Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Mission 53 - 5-Kerbal reusable spacecraft

Mission 53

Reusable Crew Vehicle 01 "First Sound" | RCV Flight 01
Description: A reusable spacecraft which is capable of carrying 1 pilot and 4 passengers into low Kerbin orbit and back.
Mass at launch: 4990 kg


Launch vehicle: Symphony-5k Type-01
(reusable SSTO booster with 5000 kg payload capacity)

Mission objective: Launch into low Kerbin orbit, then de-orbit and land near the space center.

Crew: Newmin Kerman, Henly Kerman, Lemfrid Kerman, Patwin Kerman, Wilke Kerman

"Symphony-5k" SSTO booster on launchpad



Launching into orbit on five toroidal aerospikes. (Started using MechJeb's ascent autopilot this time; 50+ manual launches got tedious)





RCV-01 "First Sound" decoupled from booster, in a 71 km orbit.



The Symphony-5k booster was de-orbited and recovered near KSC.




Landing solely with parachutes





Once in orbit, the capsule is propelled solely by RCS thrusters.



Top-down view of the spacecraft. The pilot module is in the front, while the passenger module is in the back.



Inside the passenger module



After completing two full orbits, the spacecraft was brought home. Three parachutes were added instead of four to save some mass, but this caused the spacecraft to tumble slightly due to the asymmetrical configuration. This was corrected by the SAS on board the pilot module. This particular spacecraft will be retrofitted with four parachutes (on the pilot module instead of the passenger module) the next time it flies.




From left to right: Newmin (pilot), Henly, Lemfrid, Patwin, Wilke



KASDA plans to construct two more RCVs in addition to "First Sound".

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