N-1 to the Mun

[Muetdhiver]

The LK is frankly amazing work.

It's looking gorgeous.

[borisperrons]

4 hours ago, QF9E said:

Nice! I like how you incorporated the fuel cell cover. And connecting two of these Soviet style capsules end to end makes for a pretty convincing Soyuz orbital / descent module combo.

Thanks! I have shamelessly taken inspiration from sevenperforce for using the round capsule for the descent module too. Before I used a Gemini-like capsule with a fairing, but I needed the place to put the RCS for the reentry control thrusters. This way I have a nice space where to fit all that I need.
The fuel cell cover is actually a case of necessity. Originally the fuel cells sat in the forward service module with oxygen and hydrogen tanks, but now that space is occupied by the comm system. So I went for the IRL location for the fuel cells, and since I'm running with Kerbalism, I definitely want them to stay all in one piece during launch.
 

4 hours ago, QF9E said:

And are those the landing engines with nozzles pointing upwards?

Yep, and again, they're there not only for the looks. The lander has a fairly high center of mass, and running some drop tests it tends to topple. Hopefully, those rockets will help it to settle down straight up in case of an hard landing, but I'll definitely avoid sloped landing sites.

In any case, this challenge is really pushing my (poor) design skills. Can't wait to have it in the air too!

Edited August 27, 2020 by borisperrons

[sevenperforce]

On 8/27/2020 at 10:39 AM, borisperrons said:

Thanks! I have shamelessly taken inspiration from sevenperforce for using the round capsule for the descent module too. Before I used a Gemini-like capsule with a fairing, but I needed the place to put the RCS for the reentry control thrusters. This way I have a nice space where to fit all that I need.

My latest one actually uses two clipped Mercury capsules with a fairing and no soviet-style capsules at all but we will see how it goes!

[sevenperforce]

Couple more WIP shots. I think I am happy with the LOK and LK now. Time to start working on the Blok D stage.

Spoiler

 

 

 

[borisperrons]

14 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

 

  Hide contents

 

 

 

That's an amazing LK lower stage, kudos to you.

How did you manage to build it out of panels? AFAIK you can't fire engines through a decoupler. Very curious about it!

 

[vyznev]

1 hour ago, borisperrons said:

AFAIK you can't fire engines through a decoupler. Very curious about it!

You can too fire engines through a decoupler — the collider has a hole in the middle. (IIRC it's not shaped quite the same way as the visible hole in the part model, though.) And even with something like a solid plate, if you clip it into the engine bell it's possible to have the plume collider miss the plate entirely, so the engine still works.

There's a neat mod called Collide-o-scope that will let you see the actual part colliders. I'm not 100% sure if it still works with KSP 1.10.1, but I see no obvious reason why it shouldn't.

(OTOH, I recently noticed that the delta-v calculator in the VAB seems to think that an engine cannot produce any thrust if there's a part attached to its rear node, even if the part has been offset far out of the way. I suppose that's reasonable enough, seeing as it's kind of abusing the offset tool.)

Edited August 29, 2020 by vyznev

[borisperrons]

8 minutes ago, vyznev said:

You can too fire engines through a decoupler — the collider has a hole in the middle.

Aaaah, well, that's useful to know! I must have missed this development, as I'm pretty certain that, when I picked KSP for the first time, that was not the case. Thanks for the mod, that's again very useful!

11 minutes ago, vyznev said:

(OTOH, I recently noticed that the delta-v calculator in the VAB seems to think that an engine cannot produce any thrust if there's a part attached to its rear node, even if the part has been offset far out of the way. I suppose that's reasonable enough, seeing as it's kind of abusing the offset tool.)

Yep, I can confirm that the in game dV tool goes bonkers with creative building. It doesn't calculate for my Block D stage when it's stacked, for example.

I'm using Kerbal Engineer's calculator, and that one has no such problems.

[sevenperforce]

7 hours ago, borisperrons said:

That's an amazing LK lower stage, kudos to you.

How did you manage to build it out of panels? AFAIK you can't fire engines through a decoupler. Very curious about it!

Thank you! Up until the Making History expansion, decoupler colliders were solid. Back then I would invert a decoupler (so that it dropped what was under it without detaching) and then attach a hollow piece underneath it if I wanted to do a fire-through parallel stage (e.g. Atlas-Mercury). But post Making History the decouplers have been hollow even though I think the hollow is a square and not a circle.

The panels are in 6x2 symmetry. Made it hard to attach the landing legs but I managed. The landing ladder even deploys using a hinge. 

[borisperrons]

2 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

*snip*

Ah-ah, so I'm not went completely coockoo! Thanks, I now have a whole new way to create monstruosities.

Yep, the inverted decoupler trick is the one that I've used with my LK too.

Edited August 29, 2020 by borisperrons

[sevenperforce]

On 8/29/2020 at 1:59 PM, borisperrons said:

Ah-ah, so I'm not went completely coockoo! Thanks, I now have a whole new way to create monstruosities.

Yep, the inverted decoupler trick is the one that I've used with my LK too.

I have an odd problem. I cannot build a Blok D that looks right without emptying tanks, or it will have too much dV.

[borisperrons]

2 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

I have an odd problem. I cannot build a Blok D that looks right without emptying tanks, or it will have too much dV.

My original one was a conical structural element with a fuel tank of suitable smaller size offset inside of it, plus the ring of small fuel tanks.

[borisperrons]

Forgot the N1 design for a while, those conical stages are really a pain to recreate.

In the meantime, I've built the Lunokhod and Luna 17 lander.
 

Spoiler

It's quite nice, but the scale is completely off from the real one... Oh well, let's just say that my kerbals nicked one off the Lavochkin factory.

[QF9E]

13 hours ago, borisperrons said:

In the meantime, I've built the Lunokhod and Luna 17 lander.

I like it! When I tested the challenge I found that building it to scale with stock parts isn't really going to work, especially due to inavailability of suitable wheels. I think mine is more or less to scale but yours is much more faithful to the original. I also really like your lander stage, it's really recognizable.

Spoiler

LK engineering prototype together with a Lunokhod spare

 

As to building N-1: In my test I used fairings to get the conical shape which worked ok but the scale was off. I since made another one by clipping fuel tanks together at an angle. That approach, however, does not give a good outside finish:
 

Spoiler

My new N-1 design prototype. This one is designed to land on Tylo

 

 

[borisperrons]

After a long and painful process, I finally have the N1 built. I used the clipping tanks approach, as I'm not that bothered with the outside appearence.

But first, it's time for the part one of the mission, flying a sexy sexy Proton to its meeting with destiny, and explosions.
Without further ado, here's my Lunokhod replica, brought to you in the latest Imgur production:

A Very Soviet Mission

(cue intro with scantily clad space girls)

A MOSFILM PRODUCTION - APPROVED BY THE STATE COMMITTEE FOR KABOOMS

Edited September 14, 2020 by borisperrons

[QF9E]

5 hours ago, borisperrons said:

Without further ado, here's my Lunokhod replica

Brilliant mission! I really like your Lunokhod replica and its lander, and your blok D stage is a thing of beauty. The addition of the various failed missions gives this a very Soviet feel as well. This bodes well for the N-1 flight, I for one can't wait!

One request though: I would like to see some telemetry as well. Would it be possible to include some pictures with orbital parameters and/or KER readouts?

[borisperrons]

2 hours ago, QF9E said:

The addition of the various failed missions gives this a very Soviet feel as well. This bodes well for the N-1 flight, I for one can't wait!

Yeah, having to trust 30 engines to start flawlessly on liftoff doesn't fill me with a very warm and fuzzy feeling...

2 hours ago, QF9E said:

One request though: I would like to see some telemetry as well. Would it be possible to include some pictures with orbital parameters and/or KER readouts?

Well, yes, that will be no problem for the N1-L3 launch, for this one I haven't actually taken them. I guess I can run a Lunokhod 2 mission if you'd like. Which data are you interested in?

[QF9E]

18 hours ago, borisperrons said:

Well, yes, that will be no problem for the N1-L3 launch, for this one I haven't actually taken them. I guess I can run a Lunokhod 2 mission if you'd like. Which data are you interested in?

I am not going to ask you to do a re-run of Lunokhod just to get the data, that would be a waste of time IMO. But for the N-1 the orbital parameters (as given by KSP in the lower left) would be nice, as well as the speed as given by the navball. I'd also appreciate a few screenshots with orbits from the map view. And if you have it installed, KER readouts of the orbital parameters.

In other words, I'd appreciate it if you'd take a few screenshots with the KSP user interface enabled.

[borisperrons]

And here we are, with the second part of the mission!!!

Again, please take your seats for the new, thrilling, socialism infused space adventure:

Cыра Нет!

(There's no cheese up here!)

A MOSFILM PRODUCTION - APPROVED BY THE STATE COMMITTEE FOR SHENANIGANS

And for this mission, we also have the full telemetry feed:

TELEMETRY FEED - STRONGLY DISAPPROVED BY THE KGB

 

This is my calculated score:

Spoiler

Points:

• Use the Making History DLC: -15 points. A DLC is deemed used if you use at least one part of it in one of your craft. If you have the DLC installed but use none of its parts, you do not incur this penalty.

• Use the Breaking Ground DLC: -15 points

• Launch Lunokhod on a rocket that resembles Proton: +10 points.

• Use hot-staging in at least one stage of the Lunokhod launcher: +10 points. Hot-staging means that you ignite the engines of the next stage a few seconds before lower stage burnout, and decouple after ignition. Soviet rocket engineers liked this technique and used it all the time.

• Put Lunokhod on top of the lander: +5 points.

• Make Lunokhod resemble its real-life counterpart: +10 points

• Make Lunokhod "fold up" during the night: +10 points. The real life Lunokhod closed its lid during the night to minimize heat loss.

• Land Lunokhod on the near side and in daylight: +5 points.

• Drive the rover a set distance from the lander:

  5000+ meters: 20 points.

• Use the rover to find a suitable landing spot and park it there. To determine the suitability of a landing spot, use the slope angle. The slope angle can be obtained from Kerbal Engineering Redux, where it is called "slope":

  1-2 degrees: 15 points

• Launch the crewed mission with 2 crew on board, one of which will land on the Mun. +5 points

• Launch the crewed mission on a rocket that resembles the N-1. I will take particular note of the number and type of engines used. Historically, the N-1 used the same engines on its 1st and 2nd stage and it used lots of them: +15 points.

• Hot-stage all stages of the crewed mission up to reaching Low Kerbin orbit. You only get these points if you hot-stage at least once (so no single stage to orbit): +15 points

• Fire all stages of the crewed mission up to and including the Trans Munar Injection burn exactly once: +15 points. Soviet rocket engineers favoured simple and rugged designs, foregoing restartable engines whenever possible

• Use a free return trajectory: +15 points

• Have a functioning escape system. This was the only component of the historical N1 that was proven to work, repeatedly – sadly, it had ample opportunity to do so. In order to get the points you must perform successful pad abort and in-flight abort tests: +20 points

• Destroy the launch pad, or at least one KSC building, by crashing the rocket into it during the in-flight abort test. During one N1 test flight, the rocket fell back onto the launch pad, resulting in one of the biggest non-nuclear explosions ever: +5 points.

• Launch all crew in the LOK, and transfer crew between the LOK and the LK using EVA: +5 points. The real-life hardware did not include a docking tunnel.

• Don't use the crew's EMU during these EVA. This technology had not been developed at the time: +10 points

• Build the LOK in three parts: an orbital module, and ascent / descent module and a service module: +5 points

• Have the LOK resemble a real-life Soyuz 7K-LOK capsule: +10 points

• Land the LOK descent module on land on Kerbin: +15 points

• Use exactly one drogue chute and one main chute on the LOK: +10 points

• Fire retro-rockets prior to touchdown to land softly (for sufficiently low value of “softly” - Soyuz lands like a brick. If nothing breaks, you're fine): +5 points

• Build the LK in two parts, a descent stage and an ascent stage: +15 points

• Have all descent and ascent engines of the LK in the same stage: +10 points

• Land the LK close to Lunokhod. However, having the LK closer than 20 meters to the Lunokhod at any point during the landing is considered unsafe and will incur a penalty:

  • 50 - 500 meters: +10 points

• Plant a flag on the Mun: +5 points. These points can be scored only once.

• Use the rover to drive your Kerbal to a particularly photogenic or special location on the Mun. The idea is to promote going somewhere interesting, with rugged terrain, but to still find a safe landing spot nearby: +15 points.

• Crash the LK into the Mun (preferably without crew inside) at the end of the mission: +5 points     

Grand total: 215 points

 

Thanks for this challenge! This has been a real fun both designing the crafts, learning more about the missions and flying them in game!

[QF9E]

4 hours ago, borisperrons said:

please take your seats for the new, thrilling, socialism infused space adventure

Brilliant flight! I really liked the accuracy of all your hardware, including the N-1. Shame that you landed somewhat further away from Lunokhod than planned, but I'm sure Alexei did not mind walking for a bit. Also, nicely done with the Blok D disposal maneuver - in my test run I did land almost on top of it! I'll add a leaderboard to the top post and add your score to it.