Project New Shuttle

[Grover]

ok, update time:

ive got the landing gear in... its not the best piece of work, the wheelbase is quite narrow and it wont allow much angle of attach on final landing approach (perhaps flaps might give enough boost to allow a smooth landing? if not you'll just have do fly the approach fast and scary) but the Atlantis was hardly Boeing standard in the landing gear department

also, you may have noticed some control surfaces, they should be animated as well, should have it all sorted in the spacecraft3

finally, ive decided to go for the rudder-slash-speedbrake approach similar to STS, though setting rudder animations will be a pain, with the rotation axis pointing a component along EVERY axis but it was bound to be a pain from the start anyone got any ideas how that system works? i need to get the vector components sorted out

next up is the payload bay and nose, its not looking very aerodynamic at the moment

later guys

 

[Donamy]

AC3D does the animation vectors for you.

 

[Grover]

what does now?

 

[Donamy]

what does now?

http://www.inivis.com/

 

[diogom]

Sorry for the off-topic, but Donamy, after acidentaly finding your ISS gallery on AC3D website, I have to aks where can I get that ISS.

 

[River Crab]

Mesh Wizard (free) can calculate vectors on mesh files, IIRC.
Looks good, by the way. The aquatic shape looked funny at first, but with the surfaces modeled, it kind of reminds me of SpaceFish. As for names, the first thing that popped into my mind was 'Bottlenose', moments before spontaneously breaking into song on IRC. :lol:

And I think you will need longer main gear...I don't think flaps work the same on delta-winged bricks.

 

[Donamy]

Sorry for the off-topic, but Donamy, after acidentaly finding your ISS gallery on AC3D website, I have to aks where can I get that ISS.

mostly [ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=4005"]ISS Experience V3[/ame] but it needs updating.

 

[Grover]

well, the flaps would do a little bit to help, but there isnt room for much longer landing gear, the landing gear housings are getting awfully close to the cargo bay as it is

and as i mentioned, the dolphin look does have some aerodynamic quality, and it wont look so dolphin-y when its textured

thanks

 

[Donamy]

Land it on water, with inflatable floats.

 

[GoForPDI]

That defeats the main purpose of having a winged orbiter in the first place.

 

[Urwumpe]

well, the flaps would do a little bit to help, but there isnt room for much longer landing gear, the landing gear housings are getting awfully close to the cargo bay as it is

Why that? don't you want to move your main gear into your wings, so you have a wider ground area?

Also, in the worst case, just install a deck below the payload bay in which the landing gear can retract into (like in an airliner) and move the payload a bit higher. Not the best in terms of CoG maybe, but better than using a too short landing gear on something, that needs high pitch angles during landing for reducing vertical speed.

You could install additionally tanks, batteries, heat exchangers, electronics and more below the payload bay then as well.

Also, your wings are still a tiny bit thin for something that should survive reentry. They could be two to three times their current thickness. Sharp thin wings are better if you want low drag and low lift, for example for a hypersonic low-aoa scramjet plane. But if you glide home from reentry, thicker wings are better: they provide less lift but more drag during hypersonic flight (which is good actually) than the alternative, but reach much lower temperatures at the critical places and provide more lift at low speeds - when you want to land.

 

[Eli13]

Little off topic here but why the ESA? It could just as easily be Russia's answer to the destruction of the Buran or a replacement for the shuttle? It could even be a private company's shuttle that could be used for space agencies like those listed above.

It's not my choice of course but i was just wondering.

 

[IronRain]

Well, Russia had a flying shuttle and ESA only concepts. So maybe this is ESA's try to create a real flying shuttle.. They don't have a spacecraft to transport their astronauts to space and back so it could easily be ESA to create this shuttle. That's at least how I see it.

 

[Grover]

Well, to be honest, i just like ESA (and im european) and i think its time ESA had a go where the americans have been and where the russians have "failed"

---------- Post added at 08:35 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:29 AM ----------

news time!

after a short break involving pokémon (a childhood thing ) and Fallout: New Vegas, ive redone the model so far (is this the mark III version already?) featuring:

following Urwumpe's suggestion: Fatter wings (the first release will use aerodynamics from the stock atlantis, so it doesnt make any practical difference yet)

following many criticisms (friendly ones, thanks guys) ive reworked the landing gear, you can now land at 45* AoA without scraping the tail

and ive remade the payload bay for the third time, so its quite nice now, complete with handles for EVA

and yes, they are radiators: note that they hinge at a different point, further along the bay, rotating away so most of the heat is radiated well away from the rest of the craft, i thought id have a change

next up, ill do the nose again, maybe a little more drooped down so its more like the real shuttle, i imagine its better for high AoA flight (or is it?)

lemme know what you think!

 

[N_Molson]

and yes, they are radiators: note that they hinge at a different point, further along the bay, rotating away so most of the heat is radiated well away from the rest of the craft, i thought id have a change

Interesting idea, but you make the use of an RMS and EVA ops much more difficult

 

[Yoda]

Grover,

VERY NICE INDEED !!! Keep it up.

One thing though; with the radiators deployed in this way it's going to be hard for payload items to be easily manipulated when you take them out of the payload bay since it doesn't give you much maneuvering space before you hit one of the radiators.

In my (humble) opinion; better to leave the radiators "Shuttle-style"

 

[Fabri91]

Another idea might be to just make the payload bay doors rotate more. Due to the fact that the radiators are further away they still wouldn't radiate directly on the wings (I think, looking at the images).

The ship looks very good so far!

 

[Grover]

rotating more is a good idea. ill do that, and i was going to just urs URMS, monted in shuttle style for an RMS, and IMHO, doing the radiators this way gives MORE space for payload manipulation, especially when i open the doors a little further

 

[Eli13]

Well, to be honest, i just like ESA (and im european) and i think its time ESA had a go where the americans have been and where the russians have "failed"

---------- Post added at 08:35 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:29 AM ----------

news time!

after a short break involving pokémon (a childhood thing ) and Fallout: New Vegas, ive redone the model so far (is this the mark III version already?) featuring:

following Urwumpe's suggestion: Fatter wings (the first release will use aerodynamics from the stock atlantis, so it doesnt make any practical difference yet)

following many criticisms (friendly ones, thanks guys) ive reworked the landing gear, you can now land at 45* AoA without scraping the tail

and ive remade the payload bay for the third time, so its quite nice now, complete with handles for EVA

and yes, they are radiators: note that they hinge at a different point, further along the bay, rotating away so most of the heat is radiated well away from the rest of the craft, i thought id have a change

next up, ill do the nose again, maybe a little more drooped down so its more like the real shuttle, i imagine its better for high AoA flight (or is it?)

lemme know what you think!

Haha its fine. But I'm looking forward to seeing more of this project as it develops.

 

[Donamy]

That defeats the main purpose of having a winged orbiter in the first place.

Well, that all depends on where the water is, now doesn't it ? I mean if you want to save the weight of the landing gear and space they take up.