KerbalX

Description

A loose recreation of the real-life Energia-Polyus vehicle, where the Energia rocket (developed primarily to carry the Buran shuttle orbiter) served as a launcher for the Polyus battlestation. In the attempted May 1987 launch, the Energia performed perfectly, but the Polyus failed to reach orbit due to a malfunction which placed it in the wrong orientation during its insertion burn.

Like its sibling, the Kaminari (a KSP Energia-Buran), the Aneko has a large four-engine core surrounded by four RE-170-powered boosters and by the side-mounted payload. As a result, as with the Kaminari, the boosters need to be throttled down partway through first-stage flight to prevent a loss of pitch control; however, as the Aneko station is considerably heavier than the Kaminari orbiter and (even with the aerodynamic fins mounted on the temporary lower tailcone) has much less in the way of flight-control surfaces with which to help counter the booster-induced pitching moment, the booster-throttling-down KAL-1000 (now mounted on the Aneko station’s temporary upper tailcone, and triggered using Abort rather than 6) needs to be triggered considerably earlier than with the Kaminari, so keep a close eye on the flight-control-input display during ascent!

As with the real-life Polyus, the Aneko is launched upside down (part of what caused the Polyus to fail to reach orbit, although hardly the only contributor), with the nose cupola facing the ground and the engine nozzles pointing up in the air. When separating from the launcher core, make sure that RCS is turned on, and then stage away the core; the temporary tailcones on each end of the Aneko have solid-fuelled separation rockets (nerfed sepratrons) to push the station away from the discarded launcher, and RCS thrusters to keep the sepratrons’ thrust from causing the whole station to rotate (the RCS thrusters on the station itself are not yet active at this point, as they are still enclosed in its two protective fairings). Once a safe distance from the launcher, stage again to jettison the fairings, and yet again to jettison both tailcones; then, press 7 to switch the Aneko’s control point to its nose-facing RGU, and, if necessary, stage one more time after this to activate its engines and complete orbital insertion.

The aft section of the Aneko, including the engines, is derived from that of the VAB22, in keeping with the Polyus design (the VAB22 is a KSPized TKS spacecraft, and the engine section of the real-life Polyus was based on that of a TKS); however, while the Polyus’s forward portions were occupied by a large carbon-dioxide-laser-weapon system, stock KSP has no dedicated weapon parts, so I used a generic ore-refinery system (fully prestocked with ore), with the requisite power-supply and thermal-control equipment, to make up the mass and volume.

As for the name, it’s named after a character in the same Rain in-universe anime/manga that provided the namesake for the Kaminari.

A stock rocket called Aneko. Built with 294 of the finest parts, its root part is probeStackLarge.

Built in the VAB in KSP version 1.10.1.

Details

• Type: VAB
• Class: station
• Part Count: 294
• Pure Stock
• KSP: 1.10.1