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Project Alexandria: a history of spaceflight done in Real Solar System

Felbourn

By Felbourn
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NathanKell

NathanKell

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Nice! :)

Hmm. As for flight tips on this one, I believe (like on Atlas) MECO preceded vernier cutoff, so final velocity could be fine-tuned via verniers. Then separation, then coast, then Able ignition. I don't know very much about the flight path they used--I assume it was direct injection to trans-lunar orbit. As with Vanguard, Able was 3-axis stabilized during AJ10 burn by helium-powered RCS (i.e. pressurant bleed-off), and after SECO by heated-propane RCS (carried and heated separately just for this use). Prior to stage separation the payload and kick motor were spun up, then the X-248 and the payload cast off, and the X-248 ignited.

I believe Pioneer 0 had some hydrazine RCS in addition to its solid velocity adjustment motors and its LOI motor. Raidernick did an exceptional job modeling it.

Looking forward to the results! :)

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Felbourn

Felbourn

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Nice! :)

Hmm. As for flight tips on this one, I believe (like on Atlas) MECO preceded vernier cutoff, so final velocity could be fine-tuned via verniers. Then separation, then coast, then Able ignition. I don't know very much about the flight path they used--I assume it was direct injection to trans-lunar orbit. As with Vanguard, Able was 3-axis stabilized during AJ10 burn by helium-powered RCS (i.e. pressurant bleed-off), and after SECO by heated-propane RCS (carried and heated separately just for this use). Prior to stage separation the payload and kick motor were spun up, then the X-248 and the payload cast off, and the X-248 ignited.

I believe Pioneer 0 had some hydrazine RCS in addition to its solid velocity adjustment motors and its LOI motor. Raidernick did an exceptional job modeling it.

Looking forward to the results! :)

Some of this I did not know or find out until now, and I've already done this flight. I'm recording Pioneer 3 now. It's not too late for that one if you have more flight info. That said, since they failed in both cases I am not worrying too much about perfect performance on these two. :D

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Felbourn

Felbourn

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Felbourn: I am now subscribed to this thread, so hopefully I'll be more timely with any extra info. :)

(EDIT: Thought 03 was out based on your above, seems not.)

Nathan, all full length episodes are Mondays at ~6 AM Pacific. One-offs can come here and there at any time. The Monday shows are this and Project Odyssey; currently alternating between them. This Monday is Alexandria 03. I'm doing the Atlas-B right now, and almost done. It's the last launcher for the Monday show.

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Cydonian Monk

Cydonian Monk

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Pioneer 4.... Somewhere deep within in the bowels of the JPL newsletter archives there's a "good" color photo of it. I remember there was discussion as to what it actually looked like when someone (was it raidernick?) was making their KSP version of it, and nobody could find a decent color photo (and the replica on Wikipedia is completely wrong). I don't even remember how I came across the issue in question (I was looking for something else), but I forgot to bookmark it.... Neither here nor there, really, and I don't recall how it stacked up against the KSP model in question. The stripes on the cone were definitely gold/black/white, though.

Regardless, I'm rather enjoying these Alexandria vids so far. Would you say these are taking you more or less time to make than Gateway/Odyssey?

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Felbourn

Felbourn

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Pioneer 4.... Somewhere deep within in the bowels of the JPL newsletter archives there's a "good" color photo of it. I remember there was discussion as to what it actually looked like when someone (was it raidernick?) was making their KSP version of it, and nobody could find a decent color photo (and the replica on Wikipedia is completely wrong). I don't even remember how I came across the issue in question (I was looking for something else), but I forgot to bookmark it.... Neither here nor there, really, and I don't recall how it stacked up against the KSP model in question. The stripes on the cone were definitely gold/black/white, though.

Regardless, I'm rather enjoying these Alexandria vids so far. Would you say these are taking you more or less time to make than Gateway/Odyssey?

They are about the same. Alexandria is taking a lot of time in the VAB and in researching the internet because each rocket is custom so far. No one wants to see repeats anyway, so I don't foresee that changing either. Odyssey requires a lot more design and play-testing per craft, plus any interlude time that requires 90 minutes real life per 1 minute of video, on average. In both cases I used to be 3 weeks ahead of schedule and had buffer time. Now each week I am finishing the Monday episode the Sunday before it. Alex 03 is baking now, which is why I am here.

I have a screenshot of the latest rocket added to the album. The composite is missing it because I get 0.5 FPS when I load that composite craft for screen shots.

Javascript is disabled. View full album
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Sampa

Sampa

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Pioneer 4.... Somewhere deep within in the bowels of the JPL newsletter archives there's a "good" color photo of it. I remember there was discussion as to what it actually looked like when someone (was it raidernick?) was making their KSP version of it, and nobody could find a decent color photo (and the replica on Wikipedia is completely wrong). I don't even remember how I came across the issue in question (I was looking for something else), but I forgot to bookmark it.... Neither here nor there, really, and I don't recall how it stacked up against the KSP model in question. The stripes on the cone were definitely gold/black/white, though.

Regardless, I'm rather enjoying these Alexandria vids so far. Would you say these are taking you more or less time to make than Gateway/Odyssey?

I agree with Cydonian Monk. I greatly enjoy your series thus far.

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Felbourn

Felbourn

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Ah, gotcha. Well, I'll keep watch then. :)

As for Atlas, the one thing to remember is that there is a quite long vernier burn after MECO (for Atlas C and beyond, after SECO).

I found out while playing. :) I shut down my Atlas B as I was getting close to the right orbit and then was quite surprised how long my verniers went with the tiny fuel left. The vid is done and uploading, ready for tomorrow!

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Sampa

Sampa

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I found out while playing. :) I shut down my Atlas B as I was getting close to the right orbit and then was quite surprised how long my verniers went with the tiny fuel left. The vid is done and uploading, ready for tomorrow!

Cool! Can't wait to watch it some time after school

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raidernick

raidernick

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FYI none of the probes are scaled for RSS. If you are using RSS all the masses, fuel ratios and sizes need to be changed. Everything is modeled in 1:1 and then scaled to kerbal 64% and the masses are arbitrarily determined by what works best with the stock game. Also pioneer 0-2 is intentionally upside down so people wouldn't "complain" that it was exploding their rockets because the antennas at the bottom were colliding with the fairings/decouplers. When you make something for the stock game you need to "idiot proof" it. From what I heard though Nathankell is planning on doing realism overhaul configs for RSS use sometime in the future.

If you want the sizes to be scaled "realistically" change the 0.80 in the scaling to 1.25. If the scaling is not 0.80 it means the model was contributed by someone else. For the weights I usually take the dry mass and reduce it to 64% of it's original mass. For really small probes though I often make up a mass as really tiny mass values have unintended consequences in regards to SAS/reaction wheels (although a lot of probes didn't have these this is a game and without them you can't position the probes for screenshots/respin them after timewarping etc...).

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Felbourn

Felbourn

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FYI none of the probes are scaled for RSS. If you are using RSS all the masses, fuel ratios and sizes need to be changed. Everything is modeled in 1:1 and then scaled to kerbal 64% and the masses are arbitrarily determined by what works best with the stock game. Also pioneer 0-2 is intentionally upside down so people wouldn't "complain" that it was exploding their rockets because the antennas at the bottom were colliding with the fairings/decouplers. When you make something for the stock game you need to "idiot proof" it. From what I heard though Nathankell is planning on doing realism overhaul configs for RSS use sometime in the future.

If you want the sizes to be scaled "realistically" change the 0.80 in the scaling to 1.25. If the scaling is not 0.80 it means the model was contributed by someone else. For the weights I usually take the dry mass and reduce it to 64% of it's original mass. For really small probes though I often make up a mass as really tiny mass values have unintended consequences in regards to SAS/reaction wheels (although a lot of probes didn't have these this is a game and without them you can't position the probes for screenshots/respin them after timewarping etc...).

Yep, I showed in my latest video (Alex 3 linked above) how I do it. You might find it interesting. That's how most of my time is spent when making an Alex video. I empirically measure everything by hand in the game, and set the mass values by hand from wiki info, astronautix, braeunig, etc etc.

It's cool learning why it was upside down. That makes sense. I keep learning little things about real space and KSP stuff from this series.

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raidernick

raidernick

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Yep, I showed in my latest video (Alex 3 linked above) how I do it. You might find it interesting. That's now most of my time is spent when making an Alex video. I empirically measure everything by hand in the game, and set the mass values by hand from wiki info, astronautix, braeunig, etc etc.

It's cool learning why it was upside down. That makes sense. I keep learning little things about real space and KSP stuff from this series.

OK cool and also if you haven't done it yet, consider downloading the latest updates all of the mods have had their animation modules replaced by firespitter. This fixes the long standing MAJOR fps issues caused by the stock animation module on all parts that have them.

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