Component Space Shuttle V 5.0.1 (July 14, 2013)

[Briarknit]

I did, and I finally got it to not flip over on launch, however it now will always gradually tilt back towards the ground as it approaches 10000 meters. I\'d say at around 7000 meters the ship is totally level with the ground and after that its all downwards. This is with both SAS enabled and SAS disabled on both runs, and with the mechjeb at 89 Pitch at 1000 meters.

Also, what liquid engines do you use? Your video doesnt really show clearly which engines you use and I\'ve had to simply guess and check with every engine I have. Each one that 'works' either does what I\'ve stated above or it overpoweres the SRB\'s and flips the opposite direction.

[Cepheus]

I use the stock gimbal engine, with a couple cfg edits.

[Briarknit]

Hmm.. How much thrust does that have and what configs do you edit?

[Tiberion]

I do believe he distributed a copy of the engine in the pack, it overwrote the stock values...

[Briarknit]

Ok, heres a video of the thrusters I am using along with a launch without SAS and one with SAS. Sorry about the cut-off on the top and bottom, its late and I forgot to set my dxtory settings

As you can see, the thrusters you provided in the pack only have ~ 87 max thrust. Im assuming im doing something wrong here though...

http://youtu.be/FZVgQdqJ4PA?hd=1

[Cepheus]

It seems that the problem is that the engines aren\'t gimbaling. I haven\'t quite managed to reproduce what you\'re doing, but I\'ll keep working at it.

[Briarknit]

Forgive my ignorance, but could you explain gimbaling?

[Cepheus]

Gimbaling is the system of thrust vectoring used in most modern rockets. Thrust Vectoring is the ability of an aircraft, rocket, or other vehicle to manipulate the direction of the thrust from its engines, in order to control the attitude or angular velocity of the vehicle.

Here\'s a diagram to help with explanation.

The diagram illustrates three cases. The middle rocket shows the straight-line flight configuration in which the direction of thrust is along the center line of the rocket and through the center of gravity of the rocket. On the rocket at the left, the nozzle has been deflected to the left and the thrust line is now inclined to the rocket center line at an angle a called the gimbal angle. Since the thrust no longer passes through the center of gravity, a torque is generated about the center of gravity and the nose of the rocket turns to the left. If the nozzle is gimballed back along the center line, the rocket will move to the left. On the rocket at the right, the nozzle has been deflected to the right and the nose is moved to the right.

And here\'s a .gif

[Cepheus]

Update here:

• 
  [li]I\'ve got the resized solid boosters from JordanCox, and boy do they really make things look better.[/li]
  [li]The shuttle now sits lower on the ET.[/li]
  [li]Fix gimbal range setting in the .cfg, to achieve gimbal of ±10.5[/li]
  [li]I\'m currently testing the STS Stack with lower thrust values, and longer burning boosters (now at 124s.)[/li]
  [li]To give you an idea of the rebalance, it now takes 9:42 to get into orbit at 100km. The real Shuttle takes 45 minutes to fully complete orbiting procedures. Figured that would take too long for the more impatient of you folks, but if you want it, I can certainly give it to you.[/li]
  [li]With the rebalance, the shuttle has 1% fuel left. It\'s only enough to lower the periapsis to 50km. So de-orbiting may take some time. This wouldn\'t be much of a problem if there were OMS Pods, but there aren\'t.[/li]
  

I\'m shooting for a release date before the end of this month.

For posterity\'s sake, here\'s the timeline for the shuttle\'s pre-launch and final launch preparations, going on through T minus 31 seconds.

[list type=decimal]

[li]T minus 31 s - the on-board computers take over the launch sequence.[/li]

[li]T minus 6.6 s - the shuttle\'s main engines ignite one at a time (0.12 s apart). The engines build up to more than 90 percent of their maximum thrust.[/li]

[li]T minus 3 s - shuttle main engines are in lift-off position.[/li]

[li]T minus 0 s -the SRBs are ignited and the shuttle lifts off the pad.[/li]

[li]T plus 20 s - the shuttle rolls right (180 degree roll, 78 degree pitch).[/li]

[li]T plus 60 s - shuttle engines are at maximum throttle.[/li]

[li]T plus 2 min - SRBs separate from the orbiter and fuel tank at an altitude of 28 miles (45 km). Main engines continue firing. Parachutes deploy from the SRBs. SRBs will land in the ocean about 140 miles (225 km) off the coast of Florida. Ships will recover the SRBs and tow them back to Cape Canaveral for processing and re-use.[/li]

[li]T plus 7.7 min - main engines throttled down to keep acceleration below 3g\'s, so that the shuttle does not break apart.[/li]

[li]T plus 8.5 min - main engines shut down.[/li]

[li]T plus 9 min - ET separates from the orbiter. The ET will burn up upon re-entry.[/li]

[li]T plus 10.5 min - OMS engines fire to place shuttle in a low orbit.[/li]

[li]T plus 45 min - OMS engines fire again to place shuttle in a higher, circular orbit (about 250 miles/400 km).[/li]

I\'d certainly like my own personal shuttle to work exactly like this.

[Briarknit]

Nice updates

Any sort of news with my particular issue? Or should I just wait for 1.4.2 and download the most recent version of mechjeb (latest version only works with 1.4.1 and im stuck at 1.4

[Guest]

The real Space Shuttle takes only 10 minutes to get into low orbit, which is the only part actually done in 1x compression. 35 minutes for the latest step are usualy skipped on high compression in KSP. I\'d say you could just make sure it gets to LKO in 10 minutes, and call that realistic enough. Nobody says that people have to follow the real procedure after getting to oribt.

[Cepheus]

Update here:

I\'m almost ready to release v0.3.1 on this end. Everything\'s nice and balanced, and I\'m happy with the overall 'feel' of the launch. The launch is significantly more stable now (AscentAutopilot can operate while the solid boosters are burning). However, prelaunch / launch procedures are significantly different now, so I\'m going to have to write up a new guide for you folks.

Also, I\'m making some vanity edits to the folder names, and to the .cfg files. All files should now have the prefix 'CSS'. This should help with simple uninstallation, and prevent it from overwriting any of your other parts.

Here\'s another treat for you all. It\'s a launch, all the way to ET separation.

EDIT: I\'ve encountered a nasty bug here: where if you run out of fuel while thrusting, the shuttle breaks up. I\'m going to increase the fuel, but seriously. Try not to run out.

[sgtblazing]

Close at all to landing gears or a cargo bay? Also, what about swaping the SAS to mechjeb now that the parts are merged into one heap of awesomeness?

[Cepheus]

Close at all to landing gears or a cargo bay? Also, what about swaping the SAS to mechjeb now that the parts are merged into one heap of awesomeness?

Previously, the ascent autopilot was completely separate from MechJeb. I intend on implementing that. There are two developers that are currently working on a mechanic for both cargo doors, and for landing gear. I intend on implementing them.

[sgtblazing]

Cant wait!

[Briarknit]

Finally got the ship to use the mechjeb corrently however after I jettison the solid boosters and turn on AR202 and turn mechjeb off, the ship starts rotating out of control and AR202 sits at 'awating liftoff' even though im already in space =/

[Cepheus]

Alright, so I updated Mechjeb, and I\'m having the same issue that you were having.

I\'d also like to test this in the newest release version before I release the new pack, and boy, it\'s broken. With the 14.4 release coming out Monday, and an update to mechjeb coming soon, I should be able to get everything fixed, and released.

UPDATE:

I\'ve got 14.4, and the newest version of MechJeb, so now everything\'s launching nice and smooth. It\'s significantly simpler to launch now: turn on the ascent autopilot, and hit the big red [LAUNCH] button. Now, I haven\'t quite worked out that fuel bug. So...just don\'t run out of fuel.

[GOOMH]

This shuttle has tons of spare fuel in fact I was able to get the thing to the moon and back(didn\'t land but did a few orbits). But it\'s a wonderfully recreated shuttle makes some awesome looking screenshots.

[Turnip199]

ETA on 3.1? Loving the parts so far.

[Cepheus]

I\'m currently doing some final testing in 4.4, make sure everything\'s working right. So, it\'s pretty much done. It\'ll be going up this weekend. Already planning out 3.2. Going to work toward an improved flight model, and do some testing with a functional tank. I\'m not making any promises on that one, but all I should need is a decoupler. I gotta learn how to model in Blender. It\'s a necessity if I\'m going to implement the landing gear and Cargo Bay.

[RichieD76]

cepheus, would it worth asking tiberion for a few config ideas. just seen his tiberdyne pack and (no disrespect to him) but its an ugly beast but my god its set up well. plus with all the plug-in landing gear and cargo doors. The ideal package would be the glide model you\'ve made for CSS coupled with all the tiberdyne plugins. If you are wanting to model a decoupler though may i recomend cutting the fuel lines from the ET and using that for the texture and set the config to allow fuel to pass through? either way i\'m really glad you kept this mod alive. if i had any graphic skills i would help you out.

[Cepheus]

v0.3.1 released! Enjoy the ride, guys.

[Douglasdtlltd]

Do i have to use MechJeb? my computer already lags, and I don\'t need an autopilot lagging me even harder. (Yes, Mechjeb lags me believe it or not :\ )

[trbinsc]

I wonder if Sarkun would let you use his cargo bay code for this project, you should ask him.

[Cepheus]

Do i have to use MechJeb? my computer already lags, and I don\'t need an autopilot lagging me even harder. (Yes, Mechjeb lags me believe it or not :\ )

Not at all! It\'s actually pretty easy to control. Turn on precise controls, and you\'re good to go. Alternatively, you can modify the .cfg file of the engine mount, and turn it into an ASAS unit.

I wonder if Sarkun would let you use his cargo bay code for this project, you should ask him.

I\'ve already had a couple words with him about this, and he\'ll let me do just that. However, this will require modeling skills, which I don\'t have, so that addition will take some time.