How many models I do not know, quite the endeavor handling the Venusian wind;
Here’s a few pics I happen to have from the evolutionary path
The original lander, the blunt base proved impossibly unstable in the lower atmosphere
I didn’t take a full pic of the final lander coming in, here’s the beta, it was short a few parachutes so I reduced the ‘aerobalancers’ for some more protected space along with bit of a fuselage stretch
And so, the final lander and launch vehicle
The main heat shield took some doing,
No room for landing legs,
I had a few ugly iterations of small shields making a spearhead with structural parts that more or less worked
Originally I had a separator between the engines and the shield, but the residual faring blocked the engines so I couldn’t activate them;
This configuration also protects the engines from blowback when the fairing is dropped but adds another step in a hurried situation
Here’s a few pics I happen to have from the evolutionary path
The original lander, the blunt base proved impossibly unstable in the lower atmosphere
I didn’t take a full pic of the final lander coming in, here’s the beta, it was short a few parachutes so I reduced the ‘aerobalancers’ for some more protected space along with bit of a fuselage stretch
And so, the final lander and launch vehicle
The main heat shield took some doing,
No room for landing legs,
I had a few ugly iterations of small shields making a spearhead with structural parts that more or less worked
Originally I had a separator between the engines and the shield, but the residual faring blocked the engines so I couldn’t activate them;
This configuration also protects the engines from blowback when the fairing is dropped but adds another step in a hurried situation