[0.20.X] KerbX - A SpaceX analogue mod

[CERVERUS]

I like your idea CERVERUS. You could theoretically use the real cargo Dragon in this manner, as a sort of last ditch space life raft (though I can't imagine you would actually survive the trip without being tightly strapped in). I'll make the docking port usable as a hatch for EVA's and let up to 3 Kerbals stow away inside but I won't work on an IVA scene until after everything else is done; Falcon 9 v1.1 + Heavy, Dragon drogues and chutes and graphics revamp.

I am happy because you like this suggestion,about hatch!

I wait,and i believe a lot of users,an update of Dragon Pod!

Thanks about you share your mods with us!

Edited May 27, 2013 by CERVERUS

[Razorcane]

I've tried to upload the craft files twice but SpacePort does not seem to want to process it. I'll keep trying.

That's strange. Hopefully they'll get it fixed soon. Just out of curiosity, why did you split the .craft files from the actual KerbX release?

[naloxone]

Is there a how-to assembly instruction for this pack that I'm not seeing?

[tjmick1992]

tjmick1992

That's an acurate interior actually.

Here's a mockup dragon rider interior from Dragon's wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Interior_of_Dragon_crew_mock-up.jpg

Edit: All it needs is a lil more color, lol.

More color and the wall texture.

But your right

[daver4470]

I wasn't going to weigh in on this until I could support my statements with links and such.... but I think you've misunderstood Musk's comments regarding the crewed Dragon, Borklund. The Dragon capsule isn't going to change (externally) for its Dragon Rider man-rated version. From SpaceX's website:

To ensure a rapid transition from cargo to crew capability, the cargo and crew configurations of Dragon are almost identical, with the exception of the crew escape system, the life support system and onboard controls that allow the crew to take over control from the flight computer when needed. This focus on commonality minimizes the design effort and simplifies the human rating process, allowing systems critical to Dragon crew safety and space station safety to be fully tested on unmanned demonstration flights and cargo resupply missions

For cargo launches the inside of the spacecraft is outfitted with a modular cargo rack system designed to accommodate pressurized cargo in standard sizes and form factors. For crewed launches, the interior is outfitted with crew couches, controls with manual override capability and upgraded life-support.

Here's the link.

So your package is already, as is, about 95% of the manned Dragon Rider. The crew escape system isn't a separate stack item -- NASA has approved an integrated CES that will use the Dragon Rider's upgraded thrusters to separate the manned capsule on an abort. So no additional design needed. The only overt difference between your cargo Dragon and the eventual manned Dragon will be... the interior. And, possibly, a different trunk -- I haven't found anything from SpaceX on that topic. I'd assume that they'd use the small trunk, either as-is or with changes to incorporate additional equipment relating to the man-rated Dragon. I doubt that the large trunk will be used -- I'd assume that any cargo carrying capacity will be used up by the increased weight (presumably) of the man-rated Dragon itself.

CBBP's "Dragon Rider" is actually a version of what will be the Dragon 2, with the 8 high-ISP thrusters and landing legs that will permit a controlled soft landing on land, that CBBP modeled on the current Dragon capsule. (The Dragon Rider, thanks to its upgraded thrusters, should also be able to land on land, but will lack legs.) The Dragon 2 is the redesigned capsule that Musk is talking about, and that's the design that has not been released yet.

But the bottom line is that the Dragon Rider that will seat 7 and be used (at least initially) to ferry astronauts to the ISS will look, more or less, exactly like your model, so you really don't need to wait around for the Dragon 2 design.

Crew that baby!!!!!!

Edited May 29, 2013 by daver4470

[Netris]

Is there a how-to assembly instruction for this pack that I'm not seeing?

It's easy to assemble, you don't need instructions. Just put the first stage on the first stage and the second on the second.

[Zaran]

Crew that baby!!!!!!

I am going to wait and see what the Dragon reveal shows us later this year, no point rushing work when it could be totally different.

[Nibb31]

SpaceX has already revealed what the Dragon Rider will look like. Basically, it's a cargo Dragon with side-mounted Super Draco thrusters for launch abort and landing and the SIMAC docking ring. This picture was from only a few months ago, and it is consistent with the mockup that was presented last year:

It can't be much different from these pics and the mockup because most of it has been approved by NASA. Any major changes at this stage would make them lose the COTS competition.

[Archer]

Does anyone recall the CFG edit to make the Falcon 9 First Stage radially attachable? I want to make a stand-in Falcon Heavy, but I forgot to make that edit in the new version.

[Kerbal01]

Use the rockomax jumbo 64s(fuel tank 3-2) attach rules instead

[The Stinger]

SpaceX has already revealed what the Dragon Rider will look like. Basically, it's a cargo Dragon with side-mounted Super Draco thrusters for launch abort and landing and the SIMAC docking ring. This picture was from only a few months ago, and it is consistent with the mockup that was presented last year:

It can't be much different from these pics and the mockup because most of it has been approved by NASA. Any major changes at this stage would make them lose the COTS competition.

That's an artist impression of what the Dragon Rider might look like and it's at least 1,5 years old.

So it might have the same basic shape, but it might look very different.

[Nibb31]

As I said, I don't see why the shape would be any different. It would have to go through all the CCDev 1 and 2 review cycles again if they changed anything fundamental about the design.

[daver4470]

I strongly think some of you guys are really overreaching on what Musk has said about Dragon Rider / Dragon 2.0. Yes, he has said that Dragon 2.0 will "look very different". That does not mean it will BE very different from the current Dragon capsule. He could paint it purple and orange with a giant Puff the Magic Dragon on the side, and (a) I would be delighted beyond measure and ( it would look very different than the current Dragon.

But will it be a fundamentally different craft than the current Dragon? If it is, then I've greatly misjudged Elon Musk. Because it means he's turning down a revenue stream of $140m per flight that he could be realizing within about 2 years tops by man-rating the existing Dragon in favor of spending another 6-8 years qualifying a new capsule design on his own nickel. That's just bad business.

Dragon 2 will be cosmetically different, but won't be significantly changed from Dragon 1.0. Any other outcome makes very little sense for SpaceX.

[Lunniy Korabl]

Yeah, my interpretation was that the side-mounted super draco thrusters are what will make this thing look very different from the cargo version. We've already seen this in recent mockups. That, and a proper docking mechanism. The rest is just marketing hype.

Edited May 30, 2013 by Lunniy Korabl

[Archer]

Use the rockomax jumbo 64s(fuel tank 3-2) attach rules instead

Thank you, I hadn't thought of that (clearly).

[Borklund]

Craft files are now uploaded; get them here!

Regarding crew Dragon/DragonRider/Dragon 2.0: As far as I can remember (can't pull the exact moment from the youtube video I remember this from), Elon Musk has said that the next version of Dragon, the crewed one, is going to be very different from the current Dragon. I believe he specifically mentioned the shape and the fact that for Dragon they didn't know what they were doing, so they went with a common and proven pod shape, but 2.0 is going to look positively alien (I believe that alien is the exact word he used). While Elon Musk has been known to exaggerate this is enough for me to not put any work into replicating the DragonRider mockup with the nose-looking SuperDraco mounts. If this is what you want then I'm sorry, but it's not going to be offered as part of KerbX. I will wait for the new Dragon to be unveiled later this year. We still have a lot of work to do on the current Dragon and Falcon 9 v1.1 + Heavy.

Is there a how-to assembly instruction for this pack that I'm not seeing?

Sorry, I forgot to include them in the SpacePort upload but they're there now; see the how to use tab on SpacePort for assembly instructions. The formatting is bad and I can't get SpacePort to let me use paragraphs in that part. When oh when are they going to abort the omnishambles that is SpacePort...

Does anyone recall the CFG edit to make the Falcon 9 First Stage radially attachable? I want to make a stand-in Falcon Heavy, but I forgot to make that edit in the new version.

attachRules = 1,1,1,1,0

and

node_attach = 1.25, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1

[Guest]

Well, there's always CBBPs version of Dragon, he did a pretty accurate version of the mock-up.

[daver4470]

Bork: Here's exactly what Musk said, from a transcription of the 3/27 press teleconference about the last Dragon mission (I'm also including some stuff he said about the Falcon 9 v1.1, which might be helpful for you on the Falcon front):

(Question about check valves and how Falcon 9 v1.1 is different from Falcon 9.)

It was not a manufacturing tolerance issue, it was actually a tiny design revision change from a supplier. The supplier made some mistakes there, and we didn't catch those mistakes. Sort of a dual responsibility. We do actually run the system through pressurization checks, but we didn't previously run them through the high pressure checks. We do a low pressure functionality check, but not a high pressure functionality check. Now we've changed the procedure to do a high pressure functionality check and, obviously, both us and the supplier are now extremely sensitive to even the tiny nuanced changes that we're talking about here. The thing that was kind of interesting was that the check valve didn't get stuck if you did these low pressure functionality checks and we didn't expect there to be any difference at the high pressure levels. That was clearly a mistake and we'll make sure we don't repeat that in the future. This is definitely a learning process. Literally, if you looked at the valve you'd have to use a magnifying glass to even see the difference.

On the rocket side, the next version of Falcon 9 is certainly a meaningful upgrade. It's a vehicle that has about 60% to 70% more capability than the current, or the old, version of Falcon 9. We've really improved the structural efficiency, engine efficiency, the thrust is about 60% greater, and we've also improved the redundancy on the vehicle. We're now moving to a full triple redundant system on the Falcon 9, and also improving the engine to engine protection on the first stage, and the engine to stage protection. As people know, we had an engine go out on us in flight 4 of Falcon 9. The mission completed successfully, but we had an engine go out on us. Proving that we can lose an engine and complete the mission, which is what we always said we could do, but looking at taking that as a lesson and saying, well, how can we even improve the engine protection cell? Going into the next version of Falcon 9 we've made it even more robust. The increased capability of the rocket would mean that we could actually lose an engine right after liftoff and still complete the mission. Still have enough capability to complete the mission. So, I think, there's a number of improvements across the board, in structures, avionics, engines and then, as I said, this version is really designed to be able to have the first stage come back - boost back to launch site, deploy landing gear and actually land propulsively. But it will take at least a year I think, for us to get that right, and there will be many losses of stage between now and then.

Sorry, I should also mention Dragon version 2. So, there are the upgrades to the rocket, which are more proximate, and then there are some minor upgrades to Dragon which Gwynne was referring to, and then there's Dragon version 2 which will be a substantial upgrade. That version of Dragon will be capable of landing propulsively on land. That's going to be a really quite a significant upgrade. The water landings, in the long term, should be a thing of the past, and allow us to do missions with a more rapid tempo, without having to marshal a bunch of ships.

(Question on Dragon version 2 on what upgrades make it possible to land propulsively)

I don't want to jump the gun too much on a future unveiling. We want to work with NASA on that unveiling because I think it would be kind-of a fun thing for the public to see the new version, kind-of up close. It is quite a significant upgrade. There are very powerful thruster pods, side-mounted thruster pods, on the new version of Dragon and quite big windows as well for astronauts to see out. There's legs that pop out the bottom. "It looks like a real alien spaceship", if you will. We started off landing in water because that was kind of the easiest thing to do. We didn't really know what we were doing, honestly, at the beginning. I think we're getting better, but we didn't want to take any unnecessary risks, but now we want to really try to push the envelope and see if we can take the technology to where it hasn't been before.

(When will be the unveiling?)

Hopefully later this year. We have to figure out the exact timing, but hopefully later this year.

EDIT: And I do use CBBP's Dragon Rider. But Borklund's Dragon is much prettier and properly scaled!

Edited May 30, 2013 by daver4470

[Kerbal01]

i made a Accurate copy of the F9H using this parts pack with some .cfg edits and one part from the LazTek Spacex Pack that i updated to .20.2 to decuple the LFBs, if anyone wants it PM me

Edited June 4, 2013 by DarthVader

[Borklund]

Hello,

I'm no longer going to be working on KerbX. I've largely lost interest in 3d modelling and modding KSP and more importantly I am and will continue to be busy with school, work and other stuff for the forseeable future. That said, I will not rule out resuming work on KerbX if I find the time and energy in the future. Therefore I will not release the existing assets for other people to pick up where I left off. I've asked the moderators to close this thread so if you have any questions you should send me a PM. Thanks to everyone who liked the mod and special thanks to The Stinger for helping me out; could not have done it without you buddy.

[Ted]

Locked at OP's request.