KerbalX

Details

• Type: VAB
• Class: ship
• Part Count: 27
• Mods: 2
• KSP: 1.12.5

Mods

• Bluedog DB
• TweakableEverything

The Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union truly began on October 4th, 1957 with the Soviets launching the first ever man-made satellite, Sputnik 1. Their victory laps continued all the way up through April 12th, 1961 when Yuri Gagarin became the first human to successful orbit Earth. The American space program had to deal with different challenges and first took to sending two sub-orbital missions with Alan Shepard becoming the first American astronaut in space several weeks later on May 5th and then again with Gus Grissom on July 21st. The first American in orbit, John Glenn, finally occurred with Mercury-Atlas 6 on May 24th of the following year which required a more powerful lifter, the Atlas launch vehicle. The Mercury project continued with three more successful missions with the Mercury-Atlas launch vehicle.

The SM-65 Atlas was America’s first ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile) and first became operational in October 1959 as the Atlas-D. The Redstone launch vehicle was developed for sub-orbital manned missions so it was clear a much more powerful rocket was necessary to put Americans into orbit. The Atlas-D was further modified into sixteen Atlas LV-3B of which nine were launched, seven of them successfully including four manned Mercury missions.

The Bossart is Bluedog Design Bureau’s second approximation of the Atlas LV-3B and a replacement for its classic Muo rocket with few operational differences. It is still one-and-a-half stages much like the real Atlas LV-3B. The main and booster stages are fired together with the booster fairings and two smaller engines ejected upon reaching the upper atmosphere. The main engine continues the rest of the ascent as well as handling the orbital process.

The Hermes is an approximation of the Mercury capsule which is also used in my Etoh-Hermes and Muo-Hermes builds. The capsule separates from the main stage upon reaching orbit with the assistance of four small separation motors. It’s meant for relatively short-term orbital missions in LKO (Low Kerbal Orbit) but should have enough electricity for at least 3-7 orbits depending on your settings. The retro pack which was optional for the Etoh-Hermes is now used to de-orbit your ship and should be enough for altitudes in excess of 200km however I recommend conservative orbital parameters.

The ascent procedure is pretty simple although in some cases I recommend being cautious with your angle-of-attack and you may need to restrict to 5 degrees to avoid destabilizing the rocket. The booster skirt should be jettisoned at about 40 seconds left in the burn which should increase the burn time to approximately 120 seconds (or 2 minutes). The rocket should coast once you have reached your desired projected apogee and then simply point to prograde and fire the rocket to achieve a stable orbit.

The re-entry procedure uses the Hermes’ three-rocket retro package to destabilize the orbit and put it into a re-entry trajectory. The rockets are fired in sequence with each firing for ten seconds and producing approximately 33 m/s of dV for a total of 101 m/s of dV altogether. Your project perigee needs to drop below 50 km, preferably around 20 km, to make a successful re-entry or you risk bouncing off repeatedly and back into space until your orbit decays enough. This would be utterly catastrophic in real life but under stocking settings would merely be annoying.

The Hermes capsule has two sets of parachutes – drogue and main – with the drogue best deployed around 12,000 meters which should slow the craft considerably under fully deployed around 7,000 meters. The main chute should be deployed anywhere between 5,000 and 2,000 meters and will fully deploy at 1,000 meters. The heat shield deploys a large airbag to cushion the initial impact of the landing which should be activated at 1,000 meters and should deployed automatically before landing.

Built in the VAB in KSP version 1.12.5.