First mission of Cavradyne's space station

[Izack]

South Atlantic Post
August 4th, 2024

New aerospace company launches first component of space station

Cavradyne Aerospace has announced the successful launch of the first unmanned component of their ORAC (Orbital Research and Assembly Complex) space station into an equatorial Low Earth Orbit this morning from their base here on Ascension Island.

Passengers and crew waiting at the terminal for their flights cheered to the bang and roar of this Delta IV rocket which lifted into the sky at 0721 this morning carrying the space station service module (SSSM) Camel into orbit.

The space station, which will one day house the first spaceborne nuclear fission reactor since Cosmos-1932 in 1988, is a great step forward for Cavradyne, establishing their foothold in space where the future crew of the first human interplanetary voyage will train, experiment, test new equipment and ultimately build their Mars-bound spacecraft.

Impossible third-person images:

Post-insertion burn, Service Module Camel begins to start up its systems.

Camel spreads its wings to bask in the bright glare.

Next up: Delta-IV Heavy + launch of the first habitation module.

Note: From the next entry onwards I'm going to adopt a newspaper format to the blog posts, with monochrome photographs and a nicer typeset.

 

[PhantomCruiser]

Awesome!
Phantom Mfg is nearly finished with their Stirling reactor at Copernicus. (as soon as I texture the mesh to my satisfaction that is...).

I was thinking about the impossible image capture devices. There should be (in the future) multitudes of college built micro-satellites in LEO. Built for short duration missions, and no doubt some would be used for imaging. I wouldn't think that it'd be impossible to coordinate between the launching agency and a university to use their micro-sat to snap pictures of our missions in-flight. It would take some bit of coordination, but would also be a way of validating (or showing off) technology (image tracking, orbital rendevous, etc).

 

[River Crab]

Oh, goody! I was looking forward to this.
Camel is an...interesting name for a spacecraft. I guess it would be fitting for the vessel used for storage.

The station-building and ultimate interplanetary transfer sounds a lot like the stack I had in mind for REVIO. Good luck with the rest!
Shall I flush an Ice cube, or would that be kind of redundant for you?

I was thinking about the impossible image capture devices. There should be (in the future) multitudes of college built micro-satellites in LEO. Built for short duration missions, and no doubt some would be used for imaging...

If there were such a high amount as to make it probable that they will be within such short range of any new launches, I think they would also be a huge debris hazard...Then again, it would be easier to take long-range images in space, but judging from the appearance of the horizon, the FoV in those images would put the observer within tens of kilometres of the Camel- er, focus vessel.

...That right there is some EX-treme nitpicking.
Pictures are always nice. :thumbup:

Speaking of, I'm sure the South Atlantic Post would have colour printers, unless you plan on distributing via Kindle, like I did. Never mind the anachronism of a generation-2 kindle in 2070...it would be an antique two times over. In this case, 2024 would just make it really old.

Or is it distributed via crow? That would explain the "impossible" viewpoint of those pictures.

 

[Izack]

This afternoon, my grand idea for the third-person shots was to have cameras on the fairings, but that's a little awkward. I'll just stick with funky camera angles, UMMU helmet-cams and satellite/ground telescope imagery.

River Crab:
Flush away, bro.

As for the name, I've been subconsciously adopting a desert theme for the missions. The Mars flight will be named Caravan. Too many darned 'Ca's in this organisation. It'll get worse when I start using Piper's modules. :lol:

I've run into a little wall in what to use for the reactor complex. Any suggestions? I might fall back on using MIR-2's core module on the end of a truss, and pretend it's radioactive.

 

[Pyromaniac605]

I'd say break the wall down with a sledgehammer. :hmm:

Darren

 

[fireballs619]

Quick question- What add-ons are you using for the modules (and launchers). Being the lazy person I am, I can't be bothered to check, so sorry if you said so already. I know the rocket's a Delta IV, but you got any plans for future launchers?

 

[Izack]

Pictured:
[ame="http://orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=4793"]Delta 4 Heavy Lifter[/ame]
[ame="http://orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=3055"]Solar Service Module v1[/ame]
Planned:
Ariane 6
[ame="http://orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=1036"]ENERGY project, release 4[/ame]
[ame="http://orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=3061"]Resolve International[/ame]
[ame="http://orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=2857"]Various Space Station Modules[/ame]
[ame="http://orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=4351"]Mir-2 space station, release 1.1[/ame]
Many things from: http://www.orbiterfrancophone.com/index.php?disp=addons&show=StationModule

 

[fireballs619]

Quite a line up you have there! Some pretty nice looking add-ons, too. I'll have to give them a look. I'll be looking forward to updates on this :tiphat: