Question SpaceX v0.58 question

francisdrake

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Recently I have downloaded the SpaceX 0.58 addon made by Glider and MajorTom. It is a great looking addon, with obviously a lot af detail went into the model.

The question is if the launch autopilot deliberately puts the vessel into a suborbital trajectory, or am I doing something wrong?
The Dragon capsule has only a quite limited dV budget, so the OMS-1 and OMS-2 maneuvers to achieve a stable orbit deplete a lot of fuel, very little is left for the ISS alignment and rendezvous.

By the way, will this addon be developed further? After cancelling the Constellation project the private space transportation will probably be the only access to space for America in the foreseeable future. It would be worth to keep it updated with future real-world developments.
 

PhantomCruiser

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I was going to ask the same question (both actually).
Kudos on both rockets, very nice work.

Two additional questions... For the Falcon 9 heavy, getting to orbit was very easy (and quick), but how can I jettison the fairing? Also, is there a guidance file that I'm missing for the Falcon 1?
 
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francisdrake

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I get a better ascent trajectory manualy flying the 20-30-40 rule:
20 km high - 40° pitch
30 km high - 30° pitch
40 km high - 20° pitch

Then I hold a 15° pitch through stage sep and the first part of second stage burn, let the vessel come 'over the top' and drop somewhat, before pitching up slightly to keep it above 110 km height. The final part of the burn is then prograde. This is good for an apogee of 600 km, which is way beyond the 365 km of the ISS orbit.
 
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Glider

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The question is if the launch autopilot deliberately puts the vessel into a suborbital trajectory, or am I doing something wrong?
multistage2's autopilot for (F9 + Dragon) works unstably and can sometimes not put Dragon in orbit. In a new version will be ( I've already wrote and check the code ) more smart autopilot, that will be able to put Dragon at orbit with +-5 km accuracy for perigee and +-1 km for apogee.

The Dragon capsule has only a quite limited dV budget, so the OMS-1 and OMS-2 maneuvers to achieve a stable orbit deplete a lot of fuel, very little is left for the ISS alignment and rendezvous.
The amount of Dragon capsule's fuel ( 1200 kg ) was token from spacex site, but if this amout of fuel is too small, I can add more.

Two additional questions... For the Falcon 9 heavy, getting to orbit was very easy (and quick), but how can I jettison the fairing? Also, is there a guidance file that I'm missing for the Falcon 1?
the realization of F9Heavy's fairing will be new in the next version. and there is no guidance file for F1 in v.0.58...:rolleyes: in next release I'll also add the new autopilot for all rockets and no guidance files will be needed.

By the way, will this addon be developed further?
I've already started work on a new version with it's own dll code.
 
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francisdrake

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Having a day off, I was playing around with Gmax, trying to make low-poly model of the Merlin engine. It turned out not to be exactly low-poly. It has 3058 polys, and 4 textures. Having no dimensions of the original engine I kept the overall dimension of the engines Glider uses in his SpaceX addon, also using 2 of his textures.

If anybody wants to play around with it I can supply the Gmax model and, if required, also the msh file.

picture.php

picture.php
 
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Glider

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Recently, when I was updating the F9's first stage model. I've made a new "middle-poly" model for engine. I've added some details that I saw on new spacex' images ( or something similar to it ) and optimised insignificant engine parts with too big amount of polygons. As a result, the amount of polygons has been lovered from 4137 to 3751 with significantly enchanced quality. A picture is below. For more pics see album in my profile.

 
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