[RSS/RO/RP-1] Kurgutovitch Space Program, the Soviet way!

[kurgut]

Real Solar Sytem / Realism Overhaul / Realistic Progression 1

Kurgutovich Space Program, the Soviet way!

Career mission reports

Summary

Spoiler

Bayan program, first suborbital spaceflight (and crazy crew training)

Sputnik program, first artificial satellites

First Moon attempts, the Luna Program

The Vostok program, first Kerbal in Earth orbit

Early launches

One of the first missions, a jealous copy of the V2 rocket, the K2. After WW2, well juust after the capitulation,  a race occured between URSS and USA to found the V2 factory and learn about it, also, found its creator, Werner von Braun, but Americans were first! It was maybe the very beginning of the space race before actually doing it in space

So the engine here is a early RD-100 (copy of the V2 engine) burning Lox/Alcohol:

The goal is simply to learn about rocket guidance and rocketry in general (engines), by the way we also added some temperature and pressure sensors to studie the upper atmosphere, and the space border.

Launch site: Baikonour cosmodrome

max Altitude: 160 km (suborbital)

 

Then, with this good knwoledge, we upgraded the engine to RD-101 for increased performances. This rocket was also fully recovered, to studie the reaction of a spacecraft after exposure to space environement. By the way, this was the first ever recovered object after reaching space.

Morning launch:

 

After reaching the space limit, deploying Kevlar drogue chute  to start safely slowing down the rocket, until the main chutes deploy few hundred meters before the surface:

And landed! From what we see, the rocket seems to have been exposed to very high radiation level, that confirms our scientists predictions (to celebrate that, they will simply take a vodka bath in the R&D center)

Then, still upgrading the initial RD-100 engine, the K2-c rocket now allow a heavyier payload. So a mission was launched, to bring back the first earth photographs from space!

Farings jetisoned, taking photos..

Released the return camera, it landed safely in the Kazak' desert.

 

And finally, last upgrade of the K2 rocket, that broked an altitude record of 550 km!!

Now, the polit bureau wan't to impress the world with its puissance, so they idea is to send some Kerbals up there.. This will be the Bayan program!

Edited September 4, 2018 by kurgut

[kurgut]

The Bayan program, first manned suborbital spaceflight

The russian engineers developped a variant of the K2 rocket, that can bring a Kerbal safely into a suborbital trajectory, and, incredible fact, bring him back safely!

First, the polit bureau had to select a group of 4 astronauts: Youri Gagarin/ Valentina Tershkova/ Gherman Titov and Pavel Popovich. They started a hard and intense training to prepare for their missions (one almost died!)

First training was a simple validation of pilot skills, flying a nice little plane:

Easy!

But then, astronauts had to test their G force resistance and endurance, here it becomes hard:

G force resistance test: max G: 18

By the time, testing ejection devices that will be installed in the Vostok spacecraft, so Youri was ejected, and landed safely on the ground:

Then, G force Endurance test, here the dispositif almost exploded!

But hopefully, nobody died

Then, last thing was training to survive in extreme environement conditions, here Youri Gagarine climbed at top of the Hymalaya mountain!

NOW WE CAN LAUNCH!

First Bayan mission, crew: Youri Gagarine, first Kerbal to reach space. Backup crew: in vacation.

After reaching space, the first stage is jetisoned, and the spacecraft separate from it:

Then, Youri is deploying the Drogue chutes to slow down the thing, and avoid burning up!

Coooming back:

And safe, finally!

Glorious. We now need to continue, and avoid the americans send a satelitte in orbit before us, so, Serguei Korolev, is working on a new rocket, the R-7! Coming, the Sputnik program.

Edited September 3, 2018 by kurgut

[kurgut]

Sputnik program, first artificial satellite

 

Great excitement and tensions are going between the USA and the USSR, who we'll launch the first satellite into orbit? Well, us

Serguei Korolev imagined and designed the R-7 rocket, long lasting Launch vehicle design, at first of course, planned to do intercontinental missile stuff. But, the polit bureau wan't results, more of that, fast, and without good founding:  budget restrictions applied to well, all stuff, engine tests, etc.., whereas our vodka budget remains higher than our engine budget.., hmm  )

So, yes, the 2 first sputnik attempts exploded a few meters above the launchpad, due to booster engine failure. But finally,  third attempt was the good one! And the contract gave us good amount of founding and reputation!

First attempt, booster failure few meters above launchpad, good bye R-7:

Now, the good one!

Launch:

Boosters separation, forming nice Korolev cross

 

Core stage finishing putting Sput' into orbit

Sputnik released! Bip..Bip..Bip..

Then, excited by this accomplishment, it was decided to send a kerbal in Earth orbit, and, great idea, to get him back! So after some redesigns to lower the pogo effect, and the g forces, sputnik-2 was launched, with the first dog in space (survived just 6 hours in earth orbit), Laïka!

Laïka just in orbit (lower right of the pic), the spacecraft was let attached to the core stage. Proving by this, that some manned orbital missions would be possible!

And finally, we launched Sputnik-3, now with a bunch of experiments on board (some camera, radiation sensors, micrometeorite sensors, pressure, temperature,..)

Sputnik-3 just released in orbit:

We are feeling glorious, and looking closer at our natural satellite, the Moon! Soon we'll launch the first missions of the Luna Program

Edited September 4, 2018 by kurgut

[kurgut]

First Moon attempts, the Luna program

 

The space race continue, and know, the entire world turn its eyes toward the Moon. There is strating the Luna program. For that, the venerable R-7 rocket was uprgaded, adding a translunar injection stage, and better boosters/core stage engines. The goal is to explore th Moon, by impacting it, so we can studie the space around it from different altitudes, and learning sweet amount of science data that will help us understand more our natural Satellite.

First attempt is Luna-1, an impactor. The Luna probe has quite a lot of science experiments on it, some solar panels, and antennas of course.

Let's launch! Waiting to have correct relative inclination to launch:

Achieved orbit, now the core stage can be jetisoned, as the luna fairing. Then, plotting a Hohman transfer to intercept our target.

Luna block burning during TLI:

After about 3 days of travel, the probe arrive to the Moon, transmitting as fast as it can that great science data we need a lot!

Few hours later, luna-1 impacted the Moon lowlands, and became the first human made stuff to reach a celestial body.

Then, Luna-2 was launched, here no impact, just a kind of free return flyby that will make the probe passing above the far side of the Moon, and for the first time, taking some pic of it!

Those images provoked world excitement, and the NASA deception seeing their space program ridiculness compared to our.

Glorious.

By upgrading the R-7 to reach the Moon, that means it could also reach some inner planets, well, Mars and Venus. So our engineers and scientits start working hard on the Venera program.

 

Also, we launched the Kostov mission, designed to be the first spacecraft to come back from earth orbit, with nice valuable experiments (Imaging data, mass spectrometry , and biological sample data)

Here, the spacecraft at its Apogee (Geostat ap: 35000km), Earth looks beautiful from here.

Reentry after have jetisoned the experiemnts from the return capsule:

And safe! By showing that reentrys are possible, and survivable, the Kostov mission opened the path to the Vostok Program that will send a Kerbal in Earth Orbit.

 

Edited September 4, 2018 by kurgut

[kurgut]

First Kerbal in Orbit, the Vostok Program

 

Our chief engineer, Serguei Korolev, is working hard to satisfy the polit bureau requests, but by the way, accomplishing one of his child dream, send a Kerbal in Earth Orbit. So he designed the Vostok spacecraft, a simple spherical capsule capable of 0.75 kerbal rated living space (well, 1 kerbal). To launch it in  orbit, the R-7 rocket was upgraded, as its upper stage.

First launch, Youri Gagarine is starting his way to get into the capsule:

Then, he take the launch tower's elevator , and, waow, that's high!

Now, we're ready to launch:

But, a RD-107 booster failed to ignite, dammit! That was so fast we didn't had the time to engage the Abort sequence (crew ejection), but hoooopefully, Youri was safe:

Second try, ouf, all the engines seems to be nominal. But not Youri because he's now so afraid.

Ookay, now booster separation:

Then, the upper stage ignite 2 seconds before the core one runnout of fuel, and can then be decoupled:

Hourra! Youri is: in orbit, and alive. Absolutly great.

He'll stay some 9 days in space before doing the return burn for reentry.

Few seconds before entering the upper atmosphere, all unwanted stuff (the service module) is decoupled from the Vostok descent module:

Barbecue reentry time:

Drogue chute time:

Main chute time:

And vacation for Youri, well, he splashed in th Pacific Ocean, just near Hawaï, so as he's here,  he'll take his vacations there.

This is an historical day, for us, and for entire world watching the event.

3 other Vostok missions were launched, and were all succesfull. Now the Vostok program is closed, letting great knowledge about human reaction in microgravity environement.

Meanwhile, our engineers started the rocket  assembly for the Venera Program freshly designed, which will explore the inner planets: Mars, Venus, and Mercury.

Edited September 4, 2018 by kurgut

[SiriusRocketry]

What happened to Laika...

 

Very interesting reports, you've got a new follower (on the thread :P)

[kurgut]

Thanks! @SiriusRocketry

But unfortunately, my save was broken for some reaon I don't know about, well a bug, but don't know from where! I have done some others missions indeed before that, luna (landings/orbits), inner planets flybys, and voskhod.. I'll post this in the coming days, but then..

I restarted (again, again, and again) an new career, recleaned all install, but now doing not in a US or soviet way, just free. Maybe I'll start new stuff with this..

 

 

[SiriusRocketry]

What happened to Laika in the Vostok image? Some sort of cartoon alien invaded her body?

Hint: zoom in on the porthole in said image.

[kurgut]

On 9/12/2018 at 5:22 AM, SiriusRocketry said:

What happened to Laika in the Vostok image? Some sort of cartoon alien invaded her body?

Hint: zoom in on the porthole in said image.

I guess some texture stuff bug.. Or simply Laïka evaporating itself at a terrible ambient temperature (boil one)

[raidernick]

On 9/12/2018 at 12:22 AM, SiriusRocketry said:

What happened to Laika in the Vostok image? Some sort of cartoon alien invaded her body?

Hint: zoom in on the porthole in said image.

it's a texture/normal map bug, the dog is really low fidelity and an afterthought in the model

 

[Dafni]

Some great stuff. Been waiting for more! Hope to see your program continue!

All the best