totm june 2018 Work-in-Progress [WIP] Design Thread

[Darth Lazarus]

test of the Mercury-Atlas is completed. works very good but still has some gizmos to be worked on:

-first: center of thrust offset: the palcement of the boosterengines is not entirely centred so the rocket tends to tumble without SAS on. with enough tourge form a SAS module, there is no problem at all to control it (SAS module hidden inside the atlas nose)

-second: thrustvalue of the first and half stage. the real sustainer engine has only ~20% (SM-65 Atlas only 16% !) of the overall thrust of all 3 engines and i will try to keep this value. but i'm not sure about the overall thrust (and TWR) in general. i know the thrust increased with the atlas-centaur evolution. still mroe research needed... current thrust is ~900 KN by a TWR of 1.66 at liftoff. my kerbol version of an "Atlas-LV-3C Centaur" will need a minium of 1000 KN thrust at liftoff(or more, prototype tested).

has someone details about the development of the atlas engines? and where they got more power? sustainer or boosters? and did the NASA used the one and half staging with the early Atlas-Centaur rockets?

edit: i just noticed, that the mercury capsule weight around 1.326 Kilogramms

edit2: center of thrust fixed, SAS removed.

Edited October 23, 2014 by Darth Lazarus

[Giggleplex777]

The booster engines had much more trust than the sustainer at the cost of lower efficiency. The reason they used one-and-a-half staging is because they weren't sure where or not engines could be starting in space, so they ignited all engines on the launchpad.

Since Atlas-Centaur was just an Atlas rocket with a Centaur second stage, it stilled used the same one-and-a-half staging as its predecessors. In fact, the booster a sustainer arrangement was used up until (and including) the Atlas IIAS.

Edited October 23, 2014 by Giggleplex777

[Darth Lazarus]

thanks !

i already know the first fact. that was the reason, why korolev designed the R-7 in a similar way ... ignition of all engines on the ground.

so it uses the same one and half staging. good to know! somewhere i read that it wasn't used on a small number of Atlas-Centaur rockets, but i bet it was only on the late ones with heavier payloads. For a good flightprofil, the booster needs to burn longer before staging ... need to figure out a good flightprofil then.

edit: YES ! i found datasheets with tons of numbers for the rockets, Atlas LV-3B/Mercury , Atlas Centaur LV-3C and Atlas Centaur SLV-3C. perfect

Edited October 23, 2014 by Darth Lazarus

[Rune]

I also like that! Download link? Sorry. I don't want to be hard on you.

No worries! That's actually a 50mT lifter from my General Lifters catalogue, only with an extended, reworked shroud using the new wings. I plan to release it as part of the revamped Eagle thread, since the Base Pack is actually what's under the hood. And if you understood nothing of all those names (as would be perfectly understandable unless you follow me closely), I urge you to check out the first link in my sig to my builders page, where you can find all those things, with a lengthy explanation to go with it. Hope you like it! And mind the radial decoupler bug, I have that fixed manually myself (you can read how somewhere in the forum on a bug thread with the "official" bugs).

Rune. Another half-done project right there, from before 0.25.

[Captain Vlad]

Working on my orbital 'truck', the X-14. She'll keep that designation till I'm through testing and making some tweaks. So far, she's managed to haul a girder assembly up to my space station and get one of those four-ton fuel tanks you get early on to a 150,000 meter altitude with some inclination adjustments (basically taking it to the space station, I was just in a rush and didn't want to wait for the station to catch up with me).

Good points: Effortless ascent with the girder assembly on board. Had to stash some extra liquid fuel (Mk1 fuselage) in the bay to get the LFO tank up there, but I wasn't entirely sure she'd be able to to do that, so I'm pleased. No re-entry instability and pretty easy to land. With a lighter load, has plenty of fuel left once she reaches orbit.

Bad points: Center of lift is very, very close to being too far forward when the tanks are full, and I have to make sure the forward tank doesn't get used first. Small price to pay for the utility she promises. Takeoff run is abysmal: I have to ramp it off the end of the runway, though she doesn't have any problems doing that. Since moving the wheels closer to the COM results in tail strikes, I may just live with that. No docking port. Could likely fix that, but the shock cone on the nose looks cool enough I probably won't;).

Going to revise the RCS system, too. It's more for approaching it's orbital destination since it's perfectly controllable in vacuum with just the SAS, and I just don't like the way I have the 'place anywhere' ports attached right now.

Don't have any screenshots that show the arrangement of air intakes under the wing and engines. I mostly used the new inline ones and freely admit it was for aesthetics. She's got about 5 per engine (including the shock cones) and I think I managed to arrange them where they don't look too bad. She can make it just above 31,000 meters before she stops gaining velocity, and she's at 1,650-1,700 mps at that altitude, and that varies depending on her cargo.

Here she is after reentry, angling down toward KSC.

Prior to that, she'd offloaded the girder assembly and I successfully docked it to the station. Note that while I'm loving how the plane works, the little maneuvering device I made to fly the girder really sucked...liked to never get that thing attached.

And here she is after landing, with the doors open to show off the dual cargo bays.

Edited October 24, 2014 by Captain Vlad

[Nik_601]

Most may have seen this before but I've nearly finished my new more realistic version of my

Short brothers SC.1 VTOL.

In order to make it more true to the real one I used mini mainsails in place of the very large KSP jets.

The real one used four small Rolls Royce jets for vertical thrust and one for forward flight.

She looks great now and sits much better on the Tarmac.

It's much lighter in this configuration and a lot easier to fly.

Even though with rockets it is only really usable with infinite fuel.

http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/532875048166700257/8736B64DF65798DC9F83E6E707A8D210CD705500/

http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/532875048166677613/11B65285AF7D87AEE60A2F2AE558AE332E46E936/

http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/532875048166674335/830857C7046C20F19C3E2348A392E162FBAFEE9E/

I will make a stunt video to show it off.

MJ

Damn, they're incredible!)

[Majorjim!]

Damn, they're incredible!)

You have excellent taste sir.

Do you think the canopy on the new one should be enclosed with those panels?

[Joe8]

Most may have seen this before but I've nearly finished my new more realistic version of my

Short brothers SC.1 VTOL.

In order to make it more true to the real one I used mini mainsails in place of the very large KSP jets.

The real one used four small Rolls Royce jets for vertical thrust and one for forward flight.

She looks great now and sits much better on the Tarmac.

It's much lighter in this configuration and a lot easier to fly.

Even though with rockets it is only really usable with infinite fuel.

http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/532875048166700257/8736B64DF65798DC9F83E6E707A8D210CD705500/

http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/532875048166677613/11B65285AF7D87AEE60A2F2AE558AE332E46E936/

http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/532875048166674335/830857C7046C20F19C3E2348A392E162FBAFEE9E/

I will make a stunt video to show it off.

MJ

Woah. How'd you get those amazing low-FOV zoomed-in shots? That looks great.

[Darth Lazarus]

reworked my Centaur upperstage for teh Atlas rockets. interstage fairingring is not shown, but works perfectly.

4.600 m/s dV without payload (and payloadfairing)

300 KN thrust. Attitudecontrol with RCS and 80 monopropelant

lots of batterypower

probcore aboce the decoupler is not part of teh centaur

Edited October 24, 2014 by Darth Lazarus

[Guest Space Cowboy]

http://youtu.be/l-iTHqfylY4

Edited October 24, 2014 by Space Cowboy

[Majorjim!]

Woah. How'd you get those amazing low-FOV zoomed-in shots? That looks great.

With the camera tools mod it's awesome!

[Guest Space Cowboy]

Flybys?! (10char)

[Majorjim!]

Flybys?! (10char)

In the camera mod? Yeah. I used the mod to make this vid:

Flybys and zooms and whatnot.

[Darth Lazarus]

some progress:

[r_rolo1]

Finally I got to a version of my Hermès mock up that I feel confident to release :

Javascript is disabled. View full album

You can find the thread with the save here

TBH I'm thinking on making a more streamlined version of the shuttle, since the shuttle glides wonderfully and does not look like the Hermès . I think it can be done, but I might not be the best pilot to test it, since it might come too hot and need some parachute work OTOH I'm mulling for quite a while in a stock Rods of the Gods mockup and Scott Manley video gave me the itch ...

Edited October 24, 2014 by r_rolo1

[Darth Lazarus]

started work on some payloads for my Atlas Centaur:

number one will be Mariner 6 .... Surveyor 1 and Pinoeer 10 will follow later

[Giggleplex777]

some progress:

http://i.imgur.com/c3v9J06.png

You should use the small wing panels for the interstage and fairings. Their colour matches better than the structural panels.

[VR_Dev]

The attempt to rebuild the Gundam Suit for .25 turned into a full rebuild. Depending on the changes it will be either the MRK III or MRK 2.5. It is built using the most recent b9 update and obviously the new .25 stock parts. The new b9 update seems to make the game run much smoother.

Improvements include smaller still, lighter, and a drastic reduction in part count. I plan on keeping the part count under 160 parts. The upper body now also rotates in regards to the hips/legs.

This is the best looking leg design I have accomplished yet.

The hips have been completely redesigned thanks to the new movable IR parts. I was able to mount the IR rotators upside down then move them into the correct place. This took a long time of trial and error to mount the hip, move them 180 degrees to see how they looked, then move them again. Every time you relocate the part they jump back to the normal position.

The lighter design means I can have a washer above the hips. This means the upper body will be able to rotate in regards to the legs/hips. THis should assist in walking. Also working on redesigning the chest to be more compact. The intakes look much better than the do on the old MRK II

Gotta love the new engine effects.

Still lots of work to be done, especially tuning the walking. But I just continue to keep improving this thing, and I believe one day it will work perfectly.

Edited October 25, 2014 by clown_baby

[Kurotenshi]

Working on a constellation-like mission. Could use some help with fairing though...

Anybody any ideas how to make a 2-part fairing with the new wings that fits around this?

[Roflcopterkklol]

Soulreaver thinks this does not look enough like a b-2 and i think he is right, anyone have some suggestions on what to do to make it more authentic looking?

It is up on the main page of the exchange atm if you want to download it to take a closer look and have a fiddle for yourself, do not think i have seen a b-2 in KSP yet.

[Majorjim!]

Working on a constellation-like mission. Could use some help with fairing though...

Anybody any ideas how to make a 2-part fairing with the new wings that fits around this?

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

Hi Kurotenshi,

I have just started to update my constellation mission with the new wing parts.

Your ascent module payload lander shown looks to be a similar size to my one. So it will be what I have done here:

This is the new fairing for the propulsion stage but I just reused the same fairing for the aeroshell landers but shortened.

And for the craftsmen out there, can you spot why this faring was harder than it looks?

MJ

[Vagani]

Soulreaver thinks this does not look enough like a b-2 and i think he is right, anyone have some suggestions on what to do to make it more authentic looking?

It is up on the main page of the exchange atm if you want to download it to take a closer look and have a fiddle for yourself, do not think i have seen a b-2 in KSP yet.

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

http://i.imgur.com/N59lVwD.jpg

I saw one the other day, it had bombs and stuff, looked quite good

[Roflcopterkklol]

Here is where i am on my new b-2 spirit bomber, opinions?

[soulreaver1981]

Here is where i am on my new b-2 spirit bomber, opinions?

http://i.imgur.com/yu5cI4N.jpg

that looks sweeettt

[Roflcopterkklol]

that looks sweeettt

Just doing flight tests atm and i will replace the b-2 i have up atm

Edit:

i think i may have gone too far on the performance, i kinda made it hyper sonic and you can nearly orbit it lol... guess i cant do low performance.

Edited October 26, 2014 by Roflcopterkklol