TKS Spacecraft

[4throck]

Looks very good. Detailed enough were it needs to be, but not too complicated.
For the thermal blankets, you can use this textures that I made. Just give them the right tone

They are based on Mir, but will do I think.

 

[Scruce]

Noobish question - Would the thermal blankets cover the whole of the FGB, VA and BSO, and be a green colour?

 

[Urwumpe]

Noobish question - Would the thermal blankets cover the whole of the FGB, VA and BSO, and be a green colour?

They will cover everything that is not plain white - and they are gray or even dark gray.

The infamous green coloring comes from the quality of soviet photo material: Gray becomes dark green, because it is green sensitive. I also needed to learn it for the R-7 back then. Actually, all Russian spacecraft have the same colors since Gagarin.

 

[Scruce]

The infamous green coloring comes from the quality of soviet photo material: Gray becomes dark green, because it is green sensitive.

So the Merkur capsule, in the image below, is actually grey and white instead of green and white?

 

[Urwumpe]

So the Merkur capsule, in the image below, is actually grey and white instead of green and white?

Yes. Precisely.

But remember that you look at a test article there, with the color markings being made for analyzing drop tests better. The real spacecraft is colored simpler, look at Salyut 7 photographs for that, it docked to a TKS later.

 

[Scruce]

Would this do?

900th post!

 

[Urwumpe]

Remove the white stripes on the deorbit package of the Merkur, I think they didn't exist on the flown version.

Also, the gray could be a bit less dirty, this is not Mir after 8 years in space. :lol:

EDIT: BTW, it looks like you create a duplicated abort tower for the Merkur - the deorbit engine unit of the Merkur is also doubling as abort engine, it is a solid rocket motor.

 

[Scruce]

This better?

- Used the more lightened texture
- Textured the Docking Antennae
- Removed VA Stripes

 

[Urwumpe]

better. Now remove the second abort tower and make the parts between the fuel tanks white - use the ISS FGB as reference, it is almost identical.

 

[Scruce]

EDIT: BTW, it looks like you create a duplicated abort tower for the Merkur - the deorbit engine unit of the Merkur is also doubling as abort engine, it is a solid rocket motor.

I'm not really sure what's going on here.

Here is a closer shot of the BSO:

 

[Urwumpe]

I'm not really sure what's going on here.

Here is a closer shot of the BSO:

Remove this white obscenity that you put on top of the abort engine. The Merkur has its own built-in abort tower.

 

[Scruce]

Remove this white obscenity that you put on top of the abort engine. The Merkur has its own built-in abort tower.

Really, but what about in these pictures?

(I think you're referring to the long white cylinder atop the VA capsule)

 

[diogom]

They will cover everything that is not plain white - and they are gray or even dark gray.

The infamous green coloring comes from the quality of soviet photo material: Gray becomes dark green, because it is green sensitive. I also needed to learn it for the R-7 back then. Actually, all Russian spacecraft have the same colors since Gagarin.

It's just confusing that these two American pictures show the Soyuz green.

But, I'm not an expert on the thing though, of course, I could be wrong. :tiphat:

 

[Scruce]

It's just confusing that these two American pictures show the Soyuz green.

I thought the same thing too with this fairly recent photo of the VA Capsule:

 

[Urwumpe]

I can't tell what sense it makes to have two solid rocket motor engines pointing backwards on the Merkur - but I only find it on test articles, no mentioning of them on the actual launches.

Also, I can only tell you that the external coating of many spacecraft didn't change in the past 50 years - from Vostok (was recently still flying as Foton) to Soyuz. But look at the photographs from 1970 and compare them to 2000.

There are also statements of engineers of that era, that explain that the film material was too green sensitive back then to properly display the spacecraft.

There was no special green Russian paint job for spacecraft - and the thermal insulation material is still the same. Not even the rockets did change their colors.

Here is a short one on the issue, that I had in my bookmarks:

http://www.ninfinger.org/models/rms_tips/colors.html#slv

 

[Scruce]

I can't tell what sense it makes to have two solid rocket motor engines pointing backwards on the Merkur - but I only find it on test articles, no mentioning of them on the actual launches.

What would you suggest as a final configuration?

 

[Urwumpe]

What would you suggest as a final configuration?

Just have a small protective cover on the TKS deorbit/abort engine. Not sure if it is suitable as complete abort engine, the thrust might be a bit low, but there is no information that a SAS for the Merkur ever existed, that went beyond mass simulators for drop tests.

 

[Scruce]

 

[Urwumpe]

Yes... and it is no fairing.

It is an inverted solid rocket motor, a typical design in Russian spaceflight. The majority of the fuel is behind the nozzles.

 

[Scruce]

I deleted the SAS cap, and added the two cylinders on the edge of the Merkur VA:

---------- Post added at 17:08 ---------- Previous post was at 16:17 ----------

Well, I think now we can call the meshes complete.

Split and converting to .3ds now.