KerbalX

Details

• Type: VAB
• Class: ship
• Part Count: 62
• Mods: 3
• KSP: 1.11.1

Mods

• New Tantares
• New TantaresLV
• Squad (stock)

The dreams of spaceflight came to fruition in the 20th century and the Russian contribution to its birth was Konstantin Tsiolkovsky with his ideas later proven by others such as Wernher Von Braun, Robert Goddard, and fellow Russian scientists such as Sergei Korolev. The actual work on the first Soviet manned spacecraft began in June 1956 under Sergei Korolev and the Special Design Bureau (OK1) initially to mirror the Mercury program approach with suborbital flights on a small ballistic missile followed by orbital flights. The design for the Vostok, both spacecraft and rocket, were completed two years later along with military directives to abandon any suborbital flights and proceed immediately to orbital flight.

An initial unmanned prototype flew in May 1960 which was a partial success but failed to re-enter although it proved the basic Vostok design as safe for manned flight. The Vostok continued to go through a number of difficult unmanned flights which resulted in a number of short-term delays before the successful flight of Vostok 1 on April 12th 1961 with Yuri Gagarin becoming the first human to reach a stable orbit and return safely (albeit not with his spacecraft). While many of the Vostok’s systems were primitive by Western standards it was a complete success and sped up the Space Race.

The Vostok program continued for another two years with six successful manned flights including the first woman in space decades before even the first American astronaut, the first time two manned spacecraft were in orbit together, and other goals that wouldn’t be reached (or exceeded) by the Americans until the Gemini program. It would also be developed for the short-lived Voskhod program which achieved the first two and three man flights as well as the first spacewalk by Alexi Leonov.

The Andromeda is a base approximation of the Vostok spacecraft using Tantares parts and simulates some of the basics of the Vostok flights. It’s a two-module system with a descent module and an instrument module which are separated prior to re-entry. It has a small orbital engine which at the very least should let you re-enter the atmosphere and a-historically land with the descent module.

The Andromeda rocket is an approximation of the Vostok rocket which was one of many descendants of the R-7 Semyorka. It is a much different approach than early American rockets and used smaller and more primitive rockets – it doesn’t stimulate many limitations of the early R7-derived rockets such as having to be launched at any angle because of limitations with pitch control. The Blok-A core stage and the four boosters designated Blok-B, V, G, and D are fired together at launch and should collectively get you into the upper atmosphere. The boosters should be decoupled upon exhaustion which may result in a Korolov cross – or not – but in either case there shouldn’t be a risk of colliding with the core stage.

The core stage should continue to get you to space on its own although that depends on your chosen apogee. It can be decoupled either after exhaustion or when you’re sure you no longer need to adjust your projected apogee. The latest you should decouple the core stage is when you reach space as the Blok E upper stage handles the burn that completes your stable orbit.

EDIT:

There is currently an issue with the orbital engine and the fuel supply which eliminates the craft’s ability to re-enter under its own power. You can potentially fudge this with other mods, such as Hyperedit, but I’ll fix this as soon as I find a good solution.

Built in the VAB in KSP version 1.11.1.