine tuning, I proudly presents my new Shuttle on its very first mission:

Mun STS-1

Spoiler

Payload and crew for this mission (3 modules to build the science facility and 1 MMU)

The new shuttle is so shiny

I need all engines to lift this beauty up in the air (15 vectors + 4 aerospikes)

Ditch the first booster stage:

The second booster as well:

And finally the tiny ET (I will add some separators to the ET)

Burning to the Mun:

Circularization burn at the Mun:

Unfortunately, as soon as I reached the Mun, the game performance went really, really bad and my FPS droped below 10. Had to remove kopernicus and SVT to fix this, but the Mun surface will look different (ugly) now...meanwhile, lets throw some stuff into space:

Clean up the mess using the small MMU:

Actually, that's all I had to with the MMU But there is one module left:

I'll use the 'big MMU' (orbiter) to finish the job. Grab the habitat and release the science lab:

Put the stuff together:

Fix the orientation of the science facility:

Land everything in a Mun crater (it is important to use a crater!):

Tip over right before touching the ground and use the RCS thruster to slow down the falling speed:

Flag party

The RCS thruster provide enough thrust to push back the orbiter and with some help of the aerospikes, I drive to the edge of the crater:

The crater will be my starting ramp:

It's just the easiest way to lift-off from the Mun using a SSTO so it works with an orbiter as well

First aerobreak in Kerbins atmosphere:

After two more aerobreaks, I end up in a circular orbit at 100km, which is my favourite orbit for landings at the KSC:

Haven't trained many landings with the new orbiter, I hope everything will be fine:

Approaching the runway:

Mission complete

I have discovered some design flaws during the mission which need to be fixed. First of all: The launch vehicle. It got some nice TWR but it will need slightly more deltaV. Lost too much fuel during the ascent, so back to the editor

edit: almost forgot the link to the imgur album: https://imgur.com/a/2QfLGWo

 

Edited July 16, 2018 by 4x4cheesecake

[funk]

The new Skylab crew is celebrating Apollos birthday this week.

Edited July 16, 2018 by funk

[michal.don]

13 hours ago, 4x4cheesecake said:

After many hours of designing, building and fine tuning, I proudly presents my new Shuttle on its very first mission:

Looks like the club of flying monstrosities has a new member

While being an enormous one, I have to admit your shuttle has certain elegance that is no too common in tis size category, nice  

Interstingly shaped payload too, I guess it would not be easy to put it together like that on the surface. And since you managed to land it nicely back at KSC, I expect to see this design for a while (at least the two more munar missions? Maybe Duna?).

All around, really good job, and here's your new badge:

 

9 hours ago, funk said:

The new Skylab crew is celebrating Apollos birthday this week.

While they are not the biggest, the most unconvetional, or the most capable in terms of raw d-V, I really, really love your payloads and designs. They just sort of "feel right" to me, I guess this is the kind of things I would build, if I was skilled enough

There's not much to say about the flying and repair procedures - in a good way. Everything seems to have gone just according to the plan, all the pieces of payload work and fit right, and it's all topped by two pin-point reentries and landings (not easy form an inclined orbit).

To sum it all up, great job and a well deserved badge:



 

Michal.don

[funk]

2 hours ago, michal.don said:

They just sort of "feel right" to me, I guess this is the kind of things I would build, if I was skilled enough

Understatement...pff! It seems I feel some irony here... Form follows function and laziness equals efficiency - most of the times. I guess you realised that the payloads are just tweaked copies of your work. So I'll give the credit back to you.

Anyway, thank you for the badge.

[4x4cheesecake]

2 hours ago, michal.don said:

Looks like the club of flying monstrosities has a new member

While being an enormous one, I have to admit your shuttle has certain elegance that is no too common in tis size category, nice  

Interstingly shaped payload too, I guess it would not be easy to put it together like that on the surface. And since you managed to land it nicely back at KSC, I expect to see this design for a while (at least the two more munar missions? Maybe Duna?).

Thanks

Actually, this design should be able to do all the other interplanetary missions. I'll need to launch a support package with some additional fuel for the duna and laythe landings but since the orbiter can actually reach LKO without any payload and without any launch vehicle (basically like a SSTO), I'm pretty confident that I wont need a different design again I already have a design idea how to fit an atmospheric exploration plane into the cargo bay^^
I'm worried about the RTLS mission, maybe I can do it with the new shuttle, haven't tried it yet.
 

[michal.don]

23 minutes ago, funk said:

Form follows function and laziness equals efficiency - most of the times.

I believe you just invented an unofficial motto of my space program

23 minutes ago, funk said:

I guess you realised that the payloads are just tweaked copies of your work. So I'll give the credit back to you.

Oh, that did not occur to me. I guess there is only so many ways to build the payloads with small-ish part count. Nevertheless, I still really like your design style

24 minutes ago, 4x4cheesecake said:

Actually, this design should be able to do all the other interplanetary missions. I'll need to launch a support package with some additional fuel for the duna and laythe landings but since the orbiter can actually reach LKO without any payload and without any launch vehicle (basically like a SSTO), I'm pretty confident that I wont need a different design again

That sounds promissing - let's see if it really works as intended (It rarely does in my space program  )

25 minutes ago, 4x4cheesecake said:

I'm worried about the RTLS mission, maybe I can do it with the new shuttle, haven't tried it yet.

While the shuttle could be able to perform RTLS, I'd suggest building an STS-lookalike shuttle for this one, at least. You really don't want to put a pretty much fully fueled shuttle through this

 

Anyway, since two of you already completed the fourth "Test pilot" mission, I'll try to design a new one quickly. No promises though, I found myself actually playing KSP after some time.....  So, please, have a bit of patience with me.....

 

Michal.don

[4x4cheesecake]

5 minutes ago, michal.don said:

let's see if it really works as intended (It rarely does in my space program  )

That's the definition of playing KSP, isn't it?

6 minutes ago, michal.don said:

While the shuttle could be able to perform RTLS, I'd suggest building an STS-lookalike shuttle for this one, at least. You really don't want to put a pretty much fully fueled shuttle through this 

Erm...everytime I tried the RTLS abort with my first shuttle, I ran out of fuel before I was able to build up enough speed to glide back to the KSC. Though, I used a 'mammoth' on my ET and one of my best tries happend after removing this engine...so this will probably do the trick for me as soon as I pick up the mission again. So yes, a more acurate recreation of a original STS might be the solution

[Agent Awesome]

21 hours ago, michal.don said:

Looks like the club of flying monstrosities has a new member

Sign me up!

The Titan is slightly smaller than what @4x4cheesecake made, (tbh mate, you need to name the thing, then it’s more epic) 

[4x4cheesecake]

5 hours ago, Agent Awesome said:

tbh mate, you need to name the thing, then it’s more epic

I'm really bad in naming things Thought about 'Archangle' for obvious reasons, just look at the wings from the top:
 

Spoiler

But I'm pretty sure someone else already uses this name and it should be somehow unique.
A little bit more unique would be 'Seraph', which could be translated as 'burning angel':
 

Spoiler

But it doesn't sound 'epic'.
And even though I love my new shuttle, it is not an outstanding design, so I cannot call it just 'the' ^^
Well, I have several missions to do, maybe I find a name somewhere on my journey

Regarding the Mun STS -2 - 4 missions @michal.don: Is it required for the EEV to be docked to the station or can it be like a rocket, standing next to it? Also, does the EEV needs as many seats as the station or just enough to carry all Kerbals which are actually there?
I'm actually planning to do some more flights to add more modules to the station, this should be fine if the first module will fulfill the requirements for STS-2, correct?
One final question: I already found a nice location for the station but it might be tough to find it again by using the coordinates...am I allowed send a probe or manned mission with a traditional rocket to mark the spot on the surface (place the probe there or plant a flag, something I can use as target)?

[michal.don]

12 minutes ago, 4x4cheesecake said:

Is it required for the EEV to be docked to the station or can it be like a rocket, standing next to it?

Doesn't have to be docked, just reasonably close to it. The lasi thing you want to do in grave emergency is walking half an hour to your ride home

12 minutes ago, 4x4cheesecake said:

Also, does the EEV needs as many seats as the station or just enough to carry all Kerbals which are actually there?

Just to carry the "basic crew" (5)

13 minutes ago, 4x4cheesecake said:

I'm actually planning to do some more flights to add more modules to the station, this should be fine if the first module will fulfill the requirements for STS-2, correct?

correct

14 minutes ago, 4x4cheesecake said:

One final question: I already found a nice location for the station but it might be tough to find it again by using the coordinates...am I allowed send a probe or manned mission with a traditional rocket to mark the spot on the surface (place the probe there or plant a flag, something I can use as target)?

as long as the location fulfills the requirements, sure

 

Good luck!  

Michal.don

[4x4cheesecake]

Ok, thanks

11 minutes ago, michal.don said:

as long as the location fulfills the requirements, sure

I'm sure it does and actually I made a post about it in the 'what did you do in KSP today' thread...like a small teaser:

The spot is not exactly there but just some kilometers away...I want to have the view shown in the gif

[Ozelui]

One question about the Test-3:  My Kassini had a 7.5 units monopropellant tank, intended for looks only for the mission ending and was unused until that moment.  Would that be ok, @michal.don?

Spoiler

The idea was to recreate the scene in 2:52, and use the RCS thrusters to point at Kerbin against the joolian atmosphere, unfortunatelly the SAS was enough to maintain attitude and the RCS thrusters were not triggered   I was thinking about recording that part again and reducing the reaction wheels strength to 0 using a saved game, but it would be pointless if that tank invalidates the mission...