Project Kosmos-3M

[PhantomCruiser]

Lately I've been asking myself why I''m interested in all these Russian rockets. Honestly I don't know, they interest me, and I suppose that's enough :thumbup:
By request I've bitten into the Kosmos rocket. It's interesting. Finding pictures that help is a trial, but I've located about 20 or so that have helped me wrap my head around what it is that I'm trying to accomplish. Thanks to google chrome's translations, I can mostly figure out what I'm after.
The rocket alone hasn't been too tough so far, the second stage strapon external fuel tanks were kind of neat to do, and I think I might be putting too much effort into the engines. That being said, anything that I do, helps me to learn to do better.
Thanks to Galactic Penguin SST who got this stuck in my head
Here are a couple of screenshots of what I've done so far...
This one here I'd put up on the "original" thread.

Here's the RD-216 that I have so far. Still have some things to add, but like I said, I may be going overboard. Still, it's kind of neat to do anyway.

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It's really too early for this, but I had to "mount" the engines on the first stage. The scale is pretty close to right, but it's by eye and not true to scale. Still, not too bad.

 

[Napalm42]

Looking good, as one of my W40K junkie friends would say:

"MORE LAUNCHERS FOR THE LAUNCHER GOD!"

 

[PhantomCruiser]

While I should have been sleeping I worked on this a bit. The cone section on the fairing needs a lot of texturing work, and the color is a "best guess" from what I could see in the reference pictures I have.

This thing had access panels all over the place. It's kind of nice that an engineer would think to make things easier for us wrench-turners to get access to the fiddley-bits for maintenance.

For the most part it's been pretty easy. But I think I need a suite of generic satellites for this one. Kind of like satellite, communications, 1 each. I found a few things I'll try for, and see how it shakes loose.

 

[Scruce]

Excellent looking mesh, I have a bunch of satellite addons that are on hold due to a lack of a launch vehicle, but this is just what I need!

 

[PhantomCruiser]

Maybe we could tag-team on this... The fairing diameter is 2.4 meters (outside diameter).

I'm going to start working on the payload mounts next, I've got some really good pictures of it, so that'll be next.

 

[Urwumpe]

What about an Oscar satellite as one of the payloads?

Like this one: http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/rs-3.htm

Or what about CHAMP: http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/champ.htm

 

[PhantomCruiser]

Well, I've reached the point where many of you have said that a person would need to learn to code. I just never thought I'd ever reach that point (and so soon in my development "career").

The second stage is not the RD-219 engine (that is the Cyclone that uses that one).

Instead the Cosmos uses an 11D49, which is a single chamber with 4 smaller steering nozzles (very much like the second stage of Soyuz). So I can either do the same thing as Mustard and NoMatter, which is build it anyway and just deal with the confines of multistage, or learn to code it.

Coding will take time. But the mesh/modelling the rocket is pretty much done. Dang. Thought I had more time. But it's something that I want to do. Does the Orbiter wiki article with the prospector tutorial still work?

There will be two versions of the second stage, the strap on tanks were to take the payloads to orbit. To not use them made it a suborbital flight. During one of these, the Russian were 'caught' by an Australian P-3 on patrol recovering what turned out to be the BOR-4 test vehicle (a mini-spiral) so I'd kind of like to model that as well.

 

[N_Molson]

You could do a first version with Velcro rockets, which allows quite advanced things using some tricks (dummy stages, etc...). :2cents:

Edit : one of the big advantages of Velcro is the quite flexible built-in autopilot.

 

[PhantomCruiser]

I'd forgotten about Vecro 'work-arounds'. Thanks for suggesting it as a quick-fix. Time to hit the Velcro books, or will be when I get home.

I'm still going to figure out some code for this. This rocket is too interesting to let sit.

Another thing I want to consider, and I'd like to bounce the idea off you guys. On two occasions 9 people have died (1967 and 1973 for 18 total) during operations. the first, near as I can tell, exploded during a launch. The second exploded during a de-fuel after a scrub.
I was considering a 1/2 scale mesh, with a 'granite' plinth as a monument (perhaps at AIA, most of us have that add-on) as some kind of memorial. Or maybe at the Plesetsk coordinates (the surface tiles wouldn't be required, it'd just be a small mesh in the middle of nowhere). Whereas Kapustin Yar really is in the middle of nowhere.
Any thoughts?

 

[SiberianTiger]

By the way:

http://www.omsk.aif.ru/society/news/42783

Today (July 21, 2011) in Oktyabrsky district of Omsk, near Cosmos cinema, a long-awaited unweiling of a monument for natives of Omsk who made their contribution to spaceflight development. The monument is a Cosmos-3M rocket put on its real launch pad, specially delivered from Kapustin Yar cosmodrome.

The ceremony has marked the 70th anniversary of Omsk Polyot enterprise. Cosmos-3M launchers have been produced at this enterprise since 1969. In total, 786 items were made.

 

[PhantomCruiser]

That's pretty cool. I've got another picture of a full size rocket (maybe the same, but the paint job is different). It looked like a festival with amatuer rocket enthusiasts. On man had what looked like a fender guitar he had launched, and another group of students launched a replica of the Cosmos.

But the colors are vastly different, the second stage is grey, with grey checkerboard. And the colors are red instead of orange.

That shade of orange is way too close to the University of Tennessee colors for me. I rather prefer the red.

Is there any way that this is the same rocket from a different viewpoint with a different paint scheme?

 

[SiberianTiger]

Is there any way that this is the same rocket from a different viewpoint with a different paint scheme?

No, I don't think it's the same rocket. I don't think it might have been repainted from the time of its installation. I have been to Omsk several times, but really only walked the train station's square, so I don't recognize surroundings on this picture to confirm whether it's in Omsk or somewhere else.

 

[Urwumpe]

Don't worry too much about the coding, in the orbiter context, it is rather simple. If you need assistance, just ask in the forum, here are many people who can help you and will sure as hell do that.

 

[PhantomCruiser]

Finally got my fins on (fins to the left, fins to the right...), on the rocket at least. I've managed to find two decent (but grainy) pictures of the tail. The discription may say rudders, but they certainly look like a curved paddle. It'll be a new challange for me to try to model it (with some creative license probably/maybe). I'll do the best of my current ability though.

Dang work. And midnight shift at that... While it's hard to focus on some things, it's difficult to get to sleep when an idea pops in my head.

Anyway, I wanted a few payloads to accompany the rocket. Nothing too specific, or perhaps a companion package that has such things like Urwumpe's suggested RS-3, and Champ. This will more likely be designated something like Satellite, Mini, Generic, 1 each.

A near total rip-off from the Chinese Feng-Yun now that I think about it.

 

[SiberianTiger]

The satellite has similarity with most of Kosmos-3M payloads. Nice pictures (although not usable for making a mesh) can by found at Reshetnev website:

Tsikada

Sfera

Strela-1

(I imagine, with their mass at 50 kg, these were launched in clusters).

 

[Scruce]

Modified Dnepropetrovsk Sputnik P1-M (DS-P1-M). The changes are that I added a little more detail, mainly the fact that there are two side loopy antennae instead of one.

If you want it, that is fine. If you don't want it, that is fine.

EDIT: The image might be a bit misleading, the black lines do not exist on the final model, this is completely intended and the mesh will look better.

Edges: 4667
Faces: 2117
Materials: 2
Textures: 2

 

[PhantomCruiser]

Dude! That is sweet looking! Are the antenna animated or static? Either way, doesn't matter it still looks great.

Any idea what those loopy antenna are for? I'm working on another sat, and have them, but I can't find out what they do. The picture I have is super grainy and I can't read the text at all.

 

[Urwumpe]

Any idea what those loopy antenna are for? I'm working on another sat, and have them, but I can't find out what they do. The picture I have is super grainy and I can't read the text at all.

That is just one way to produce antennas that cover a full hemisphere with little signal loss.

BTW: Did you look at bernd Leitenbergers page for some details about the aft end of the Kosmos? I think it contained all the details that you had been asking lately, I posted it a while ago, but was not sure if you already read it or not.

 

[PhantomCruiser]

The section on the second stage was very helpful, I've not seen any detailed views with the engine in the picture.

The very aft section though conflict with (from what I can gather) is an extremely rare picture of fin installation (maybe). Anyway, they do seem to look more like deflector plates in the picture than rudders.

Photo to follow... Hang on...

OK, the picture wasn't what I thougt it was, I uploaded to the galley anyway, but didn't post it here...
Here is a rollout photo. The upper left shows what appears to be a deflector plate vice a rudder. The other 3 seem to be retracted.

For now I'm having trouble cutting holes into the heat shield. I just can't seem to make it look good, but I think it's my current skills with anim8tor that's the problem. Once I figure it out though, I'll have learned a new "trick".

 

[Urwumpe]

LOL, the answer is much simpler: The fins and gas vanes have not yet been installed in that picture. Like for the Soyuz launcher, the fins are installed after erecting the missile on the launch pad.

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BTW: Trick to cut the holes: Start with a big and a single small cylinder at the point where you want your engine, cut orthogonal, reduce the result into a 1/8 sector of the final heatshield (with a semicircle of the engine hole) (One edge of the sector should be X or Y axis). Merge both objects, add edges and fill holes. Now mirror the result a few times, until you have a full circle again.