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Realistic Solar System Crafts - MEGATHREAD

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BritOpsGaming

BritOpsGaming

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Your mistaken, this thread is for craft made for RSS granted but because of the realism overhaul mod which changes stats and allows for some part mods to be used for stand ins for engines, fuel tanks and other such items meaning that you would have to get the correct mods to make the craft work as RSS only re-scales the celestial bodies. This is also a showcase thread and the main post says that you can share you're craft files but does not imply you have to. There is also another thread which requires craft files to be uploaded which is the .24.2 Realism Overhaul Craft Repository. What I am not trying to do is discourage the sharing of crafts but I am just saying that the first post did not specifically mention that you had to put craft files of the crafts you are showcasing.

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Comet Tail

Comet Tail

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Whelp, this is my first time posting a ship design here. Here goes.

So, context:

I'm using realism overhaul, along with a boatload of other mods so numerous I've lost track and can't really be bothered to look them all up. Sooo... Sharing the craft file might not be so practical. I'll do it if asked, but I'll be surprised if it works on your setup. Scratch that, I added a list of mods on the bottom. It'll be a bit of a process to get this working but I'll work through it if anyone's interested in downloading this craft once I'm finished with its final tweaks. I'll also include a little guide on how to use it XD

But here's the mission: I'm landing on Mars, the Galilean moons of the Jovian system, and Titan, all in one mission. The Galilean moons are all similar enough that I decided to use one lander for all of them - I've named, appropriately, the Galileo. That way, I don't have to haul around the dry mass of a lander for each of them - cutting my mass requirements way down. Further inspection showed that taking off from Mars was also close enough in Delta-Vee requirements that I could do that with the same lander, too! (Powered descent + Ascent from Galilean moon = ~ Ascent from Mars). So what I have then, is this:

ne1AX45.png

Since I'll be hauling him all around the Solar System, I decided to go with Hydrolox propellant to cut mass. Hydrogen boils off, yes, but with the right specialized tanks you can actually make that go down to zero (Read: I hacked Realfuels so that LH2 and LOX don't boiloff at all when in a Service Module tank, to simulate this technology). It would doubtlessly require a very large and heavy tank (unsuitable for a small craft such as a lander), so I've decided that for the transportation, all the cryogens (LOX and LH2) will be stored in large Zero Boil-Off (ZBO) tanks on the mothership, then the various crafts can be fuelled up right before they perform their various missions (which max at about a month).

///

A quick overview of the other vehicles that will be on this mission:

The mothership will carry the Crew Excursion Shuttle (CES) Galileo, the Shuttle Transportation Vehicle (STV) Dragonfire, and Titan Lander (cool, final name pending for that one). Oh, and the Mothership I've decided to name the InterPlanetary Vehicle (IPV) Harmony.

So, IPV Harmony: Mothership [VASIMR thruster, Fission powerplants]

CES Galileo: Lander for Mars, and Galilean moons. [Hydrolox MPS, Aerizone+N2O4 RCS/OMS, and RTG power]

STV Dragonfire: The Harmony will enter orbit over Mars and Callisto, so the Galileo can directly undock for those missions. For Ganymede, Europa, and Io, however, I decided it would save mass to use a tug to carry the Galileo from Callisto orbit to the other Galilean moons and back; that way I don't have to haul the Titan Lander, large habitat modules, heat shields, nuclear powerplants, etc. that are hard-mounted on the Harmony around the entire Jovian system. [NERVA-NTR MPS, Aerizone+N204 RCS/OMS, and RTG power]

Titan Lander: For Titan, of course. [Hydrolox MPS, Aerizone+N2O4 RCS/OMS, and RTG power]

///

I've mentioned all these other craft because they influence Galileo's design. Galileo, for example, has the omni antenna (500km) by default, but also has a long-range antenna (I needed 2 Gm or so, but the closest I could get that was enough was 250!) for direct communication to the Mothership Harmony AND a medium-range antenna for communication to the STV Dragonfire (which will remain in orbit at 100 km, just like the Apollo CSM). Dragonfire and Harmony will also be in communication. This way, all three vessels will have comms, so if any of the links break, they will still all be connected unless a second one breaks (and even then, two can still be connected). For even further safety/redundancy, the Dragonfire will carry a single occupant Apollo-style for the Io and Europa missions.

So now that I've explained the circumstances around the craft, and what it needs to do and such, without further adeu, the craft itself!

JxawPRY.jpg

* I hacked the various engine configs on the RL-10 to make myself the fictional "C-4" engine (eheheheh). It's identical to the B-2, except it's maximum thrust is only about 65 kN instead of 111, and it can throttle down to about 12%, as per a study done by NASA. This gives me the ability to land on the various places it needs to land on.

** As for the EM Shielding and radiation and all?... That's not simulated in the game at all :P I just decided to include that for realisms' sake, and the EM generator is just a 235 kg procedural structural element.

*** Goldfinger assembly is part of the STV Dragonfire. It will go to Mars without it, it will go to Callisto and Ganymede with the Goldfinger still on the Dragonfire, but when it undocks in orbit over Europa and Io, the Goldfinger will undock from the Dragonfire, so that it remains attached to Galileo while Galileo goes and lands on Io and Europa.

I had a long conversation with an old friend of mine over Facebook about measures I'd need to take against radiation shielding (If I had a mod that necessitated that. I'm just such a stickler for realism :P ), and I took some screenshots of this WIP to show him the results of our conversations; the Goldfinger assembly and EM Shield. Then I got carried away and made all this. Maybe I'll do something similar for the other crafts of this mission. Certainly the IPV Harmony (Mothership) will deserve a nice post about it! Anyways, enjoy. Be sure to give me some rep points if you likey, hehe. :D

Oh, and PS, yes, this craft isn't technically *finished*. I'm still testing it on ascent/descent over the various Galilean moons. The calculations I did are only approximations, and I found I massively over-estimated my delta-vee requirements, so I cut them back by a lot, and now I'm just making sure I didn't cut them back by too much. The only thing that'll change from here, though, is the tank size if anything. The thrust on the RL-10C-4 is a wide enough range that the small changes I make won't necessitate a change in it, and, I probably won't even need to change the size of the Hydrolox tanks at all, seeing as my most delta-vee intense mission (Io) doesn't even need the main tank full if the Goldfinger is full (in fact, if the main tank and Goldfinger are both full, then it has too much weight for the single RL-10C-4 engine to land it, and if I used two of the RL-10B-2's, it produces too much thrust. The main purpose of the Goldfinger isn't to add more Delta-vee, though it does add a little more, but its main purpose is to move a lot of the Hydrolox storage into a position that provides radiation shielding for the crew (X-rays in specific), instead of keeping it in the main tank where it doesn't block as much. And I can't shrink the main tanks because it needs those full to take off from Mars, where for aerodynamic reasons it can't have the Goldfinger attached. Yeah, it's a bit inefficient, but still much better than carrying around an entire extra lander).

Oh, and I almost forgot, stats:

With Mars Stage:

Mars Stage gives 664 m/s (vacuum)

636 kN - 60 kN (center RL-10B-2 engine is cut off for final moments of descent).

Total mass with full Mars stage: 48 tons.

Galileo alone:

~5,000 m/s

510.4 kN - 7.5 kN (4 outboard engines cut off, landing engine at minimum throttle)

Wet mass: 33.8 tons. 10.5 tons without hydrolox. 9.3 tons without hydrolox or OMS/RCS propellant (Aerizone+N2O4).

Galileo in Io configuration (Goldfinger assembly attached and full, but main tanks are not full) :

~5,500 m/s

Wet mass: 39.4 tons. 11.3 tons without hydrolox. 10.1 tons without hydrolox or OMS/RCS propellant.

You'll get to see this baby in action when she's finished and I go to post about my Grand Tour adventure in full ;)

EDIT:

Okay, here's some of the mods this uses off the top of my head:

*Realism Overhaul (and all its required mods)

*Remote Tech 2

*Crossfeed Enabler

*Procedural Parts

*Procedural Fairings

*Near Future Solar Panels

*Near Future Electrical?

*KW Rocketry (I think that's where the thrust plate multi-adapators come from. I can't recall for sure, though.)

*TAC Life Support (I think it'll still work if you don't have this?)

- And I'm not sure where I got the laser descent lights from, I think they're AIES. Same goes for landing gears. For the life of me, though, I cannot find out where the RL-10 engines come from. I think they're part of Realism Overhaul? If anyone's interested in taking the ship for a spin I'll look into it some more. I'll need some help finding a place to upload it, though :P It will also necessitate my personal modification to the RL-10 to add the RL-10C-4 config.

Edited by Comet Tail
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  • 2 weeks later...
Nicholander

Nicholander

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Posted

Just another day of KSP RSS...

Trying to make a "Real Sci-Fi" Thing, with stuff like 2001: A Space Odyssey and 1952 Von Braun Colliers. (This is supposed to be the first satellite ever, launched in 1953 from Vandenburg,)

J2P5h3G.png

Then making a spaceplane, It's actually pretty good, and you can see the jet engines it used to get to 400 m/s and 20 kilometers altitude below.

oVfYWxF.png

On a suborbital trajectory, didn't make it to orbit, but hey, first flight.

GBNAwZt.png

And... uh... The parts it's made out of don't have any heat shielding, so...

dWwkJTe.png

Also, I did this like a week ago, but I landed a manned mission on the Moon for the first time!

cGauEIA.png

But, well, when I went to the tracking station to go back to it to return home, it wasn't there. Vanished. I went to the flag that was I made Jeb put down next to it, and it was gone! And then I checked the Astro/Kerbo/Cosmonaut complex and it said Jeb was dead. So Origin-1, my Moon mission, disappeared. Wonderful.

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griffin247

griffin247

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Posted
Whelp, this is my first time posting a ship design here. Here goes.

So, context:

I'm using realism overhaul, along with a boatload of other mods so numerous I've lost track and can't really be bothered to look them all up. Sooo... Sharing the craft file might not be so practical. I'll do it if asked, but I'll be surprised if it works on your setup. Scratch that, I added a list of mods on the bottom. It'll be a bit of a process to get this working but I'll work through it if anyone's interested in downloading this craft once I'm finished with its final tweaks. I'll also include a little guide on how to use it XD

But here's the mission: I'm landing on Mars, the Galilean moons of the Jovian system, and Titan, all in one mission. The Galilean moons are all similar enough that I decided to use one lander for all of them - I've named, appropriately, the Galileo. That way, I don't have to haul around the dry mass of a lander for each of them - cutting my mass requirements way down. Further inspection showed that taking off from Mars was also close enough in Delta-Vee requirements that I could do that with the same lander, too! (Powered descent + Ascent from Galilean moon = ~ Ascent from Mars). So what I have then, is this:

http://i.imgur.com/ne1AX45.png

Since I'll be hauling him all around the Solar System, I decided to go with Hydrolox propellant to cut mass. Hydrogen boils off, yes, but with the right specialized tanks you can actually make that go down to zero (Read: I hacked Realfuels so that LH2 and LOX don't boiloff at all when in a Service Module tank, to simulate this technology). It would doubtlessly require a very large and heavy tank (unsuitable for a small craft such as a lander), so I've decided that for the transportation, all the cryogens (LOX and LH2) will be stored in large Zero Boil-Off (ZBO) tanks on the mothership, then the various crafts can be fuelled up right before they perform their various missions (which max at about a month).

///

A quick overview of the other vehicles that will be on this mission:

The mothership will carry the Crew Excursion Shuttle (CES) Galileo, the Shuttle Transportation Vehicle (STV) Dragonfire, and Titan Lander (cool, final name pending for that one). Oh, and the Mothership I've decided to name the InterPlanetary Vehicle (IPV) Harmony.

So, IPV Harmony: Mothership [VASIMR thruster, Fission powerplants]

CES Galileo: Lander for Mars, and Galilean moons. [Hydrolox MPS, Aerizone+N2O4 RCS/OMS, and RTG power]

STV Dragonfire: The Harmony will enter orbit over Mars and Callisto, so the Galileo can directly undock for those missions. For Ganymede, Europa, and Io, however, I decided it would save mass to use a tug to carry the Galileo from Callisto orbit to the other Galilean moons and back; that way I don't have to haul the Titan Lander, large habitat modules, heat shields, nuclear powerplants, etc. that are hard-mounted on the Harmony around the entire Jovian system. [NERVA-NTR MPS, Aerizone+N204 RCS/OMS, and RTG power]

Titan Lander: For Titan, of course. [Hydrolox MPS, Aerizone+N2O4 RCS/OMS, and RTG power]

///

I've mentioned all these other craft because they influence Galileo's design. Galileo, for example, has the omni antenna (500km) by default, but also has a long-range antenna (I needed 2 Gm or so, but the closest I could get that was enough was 250!) for direct communication to the Mothership Harmony AND a medium-range antenna for communication to the STV Dragonfire (which will remain in orbit at 100 km, just like the Apollo CSM). Dragonfire and Harmony will also be in communication. This way, all three vessels will have comms, so if any of the links break, they will still all be connected unless a second one breaks (and even then, two can still be connected). For even further safety/redundancy, the Dragonfire will carry a single occupant Apollo-style for the Io and Europa missions.

So now that I've explained the circumstances around the craft, and what it needs to do and such, without further adeu, the craft itself!

http://i.imgur.com/JxawPRY.jpg

* I hacked the various engine configs on the RL-10 to make myself the fictional "C-4" engine (eheheheh). It's identical to the B-2, except it's maximum thrust is only about 65 kN instead of 111, and it can throttle down to about 12%, as per a study done by NASA. This gives me the ability to land on the various places it needs to land on.

** As for the EM Shielding and radiation and all?... That's not simulated in the game at all :P I just decided to include that for realisms' sake, and the EM generator is just a 235 kg procedural structural element.

*** Goldfinger assembly is part of the STV Dragonfire. It will go to Mars without it, it will go to Callisto and Ganymede with the Goldfinger still on the Dragonfire, but when it undocks in orbit over Europa and Io, the Goldfinger will undock from the Dragonfire, so that it remains attached to Galileo while Galileo goes and lands on Io and Europa.

I had a long conversation with an old friend of mine over Facebook about measures I'd need to take against radiation shielding (If I had a mod that necessitated that. I'm just such a stickler for realism :P ), and I took some screenshots of this WIP to show him the results of our conversations; the Goldfinger assembly and EM Shield. Then I got carried away and made all this. Maybe I'll do something similar for the other crafts of this mission. Certainly the IPV Harmony (Mothership) will deserve a nice post about it! Anyways, enjoy. Be sure to give me some rep points if you likey, hehe. :D

Oh, and PS, yes, this craft isn't technically *finished*. I'm still testing it on ascent/descent over the various Galilean moons. The calculations I did are only approximations, and I found I massively over-estimated my delta-vee requirements, so I cut them back by a lot, and now I'm just making sure I didn't cut them back by too much. The only thing that'll change from here, though, is the tank size if anything. The thrust on the RL-10C-4 is a wide enough range that the small changes I make won't necessitate a change in it, and, I probably won't even need to change the size of the Hydrolox tanks at all, seeing as my most delta-vee intense mission (Io) doesn't even need the main tank full if the Goldfinger is full (in fact, if the main tank and Goldfinger are both full, then it has too much weight for the single RL-10C-4 engine to land it, and if I used two of the RL-10B-2's, it produces too much thrust. The main purpose of the Goldfinger isn't to add more Delta-vee, though it does add a little more, but its main purpose is to move a lot of the Hydrolox storage into a position that provides radiation shielding for the crew (X-rays in specific), instead of keeping it in the main tank where it doesn't block as much. And I can't shrink the main tanks because it needs those full to take off from Mars, where for aerodynamic reasons it can't have the Goldfinger attached. Yeah, it's a bit inefficient, but still much better than carrying around an entire extra lander).

Oh, and I almost forgot, stats:

With Mars Stage:

Mars Stage gives 664 m/s (vacuum)

636 kN - 60 kN (center RL-10B-2 engine is cut off for final moments of descent).

Total mass with full Mars stage: 48 tons.

Galileo alone:

~5,000 m/s

510.4 kN - 7.5 kN (4 outboard engines cut off, landing engine at minimum throttle)

Wet mass: 33.8 tons. 10.5 tons without hydrolox. 9.3 tons without hydrolox or OMS/RCS propellant (Aerizone+N2O4).

Galileo in Io configuration (Goldfinger assembly attached and full, but main tanks are not full) :

~5,500 m/s

Wet mass: 39.4 tons. 11.3 tons without hydrolox. 10.1 tons without hydrolox or OMS/RCS propellant.

You'll get to see this baby in action when she's finished and I go to post about my Grand Tour adventure in full ;)

EDIT:

Okay, here's some of the mods this uses off the top of my head:

*Realism Overhaul (and all its required mods)

*Remote Tech 2

*Crossfeed Enabler

*Procedural Parts

*Procedural Fairings

*Near Future Solar Panels

*Near Future Electrical?

*KW Rocketry (I think that's where the thrust plate multi-adapators come from. I can't recall for sure, though.)

*TAC Life Support (I think it'll still work if you don't have this?)

- And I'm not sure where I got the laser descent lights from, I think they're AIES. Same goes for landing gears. For the life of me, though, I cannot find out where the RL-10 engines come from. I think they're part of Realism Overhaul? If anyone's interested in taking the ship for a spin I'll look into it some more. I'll need some help finding a place to upload it, though :P It will also necessitate my personal modification to the RL-10 to add the RL-10C-4 config.

wow well done

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  • 3 weeks later...
Fenisse

Fenisse

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Posted (edited)

Hoping this isn't dead, I present to you CrewBringer-11. The CSM has 4 SuperDraco engines, providing 2800+ m/s dV. And the lifter's payload-to-total mass fraction is above 7%. Half that of stock KSP's average.

4RNiKUl.png

If you need the craft file or additional info/images, just ask me

Edited by Fenisse
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  • 1 month later...
Comet Tail

Comet Tail

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Completely re-designed the Galileo lander. Still has all the same features, minus the landing lights. Instead of a to-Mars mass of 48 tons, and Galileo mass of 38 tons, it now has 23 tons to Mars, and 20.9 for Ganymede (heaviest load for Galilean moons - lightest being Europa at 16.1 tons). Biggest thing was (A) dropping the Mars descent stage and using the main tanks/engines for descent, and (B) using the FASA Big Gemini passenger compartment for the cabin instead of the Mk.2 capsule. The reason I re-designed it, though, is that the mothership Harmony needs it to fit in a smaller envelope. The older version had a 4m+ diameter. This one has a max diameter of 3.5m.

One of my favorite parts, though, is it's much simpler. The Goldfinger was just an overcomplicated mess. No need for any of that with this craft.

More on that, later, if requested.

PdMOJZX.png

What I really want to show off, though, is a rather simple but really neat little thing. I got a Saturn IB, then put a Centaur upper stage on it with a Gemini on top. The resulting vehicle can go into lunar orbit and come back, with about 800 m/s left, to boot. Only downside is (A) Don't forget to refill the Gemini service module from the Centaur's liquid hydrogen stores every so often, or the fuel cells will run out and that's just all bad, and (B) the RL-10's only have 4 ignitions. It's enough to get the job done, but don't count on using them for an extra burn. Ignition 1 completes the ascent into Earth orbit. Ignition 2 performs TLI. Ignition 3 performs LOI, and ignition 4 performs TEI. Might consider using RCS hypergolics to complete the ascent, giving an extra ignition for any major course corrections or braking before Earth re-entry, since the SIVB (Second stage on Saturn IB) burns out just a hundred m/s or so from orbit - or at least it did on this test run.*

*Low T/W on the SII means I needed a lot of vertical velocity at staging. If the ascent trajectory were neatly optimized, then the SIVB might be able to cut off right into the circular orbit (though I prefer to cut my boosters off with an apoapsis that'll de-orbit them, so just a few m/s shy, I'd prefer).

Also, by aiming for 54 km and using the retro pack to brake, I managed to survive re-entry, just barely. Really touched up on the crew's G-limits, sustaining about 12g for about a minute, but they still survived in one piece. I'm surprised the heat shield held up, actually.

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Edited by Comet Tail
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ANWRocketMan

ANWRocketMan

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Posted

That's one of the things I LOVE about RSS and RO. Docking is strangely fun for me now. It's slow, methodical and it feels like you need to know what you're doing and actually plan ahead. It's great.

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LaydeeDem

LaydeeDem

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Agree completely. I try to avoid timewarp completely in RSS when I can.

Shame the docking was the only successful part of the mission. Note to self: KAS winches are heavy and will screw up your COM when you need to do important things like de-orbiting and landing.

Edited by Nutt007
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Comet Tail

Comet Tail

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Posted (edited)
Pretty impressive. The new lander looks better as well! Much smoother ;) Nice idea on the Gemini Lunar Orbiter.

p.s. What cloud textures are you using there?

Cloud Textures are just the default textures with the mod... Can't remember the mod's name exactly, but the folder is "BoulderCo."

There were actually plans to do something similar to what you've done. http://www.astronautix.com/craft/gemntaur.htm
Comet Tail: And somewhere, Pete Conrad is grinning like a madman. :)

I have NathanKell's compliment. My life is complete :D

Lol, actually, tbh, NASA's old ideas are where I got the idea. I kinda liked the idea of launching it all-up, though, instead of having to dock in Earth orbit (KISS - Keep It Stupidly Simple). Downside being that Geminis never launched in that configuration before, so it wasn't proven like launching from a Titan II was.

- Mars rocket

- Kerbal X

- Moon rocket

- LEO rocket

http://i.imgur.com/wwG1NrR.jpg

Woah. Nice big machines. In-flight imgur album maybe? How did you get those nice orthogonal pictures, though?

Edited by Comet Tail
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NathanKell

NathanKell

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Posted

As most of you may know, I've been working on Realistic Progression Zero, an ultralite career mode for RO (prices! contracts! tech!). To test it out, I've played through about 1962 or so in terms of technology development. Here are the craft I've used (I have not yet done a lunar flyby, mostly because we don't have something as light as Pioneer 0). All craft use stock parts (with Ven's Stock Revamp), Proc Parts, Proc Wings, and Proc Fairings...and nothing else. They thus can be a tutorial of sorts for RP-0.

Most are (mostly) real. in the descriptions, I explain what's real and what's mostly-real. I snuck in a couple action pics at the end, using pingopete's awesome RVE.

All pics 2560x1600, so click that "view full size" option! :)

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Woopert

Woopert

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Hi Nathan, I see you're using procedural interstages there. I have a few questions. I've been playing RSS since February 2014 and they seemed to be working fine then. Now that I'm building rockets again in RSS my rockets wiggle around the interstage joints, or lack thereof. :P

I have Kerbal Joint Reinforcement installed, auto struts enabled, and I even placed 12 struts connecting the adapter to the upper stage. Still wobbly, though. Another question I would like to ask: is it possible to have procedural interstages that don't split into pieces but rather decouple away in once piece, either attached to or separate from the stage? Take the SLS for example. As you can see in this picture the Launch Vehicle Stage Adapter (LVSA) remains attached to the core stage as it separates. The Saturn V's interstage for the second stage was once piece but separated from both the first and second stages.

Z75.jpg
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