Gluon or Boson look weird, i think, but Muon's cool. Quark could fit for satellites. As quarks exist with different "flavours", it could be declined under many types. For interplanetary missions, Fermion could look cool too, as it reminds Fermi and his paradox. Duality is a great name too, more abstract but it's a very beautiful fundamental concept in atomic/subatomic physics. It could fit well for a space station for example.
But "Gluon" has humor for a launcher with strap-on boosters...
(Glue-on...)
I think the next launcher family after the "Ion" series is closed will be the "Muon" family.
So, there will be a Ion-9 ? When I see Ion-6, i guess we're going to Mars with this one !
Can't wait to see those monsters on the launchpad !
Wow. Ion Aerospace must have a security leak somewhere...
Must check that out.
But no, not Ion-9 for mars. I don't really know
what Ion-9 will be, I only have ideas for 'em up through Ion-8.
The mars mission is
conceptual only at this point, but the current plan is to assemble the deep space HAB, lander(s), and nuclear propulsion section in earth orbit with 4 to 5 flights of the Ion-7 launcher. Once the stack is assembled and ready, the crew will launch on an Ion-4 and dock in a standard earth orbital DarkEnergy.
Here is a table of all the Ion family launchers in the works
at this time:
The way I come up with what's the next launcher is I define a mission I want to do, then design a launcher for it.
All numbers and data supplied below are
preliminary and
rounded, not to be used for payload planning purposes:
Launcher | LEO Payload | TLI Payload | Program Status | Design Mission |
---|
Ion 1 | 30 kg | | In Service | CubeSat Launcher |
Ion 2 | | 10 kg | In Service | CubeSat Launcher |
Ion 3 | 150 kg | | Suspended Indefinitely | Bulk CubeSat/Small Sat Launcher |
Ion 4 | 12,000 kg | | In Service | LEO Manned Spaceflight |
Ion 5 | | 5,500 kg | In Service | Deep Space Probe Launcher |
Ion 6 | | 53,000 kg | Under Development | Lunar Manned Spaceflight |
Ion 7 | 127,000 kg | | Preliminary Design | LEO Super-Heavy Launcher |
Ion 8 | 53,000 kg | | Conceptual | LEO Heavy Launcher |
Speaking about launchers addons, I have a question. It's not a request, i'm just curious : is there a big development difference between addons like the Ion family and, for example, Kulch's addons ? I mean, a rocket usable via Scenario Editor, with it's own autopilot and HUD, and allowing to change the payload "in game" ? Does it require special knowledge in development, or does it """only""" require more time to create ? Or both ?
Anything to do with Scenario editor is a big difference. AFIK, the amount of C++ required to do this is waaay over my head!
The Ion family has autopilots as I guess you know, just not as easily configurable. Anything that displays a custom dialog box is more than I want to mess with!
Adding text to the HUD is really, really easy; graphical stuff is doable but a good bit of work.
Hope this answered your question?
BTW, if there is something you want displayed on the HUD, please ask! I am always looking for constructive criticism on my addons so I can make 'em better.