Project HASDA - Reusable Crew Vehicle (lifting-body spaceplane)

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First shots of textured interior:

 

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The future is bright.

 

[K_Jameson]

Probably has already been asked and I have missed the answer: what is the launcher designed for this vehicle?

 

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M-II (with no solid rocket boosters)

 

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(Increased contrast, decreased brightness, and some increased saturation makes an Orbiter screenshot look much more vivid.)

 

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Should the launch vehicle adapter be like this? (without the abort motors because the RCV main engines are supposed to serve that function)

 

[ISProgram]

I don't see why not. The only other alternative is to go with the molded adapter that Dream Chaser would've/might/will employed. That seems to be overly complicated modeling for such an adapter, though.

 

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Will it significantly affect aerodynamics?

The modeling for the Dream Chaser-style adapter (which would have the disadvantage of more mass) might be possible with Wings3D's flow connect used multiple times.

 

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Actually, those won't work anyway, because the launch vehicle adapter would get in the way of the docking adapter during jettison.

So, this is what it'll be instead:

 

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Launch on M-II

 

[Nicholander]

Great! Also, have you started coding/programming the RCV, or is it just a mesh with textures as of now?

 

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I will be using Spacecraft3, which doesn't require programming code and only requires config files. Yes, I know it is very limited, but as I have been told by a certain someone via private message:

If you don't want to bother with DLLs because you don't want to learn to code, great. Most of us who do that stuff are software engineers or technologists, or at least have interest in those fields outside of Orbiter. Wanting to make a functional rocket is a poor motivation to spend years learning to assemble C++ programs.

And it is still a mesh with textures at this point.

 

[Nicholander]

You know, there's a [ame="http://www.orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=5177"]Spacecraft3 to DLL coverter...[/ame]

 

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I've read from somewhere that it doesn't "preserve the exhaust textures."

 

[kocmolyf]

Wanting to make a functional rocket is a poor motivation to spend years learning to assemble C++ programs.

That's probably making it sound worse than it actually is - the programming knowledge required to do the basics in Orbiter isn't years worth of time. But I find it's important for my motivation to get fun stuff happening on the screen quickly, so Spacecraft3 is a good way to go. :thumbup:

 

[Urwumpe]

If you don't want to bother with DLLs because you don't want to learn to code, great. Most of us who do that stuff are software engineers or technologists, or at least have interest in those fields outside of Orbiter. Wanting to make a functional rocket is a poor motivation to spend years learning to assemble C++ programs.

Who ever told you that - he deserves some kicking for fighting possible future competition.

Yes, starting with spacecraft3 will get you success much faster than learning C++. So please, do it and enjoy it.

BUT: Should you ever get into the realm of "well, if I use this and some strange MFD there and then require the player to perform some obscure key sequence so that the animations don't break" (Many here know which add-ons I mean) :

Please be brave and try learning C++. Orbiters API is a kindergarten of C++. It is VERY simple, requires you only little learning and does not make the programming language more complicated than it already is.

For gathering experience, you have to start somewhere. The first step is the hardest. Begin with Spacecraft3 ... but always remember that there is also the Spacecraft3-to-DLL-Converter for taking a look at how your add-on would look like as C++ module and for just trying to tweak things. Just experiment. Experiments may fail - that's what makes the successful experiments more interesting.

Just as reminder: I needed two long weeks for getting from Turbo Pascal 7.0 to C++, after programming at home with Pascal for 3 years (And I had been developing software in various BASIC dialects for 4 years then). And no, I had not been doing this professionally. I learned C++ at home for starting my first full-time job as small confused apprentice at the German Aerospace Center, after getting told that this would be "appreciable". I did Turbo Pascal for fun, after the school subject of "computer science" was demanding too little from me. And I learned BASIC already as young child because you needed to enter some BASIC instructions into a Commodore C16 for starting games and quickly learned more BASIC by accident that way (10 PRINT something and GOTO 10 were very cool when you are five years old and in the 80s). And it still took years then until I got enlightened and became capable of writing new more complex programs, instead of just copying and modifying what others already did. Nobody here was born as software engineer or "technologist". Everybody had his/her enlightenment one day later in his life.

Honestly: I know only very few people here at work, who learned their programming languages at work or at university. Most do the first steps at home and later only gather experience by working professionally and getting forced by work to accept bigger challenges. At work, you will get certifications and your "half-knowledge" of the programming language will slowly get turned into real knowledge. But hey, even a quarter-knowledge of C++ is excessive for making Orbiter add-ons - its really easy.

Even if you need 2 months for learning C++ and one month for getting used to the Orbiter API - its not a long time. Its an investment of time for a profit.

PS: And there are many C++ developers here, that can answer questions of you.

 

[orb]

Please be brave and try learning C++. Orbiters API is a kindergarten of C++. It is VERY simple, requires you only little learning and does not make the programming language more complicated than it already is.

And there isn't much to learn the C++ language. You only really need to learn general syntax, how you can use keywords and operators, not even all of them (something like grammar), and the rest you can look up in the reference tables (dictionary) when you convert your algorithms into program's code (something like translating from one language to another without knowing exact words, but with knowledge of how to construct the sentence).

With this you don't really need to learn OrbiterAPI, either. You only need to look up the API reference which is included with the OrbiterSDK. All the functions, classes, methods, structures you will use (unless they are undocumented) are described in detail there and you can read about them every time you need to use them, without any requirement for memorizing.


Programming generally is more about creating and using algorithms than about knowledge of the programming language you will write the program in.

 

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Recently, my calculus professor went over unit vectors (a.k.a. normalized vectors), and now I finally understand how they work.

So I don't need to always have rotation axes, exhaust, etc. in a direction parallel to the x, y, or z axes anymore.

DIR=(x,y,z) in which:
x = change in x
y = change in y
z = change in z
for a vector with a magnitude (length) of 1.

or:
x = (change in x of the vector)/(magnitude of the vector)
y = (change in y of the vector)/(magnitude of the vector)
z = (change in z of the vector)/(magnitude of the vector)

 

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Test video: Landing gear animations & RCS

 

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After taking a break from development, now I'm trying to figure out aerodynamics. Most important is the need to hold a high AoA.

In this spacecraft3 config tutorial, it describes a way to find the aerodynamic parameters of winged vehicles, but doesn't really have a way for lifting bodies (without true wings).

Then I discovered that the Dream Chaser add-on's aerodynamics are (mostly) taken from the example that the tutorial provides:

Of course, the only alternative I can think of is setting the config's flight model to that of the default Shuttle, but as we all should know, that isn't very good either. What would the [AERODYNAMICS] parameters be for the Shuttle Fleet add-on?

What is the secret to holding a high AoA? The XR2 seems to do it with a magic centre-of-gravity shift, especially when it has no fuel onboard.

Is setting a high elevator trim lift value the solution? Is is changing the attack point of the airfoil?

I tried changing the attack point of the Dream Chaser .cfg to (0,0,0.05), and it did hold 40 deg AoA during re-entry. But it wasn't providing a lot of drag.

---------- Post added at 10:44 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:18 AM ----------

Wait... what exactly was changed here? (bolded for emphasis)

DeltaTweak 0.2 - Tweaked by Spectre6

This is a simple modification of the DeltaGlider's Aerodynamics so it is possible to execute reentry at 40 degrees AoA.

This modification is very different from version 0.1a

My goal with this tweak was to simulate a 'fly-by-wire' system.
You will find that the control profile is very neutral, and commanding almost any AoA is very easy to do. You can fine tune with Trim.

The lift and drag charicteristics of the DG remain unchanged, so you will be able to glide and have the same crossrange ability as the stock DG. But you will also be able to take advantage of the high drag that steep AoA provides.

This control profile is very very stable. You will find the glider has outstanding control during re-entry. I found the controls in the atmosphere to be slightly sluggish, but this helped me maintain energy.

Please give me feedback! Ill keep releasing mods like this if I can keep getting feedback on what to improve!

The main file is DeltaGlider.dll, but i have also included deltaglider.ld which is a lift/drag profile for aerobrakemfd.