Paste a url where
this mod
can be downloaded
Description
Self-Contained Retriever variant of the Ambassador. All-in-one refueling solution. Capable of reaching 100x100km LKO with 1.8km/s of dV left. Primarily intended to operate on Minmus for refuel operation.
Ascent profile
- Rotate at ~65m/s.
- Pitch up & maintain 5 deg.
- At altitude of 5km, pitch up & maintain 10 deg.
- At altitude of 15km, pitch up & maintain 20 deg.
- At altitude of 20km, press 3 to ignite LV-Ns.
- At altitude of 25km, switch RAPIER mode.
- At altitude of 40km, pitch up & maintain 30 deg.
- At altitude of 65km, pitch down to prograde.
- Keep burning until desired apoapsis is met.
- Deploy service bay and circularize at AP.
Specifications
- Stock?: Yes
- Version: 1.0.5
- Type: ISRU equipped SSTO
- Crew: 2 (remote operation capable)
- Operational weight: 54.95t
- Empty weight: 27.55t
- Payload: ISRU suite
- Propulsion: 3x RAPIER, 2x LV-N
- Size: 20.4m x 12.9m x 4.7m
- Part count: 132
Development history
[Origin of CNA series]
The Combined Nuclear-propulsion Aircraft series aims to create SSTOs with pre-1.0 performance.
With (personally) welcomed nerfing of turb-OP-jets, SSTOs of post-1.0 era have generally inferior performance. Now, creating a SSTO with at least 2km/s of dV on orbit must include nuclear propulsion system. But this presents another problem as LV-N has terrible TWR. This rules out high performance, LF-only SSTOs from emerging. To deal with a wide gap of safe transition speed - 200~300m/s between high TWR (RAPIER) to low TWR (nuclear) - one must use RAPIER’s closed cycle mode for a while. This resulted in the above-mentioned naming of my series.
All CNA series crafts have ascent profile embedded into in-game craft description for convenience.
[CNA-3IR Revenant]
Previous experiment of equipping Mk 2 sized SSTO with new 1.25m ISRU suite resulted in CNA-2IR Raven. But due to limited potential of the Ascender airframe, it had marginal dV capacity of 1.7km/s and below-average ISRU suite. So what was my next logical step? Employing a more powerful SSTO, the CNA-3 Ambassador.
The Revenant is ISRU Refuel variant of the Ambassador. Commonly referred as SCR unit, the Revenant has 5x Drill-o-Matic Jr. ore harvesters thanks to improved performance of the Ambassador airframe. Compared with the Raven, this allows 2.5x faster ore excavation. It also sports 2x ore storage capacity, requiring less user input.
A common problem with the Raven was its chronic shortage of electricity. For this, 2x Gigantor XL solar panels were installed in stretched service bay along with twofold increase in EC storage.
The increased operational weight, even with reduction in initial monopropellant capacity, means the Revenant’s ascent profile to be inefficient just like the Ascender’s. This is irrelevant, as the Revenant is primarily operated unmanned and you’ll get refueled anyway.
Trivia
I don’t like calling my SCR units single-stage-to-anywhere or SSTA. This is due to the fact that SCR units are strictly used for surface-to-mothership refuel missions (and in some cases, emergency refuel missions from Minmus to Kerbin), meaning they do not operate on their own for extended period of time.
