KerbalX

Description

ISS Assembly Flight 5A.1
08.03.2001
ESP-1
Leonardo
Crew Rotation

A 100% stock recreation of STS-102 (with working Canadarm), which delivered supplies to the International Space Station, performed the first crew rotation, with Expedition 2 arriving, and Expedition 1 returning home on the Orbiter. The mission also delivered External Stowage Platform 1 (ESP-1), which holds a couple of spare parts for the ISS.

Built in the VAB in KSP version 1.4.5.

Check the Hangar for more assembly missions.

Details

• Type: VAB
• Class: spaceplane
• Part Count: 506
• Pure Stock

Launch Instructions

1. Activate SAS, and throttle down.
2. Stage SSMEs (initial staging), and use shift to throttle up to 2/3 (Line along the R in ‘Throttle’)
3. Once thrust is nominal, stage the SRBs and Clamps and pitch back a little to get the Prograde marker pointing vertical
4. Start slowly increasing thrust (tapping shift) once you hit 100m/s and reach 100% thrust before 200m/s for best results
5. During this, be pitching back (gravity turn)
6. Be at or around 45 degrees pitch by SRB cutoff, which happens at exactly 1:17
7. When staging SRBs, be pointing directly prograde to avoid them bumping your orbiter.
8. After SRB separation, pitch back to 15 degrees or so, and then level out towards the horizon as your AP reaches 45-50km
9. Keep your AP at 50-55km until you circularize, and cut off (using X) SSME once you reach 80-100km
10. Toggle Action Group 1 to cut off SSMEs, stage External Tank separation, and activate RCS and move away from the external tank
11. Activate Action Group 7, deactivate RCS, point prograde, and burn OMS engines until you reach your desired AP (I built my station at 150km)

Re-Entry Instructions

From an equatorial orbit of 150km, put your PE at 40km on top of KSC, and you’ll end up right on top when you finish, as long as you hold Prograde (Action Group 8 for re-entry angle). Once you hit 800-1000m/s you can activate Action Group 6 (control from Cockpit) and glide into KSC. DON’T FORGET TO ACTIVATE THE FLAP CONTROL! Pitch for inner wing flap, Pitch+Roll for outer wing flap . It has a slow stall speed, but in the lower atmosphere the drag bleeds speed too quick to glide very far. Once you touch down, stage for Drogues. Activate Brakes to deploy tail airbrake.

Canadarm Instructions

Once your desired orbit is reached and you are ready to begin use of your Canadarm, make sure SAS is still active,and activate Action Group 3 to turn on the reaction wheels of the Canadarm. For best results, quicksave before activating the arm. Once you’re ready, activate Action Group 0 to decouple the arm from its docked position, and use the [ and ] keys to switch between the 3 segments. Use Q and E to lift and lower the two arms as needed, W and S to rotate them, and A and D to turn side to side. It takes some practice to be fluent with it.

DO NOT TIME WARP IF CANADARM IS UNDOCKED. IT WILL FLOAT APART

If you use the mod, DockRotate, you can piece it back together by docking each segment back and then rotating them back together. I recommend this mod anyway for ISS construction to keep everything perfectly aligned. It’s not required, just recommended.