Historical Space Race

[Scarecrow71]

And just chugging along!

Luna IX

Spoiler

Luna IX was the first spacecraft to survive an impact with and land on the moon, and then send images of the surface of the moon back to Earth.  The landing was accomplished by firing retrorockets and using inflatable balloons/airbags to help cushion the blow.  The soviet rockets pack includes a version of the Luna IX probe that has the inflatable airbags, and so we will use that.

The probe was launched on a Molniya-M 8K78M rocket, which is itself a continued modified version of the R-7 8K72.  The 8K78M had 4 stages, with the fourth stage being a Blok-L designed to push the probe into a highly elliptical orbit before going to the moon.  We know from the launch of Luna II in this challenge that we don’t need the 4^th stage to get to the Moon; Luna II hard-landed with 325 m/s of dV remaining.  We will need to add another stage to make sure we can land soft.  We are also going to add the array of scientific gadgets; this gives us the following rocket:

This is the initial orbit that put Luna IX into LEO before firing for a new Ap of 500,000km.  Although we have the fuel to do so (I believe), I am not going to burn to get to an Ap of 500,000km, instead aiming for a direct intercept and landing on the Mun.

That was actually a bit harder than I thought it would be.  I had to slow down with the rocket, and then jettison the probe from the top of it, inflating the airbag before it hit so it would survive.  But survive it did!

And that completes Luna IX.

[Scarecrow71]

And my first-ever landing on Eve's surface.

Venera III

Spoiler

Venera III was the first probe to impact the surface of another planet.  Launched on a Molniya M, which is itself a continued modification in the R-7 rocket family, the probe was designed to enter the Venusian atmosphere and parachute to the surface.  Unfortunately, contact with the probe was lost on February 15, 1966, likely due to overheating; it is assumed that the probe impacted the surface of Venus on March 1, 1966, 2 weeks after contact was lost.

This mission presents some challenges in that Eve’s atmosphere is extremely unforgiving; craft are known to overheat just by simply entering the atmosphere at the wrong angle or the wrong speed.  So the probe needs to be built to survive re-entry and get past the point where overheating is no longer an issue.  Although it would technically be correct to let the probe explode in the atmosphere from overheating due to, historically, not being able to verify if the probe actually impacted the surface, we want to make sure that this probe does in fact hit the surface of Eve.  And as I’ve never placed anything on the surface of Eve before in this game, this is going to be probably the hardest thing I’ve attempted to date.

There is no Venera III probe in the Soviet rocket pack, so we have to build one from scratch.  It needs to have a heat shield to protect it from the atmospheric effects.  It also needs to be nearly perfectly balanced from top to bottom, lest it tips over during re-entry and burns up.  So we end up with a probe that looks something like this:

The probe is nothing more than one of the Soviet control blocks with some science gadgets and antenna, wrapped in a couple of heat shields.  The shields are designed to decouple/stage at some point after heating effects are finished, and this should be balanced pretty well.  Even if this does flip a bit, the heat shields totally surround the probe, so that would be the last thing to explode anyhow.

I can’t find any flight data on the Venera III other than the inclination of 4.29 degrees.  There is no data to be found on its Earth orbit prior to launching to Venus, so I’m leaving this in LKO at ~100km before launching to Eve.

The initial burn here is in 7 days, and has a Pe of 118km.  So we are going to do the initial burn and see what we get.

So after the initial burn we get a Pe of 3322839m.  That’s not too shabby.  We’ll need a small correction burn to get to ~80km for a Pe, but that will leave us a lot of fuel to use for our descent into the atmosphere.

Before we get that far, let’s discuss how this is going to go.  Again, there isn’t much flight data about what happened when the probe arrived at Venus other than it overheated.  Eve’s atmosphere is very brutal, and you can’t just dive straight to the surface; you need to take it a bit slow or you risk blowing up several km above the surface.  So I’m going to set an initial Pe of 80km, get into orbit, and then take a few revolutions to aerobrake before the final descent.  And again, I’m hoping that the design I’ve got with the probe encased in heat shields will be enough to survive the atmosphere and get to the surface.  Impacting and blowing up on the surface is more than acceptable for this mission…but I gotta get there first.  So, correction burn, and then a couple of shots as I get towards Eve.

And that is what happened historically…or so they guess.  Again, with the probe losing contact 2 weeks before the assumed crash date, we don’t really know what happened.

And that completes Venera III.

[Scarecrow71]

ATV

Spoiler

The Agena Target Vehicle, or ATV, was effectively a cylinder with a probe and a docking port on it used to practice docking maneuvers in LEO.  It was equipped with some RCS capabilities for attitude control, but was primarily just a tube with some computer components.  It was launched atop an Atlas booster 1^st stage, with an Agena D 2^nd stage to put the bus into orbit.  This is derived from the Titan rocket, and in fact it was mandated by Lockheed that the Agena D be fully compatible with the Titan model.

As stated multiples time before, there are no Agena components in any of the parts packs I’ve downloaded.  But we can in fact model one (closely) based on the parts we do have access to.  So we end up with something like the following in the VAB:

The circular orbit established for the ATV was 298km…but no inclination data is available.  So I set the inclination to 0 and circularized at 298km.  You’ll notice that I left the fuel tank and engine on the bus.  Although I did over-engineer this, having the fuel tank gives me the option of moving the bus to the crewed docking module if I need to.

Gemini VIII

Spoiler

The second half of this mission, Gemini VIII was the first spacecraft to using docking maneuvers successfully in space.  It was a 2-man crewed module launched in a 270km AP / 261km Pe orbit with an inclination of 28.9 degrees, sitting atop a Titan II GLV rocket.  We nearly ran out of fuel during Gemini VI-A/Gemini VII, so we have to alter the rocket and command module to get this mission done.

I’m a bit short on the Ap, but only by 1km or so.  Now to target the ATV, transfer, and dock.

And time to bring these guys home.

I sent Bill on EVA after splashdown to repack the chutes.  Because I can. 

And that completes Gemini VIII / ATV.

[Scarecrow71]

Luna X

Spoiler

Quite possibly the easiest launch to date.  Luna X has the distinction of being the first artificial satellite to orbit the Moon.  The Soviets used Luna X to do extensive research on the Moon, such as its gravity and the nature of the rocks/soil.  It was launched on yet another Molniya 8K78, which was the rocket of choice for the Soviets during the space race.  We can continue to use the same configuration that we’ve been using, except we are going to add all of the science gadgets we can to this satellite.  Which means we end up with this:

The rocket historically had an orbit of 1000k Ap x 350km Pe, at an inclination of 71.9 degrees.  We may need a mid-course correction or two to hit that inclination, but we will, hopefully, get close.  And away we go.

I like that last shot, with Kerbin and the Mun both there.  I wanted to get a shot with Minmus too, but the inclination on this orbit is just too much to do that.

I left the fuel tank and engine on the probe...because I was too stupid to put a decoupler on before launch.  Not that it matters; Luna X was in orbit of the moon less than 2 months, which means I will be cleaning this up before we get to the 1970s anyhow.

And that completes Luna X.

[Scarecrow71]

It's been a couple of hot minutes since I worked on this.  I got distracted last week by multiple things in KSP, not the least of which is my current career save where I'm learning ISRU.

Gemini XI / ATV

Spoiler

This is the first spacecraft to achieve a direct-ascent rendezvous with an object already in LEO; in this case, it rendezvoused with the Agena Target Vehicle at an orbit of 298km directly from launch.  After docking with the ATV, it then achieved a (at the time) record-high Ap of 1368 km.

A direct-ascent launch, by definition, is a launch that achieves a rendezvous with a target object already in orbit in the span of 1 orbit after launch.  This means that Gemini XI had to launch, get in to LEO, and then rendezvous with ATV at a height of 298km by the time it completed 1 orbit around Earth.  So in this case, we have to get to 298km and within a rendezvous distance of less than 1 km with ATV in the span of 1 orbit around Kerbin.

The rocket bore all the same similarities to the previous Gemini missions, with a 2-person command module capable of docking sitting atop a Titan II GLV.  We will have to modify the rocket we used for Gemini VIII; we nearly ran out of fuel on that one with a simple orbit and rendezvous, and we do not want to have that happen.  We also need to modify the command module to swap out the Octans docking port for the Clamp-o-Tron Jr.  This means we end up with the following:

All that I did here was to add the Clamp-o-Tron Jr.  After several design considerations, I realized that I still have 2521 m/s of dV on the ATV in orbit, and I can transfer fuel as needed once docked.  I can use the fuel from the ATV to achieve the higher orbit, and then, if necessary, use that fuel to get the command module back on the ground.  So here we go.

We set the ATV as the target for launch, and I set the target launch orbit to be 295km.  You can see that the launch-to-rendezvous timer is at 27 minutes and change here.  If we let the autopilot take over, we should get a decent launch and almost immediate rendezvous with ATV.  Why 295km?  Well, the general rule of thumb is that you want your initial orbit to be less than, or closer to the surface of the planet, than your target.  This helps save on dV…at least in theory; I usually mess up several times, so I’m not sure I’m saving all that much.

You can see here that we have achieved a near-rendezvous immediately upon circularization.  We will still need to actually rendezvous and orbit, and we’ve got the span of 1 orbit to do so.  According to the data in the upper-left corner, our orbital period is 47m 10.37s, and we have just passed Ap.  So knowing our current position, we have until just after our next Ap to rendezvous.  So let’s start setting some maneuver nodes to do that and dock.

And we achieved rendezvous and docking prior to the next Ap, which is in 13 minutes and change.  And you can see by the time in the upper-left corner that we are only 42 minutes since launch, so we completed the direct-ascent.  Now we simply have to adjust our Ap to 1368 km, and then get Jeb and Bill home safely.  And I don’t believe that the ATV is needed any longer, so we’re taking all of its fuel too.

Unfortunately, Ap is on the dark side of the planet.  And I overshot it by 7km, which I don’t think is a big deal.  Let’s get the boys home.

With MechJeb, that’s not all that difficult.  However, it’s an important tactic/strategy to use if you are trying to conserve fuel…or if you are running out and forgot to do ISRU.

And that completes Gemini XI / ATV.

[Scarecrow71]

Venera IV

Spoiler

Venera IV was the first spacecraft/probe to do in-situ atmospheric analysis on another planet.  In this case, it was the dense, heavy atmosphere of Venus.  The craft was designed as a lander, capable of deploying a parachute in the atmosphere and then hitting the surface, transmitting data back to the mothership which would, in turn, send the data back to Earth.  Unfortunately, the telemetry calculations during descent were off by no less than 20km, so the probe (it is assumed) crashed into the surface instead of landing.  It is unknown if the lander survived as communications with it were lost while it was still (presumed to be) in the middle atmosphere.

In order to do the atmospheric analysis, I have to switch to Sandbox mode for this launch; I am nowhere near the amount of Science points required to unlock the Scanning Tech node, which includes the Atmospheric Fluid Spectro-Variometer.  And because of this, I will be unable to actually collect any actual science points; I may have to make the switch permanently to Sandbox mode for this challenge.

We can use the same rocket we used for Venera III, modifying the probe so it has the right components on it per the historical model:

\

I ended up making several correction burns…and I still couldn’t get Pe on the light side of the planet.  I need to really work on that because I am SICK of having Pe always be on the dark side.  Anyhow, the first shot of Eve is about 2 hours out from Pe, with the following shots being obtaining orbit and then reducing Pe to the point where I hopefully will hit the atmosphere on the light side.  Gotta take 1 atmospheric reading before exploding, too.

I’m under 90km, and it is semi-light enough for that shot.  Still need to work on getting on the right side of the damned planet.

Got it!  And as soon as I got the screen capture, I started blowing up.

It was literally less than 10 seconds from the time I captured the atmospheric analysis to catastrophic failure.  Thank god for quick fingers!

And that completes Venera IV.

[Scarecrow71]

Kosmos 186 / Kosmos 188

Spoiler

These two unmanned spacecraft are the first two spacecraft in history to be docked remotely.  That is, they are effectively drones that were remote-controlled from the surface and were mechanically docked in space.  Kosmos 186 was the active satellite, while Kosmos 188 was the passive target.  The decision to use unmanned craft to attempt docking came after the lethal outcomes for both Soyuz I (cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov was killed when the parachute failed to deploy during descent) and Apollo I (astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee were all killed during a cabin fire on the launchpad); the Soviets decided not to risk any more lives until they were certain docking could be done on a consistent basis.

It is interesting to note that the docking was fully mechanical, but not electrical.  That is, while the docking clamps worked and the craft were secured to one another, no electricity flowed between them; neither craft could rely upon the electricity of the other in the event of a failure of any kind.  Also of note is that Kosmos 186 was returned safely to the ground, while Kosmos 188 had a malfunction that caused its self-destruct mechanism to fire, preventing it from returning to Earth.

The satellites are identical to one another, basically being docking ports atop a drone-controlled fuel tank and engine.  There were solar panels attached radially, antenna to receive commands, and parachutes for their return.  Again, Kosmos 188 never came back to Earth, but we still need to account for the weight of the parachutes as they did exist on the craft historically.  And although Kosmos 186 was the active vehicle, we will include monopropellant and RCS thrusters on both craft:

The drones were launched on Soyuz 11A511 rocket, which is a continuation of the R-7 line of rockets.  It is essentially a Molniya rocket with only 2 stages designed to carry payload to LEO.  So we end up with the following:

Kosmos 186 was launched first into a 212km Ap/172km Pe orbit with an inclination of 51.7 degrees; Kosmos 188 was launched 3 days later into a 247km Ap/180km Pe orbit with an inclination of 51.7 degrees.  As the two craft are identical, I will not show shots from the VAB and launchpad for each of them.  I will show shots in orbit of both, however.

Kosmos 186 in orbit:

Kosmos 188 in orbit:

And now we rendezvous and dock, with Kosmos 186 as the active vehicle.

 

Nice shot there with the Mun in the background.  The Mun has a habit of photo-bombing my shots.  Anyhow, I removed the second stage tank from Kosmos 186 prior to docking; it was nothing but dead weight after matching velocities.

And now to put Kosmos 186 on the ground and recover it.  And hopefully not burn up as I have no heat shields on this thing.

And she survived re-entry.  All of her.  Wow.

And that completes Kosmos 186 / Kosmos 188.

[Scarecrow71]

Zond V

Spoiler

This uncrewed satellite was the first capsule to hold living organisms, send them to the moon, and recover them after re-entry to the Earth.  The capsule originally held a couple of tortoises, some fruit fly eggs, and plants.  While the capsule didn’t orbit the moon, it did a fly-by at 1950km and then returned to the Earth; the biological specimens inside the craft did in fact survive, and all were alive when the capsule was opened 4 days after retrieval.

The capsule was launched atop a Proton-K, a 3-stage rocket designed for circumlunar missions.  The first stage used 6 RD-253 engines, while the second stage used 4 RD-210 engines; the third stage was a single RD-212 and 4 vernier engines.  The capsule itself had a single Blok-D that allowed for transfer to the moon, as well as minor course corrections if needed.  We have seen that KSP’s rocket configurations end up being far more powerful than what was needed historically; this is due, in part, to the difference in atmospheric altitudes (Earth’s atmosphere reaches 100km while Kerbin is only at 70km), as well as gravity effects on liftoff.  This also does not take into account Kerbin’s relatively small SOI, or the relative gravities of its 2 moons.  Anyhow, we end up with the following in the VAB:

The rocket achieved LEO of 282km Ap x 202km Pe at an inclination of 51.83 degrees, followed by a fly-by of the moon at a distance of 1950000km.  And let’s see how this thing flies now.

She looks nice in orbit.  Hopefully I’ve got enough fuel left to transfer and return.  On that topic, 1950km is a long way away from the Mun, and with its low SOI it may not be possible to circle and return at that distance.

That’s one ugly transfer.  Any farther out for a Mun Pe and I end up on an escape trajectory, which I don’t want.  So here goes!

So, the capsule is coming down, parachute deployed…and I’m at 51.9 m/s.  Yeah, gonna have to bail on this one to come in safely.

Interestingly enough, the capsule SURVIVED IMPACT.  So bailing wasn’t necessary in this case.  I count this as a win!

Zond V is complete.

[jinnantonix]

Venera 1
 

 

 

[Scarecrow71]

Apollo VIII

Spoiler

Apollo VIII was the first crewed spacecraft to leave LEO, and the Earth’s SOI, and head for and orbit another celestial body.  In this case, the craft went to and orbited the moon, and then returned safely to Earth.  This craft was also the first craft to take a photo of what is known as an Earthrise as it orbited the moon, the Earth rising over the lunar landscape in much the same way we see the Moon rise up over the horizon here on Earth.

The command module itself sat 3 crew members, and was powered by a single AJ10-137 liquid fuel engine.  It was outfitted with 4 parachutes for return to Earth (2 drogues and 2 normal chutes), and included an ablative heat shield for dealing with the atmospheric effects of re-entry.

The CSM used for Apollo 8, instead of having the launch escape assembly, included a docking port on the tip of the cone.  The craft was originally going to be used to test lunar docking procedures in LEO, but was decided rather late that it would instead be sent to lunar orbit.  Hence, the docking port.

The module was launched atop a 3-stage Saturn V SA-503 rocket:

1. Launch stage, which was powered by 5 Rocketdyne F-1 liquid fuel engines (6770 kN of thrust at sea level, each)
2. Intermediate stage, which was powered by 5 Rocketdyne J-2 liquid fuel engines (486.2 kN of thrust at sea level, each)
3. Final stage, which was powered by 1 Rocketdyne J-2 liquid fuel engine (1033.1 kN of thrust in a vacuum)

Although there are many parts packs available for download, I have not yet found one that includes a decent non-stock version of the Saturn V rocket.  So we end up putting the following together out of stock parts:

This looks WAY over-engineered, probably due to the multiple Vector engines in the middle and upper stages.  But, let’s launch this thing and see what happens here.

She still has 3356 m/s in the third stage, and she’s in LKO at the prescribed Ap/Pe/inclination.  Anyhow, let’s go to the Mun.

And if the image isn't enough, here's some video to keep you happy.

Wonderful!  Not let’s get the crew home, shall we?

And splashdown in the ocean, just like in real life.  I ended up jettisoning ~1800 m/s of dV, which tells me I can probably do some editing of the Saturn V rocket I created for future missions.

And that completes Apollo VIII.