BANDWITH
Embodiment of Made In Abyss spoilers
Professor
Swingin' on a Star
Man on the Moon
Registered
I’ve been designing a cycle spaceship to land and return from SR2’s Mars analogue, also known as Cylero.
Turns out, that’s not as easy to do as you might think. Or, at least, for me that is. Things get rather roundabout sometimes.
Starting off, there is the Practice Station, placed in a comfy orbit with a height of 139km above Droo. This is a screenshot of the second module after it was attached. It may look clean-ish now, but eventually it will start to resemble Mir.
Soon, more modules arrived on my main carrier rocket, the aptly named Station Builder 4 (SB4). It has a maximum payload of 20 tons. The second stage puts the modules in a very roughly 80km orbit in order to quickly catch up with the station.
The two hydrogen tanks. These were the most fun to dock. They also provided much needed monopropellant for refueling of crewed vessels, and command chips so that the booster on the right could be discarded. Unfortunately, the booster has no fuel.
Here, a small crew of 2 resides in the station to supposedly survey the new function of the station as an orbital dry dock rather than an art deco. The large labeled hydrogen tank was sent up empty after the crew to test the viability of getting something that unwieldy into orbit using the SB4. It was soon removed and deorbited to crash into the desert.
After an unmanned mission to Cylero which provided the rough budget for the full mission, a mockup of the CDAV (Cylero Decent/Ascent Vehicle) was sent up with crew to test fuel margins. Once the CDAV docked, the original 2 crew returned home for a splashdown in the ocean.
Soon enough, construction of the CCC began. It stands for Cylero Cycle... something. I forgot what the last part was. Anyways, the fully fueled lander (“Hellas”) and crew cabin (“Ithaca”) were sent up on a SB4 along with a docking tube to allow space for the colossal hydrogen tank. Once the hydrogen tank and nuclear engine are brought up and fully fueled, they will make their way to Cylero.
Once in orbit, Hellas will descend to the surface with 3 of the four crew before docking back with Ithaca, depositing the crew. Then, it will be discarded in Cylero orbit to save return mass and to be refueled for use in later missions.
This is all I have so far. I’d spend all of tomorrow working on getting the ship interplanetary, but I’m only 50% done with my English class and the semester ends next week. (If I fail the class I have to go back to real school and die of the good ol’ CoV-2.)
But, a sneek peek of the next installment:
Turns out, that’s not as easy to do as you might think. Or, at least, for me that is. Things get rather roundabout sometimes.
Starting off, there is the Practice Station, placed in a comfy orbit with a height of 139km above Droo. This is a screenshot of the second module after it was attached. It may look clean-ish now, but eventually it will start to resemble Mir.
Soon, more modules arrived on my main carrier rocket, the aptly named Station Builder 4 (SB4). It has a maximum payload of 20 tons. The second stage puts the modules in a very roughly 80km orbit in order to quickly catch up with the station.
The two hydrogen tanks. These were the most fun to dock. They also provided much needed monopropellant for refueling of crewed vessels, and command chips so that the booster on the right could be discarded. Unfortunately, the booster has no fuel.
Here, a small crew of 2 resides in the station to supposedly survey the new function of the station as an orbital dry dock rather than an art deco. The large labeled hydrogen tank was sent up empty after the crew to test the viability of getting something that unwieldy into orbit using the SB4. It was soon removed and deorbited to crash into the desert.
After an unmanned mission to Cylero which provided the rough budget for the full mission, a mockup of the CDAV (Cylero Decent/Ascent Vehicle) was sent up with crew to test fuel margins. Once the CDAV docked, the original 2 crew returned home for a splashdown in the ocean.
Soon enough, construction of the CCC began. It stands for Cylero Cycle... something. I forgot what the last part was. Anyways, the fully fueled lander (“Hellas”) and crew cabin (“Ithaca”) were sent up on a SB4 along with a docking tube to allow space for the colossal hydrogen tank. Once the hydrogen tank and nuclear engine are brought up and fully fueled, they will make their way to Cylero.
Once in orbit, Hellas will descend to the surface with 3 of the four crew before docking back with Ithaca, depositing the crew. Then, it will be discarded in Cylero orbit to save return mass and to be refueled for use in later missions.
This is all I have so far. I’d spend all of tomorrow working on getting the ship interplanetary, but I’m only 50% done with my English class and the semester ends next week. (If I fail the class I have to go back to real school and die of the good ol’ CoV-2.)
But, a sneek peek of the next installment:
