Station Building with Kerbin Shuttle Orbiter

[kujuman]

After years of working on developing a standard orbital shuttle, the Kerbal Space Administration's Specialty Procurement, Analysis, & Management division (SPAM) finally reached a viable technological breakthrough: hire an outside contractor. Although this contractor had some unforeseen delays, the [thread=68429]delivered product[/thread] far exceeded the expectations of SPAM.

After a few proving flights of the KSO, it was accepted into the KSA fleet of launch vehicles. There only existed one hurdle to using the KSO to its full potential: no missions had been developed for it. It was to fill this need that SPAM hastily put together a program to make use of the KSO. SPAM's plan was to use the (somewhat cramped) cargo bay of the KSO to deliver modules to construct a space station in LKO...

KSASPAM had set these timelines and objectives for their project:

***HARDWARE***

1. Four KSO vehicles were available

a) Adamant

Dauntless

c) Resolute

d) Tenacious

2. Payload should be developed using existing inventory of KSA if possible

a) new parts may be developed so long as they fill a niche

SPAM testing revealed that existing parts did not like being crushed, so merely "rescaling" a part was out of the question*

3. The station should be able to be modified according to new mission requirements

***OPERATIONS***

1. Station

a) The station should maintain a minimum of 30 standard days** of provisions once crewed

The station should eventually maintain On-Orbit Contingency Vehicles (OOCV) for crew aboard

c) The station should be designed to accommodate interplanetary travel

2. KSO

a) Refurbishment

i. Flights which land at KSC can be refurbished and flight ready in 7 days

ii. Flights which land intact can be refurbished and flight ready in 20 days

iii. Flights which suffer small amounts of damage require an additional 20 days of repair

iv. Flights which suffer significant damage require an additional 60 days of repair

Crew

i. The shuttle requires 2 crew members aboard to conduct launch and reentry

ii. The shuttle may use computers to maneuver it in orbit

iii. There is no requirement that a full compliment of crew onboard

*Exceptions exist for specialty parts, which would have to be custom ordered anyway (such as robotic arms)

**A standard day has a length of 24 hours, and is used to calculate provision requirements (also known as a metabolic day after the metabolic patterns of kerbals). A regular day has a length of 6 hours.

[kujuman]

The first steps into the heavens

Missions 001, 002, and 003 delivered the bare essentials to create the Kerbal Station 1.

Mission 001 delivered the station core into an equatorial 123km x 122km orbit. The core module is equipped with redundant flight computers, batteries, reaction wheels, air and water re-processors (enough for 10 kerbals), tool and spare part storage apparatus, and docking points for additional modules.

Mission 002 delivered the station's first solar array. Unfortunately, two of the panel sections were destroyed in the process of attaching the array arm to the core module. The array arm is able to rotate in two dimensions to better collect solar energy. The arm is designed to accommodate additional arm extensions. It also holds additional batteries.

Mission 003 delivered the station's first habitable module. It can hold 3 kerbals and was custom designed for this station. A second habitable module of the same design is being delivered on mission 004.

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Mission status:

Day 2

0 kerbals on orbit

3 kerbal days (kD) of provisions at station

Orbiter status:

Adamant-Slated for mission 004

Dauntless-Landed at KSC on day 2. Will be available on day 9.

Resolute-Landed at KSC on day 0. Suffered minor damage. Will be available on day 27.

Tenacious-Landed at KSC on day 1. Will be available on day 8.

[DunaRocketeer]

Ouch! I've done that before, so frustrating Still, looking forward to your progress. What mod is it that you're using to get these new components?

[Capt. Hunt]

I wouldn't exactly call that minor damage, I think your OV Resolute is a write off. Certainly would make things a little bit more difficult, eh?

[Sovek]

I agree with Hunt, thats a write off, theyve scrapped airliners with less damage than that, and those don't exactly handle launching into space too well.

[kujuman]

I wouldn't exactly call that minor damage, I think your OV Resolute is a write off. Certainly would make things a little bit more difficult, eh?

The problem is in the way the game only has a binary approach to damage. What had happened is I accidentally retracted the gear at about 30 m/s which caused a the port wing to explode, followed by the roll. What would have actually happened is for there to be damage along the bottom of the fuselage, probably extending to mangling the gear and the heat tiles, but little structural damage.

[kujuman]

Ouch! I've done that before, so frustrating Still, looking forward to your progress. What mod is it that you're using to get these new components?

The new components as in the station modules? I'm making them myself. The idea was to use building this station to identify what parts don't exist and therefore have me develop them.

I am using a bunch of mods though, I'll try to post a list with the next mission report.

[Sovek]

Except that is 108 km/h, not exactly slow, and WOULD do some major damage, even to the structure itself. If you were sitting still and retarcted the gear, then yes, minor damage. But screaming down the runway at 108 km/h does alot more damage than you think.

[kujuman]

Except that is 108 km/h, not exactly slow, and WOULD do some major damage, even to the structure itself. If you were sitting still and retarcted the gear, then yes, minor damage. But screaming down the runway at 108 km/h does alot more damage than you think.

G-VSKY begs to differ about what warrants a scrapping. The point being that with a new airframe, the vehicle is still valuable enough to warrant more costly repairs than an older aircraft.

Edited February 21, 2014 by kujuman

[kujuman]

This mission marked the delivery of the second hab module to the station.

Landing was notable as being the first landing at the KSC alternate landing site.

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I need to do some forensic investigations into the time frames and such, as I lost the KSP install I was using for this (I need to reconstruct things I think). This mission was completed before that happened.