J3 Mângo’s Team hawk entries
- Thread starter J3 Mângo
- Start date
J3 Mângo
Planet Sculptor
Copycat
Biker Mice from Mars
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Voyager Quest
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Because I have a new submission for the shuttle challenge:
https://sharing.spaceflightsimulator.app/rocket/nsDhiT9rEe6d9ruAd13aUA
https://sharing.spaceflightsimulator.app/rocket/nsDhiT9rEe6d9ruAd13aUA
Pink
(Mooncrasher)
Staff member
Team Valiant
Discord Staff
Voyager Quest
Man on the Moon
Forum Legend
Done. 
It's a good start to improve on.
1. Could definitely manage to have a nicer nose, even in vanilla. Try a type of nose that's flat at one side, maybe? So the heatshields don't poke out like that.
2. I see you're having balance issues on re-entry, it keeps trying to turn anti-clockwise because the back with the engines is a lot heavier than the nose. You can fix that by moving some of your fuel tanks from the back to the front (in the nose), and generally moving more stuff near the nose so it's more balanced. Some fuel tanks in the nose is nice, because then you can transfer fuel between the main body and the nose for the perfect balance no matter what you're carrying. Feel free to stretch the nose to have space for this, shuttles like long noses and tails! You can also have a pretend cockpit section between the nose and the payload bay for more fuel tank space.
3. Shuttles of the type we are doing require a booster because they're not SSTOs. The relative size of booster varies a lot, but it should be able to push you up at least 10 km, or even all the way up to space and 1000 m/s. I'm sure you can build something that works and you like!
4. Payload.... I expect 10% at minimum, more ideally closer to 20% of the total lift-off mass to be payload. So if the lift-off mass is 1000t, the payload makes up 100-200t of that, you get the idea. Try make it able to carry as much as possible by having good aerodynamics and, the tricky part, having low dry mass (aka as little wasted weight as possible for stuff that isn't fuel and engines). The real challenge of a shuttle is making it light and good.
Feel free to ask for further advice on specific parts, I know there's a lot of stuff there!
It's a good start to improve on.
1. Could definitely manage to have a nicer nose, even in vanilla. Try a type of nose that's flat at one side, maybe? So the heatshields don't poke out like that.
2. I see you're having balance issues on re-entry, it keeps trying to turn anti-clockwise because the back with the engines is a lot heavier than the nose. You can fix that by moving some of your fuel tanks from the back to the front (in the nose), and generally moving more stuff near the nose so it's more balanced. Some fuel tanks in the nose is nice, because then you can transfer fuel between the main body and the nose for the perfect balance no matter what you're carrying. Feel free to stretch the nose to have space for this, shuttles like long noses and tails! You can also have a pretend cockpit section between the nose and the payload bay for more fuel tank space.
3. Shuttles of the type we are doing require a booster because they're not SSTOs. The relative size of booster varies a lot, but it should be able to push you up at least 10 km, or even all the way up to space and 1000 m/s. I'm sure you can build something that works and you like!
4. Payload.... I expect 10% at minimum, more ideally closer to 20% of the total lift-off mass to be payload. So if the lift-off mass is 1000t, the payload makes up 100-200t of that, you get the idea. Try make it able to carry as much as possible by having good aerodynamics and, the tricky part, having low dry mass (aka as little wasted weight as possible for stuff that isn't fuel and engines). The real challenge of a shuttle is making it light and good.
Feel free to ask for further advice on specific parts, I know there's a lot of stuff there!