Orion

[Kurotenshi]

Most of us are familiar with this well-know real life craft, but instead of waiting until they finally develop, how about flying one in KSP already?

We have the Orion Lite, a replica with a rather small delta-V budget for LKO manoeuvring, perfect for those who do not wish to waste lots of fuel on a shuttle to your station with way to much dV. It comes with an Ares I launcher that complies with the clean space act. After the seperatrons fire and push the 2nd stage back, some leftover fuel may be used to re-enter it completely.

We can also offer you the Orion, with 4 times the dV of the lite version, while only being half fuelled. Fly it to a station to fill it up, and you will have a craft with about 2700m/s dV. It comes with a launcher resembeling the SLS. Because it was such a small craft, I didn't bother with the tapered portion of the craft, because the partcount would be trough the roof, and the launcher would be completely overdesigned. So I opted for the simpler version, with some notes: The fairings and LES can be jettisoned at all times by pressing 2, and it is advised to stage at about 15km. This will drop the boosters and if not already gone, drop the fairings. Makes for a pretty staging event.

The Ares I and SLS launcher are capable of putting the craft in a 75km orbit, although part of the circularisation of the SLS-launcher will have to be done with the Orion itself, but there is dV to spare in that one.

I also have both craft strapped to my Prometheus launchers, for those interested in them. The launcher will have fuel to spare when launching these, and the clean space act is respected, without the need for extra retroboosting with leftover fuel.

Both craft are equipped with a probe core for unmanned control and have 4 solar panels, 4 quad RCS-ports, 30 units of monopropellant in the CM, a crew capacity of 3 kerbals, 3 parachutes, a light for docking and the following action groups:

1: Toggle solar panels

2: Jettison LES (and fairings too perhaps)

0: Deploy LES antenna

Specs and pics:

[table=width: 500, align: center]

[tr]

[td][/td]

[td]Orion Lite[/td]

[td]Orion[/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]Mass (t)[/td]

[td]9.6t[/td]

[td]12.4t[/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]dV (m/s)[/td]

[td]400[/td]

[td]1600[/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]# parts[/td]

[td]40[/td]

[td]44[/td]

[/tr]

[/table]

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Craft files:

Orion Lite with Ares I

Orion Lite with Prometheus II

Orion with SLS

Orion with Prometheus II

Feedback is always appreciated, happy flying!

Edited January 20, 2014 by Kurotenshi

[jmiki8]

Nice! I like simple spacecraft, which aren't over-engineered, and fit perfectly for their duty. By the way, does this ship have enough fuel to dock? And i don't see RCS ports or tanks, does that mean it's supposed to dock without RCS? Challange accepted.

[sgt_flyer]

there seems to be rounded monopropellant tanks clipped inside the nose of the spacecraft, and 4x4-way RCS blocks turned 180° inside the 2.5m SAS unit (the small squares around it are the bottom of the RCS blocks) for the fuel, 400 m/s of delta-v should be plenty enough for LKO manoeuvers

[CaptainGiblets]

Nice craft!

[Kurotenshi]

The clipped parts are Mk-16 parachutes, actually. In my opinon is a way nicer solution than the radial parachutes

And since the .23 update, tweakables also included some monopropellant in the manned pods. The Mk1-2 pod has 30 units of monopropellant, just al little less than one roundified mono tank. For me that's way more than I've ever used for a docking, at least for a small craft like this. But maybe I've gotten very efficient at it because of all my station building

[Guest]

Very nice! How about one with an SLS under it?

[Kurotenshi]

I had thought of that as well, but it seemed a bit overkill, building an accurate SLS for this craft. With only 10t and 40 parts, a quick Ares I replica seemed more sensible, even though it got cancelled. When I start tinkering on a variant with more dV (about 1600m/s, like the real thing), the extra fuel weight might become too much for the launcher, so maybe I'll slap an SLS under that one. But first I'm going to finish my launcher family

[Genolution]

I was just about to start making the Ares. Yours is so good I no longer want to. You did it right.

[Kurotenshi]

Thanks, but could still be better though The first stage is liquid fuelled, which should actually be solid fuelled. But that's one of the versions I'm thinking of designing, after my launcher family.

Speaking of my launcher family, here's a preview, with this Orion craft on top. Anyone interested in the craft file for this version?

[KvickFlygarn87]

Nice craft!

Being nitpicky, I'd like to point out a few details:

The Orion has four solar panels, not two.

You could try making the bottom part more round

Try clipping a small SAS inside of the capsule

[Kurotenshi]

It's okay to be nit-picky, I'm quite the perfectionist myself, but I have some questions about your remarks.

The craft has four solar panels, press the 1 button to deploy them all at once, you can see it in the picture as well. Or did you mean the real craft only has two (the round ones)? Well, there's been an update to the design, the service module is going to be ATV-based, hence the four solar panels.

What do you mean with more round? The bottom of the service module isn't all that rounded by my knowledge. If you mean the command module, the sr. docking port is about as round as it gets for a heat-shield, I also sometimes clip a flat adapter into a decoupler, but that didn't look quite right here.

And why would I clip in extra SAS, if you already have the torque of the command pod and large SAS ring?

[Yalin Hawk]

His comments confused me as well. I think your Orion is quite splendid. Looks the part, with stock parts only too. My only thought would be to ditch the fuselages for your SM and clip in some of the similarly sized fuel tanks for added dV. I had built an Orion-alike a while ago, but mainly aimed for a "functionally accurate" approach, vs a "visually accurate" replica. It's difficult considering the 3 man pod is just that, a 3 man pod. I had to get creative with clipping pods together and whatnot for Orion's proposed 4-6 man capacity.

[Kurotenshi]

Thanks!

I always try to find a balance between looks and function for the crafts I design, whether they're replica's or not. I didn't really find it necessary to tinker with the crew capacity, it's still KSP, and it has its limitations even the best of clipping can't overcome

And I used fuselage because I often found my crew shuttles horribly overstocked for LKO manoeuvring. It seems wasteful to ditch a service module with a good 1000 or more dV left when re-entering. Somewhere tomorrow my launcher family is going up, and I'll post a new Orion version as well. It has about 1600m/s dV once in orbit and has a launcher resembling the SLS (the scale is a bit off).

[Kurotenshi]

*bump*

Just redid the entire OP, check out the new pics and craft