KerbalX

Details

• Type: VAB
• Class: ship
• Part Count: 17
• Mods: 2
• KSP: 1.11.0

Mods

• Bluedog DB
• Squad (stock)

The rapid progress of the Soviet Union in launching the world’s first satellite sparked the Eisenhower administration to accept launch vehicle proposals from each branched of the US Armed Forces. The Army’s program eventually resulted in the United States’ first satellite, Explorer 1, while the Air Force’s then-far flung idea eventually resulted in the Atlas rocket. The Navy’s project, known as Project Vanguard, proposed modifying the Viking sounding rocket which would result in a launch vehicle that didn’t use a pre-existing military rocket as its base.

Even before the success of Explorer 1, the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik 1 and Sputnik 2 giving them a substantial lead in the so-called Space Race. The Vanguard team was rushed forward with the success of Sputnik 1 but the first test launches of the Vanguard rocket still didn’t occur before Sputnik 2 was already successfully in orbit. The first two launches of the Vanguard rocket would be failures before eventually Explorer 1, the Army’s program, would be successfully launched on Jan 31 1958.

The third Vanguard launch on Mar 17 1958 would become America’s second satellite which was humorously derided as the grapefruit satellite by the Soviet premier because of its extremely small size (in comparison to previous satellites). Nevertheless it achieved several firsts including the first orbital object powered by solar cells and the fact it still remains in high orbit to this day where it still serves a purpose many decades after its mechanical systems have stopped functioning.

The Easton is an approximation of the Vanguard rocket with three distinct stages – two liquid-fueled rockets and a solid engine for delivering the final payload. The first stage, which in real life was developed from the Viking sound rocket, It should put the rocket into the upper atmosphere after which the smaller Alpha rocket, based on the original Delta rocket, should put into space and potentially an unstable orbit.

The payload is decoupler and jettisoned through spin stabilization by small spin motors on the decoupler which rapidly spin the payload much like a top with separation also aided by a pair of small retro motors on the side of the spent second stage. This is counteracted by a pair of yo-yo-like stabilizing devices which are deployed after separation is complete but before the solid engine is activated. This sufficiently slows the spin movement if not entirely eliminates as it could be problematic if the payload is still rapidly spinning when the solid engine is fired.

The final stage, the Staara, is fired after the spin has been deaccelerated and should put the payload into a stable orbit. The timing of the solid engine is crucial to the mission and misfiring may result in continuing the unstable orbit or launching the payload well past Kerbin. Once you have achieved a stable orbit of Kerbin then you should jettison the V-1 probe. While the probe is small it has an important feature which are solar cells allowing it to operate indefinitely – the Vanguard-1 probe operated for a number of years as a result.

Built in the VAB in KSP version 1.11.0.