Launch Escape System

[gc1ceo]

I'm looking to design a launch escape system in somewhat keeping with the reality of the Apollo escape systems, unfortunately the stock parts don't seem to exist to make a practical Mercury escape tower system. Any suggestions? I know how to use the action group but most of my escape systems seem to just be a matter of too much thrust for the command module to escape until the SRBs die out on their own and it tumbles away.

[SRV Ron]

The Nova Punch mod has a functioning Apollo style escape tower that fits on the capsule and can be jettisoned if not needed during flight. It includes three Apollo style craft as examples of it's use.

[Johnno]

Cubic octostruts (or an I-beam or girder) + sepratrons should do the trick. Toss on enough of them and angle one (or a few) so that they give your pod enough sideways movement to clear your launcher.

Here's one I made for a Apollo style challenge:

[rryy]

A bunch of the small Oscar-B fuel tanks, and four of the white radial engines rotated inwards (press "E" twice) and angled out a bit should be good. It gets a higher TWR than using sepratrons.

[RoboRay]

I use the NovaPunch LES tower, but there is also one in KSPX.

You can kludge an LES tower together with stock parts, but they do not offer realistic performance (the acceleration provided tends to be uselessly low) unless you significantly increase the part-count of your launch-vehicle with a ton Seperatrons. This thing peaks at 7 Gs hauling a three-man pod!

Edited August 6, 2013 by RoboRay

[capi3101]

I had success using a stack decoupler, a modular girder adapter and twelve Seperatrons as an abort tower . You have to be sure to aim the decoupler towards the command pod (so that it separates with the rest of the abort tower if you don't need it and want to jettison it) and give a little bit of an angle (5 degrees) to each Seperatron away from the adapter. You then set up an action group that fires off all twelve Seperatrons at once and includes the decoupler that's holding the command pod to the rest of the stack (not the one that's holding the abort tower to the command pod). Push the button and off it goes. I find that having another action group that subsequently deploys your command pod's chutes helpful after an abort...otherwise you got to stage, stage, stage until they pop.

I have one of these on my Apollo-style rocket; I set it up to jettison after the second stage lights, just like Apollo.

VERY IMPORTANT that you DON'T set the chutes up to deploy when the abort tower fires...the chutes are likely to just disappear if you do, leaving your command pod to lithobrake later.

[gc1ceo]

Ok I've followed a very simple design similar to Johnno's design, it seems to work somewhat but now my next step is in being able to jettison the tower, my current is using the Mk. 1 pod with a parachute on top and there isn't a way to put a decoupler or something on top of that to separate the tower. Any ideas?

[RoboRay]

Ok I've followed a very simple design similar to Johnno's design, it seems to work somewhat but now my next step is in being able to jettison the tower, my current is using the Mk. 1 pod with a parachute on top and there isn't a way to put a decoupler or something on top of that to separate the tower. Any ideas?

You actually can do this, too, if you enable Part Clipping in the Debug Menu (or just play with it until the parts clip on their own).

Put a little square truss piece on top of your capsule, put a decoupler on top, and build you tower on that, then install (by clipping) the parachute over the square truss, so they occupy the same space.

Jettison the tower by decoupling it (and firing its motors) during the ascent when you no longer need it, which exposes your parachute.

Alternately, NovaPunch has stackable parachutes. They're flat on top, with another node that you can attach parts to without needing part clipping.

[Dkmdlb]

Docking port on the top of the command module for docking. Invert another docking port on top of that. Drop a girder on top of that and then stick 12 seperatrons using 4 times symmetry 3 times at the top. Rotate them a bit so they are angled out when they fire.

Set up the abort action group to cut all engines, decouple command module from the rocket, and fire all seperatrons.

Set up the jettison launch escape tower action group to decouple only the tower and fire only 4 of the seperatrons (not all 12 or else it might go into some sort of weird orbit. You want to eject it while still sub-orbital).

Use radial chutes.

[gc1ceo]

I was able to make something that isn't exactly pretty but it does the trick and lets me keep my non-radial chute, mind you this is a fairly small craft I'll post pictures once I have finalized it. This one is supposed to model Friendship 7's capabilities while avoiding things like atomic engines, solar panels, etc.