LPR Space Shuttle Build - just for neil_w

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George, do you recall there the Cg for the 2009 shuttle is? I imaging that with the way aft fin pods, the Cg is further back than in the earlier shuttles. It doesn't seem to be noted in the drawings.
 
Wow, those look awesome. Did you try lightly misting the paper with water or Windex or steam before pressing them into the embossing templates? Or, maybe glue-sticking a layer of copy paper to cardstock, then pressing the 2-ply laminate into the molds? Hopefully, you won't get any tearing when you form them around the body tube, a little steam might help with that also.
 
I used an ammonia/alcohol window cleaner to soften them. I pressed (in a vise) the second set more slowly - much less tearing. You can actually hear it pop when it happens. Thinner paper was much worse. Tyvek didn't do it at all, but was a much more shallow imprint.

I like the steam thought. I’ll have to remember that.
 
Just a note- I got to see this in person over the weekend, and it looks awesome! Can't wait to see it fly.
 
The weather has finally gotten to ‘able to paint’
And I got my decals printed. Thanks to George Gassaway for both drawings and data.

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George had detailed drawings of the forward skirts. A quick trace in Illustrator, and I could scale them and add full black bars.

The nosecone details were harder. George didn’t have ‘flat’ drawings, so I built them up from his drawings and a micrometer - as if they wrapped around a cylinder. Then I made a transition in the payloadbay tool, imported it into illustrator and warped the cylinder to match the transition. Poof.


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I tried putting caps and anti-torque vanes on the fin rods. Mixed success. This is the last shot of the internals, the tank is all glued together now.
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Now I’m a little worried about the liftoff weight. Average thrust is only 2x. But peak thrust is 6x.

To me that does not sound good. I would not want to launch a beautiful model like that on low thrust. This model has a large cross-sectional area and is going to be air-draggy. A D12-3 does not sound big enough. I would think that you would want to look into an E or F composite motor. I remember my Double Shuttle was under-powered with two D12-3's. It either hit the ground or was going to before the ejection charges went off. Going to two E12-4's made a world of difference.
 
I can do both CTI and AT 24mm. I just need to pick a motor with reasonable max thrust.

2 A8s in the boosters would give it a kick, too.
 
Sorry I've not posted here in awhile.

You've made a really nice model! Good SRB wraps, and wow a nice way of doing the corrugated Intertank wrap as an embossed part (I was either going to vac-form or look into laser-cut cardboard wraps)

Drawing is in this post: https://www.rocketryforum.com/showt...uttle-model-is-a-success!&p=649585#post649585

Didn't include a CG location on the drawing, since at the time it was for documenting part sizes, not stability. Frankly, I used the "TLAR" method (https://tinyurl.com/TLAR-explained) to design a "sure to be stable" fin size to work with the model.

It was light enough to fly nicely on a D12-3. I also flew it on an E9.

Yours is somewhat heavier. I'd suggest an Aerotech E15-4, and nothing else. I've flown a lot of draggy models weighing around 600-700 grams or so (such as 4" Little Joe-II's) using E15 power, and that was ideal, not too fast, not too weak.

Doing a clustered shuttle is something I experimented wth for years, but there were too many problems. Even when I had "token" engines in the SRB's (and mixing BP motors with composite in a cluster is just begging for trouble. Like when the "token" SRB engines ignited first, model slid up the rod, fell back down, breaking an SRB aft attachment, THEN the composite in the ET ignited, the shuttle took off with one SRB dangling, causing it to veer off and crash).

I had made a bargain with myself, that I would only do a cluster for a serious model if I got a prototype cluster to work 10 times in a row. In all my testing, over years, I never had one work properly more than 2 times in a row. With final goal being a contest scale model that would have had at least 200 (maybe 300) hours of work into it and championships at stake, I wasn't going to go with something that had no better than 20% of the reliability threshold I had set.

So, having experimented with clustering in several different ways for years, in the end I went for reliability (and sanity) , with a single engine in the ET.
 
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You've made a really nice model! Good SRB wraps, and wow a nice way of doing the corrugated Intertank wrap as an embossed part (I was either going to vac-form or look into laser-cut cardboard wraps)

Look, I got a 'wow' from George :)

I appreciate the motor suggestions. I've got some of the E15s (which Frank Burke describes in his Dynasoar thread as now being really an E20). I also have some CTI E22s. They are 24Ns baby Es that look to have a nice balance between thrust and impulse.

Right now, my Quantum is tied up in my Nike-Apache project, so I'm not going to try motors in boosters any time soon. I'll approach it incrementally - and likely with the glider off. Thanks for the suggestions and warnings.
 
First flight. E15-4 - and boy, those were a long 4. Simplest mode - no clustering or separation. No attempted pitch correction during boost.
All parts recovered in good condition.



@georgegassaway - you may recognize a few elements of my launch set up.
 
First flight. E15-4 - and boy, those were a long 4. Simplest mode - no clustering or separation. No attempted pitch correction during boost.
All parts recovered in good condition.



@georgegassaway - you may recognize a few elements of my launch set up.
 
Yes. My elder boy, Alex, was at the controls. He had some control, but let it have its head and glide downwind. When he tried to turn back up wind, it pitched down on him. It was pretty low at that point.
 
Nice Flight! I assume that you are playing the video in slow motion for the first few seconds and then you return to normal speed. I cannot see the glider when it is far away. So the glider flew pretty good? Is there a rubber band holding the SRB's to the ET?
 
Yes, slo-mo at the beginning.
I can see the glider- but I know what to look for.
And yes, there’s a rubber band holding on the boosters. I have an internal, fusible retention system for them - but it still needs more work. As I found on the field. So I improvised.
 
I'm continuing my 1/100 US manned spaceflight series with the Space Shuttle.

This will be a little off-scale in several directions. The 3.44" tubing from my 1/35 Titan GLV is about 1/97 for the external tank. Using BT58 for the SRB is about 1/95. Taking inspiration from other threads here on the forum, I'm using a Guillows foam orbiter. The wingspan is right for the tubes - but the body is small for the wings - more like 1/115.

So I've gathered my parts and am doing some test fitting and prepping.

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Nosecones by Sandman.

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Very nice build! Could you provide me with the details behind the servo controller? I can't seem to find anything that simple.
 
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