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

[Castille7]

Started this craft idea, it was originally intended to be an SSTO but I came up short, I'm sure I'm not the first to do that! At the moment I am working on the controlling of the craft, it's not preforming as well as I would like. The drills that are being used as Guns look so cool when they are extending and retracting. When I get around to working with Mods this will look even better with nice looking weaponry, mods are just not my thing right now. 

SPIDER - KSF (Kerbin Security Fighter)

 

Edited March 9, 2016 by castille7

[SaturnianBlue]

Thanks to work on the Bismarck, the deck is now complete. The bow is a little weak, and rides a little high in the water, but everything is all good, with Bismarck reaching 18 M/s, and while this may be slowed by further construction, It is still faster than the real thing.

[WooDzor]

messing around with stock fairings..

[selfish_meme]

10 minutes ago, WooDzor said:

 

messing around with stock fairings..

That didn't take you long

[WooDzor]

18 minutes ago, selfish_meme said:

That didn't take you long

These ones are actually 'stock stock'.. just overlapping so it doesn't show any lines or yellow colour. Still have to wait until 5.30, unfortunately work is interfering with my spaceprogram again :-P

[PointySideUp]

Successful test flight of an SSTO design I've been tinkering with.  Submitted for K Prize challenge.

 

[loch.ness]

In theory this is an all stock replica of the artist sketch for the ISX Enterprise theoretical warp ship.

In reality I'm still refining the design but it contains a single interplanetary ship with low TWR and alot of fuel as well as two landers which should (in theory) be capable of Mun landing and return.

My hope is that if they are Mun land-return capable they might also be capable or Landing and Return from Eeloo, Val, Pol, Bop, Dres, Ike, Duna, Gilly, and Moho.

Dres and Duna are the big question marks right now with Moho being another one more for heat than anything else.

The two Claw/tugs are there because I hope to make add IRSU after my initial proof-of-concept tests for both the ship and the lander.  With the amount of fuel this beast should be packing I know its 6 LV-N main engines will be sorely under thrust, so it also has a Rhino for escape/capture burns (get the initial escape thrust done then shut it down and finish the long burns on LV-N.

 

The total part count so far is around 300+ (~330 with vernor RCS units) and I could probably cut that down eventually.  Trying to get a test ship to orbit but the launch vehicle is closer to 500 parts and is crawling so far - after that its off to Mun for lander tests (tomorrow - after orbit its off to bed).

 

Edit:  Launch went okay until I tried to Phys Warp through some of the lag - the LV second stage was doing fine until phswarp - then it ripped everything off the lower stage - will get to orbit next time.

Edited March 9, 2016 by loch.ness

[Castille7]

On 3/9/2016 at 2:58 AM, PointySideUp said:

Successful test flight of an SSTO design I've been tinkering with.  Submitted for K Prize challenge.

 

I love the little three man shuttle! The more I examine the craft here the more I am noticing how sweet it is, really nice craft design!

Edited March 11, 2016 by castille7

[Majorjim!]

8 hours ago, WooDzor said:

 

messing around with stock fairings..

Very nice! I did a little double take, good work man.

[Yakuzi]

I'm currently working on a versatile stock SSTO. Comes in cargo, passenger and fuel tanker variants transporting either 2x6 tons, 25 kerbals, or 1080 LF + 1320 Ox to LKO ( ≥ 80x80 km), respectively.

 

Cargo (left), passenger (center), and fuel tanker (right) variants

 

Below an album of a typical cargo mission delivering a pair of interplanetary science satellites to LKO.

 

On 04/03/2016 at 1:10 PM, Dafni said:

Holy mother of all EVA parties, Kerbals drifting all over the place!

The craft is nice, do you mind posting a craft file?

Thanks

Daf

Thanks Daf! Lemme check if the craft is all good to go, then I'll post the file here. Grab the craft file at KerbalX here.

Edited March 11, 2016 by Yakuzi
Formatting is the bane to my existence

[ThatGuyWithALongUsername]

Meh.

Not much of a spacecraft-exchanger, but I made this tiny starbug replica. It barely works, but... it works.

To get it to fly, I had to stand it up 90 degrees in the SPH. And in that 3rd shot, it was about to crash.

[loch.ness]

I've been working on the radial landers (on Kerbin testing / math).

 

Technical stats:

Mass LFO Full: 15.4 tons  Mass LFO Dry: 7.4 tong.  Mass of Monopropellant: 1.4 tons

LFO Engine Thrust: 60 KN.  RCS thrust ~1-4 KN depending on angle. 

TWR standard Gravity: 0.397                      TWR Mun: 2.48                         TWR Minmas: 7.95

Delta V:  2477 (+)                      RCS Delta V (full LFO): 224 (+)                    RCS Delta V (Dry LFO):  493 (+)

(+) denotes less that 1 m/s excess Delta V.

LFO Delta V available for Budget:     2400 - assuming minimal pilot error.  2000 for precision landing with minimal pilot error (I'm not a great pilot yet).

RCS Delta V available for Budget:  300-400 assuming low fuel levels when most of the RCS is used as OMS

Fuel Balance and Notes:  Mono propellant draw is normalized by the mono prop drain rules.  No issues there.  COM rises as mono prop is burned, but should not have a large difference - SAS should counter easily.

LFO tanks ideally drain from opposite directions (need to adjust fuel lines to ensure this is true on real model).  This should keep the CoM balanced in the center of the craft directly above the engine.

Landing legs are very widely set - should allow easy landing on slopes.  

Delta V insufficent for Duna landing/ return.  Constellation style support craft are viable for Duna / Laythe / Eve / Tylo missions.  Should be able handle all other rocky bodies.

Lander cannot support return to Kerbin - need to Add docking port to main ship for crew transfers - landers can double as crew ferries.

Main ship carries very little Mono-prop, without IRSU the lander's need to conserve as much mono-prop as possible for OMS and docking if multiple landings per lander per mission are expected.

The ship carries a large amount of Oxidizer - even with Rhino asssited escape /capture burns, should be enough for multiple launches even without IRSU.

Mark 2 plans:

Maintain form factor and minimize extra part count while adding IRSU capability.  Docking options mean the landers should be theoretically capable of connecting an asteroid to the main ship for IRSU work in space - orbital tests with current lander set up will be done to confirm the possibility before snagging an asteroid - this is most feasible in Dres orbit.

Consider switching to space-plane command pod for aesthetics and/or spae/plane passenger pods for increased crew compliment.  The mark 1 ship is built for a crew of 4 with 2 landers sitting 2 people each.

Mark 3 plans:  

Once feasibility and balance of IRSU option is determined (Hope is that it would allow trips to Duna along with the other places - investigate packing a functional rover / hover bike.  An Ion / Mono prop powered craft for extremely low-grav worlds can go on Lander 1 (which can be balanced for low-grav worlds and IRSU).  The rover can then be brought to higher gravity worlds with IRSU for take-off.

The lander would serve as crew quarters for the duration of the mission ideally supported with seperatly launched mission habitats/rovers/equipment (nessessary if adding a Rover is not feasible).

Landers have docking ports positions to allow an IRSU capable rover of refueling them should IRSU balance not be feasible - precision landing at a prepare Duna base, refueling, and launch may be possible with existing lander - TWR at Duna might be the problem.  Unsure what the Lv-909's effective thrust and ISP is as Duna's surface atmosphere.

 

Edit:  On checking the numbers - the concept Radial Adventure Landers probably can't handle Moho.  Moho requires 2800 delta V which is just beyond what the concept is capable of.  The IRSU concept drops the initial Delta V to 1082 and requires a long time to refuel (estimate of about 10 kerbin days -though this estimate includes Kerbin night/day ... using the RTGs only for power (such as at Eeloo) that drops alot more.)  IRSU is better served sent ahead in a different package.

With an IRSU rover on Moho/Duna, the Mk 1 concepts should be capable of landing/return.  The Mk 1 concept is capable of land/return on Val but the IRSU variant wouldn't be able to land (~40 Delta V shy of target, I like to have 100 or more to account for bad piloting).

 

Claw units on main ship pointless without IRSU, maybe replace by science JR or extra EC storage.  Further update later.

Edited March 10, 2016 by loch.ness
Re-checked Delta V maps, concept IRSU numbers

[Columbia]

On 3/6/2016 at 7:39 PM, selfish_meme said:

Use the large decoupler TR-38-D, surround it with the small no suspension aircraft wheels LV05, decouple the decoupler from the wheels. This should make a good bearing, the more wheels and the tighter they are pushed into the decoupler the tighter it will be, and you will need more torque to turn it, if you put structural plate on the turret then it's going to weigh tons, you will need a lot of torque. try not to make it too heavy.

PSA build the bearing in the VAb and attach it in the SPH

On 3/7/2016 at 9:55 PM, FlipNascar said:

 

If you get really stuck, let me know and I can build you one for you. But like selfish_meme said, use the big ol' decoupler plus the small landing wheels. And build it with the no offset limits mod to reduce part count. And if possible try and have the turret's COM as close to the decoupler as possible.

Thanks, it worked!

Continuing progress on Boeing 314:

 

 

[Majorjim!]

7 hours ago, ThatGuyWithALongUsername said:

Meh.

Not much of a spacecraft-exchanger, but I made this tiny starbug replica. It barely works, but... it works.

To get it to fly, I had to stand it up 90 degrees in the SPH. And in that 3rd shot, it was about to crash.

Man I love that show! This reminds me of the episode when the red dwarf is rebuild huge and they fly inside it making the noise a fly makes! bzzz! Er.. guys? We have a problem!

[sventhegreat2]

I'm building a stock Tantive IV from Star Wars.

Any tips?

[Yukon0009]

7 minutes ago, sventhegreat2 said:

I'm building a stock Tantive IV from Star Wars.

Any tips?

working escape pods?

[FlipNascar]

31 minutes ago, sventhegreat2 said:

I'm building a stock Tantive IV from Star Wars.

Any tips?

Yeah, get ready for a mega high part count! I put together a 350ish part one a bit before Christmas. I also found that using fairings worked a treat! If you wanted to pull mine apart, have at it. You can download it from KerbalX.

[sventhegreat2]

Looks almost exactly like mine. 

 

[WooDzor]

There we go again (trying to keep it relatively low part count though)

most of the things I launch with my Proton, just to keep things easier and i can combine 3 shuttle launches with one Proton.. Also I suck at shuttles :-/

I might actually launch a space shuttle on top of a rocket and dock it X-D

Edited March 11, 2016 by WooDzor

[Majorjim!]

Just now, WooDzor said:

There we go again (trying to keep it relatively low part count though)

 

 

 

most of the things I launch with my Proton, just to keep things easier and i can combine 3 shuttle launches with one Proton.. Also I suck at shuttles :-/

I might actually launch a space shuttle on top of a rocket and dock it X-D

These are looking awesome WooDzor!

[WooDzor]

Getting the big solar panels into orbit atm.... A 'well-trained female dog'   :-/

Edited March 11, 2016 by WooDzor

[Castille7]

 

A possible Starbase idea, this is the test launch of one section of only two because of lagging

 

 

We are top heavy at the moment, I need better control so I added Boosters and Vernor Engines on the upper section, this didn't help so it's back to the VAB once again. Below I have some interior shots of this section, you will see I am using Comms DTS-M1 for the entrances. I will try adding more control on the lower end and will probably scrap this soon because of lagging, the part count is a little over 1k and only getting about 10m/s a second on trajectories.

 

 

 

Not often do I get a chance to give feedback this quick but when I do I will take advantage of the situation. As of now I am trying what I call Fireball Mode, everything full throttle, most of the time large craft need less speed and some TLC but this may not be the case so we will soon find out.

 

Edited March 12, 2016 by castille7

[mrmcp1]

The largest plane I have ever made

 

[ThatGuyWithALongUsername]

The only problem is that the mini starbug replica from earlier (now known as starinsect) doesn't fit in the mini (Gray-ish) Dwarf's cargo bay.

I'm thinking of releasing these, um, Jool Mining Corporation ships.  They need some work, though.

On 3/10/2016 at 3:23 AM, Majorjim said:

Man I love that show! This reminds me of the episode when the red dwarf is rebuild huge and they fly inside it making the noise a fly makes! bzzz! Er.. guys? We have a problem!

That's exactly what I was thinking! Now it eems the starbug's too big, though. 

[Kryten 2X4B 523P]

Heres a little something Ive been working on - early / mid career low level survey aircraft inspired by the OV-10 Bronco.

Powered by a single hidden Wheelsey, can reach about 260 ms on a sea level straight, pretty stable & glides really nicely. Not massively responsive but more than adequate, and pretty forgiving to fly. 

35 minutes ago, ThatGuyWithALongUsername said:

The only problem is that the mini starbug replica from earlier (now known as starinsect) doesn't fit in the mini (Gray-ish) Dwarf's cargo bay.

I'm thinking of releasing these, um, Jool Mining Corporation ships.  They need some work, though.

That's exactly what I was thinking! Now it eems the starbug's too big, though. 

Need to grab a class A asteroid and build it round that :-)

Edited March 12, 2016 by Kryten 2X4B 523P