Shuttle Challenge v6 - The STS thread [Stock and Mod Friendly] - ANNOUNCEMENT: v7 IS LIVE!

[Br0wnie007]

are parts from restock+ allowed?

New Page yay

Edited November 14, 2022 by Br0wnie007

[sturmhauke]

4 hours ago, Br0wnie007 said:

are parts from restock+ allowed?

Restock mostly just changes artwork, with some minor tweaks to colliders, drag cubes, etc. I've been counting it as stock. Restock+ adds new parts, and counts as modded.

[EdwardB3020]

For rules is Mechjeb launch autopilot allowed or is manual flight or SMART ASS allowed? 

[Yakez]

19 hours ago, CaptWhitmire said:

For rules is Mechjeb launch autopilot allowed or is manual flight or SMART ASS allowed? 

Rule number 3 allow it outside atmospheres. So on Kerbin, Eve, Duna, Laythe it is all mk1 eyeball.

1. bla
2. bla
3. All atmospheric flight should be handled manually, with the exception of self scripted autopilot programs and "attitude hold" instruments during reentry. Mechjeb etc. are fine for on orbit procedures.

[EdwardB3020]

52 minutes ago, Yakez said:

Rule number 3 allow it outside atmospheres. So on Kerbin, Eve, Duna, Laythe it is all mk1 eyeball.

1. bla
2. bla
3. All atmospheric flight should be handled manually, with the exception of self scripted autopilot programs and "attitude hold" instruments during reentry. Mechjeb etc. are fine for on orbit procedures.

Thanks for the clarification. It’s ok. I figured out my roll program and my ascent profile so I don’t need MechJeb. 

[20p_]

Is there some form of a discord server for this or is it all done by forums? Thanks for answering

[sturmhauke]

On 11/16/2022 at 6:20 AM, 20p_ said:

Is there some form of a discord server for this or is it all done by forums? Thanks for answering

There's no Discord server for this challenge, no.

[sturmhauke]

On 11/12/2022 at 5:57 AM, Yakez said:

So here are my submissions for STS-6T and all Minmus STS challenges. Mods used are visual only. Mech Jeb used to create nodes and to land tanker 5 times during Minmus STS-6. Outside that everything is stock and should apply to commander level. Craft totally functional without Kerbal Joint Reinforcement https://kerbalx.com/Yakez/ASS-strutted hoewer used it to record video and have better FPS.

Looks like a successful new shuttle design, and a well executed mission. Nice work!

[Artienia]

Sorry for being inactive! I am super busy with exams, apologies for everyone!

Edited November 20, 2022 by Artienia

[Yakez]

 

23 hours ago, sturmhauke said:

Looks like a successful new shuttle design, and a well executed mission. Nice work!

OUH SHINY!

I have moar mad scientist stuff for modeless Mun STS1-4!

 

[sturmhauke]

10 hours ago, Artienia said:

Sorry for being inactive! I am super busy with exams, apologies for everyone!

Don't worry about it, your education is more important. Although KSP might be a close second. 

7 hours ago, Yakez said:

OUH SHINY!

I have moar mad scientist stuff for modeless Mun STS1-4!

I like the detachable wing section, cool stuff. I made a somewhat similar craft for my Jool-5 mission (link in signature), although mine was a lot larger and not balanced for VTOL operations.

Anyway, this new set of missions qualifies you for upgraded badges. Congrats!

[OJT]

@sturmhauke I am working on a little something that might potentially qualify for STS Challenge, but I still want to clarify one thing

Can Orbiters have deployable fairings? Or the entire Orbiter must be intact from start to finish? I have a certain payload that can make the mission interesting, but it doesn't fit into Mk.3 loading bay despite my best efforts to minimize it. However, it will easily fit into a fairing and my initial plan was to make two cargo bays: one deployable and one Mk.3 bay to recover the payload after it completes its mission

[sturmhauke]

On 12/8/2022 at 8:21 PM, OJT said:

@sturmhauke I am working on a little something that might potentially qualify for STS Challenge, but I still want to clarify one thing

Can Orbiters have deployable fairings? Or the entire Orbiter must be intact from start to finish? I have a certain payload that can make the mission interesting, but it doesn't fit into Mk.3 loading bay despite my best efforts to minimize it. However, it will easily fit into a fairing and my initial plan was to make two cargo bays: one deployable and one Mk.3 bay to recover the payload after it completes its mission

I'm inclined to allow it just to see what crazy thing you have in mind. Personally, I use Nertea's Mk4 mod for most of my orbiters.

[OJT]

5 hours ago, sturmhauke said:

I'm inclined to allow it just to see what crazy thing you have in mind. Personally, I use Nertea's Mk4 mod for most of my orbiters.

Wasn't necessary in the end: I managed to downsize the mission payload and it fits into Mk.3 bay now. Doing the mission right now, will post here later in the evening if all goes well 

[OJT]

@sturmhauke So, here's the mission I've been working on. I am not quite sure where it would slot in STS Challenges, but the closest thing I could describe it as is the Eve STS-2 Proposal

In Eve STS-1, you must deliver a drone that will enter Eve's atmosphere, conduct three experiments, return to orbit and be recovered by Orbiter, and then Orbiter must return to Kerbin

My mission is pretty much the same... except the drone must land on Eve and then return to orbit. It took me a lot of experimentation and planning, and I sadly had to abandon the Mk.2 chassis in favor of Mk.3, hence the reason I post this directly here and not in my Mk.2 Shuttles thread. But I did manage to make it work in the end

First of all, we need to launch the Orbiter. Launcher has enough fuel to deliver the Orbiter all the way into Kerbin low orbit, I only used a tiny bit of Orbiter's reserves to get away from boosters after separation, leaving the entire Orbit pretty much fully fueled

Spoiler

We set up the maneuver to Eve afterwards and do multiple burns (due to very low TWR of 0.1ish) to efficiently escape Kerbin. I took screenshots of first and last burn

Spoiler

After several months, we arrive at Eve

Spoiler

Conforming to Commander requirements of Eve STS-1, I did a VERY toasty aerobrake (peak critical part heating of 99.6%). It wasn't enough to capture however, so I did a retrograde burn straight afterwards

Spoiler

After that I corrected my inclination and did multiple more, less toasty aerobrakes to finally enter equatorial low Eve orbit

Spoiler

Time to reveal our Landing Drone!
It has engines to independently lower its periapsis, huge heatshield, fins at the back for stabilizing and parachutes

Spoiler

Descending into Eve. Drone was controlled from a relay satellite that I delivered to Eve a while ago on a separate, non-related mission. Whole reentry went relatively smoothly

Spoiler

As I came closer to the surface, I realized that I wasn't actually coming to a surface: I happened to be descending pretty much in a middle of the Crater Lake, with no landmass in close vicinity. I didn't test splashdowns during development, but I didn't want to do the entire reentry sequence from scratch, so I decided to go ahead and see what will happen

Spoiler

Turns out, Drone does float without flipping, so the splashdown was a success! Unfortunately, it did mean that I couldn't conduct seismic experiment, but thankfully I had thermometer, barometer and Gravioli detector, thus fulfilling the "3 experiments" requirement

Spoiler

Now the hardest part of the whole mission: Eve ascent.

The drone first ascends with electric props, shedding the heatshield, fins and landing legs (didn't need them at the end). After reaching 14km, props separate and aerospike engines engage to raise the altitude. Last stage has a Spark and 4 Ant engines and goes the rest of the way to orbit

I did make things a bit easier for myself by using props for first part of ascent, but there's still a HUGE emphasis on "a bit": the whole ascent is built on very small margins. I had to repeat ascent lots of times before finally making it all the way to orbit, and even then I barely succeeded: Drone at the end had only 68 m/s of deltaV left

Spoiler

Orbit confirmed!

Time to recover the Drone. Rendezvous was a little tricky due to Orbiter not having any RCS capability and the Drone having limited control due to relay sat being on the other side of the planet, but I managed to grab the Drone with Grabbing Arm and stow it inside the cargo bay

Spoiler

After recovering the Drone, we await the transfer window and burn to Kerbin, splitting one burn into multiple (one burn was captured on screenshot)

Spoiler

After reaching orbit, we do one aerobrake to capture, adjust inclination...

Spoiler

... and slow down with second aerobrake

Spoiler

KSC Runway was too far away for me to reach, so I glided towards Desert Runway

Spoiler

This was the first time I ever landed on Desert Runway, so it facing perpendicular to equator was a bit of a surprise, but the Orbiter is designed to be a very good glider, so it wasn't much of a issue to correct course

Spoiler

Mission completed! And with every Commander rank requirement from Eve STS-1 satisfied, this would theoretically qualify as Eve STS-2 Commander submission. Let me know what you think about this

[Starslinger999]

Currently working on designs for Minmus STS-5 and 6 and I am having trouble fitting all 4 fuel pods into the launches as I only have 1 support launch... 
I may need a dedicated launcher to launch 4x 40 ton (8 tons or so when empty) fuel pods at once to fulfil the commander badge (I’m not sure how I’m supposed to do this with a shuttle without making a brand new shuttle that can fit 4 orange tank based fuel pods in them) I can atleast do Mun STS-1 through 7 as designs for those work.

Edited December 14, 2022 by Starslinger999

[QF9E]

@OJT Awesome Eve STS-2 mission. Landing on Eve and getting back into orbit isn't easy at the best of times, but doing it with a lander that fits inside a Shuttle bay is really quite hard. Congrats on pulling it off successfully, and from Eve sea level no less!

Next challenge: Eve STS-3: land a Shuttle on Eve and return it safely to Kerbin ;). For the commander level: land at less than 1000 meters above sea level on Eve, and land the Shuttle on a runway.

 

[OJT]

1 hour ago, QF9E said:

Next challenge: Eve STS-3: land a Shuttle on Eve and return it safely to Kerbin

This would basically require the Orbiter to be an Eve SSTO, and I've only seen like six people build functional Eve SSTOs, of which two used game exploits, and one was not even a "plane" shape. With that being said, I did test some designs, and I couldn't even make it suborbital .

However, building the Drone for this mission did bring in some more ideas on how I could potentially execute the Orbiter landing and return, but even then, IF it works, the Orbiter will only be able to make it to low orbit and require a refuel to get back to Kerbin. Some STS missions do allow support launches, but I still need to get an Orbiter working first before thinking about support packages. We'll see

[QF9E]

7 minutes ago, OJT said:

This would basically require the Orbiter to be an Eve SSTO, and I've only seen like six people build functional Eve SSTOs, of which two used game exploits, and one was not even a "plane" shape. With that being said, I did test some designs, and I couldn't even make it suborbital .

However, building the Drone for this mission did bring in some more ideas on how I could potentially execute the Orbiter landing and return, but even then, IF it works, the Orbiter will only be able to make it to low orbit and require a refuel to get back to Kerbin. Some STS missions do allow support launches, but I still need to get an Orbiter working first before thinking about support packages. We'll see

Yup. I've been working on an Eve SSTO for a couple of years and finally succeeded earlier this year: https://imgur.com/a/1AD3u40 . I did need a support package though. My Eve SSTO is barely able to make Eve orbit and has to be topped up from a tanker before returning to Kerbin.

[Starslinger999]

20 hours ago, Starslinger999 said:

Currently working on designs for Minmus STS-5 and 6 and I am having trouble fitting all 4 fuel pods into the launches as I only have 1 support launch... 
I may need a dedicated launcher to launch 4x 40 ton (8 tons or so when empty) fuel pods at once to fulfil the commander badge (I’m not sure how I’m supposed to do this with a shuttle without making a brand new shuttle that can fit 4 orange tank based fuel pods in them) I can atleast do Mun STS-1 through 7 as designs for those work.

Any suggestions on how I should deal with this? I don’t want to have to launch a generic huge rocket just to complete this challenge

[sturmhauke]

40 minutes ago, Starslinger999 said:

Any suggestions on how I should deal with this? I don’t want to have to launch a generic huge rocket just to complete this challenge

I agree, you shouldn't launch a generic huge rocket. You should launch an awesome huge rocket. 

Seriously though, that's why the support package is allowed. Your options are:

• Use the rocket, Jeb
• build a new, more bigger orbiter-er (this is my preferred solution - did I mention I tend to build huge orbiters?)
• strap on the fuel pods to the outside of the orbiter and/or launch vehicle (not recommended, but very kerbally)
• downsize to the Pilot mission and only worry about 2 pods

[Starslinger999]

58 minutes ago, sturmhauke said:

I agree, you shouldn't launch a generic huge rocket. You should launch an awesome huge rocket. 

Seriously though, that's why the support package is allowed. Your options are:

• Use the rocket, Jeb
• build a new, more bigger orbiter-er (this is my preferred solution - did I mention I tend to build huge orbiters?)
• strap on the fuel pods to the outside of the orbiter and/or launch vehicle (not recommended, but very kerbally)
• downsize to the Pilot mission and only worry about 2 pods

Yeah… I’ll probably just launch a massive rocket instead 

[QF9E]

8 hours ago, Starslinger999 said:

Yeah… I’ll probably just launch a massive rocket instead 

Another suggestion: include the pods as external payload attached to the external tank. Designs for this existed for the actual Space Shuttle, see, e.g., https://www.aiaa.org/docs/default-source/uploadedfiles/about-aiaa/history-and-heritage/shuttlevariationsfinalaiaa.pdf?sfvrsn=b8875e90_0

[Astrionix]

Two questions: Are submissions done in 2.5x KSRSS accepted? Also, would it be allowed/suggested to use another spacecraft to help boost your STS to another planet ?

[Starslinger999]

20 hours ago, QF9E said:

Another suggestion: include the pods as external payload attached to the external tank. Designs for this existed for the actual Space Shuttle, see, e.g., https://www.aiaa.org/docs/default-source/uploadedfiles/about-aiaa/history-and-heritage/shuttlevariationsfinalaiaa.pdf?sfvrsn=b8875e90_0

Lets just say my shuttle's external tank is a bit... unconventional...
So that wouldn't really work. I can get away with putting 2 tanks in my shuttle by having one sticking out the bottom of the cargo bay a bit but any more and it becomes too unstable, so I can atleast do the Pilot version with the shuttle but for 4 I would either need 2 support shuttle launches or a heavy lift rocket... which I am working on

Edited December 16, 2022 by Starslinger999