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Ultimate Steve's RO/RP-0 failures (and sometimes successes)!


Ultimate Steve

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Welcome to my Realism Overhaul/Realistic Progression Zero mission report! This is not like my other ones, this one isn't a story, it's just me trying to space...

 

To make a long story short, I started playing RO/RP-0 about a year ago an a 1.1.3 installation, barely got to orbit, and got bored with it. A few months ago, I picked it back up and haven't been able to put it down since. I chronicled my misadventures in the "What did you do in KSP today" thread, but after a while I thought it would be better if it had its own thread.

So now I have to go and sum up 19 years of history in a short-ish introduction... Off we go!

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Intro:

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Launch Vehicles:

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Future plans:

As far as the near term goes, I'm going to finish Eclipse station and do a few more manned moon landings. In the medium term, I'm going to do a test launch of Gravity V (200-300t to LEO) and begin building a small outpost on the moon. Long term, my goals are to build a NERVA mothership and send people to orbit Venus and walk on Mars by 1980.

 

Updates will be in posts. I did a lot this week, and I was going to write it tonight but the OP took really long so I may not get to writing it until tomorrow.

 

Thank you for your time, enjoy my failures (and sometimes successes)!

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Update 1 - 10/22/17

So, what has happened? Well, I sent three ships to Mars.

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This is the Mars Communication Network, for all intents and purposes identical to the one I sent to Venus. The other two are a ten ton propulsive lander and an 0.5 ton parachute/tiny engine lander.

Next up, something big:

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This lander, the Tranquility, was a lander sent up to Eclipse Station on a Gravity IB. It is powered by 6 radioisotope rockets (technically they are a non RO part but they are at least somewhat realistic) and designed to be reusable. It departs from the station carrying Jebediah Kerman and Stanislav Vetochkin (bet you five bucks I spelled that wrong).

Now, let me back up a bit. Eclipse station was only supposed to be crewed after it was completed, but due to a bug I needed to crew one of the modules in order to be able to control it (RT did not want to work that day). However, because I had Yonder 1 docked, I could send them and have a way to get them home. Unfortunately, Yonder 1 was meant to be a test flight. However, the logic was that it was a repurposed Melody spacecraft that had flown several times already, what could go wrong?

Anyways, the fact that I had crew on the station meant that I could now land people on the moon for the first time in 4-5 years or so. Again, the lander was only a test, so I was jumping the gun here, but my IRL time is valuable, so why not?

Unfortunately the lander had a TWR of about 1.1 on the moon, so landing was difficult.

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Fortunately, I made it, although I landed at 30m/s and blew up the KIS containers (there was nothing in them anyway and I didn't have an engineer). I also had much lower fuel margin that I expected due to the low TWR, but it was a workable margin.

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Also, flags! Yay! I didn't have flags at the time of my first three lunar landings, so Stanislav becomes the first person to stab another celestial body (and Jeb becomes the first person to go to the Moon twice).

You're probably wondering why I landed at night. There's a reason for this.

You will notice that there is no science equipment on the lander. The idea was that after the test flight I'd put them in the KIS containers and deploy them once on the surface, but because my first test flight had turned into an operational flight, I decided I wanted to get some science out of it.

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So, I landed 2.1km from Sailor 5, the third probe to land on the Moon. Not bad for my first attempt at precision landing in RO! I then used the scientist to run the experiments and collect the data.

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Stanislav and Jeb set the duration record for time on the Moon at a week or two compared with the 2 minutes, few hours, and couple days of the previous 3 missions.

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They returned safely to Eclipse station and began processing the data in the lab. Once processed, this data will yield a few thousand science points.

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Then, I launched a spy satellite on a Mu V.

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My goal was to turn Earth into a Death Star, but due to faulty RCS (I keep making that stupid mistake) this was as close as I got.

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I then launched another ScanSat on a Neutron III to perform a biome scan. This too was plagued by RCS problems but was placed into a lower orbit than planned as a result.

*DING*

Yes! My Venus fleet is finally at Venus!

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This is my Venus comms network, and that is Venus, although you can't tell due to the shadow.

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Burning into orbit. I was 200m/s short so each of the four satellites had to complete the insertion manually.

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Unfortunately, due to complete lack of fuel, these four relay satellites were placed into vastly differing orbits rather than an equally spaced low orbit system that had been planned.

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Planetoid 10 entering Venus orbit. This is my scientific Venus lander.

Now at this point I realized my comm network was pretty much useless because I overestimated my fuel capacity and the power of omnidirectional antennas.

In the Earth system you can use omnis out to the Moon. However, at Venus there are no ground stations.

And if omnis don't work, you need one antenna pointed at Earth and the other at the ship you want to talk to. However, all of the relay satellites only had one powerful antenna. And the lander probe had one medium strength one. The actual lander only had an omnidirectional antenna, which I thought would be enough to talk to the relays. Nope.

I had forgotten to deploy the main antenna on the orbiter portion of the lander. So I had to wait until two of the relays were close enough to use the omnis and turn one of their antennas to the lander keeping the other one at Earth.

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After that was sorted out, I set out to land on Venus.

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The entry went well, however I did not have a signal connection so I could not deploy the gear, the parachute, the experiments, or even jettison the heat shield.

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Slightly immature comment, but it sort of felt like I was flying through farts...

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Wait, it survived? Cool! I mean, I was going only 30m/s, so it was a possibility.

Unfortunately, I had no proof to the contractors of the first successful landing on another planet. The communication signal was cut off, and the probe was rolling downhill. However, I set up my crippled relay constellation in a way that the signal went from Earth to one relay to the elliptically orbiting lander orbiter which then traveled via Omni to the lander...

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Unfortunately, this connection only lasts 3 minutes per orbital pass. And, signal delay is basically 3 minutes as well, giving me about ten seconds of time when I can actually do something useful.

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The first thing I did was deploy the gear in order to stop the spinning, then I did science. On the next orbital pass, I transmitted the science.

Yay, mission success! Almost! The Venus comm network was supposed to be a framework for future landers and it was completely broken... I'll need to send a second one (but I'm basically broke at this point so I'll have to wait a bit).

Also, more bad news. I sent the exact same system to Mars.

*FACEPALM*

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Back at Eclipse Station, I sent Bob, Jeb, and Stanislav home because they'd been on the station for several months already.

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Entry went flawlessly, the test flight of Yonder being successful. Now the docking port was free...

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This is probably the second to last Gravity III ever to launch. It carries module six of Eclipse Station, the docking module.

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It got to the station correctly but I forgot to take screenshots...

Anyways, for a "map" of Eclipse Station...

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On the bottom, we have the Hadfield Utility Module, named after Chris Hadfield (awesome guy) and designed to hold electric charge, life support, fuel, and be able to reboost/move the station if necessary (in retrospect I really should have put the station in a polar orbit). Above that is the Numa habitation module (because I was listening to that Numa Numa Yay song at the time) designed to provide power and living accommodations.

Above that is the Earthrise Cupola Module, which is a node and observatory platform. On the right is the Modulin Science Module, which is a science lab, designated airlock, and life support container (with around 5 man-years of supplies). On the left is the Sergeant Utility Module, which has solar panels (not deployed in the picture, that's just a tug), more living space, a KIS container, and a tank of fuel for Tranquility. The solar panels on the module are part of the space tug which has since been de-orbited. On the very top is Yonder 1 which is not there anymore and has been replaced by the North Star docking module. Sticking up from the center node I will place a command stem which will also carry cool lights.

 

What color do y'all think would look nice?

 

-Steve.

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  On 10/23/2017 at 11:08 PM, IncongruousGoat said:

Wait... how in the anything did you manage to land on Venus? My attempts in 1.2.2 RSS/RO/RP-0 have ended with the lander being destroyed by pressure while still ~20 km up from the surface.

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Probably because I'm in 1.1.3. Not the most realistic thing ever. But, if we're talking realism, I could have built a pressure resistant lander like Venera. However, I don't know of any Venera mod, so this will have to do.

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  • 2 months later...

Okay, sorry this took so long, but...

Update 2- 12/26/17

I got a supercomputer for Christmas! Okay, not a supercomputer, but a really nice built-for-gaming computer that absolutely blows away the laptops I'd been playing with previously.

I had stopped updating this because it got too unbearable on the laptop. Too many mods, visual enhancements, and 400 part Avalon Station.

But now Avalon Station is at a playable framerate! Yay!

 

So, a long time ago I came up with an acronym - "Futuristic Advanced Large Landable Spaceship" or FALLS. And it would launch on a Gravity IB booster - so "Gravity-FALLS." Hehehe.

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This is just a simulation. Unfortunately it's having trouble reaching orbit and it will not survive re-entry, so we may never see an actual flight, but, hey! It gave me a cool screenshot, so it was worth it!

It's basically "What if the space shuttle launched on a bigger version of Falcon Heavy."

 

 

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I undocked the Skye 3 capsule from Avalon Station and brought the astronauts back home.

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It landed in Africa near the Canary Islands if I remember my geography well enough.

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Then I launched Melody 6, which carried Stanislav, Teresa, and Victoria to Avalon Station. It was supposed to be Regina instead of Stanislav but he somehow snuck aboard.

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I'm actually getting flashing yellow-green timer! That's just so fast considering that this is RO/RP-0 with visual mods!

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Second stage burn.

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Burning the service module stage, and...

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At the station (the far end, next to the small inflatable module, not that you know what that is).

That's all I've done today so far, but I began work on designing a small moon outpost. I designed a rover, but for some reason those rover wheels aren't working. Better wait until I unlock the "real" ones!

 

Does anyone know what year the RP-0 clock starts on? The time changer mod isn't working for me.

 

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  On 12/27/2017 at 3:07 AM, Ultimate Steve said:

his is just a simulation. Unfortunately it's having trouble reaching orbit and it will not survive re-entry, so we may never see an actual flight, but, hey! It gave me a cool screenshot, so it was worth it!

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Yeah, definitely worth it.  You should posterize it.  NASA's walls are covered with posters of things hypothetical / conjectural things.  This would fit right in :wink: 

Congrats on the new gaming rig, too!

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Update 3 - 12/27/17

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

Edited by Ultimate Steve
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  On 12/27/2017 at 10:22 PM, Ultimate Steve said:

Gravity V has a 300 ton capacity whereas the Saturn V had around 120.

 

MUAHAHAHAHAHA! I'm coming for you, Mars!

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How many launches for your Mars mission?  Will you use ISRU?  Preposition a habitat or ascent vehicle? Or assemble something in LEO?

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  On 12/27/2017 at 11:18 PM, DAL59 said:

How many launches for your Mars mission?  Will you use ISRU?  Preposition a habitat or ascent vehicle? Or assemble something in LEO?

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To be honest I have not determined anything about the mission besides the facts that it will be assembled in LEO, the mothership will be named Andreas, and the lander will be named Monroe. I have not unlocked ISRU (If RO/RP-0 even has those), so that's out of the question... I haven't even unlocked rover wheels yet! :D Although, I'm researching them now. An ascent vehicle might be prepositioned, it would probably be a good idea considering I haven't even landed anything successfully on Mars yet (although I have two probes en route).

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  On 12/27/2017 at 10:22 PM, Ultimate Steve said:

However, the third stage proved to be nearly uncontrollable without gimbal. The RCS was just too weak to do anything and the stage slipped sideways. However, using up one of the restarts, I was able to get the payload into orbit.

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I've never understood why KSP aerospikes lack gimbal.  Aerospikes are composed of many small combustion chambers surrounding (for the circular kind) or running down the length of (for the linear kind) the central "spike" part.  Each combustion chamber should be capable of being throttled independently.  Hence, you get different amounts of thrust on 1 side of the central axis or the other.  Same effect as gimbal., even though the whole not-a-nozzle doesn't move.  So I wouldn't consider it cheating at all to use MM to add gimbal to aerospikes.

 

  On 12/27/2017 at 10:22 PM, Ultimate Steve said:

It's not the tallest rocket by a long shot compared to IRL rockets. However, it is the widest as well as the highest capacity. Gravity V has a 300 ton capacity whereas the Saturn V had around 120.

MUAHAHAHAHAHA! I'm coming for you, Mars!

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Way to poke reality in the eye.

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My recommendation for lowering the cost of the Gravity V is twofold. First, ditch the aerospike J-2's in favor of the S model of the J-2. TWR/Isp differences between the two are negligible in vacuum, and the S has gimbal and costs around a quarter as much. Second, don't use UA-1027's. They're kinda expensive compared to liquid alternatives. My recommendation would be some sort of F-1 based booster/sustainer arrangement, although you may want to grab SSTU if you go that path-the F-1 model that provides has a much lower base footprint and thus clusters much better.

  On 12/28/2017 at 12:45 AM, Geschosskopf said:

I've never understood why KSP aerospikes lack gimbal.  Aerospikes are composed of many small combustion chambers surrounding (for the circular kind) or running down the length of (for the linear kind) the central "spike" part.  Each combustion chamber should be capable of being throttled independently.  Hence, you get different amounts of thrust on 1 side of the central axis or the other.  Same effect as gimbal., even though the whole not-a-nozzle doesn't move.  So I wouldn't consider it cheating at all to use MM to add gimbal to aerospikes.

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Who said anything about throttling? Most real engines can't throttle, and I can't see why the chambers used in a toroidal aerospike (especially a toroidal aerospike derived from the J-2 powerhead) would be any different. Plus, that kind of differential throttling would be super hairy from a plumbing perspective, especially if (as is implied for this engine) the chambers are running off of a common turbopump assembly.

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  On 12/28/2017 at 12:53 AM, IncongruousGoat said:

My recommendation for lowering the cost of the Gravity V is twofold. First, ditch the aerospike J-2's in favor of the S model of the J-2. TWR/Isp differences between the two are negligible in vacuum, and the S has gimbal and costs around a quarter as much. Second, don't use UA-1027's. They're kinda expensive compared to liquid alternatives. My recommendation would be some sort of F-1 based booster/sustainer arrangement, although you may want to grab SSTU if you go that path-the F-1 model that provides has a much lower base footprint and thus clusters much better.

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Great minds think alike! I'd already come to the first two conclusions. The aerospikes are now J-2's and the SRB's are now LFB's. The LFB's are now (I think) derived from the engines on the first stage of Proton, with three engines per booster.

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  On 12/28/2017 at 12:53 AM, IncongruousGoat said:

Who said anything about throttling? Most real engines can't throttle, and I can't see why the chambers used in a toroidal aerospike (especially a toroidal aerospike derived from the J-2 powerhead) would be any different. Plus, that kind of differential throttling would be super hairy from a plumbing perspective, especially if (as is implied for this engine) the chambers are running off of a common turbopump assembly.

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If LFO engines can't throttle, why have them at all?  What happened to "Challenger, go with throttle up" ?

I do agree, however, that running all chambers off a common pump is stupid.  So you wouldn't do that.  Instead, you'd have 4 separate, independent systems, each essentially a separate engine, like in a cluster.  After all, the individual chambers don't care how many chambers there are, they only care about having the spike on 1 side of them.  So, by turning these systems on and off (or throttling them somewhere between), you could get pitch and yaw "gimbal".  So for a toroidal aerospike, imagine the ring of chambers as 4 pizza slices.  Or you could make a "square" aerospoke, essentially 2 linear ones at right angles and superimposed.  Each side of the square, or each pizza slice, would be plumbed and throttled independently of the others.

Or, you could just use 2 systems, say for each side of a linear aerospike.  Then RCS and/or torque rolls the rocket as needed so this 1 means of "gimbal" can do both pitch and yaw as needed.

Edited by Geschosskopf
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  On 12/28/2017 at 1:15 AM, Geschosskopf said:

If LFO engines can't throttle, why have them at all?  What happened to "Challenger, go with throttle up" ?

I do agree, however, that running all chambers off a common pump is stupid.  So you wouldn't do that.  Instead, you'd have 4 separate, independent systems, each essentially a separate engine, like in a cluster.  After all, the individual chambers don't care how many chambers there are, they only care about having the spike on 1 side of them.  So, by turning these systems on and off (or throttling them somewhere between), you could get pitch and yaw "gimbal".  So for a toroidal aerospike, imagine the ring of chambers as 4 pizza slices.  Or you could make a "square" aerospoke, essentially 2 linear ones at right angles and superimposed.  Each side of the square, or each pizza slice, would be plumbed and throttled independently of the others.

Or, you could just use 2 systems, say for each side of a linear aerospike.  Then RCS and/or torque rolls the rocket as needed so this 1 means of "gimbal" can do both pitch and yaw as needed.

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Liquid engines can be shut down and restarted, and generally have higher specific impulses than solid engines and, in many cases, are easier to work with. Some engines, including the SSME, have a limited throttling capability. Most, however, can't throttle, especially older engines from the 60's and 70's, such as the ones being considered here (this is RP-0, after all).

You could use 4 separate turbopumps for the engine... but then you have to design an all-new powerhead, throwing out all the work you already have done on the J-2 powerhead, and you more or less quadruple your number of potential failure points in the process. If they were designed with throttling in mind (which isn't a given) you might be able to make that work, but turning them off and on again definitely will not do what you intend. Turbopumps don't start up immediately, and typically can only be started a limited number of times due to any number of possible technical reasons.

Having only one axis of control wouldn't work great either. Reaction wheels are out of the question as a control mechanism-in RO, they're a means of rotating space stations over the course of several minutes, not a means of rotating a rocket in a couple of seconds. RCS wouldn't be too good either-the required amount would cut pretty seriously into payload capacity.

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  On 12/28/2017 at 3:35 AM, IncongruousGoat said:

Liquid engines can be shut down and restarted, and generally have higher specific impulses than solid engines and, in many cases, are easier to work with. Some engines, including the SSME, have a limited throttling capability. Most, however, can't throttle, especially older engines from the 60's and 70's, such as the ones being considered here (this is RP-0, after all).

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The SSME dates from the early 70s at least so no problem there.

 

  Quote

You could use 4 separate turbopumps for the engine... but then you have to design an all-new powerhead, throwing out all the work you already have done on the J-2 powerhead, and you more or less quadruple your number of potential failure points in the process. If they were designed with throttling in mind (which isn't a given) you might be able to make that work, but turning them off and on again definitely will not do what you intend. Turbopumps don't start up immediately, and typically can only be started a limited number of times due to any number of possible technical reasons.

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Well, considering that as of 2017, not a single aerospike has flown AFAIK, and that the few built (at least until very recently) were just bench test models to see if the underlying concept actually worked, I figure that if anybody was actually going to build one for flight, it would be a de novo design anyway.  Given the desirability of steering with it, I'm sure this would be part of the new design.

An aerospike, despite being only 1 piece in KSP, is actually an engine cluster.  Its plumbing thus already has a fairly high level of complexity; dividing this into quarters doesn't add much more.  And you have 2 options for throttle/gimbal.  #1 is to use whatever method the SSME had.  The other is physical gimbal using a common powerhead.  Because the aerospike is a cluster, there's no requirement that all its nozzles be centrally located.  Imagine splitting a linear aerospike down the middle and mounting each side of it on opposite sides of the rocket core.  Do this twice so you have 4 lines of combustion chambers forming a square when viewed down the length of the rocket.  This gives them more leverage for steering.  Then either throttle each side independently SSME-style, OR use a common feed and physically gimbal each side of the square.  Given that all the chambers on one side are in a straight line, you'd only need 1 hinge for all them.  Each side only needs to move in 1 direction, too, so the gimbal mechanism would be fairly simple mechanically per side.

So basically, I don't see any major problem in providing "gimbal" to aerospikes.  I'm sure that, when/if aerospikes actually start flying, especially as the main engines for SSTO rockets, they'll have steering one way or another.  And if aerospikes had actually become a thing back in the day, it seems to me that steering them would have been quite possible once the engines moved from test articles to actual flight models.

 

  Quote

Having only one axis of control wouldn't work great either. Reaction wheels are out of the question as a control mechanism-in RO, they're a means of rotating space stations over the course of several minutes, not a means of rotating a rocket in a couple of seconds. RCS wouldn't be too good either-the required amount would cut pretty seriously into payload capacity.

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OK, all the more reason for being able to steer aerospikes :)

 

Edited by Geschosskopf
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  • 1 month later...

I played a bit today, I don't have pictures, but Yonder 2 (new crew, lander upgrades, refueling the base so it can land) is en route to the moon and running a bit low on fuel.

The second Gravity V is being built, it features liquid boosters, better interstages, and no more aerospikes. Its payload will be the Firework 1, a probe designed to get as close to the sun as possible without gravity assists. It has about 25km/s of delta-V, not bad considering the size of the payload. It will be the first test of a NERVA, which will be a crucial part of the upcoming Mars mission.

I'm also sending an impactor to the Jupiter system in about 50 ingame days on a Mu V should all go well. The next launch overall will be a Uranus orbiter, on a Gravity IV.

EDIT: I have determined that the Lunar Station is big enough and the final module has been cancelled in favor of using the "last" Gravity III for something else, and maybe someday launching future modules on Gravity V. If I do need a docking module it can be delivered using Gravity IB, it should be light enough.

Edited by Ultimate Steve
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  • 5 months later...
  On 7/22/2018 at 4:05 AM, SiriusRocketry said:

@Ultimate Steve this thing still alive?

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On and off. I just got back from a 3 week trip and in a few days I go on a 1 week trip. Then band camp starts, then school starts, so RIP my free time.

Balancing my interests and several other mission reports (not to mention IRL stuff) can get tricky, so I sort of bounce back and forth between them. I did do some stuff in this before I left, but it wasn't much. This isn't dead, just dormant.

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