Project Mir station complex / UR-500 family

[N_Molson]

So given it is a "2021 add-on", not a retrogaming thing, how many faces should have the main body of the rocket ? I used the number of 60 for other addons. 60 is not bad for the Proton because it has those iconic 6 protruding engine pods, and I'll certainly end dividing stuff by 6. Is 120 crazy ? What do you think ?

Also those aft skirts are a bit tricky... There's an angle on the drawings that helps a bit, but the real thing is 3D-ish... Any good close-up pictures of the aft end are welcome.

Edit : like that https://spacenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/1764468168-e1555085841577.jpg

or that... beautiful ! https://spacenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/1320043592.jpg

Had a hard time figuring out they put the engines right between the strapon tanks and the core. Not yet sure how they hooked the tanks to the body on the aft section. The 6 radial tanks architectures was dictated... by railway infrastructures, bridges and tunnels : 4.1 meters was the absolute maximum, and that's the diameter of the core. They shipped all the pieces in Baikonur and assembled them there, where they had a lot of room to do that.

 

[MaxBuzz]

I think the number 150.000 is optimal that the payload will be mostly not weak monsters
I noticed that each space technology has its own individual traits, for example, it is difficult to find two identical soyuz-progress
Proton-M

 

[Urwumpe]

I noticed that each space technology has its own individual traits, for example, it is difficult to find two identical soyuz-progress

That is coarsely correct - thanks to the rather experimental and scientific nature of spaceflight, its common to see many variants and modifications there.

That is what gives us a moderate headache in SSU, because those Space Shuttles had never been cast in stone. And thats just the modifications that flew in history. Not the planned or proposed modifications, like the planned Cockpit Avionics Update. Xzibit should have done a "Pimp Your Rocket"....

 

[N_Molson]

And we should not complain too much here, R-7 and Proton are probably the launchers that went the closest to mass-production.

Also those pics are very good, I'm also interested by assembly pictures (in the intregation building in Baikonur, where they put the core and the radial tanks together). And also I'm looking for a front view of the point where the "skirt" begins (the red square in the below pic) :

And about the interstage lattice structure that make some kind of "XXXXXX" pattern : on the drawings, I count 2x10 = 20 "X"s. Can you confirm ? I'd hate not to have the right count.

I think the test articles and maybe some Protons after that had a somewhat simplified interstage. Any sources on that ?

For the second stage : on various sources I see "3xRD-210 + 1xRD-211" engines. AFAIK the 4 engines are arranged in a very usual pattern. So why one is different ? Someone knows about this ?

 

[N_Molson]

Following the drawing dimensions, I get something like that for the rocket aft, still a lot of detail to add of course :

 

[MaxBuzz]

for the ground, you need to adjust the ambient and mirror in the orbiter of the panel

 

[Urwumpe]

And add something for the waterline. Like cutting off the hull under water or adding a water surface mesh.

 

[N_Molson]

Those skirts have really been a source of troubles (and I'm still not very happy with the normals, there are quads to tris and that's not optimal). Also I found I had not enough room to fit the pipeline carefully sized from the drawings, which meant some angles I had guessed were wrong. So I mostly redone the whole "black part", which meant I had to modify the skirts too... Now I think we're not too far from the truth. Jarmo's new shader will be extremely useful with those very metallic parts :

 

[MaxBuzz]

two emblems can meet on Proton. company "Полёт" and Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center

 

[MaxBuzz]

inscriptions on the nose cone. module Kristall (Mir) Zarya (ISS)

 

[N_Molson]

Good stuff! Do you have by chance pics of the earlier Proton (I'd like to do the Proton 1-4 test vehicles first, then the K, then the M).

 

[Gargantua2024]

This is from the Russian Space Web:

I think the variant on the far left is the ICBM version proposed to send Tsar Bomba-type NEDs during the Cold War...

The images above, according to this site, is from the very first Proton rocket ever flown...

Cutaway drawings of the original Proton....

 

[N_Molson]

Good stuff again ! The last picture is consistent with stuff I had seen elsewhere : the test articles had "VVVV" structure on the interstage instead of "XXXX". On the pictures they covered it with something probably to prevent dust or birds to nest in the interstage while rocket on the pad.

 

[MaxBuzz]

blueprint ur-500k

 

[N_Molson]

Seems that the blueprint you attached is the 7K-L1 version. There is an escape tower and retracted grid fins on the fairing. That will sure be useful too !

 

[MaxBuzz]

if you need I can send a save for the blender, you may need the dimensions of the Mir station modules and the TKS ship

 

[N_Molson]

Well if I do things by the drawings, it shouldn't be necessary. That will be the ultimate test : to see if the rocket and payloads match. If not, we'll make some fairing adjustments.

For payload attachment I'll use docking ports (the point of doing this is that it automatically updates the rocket, mass, center of mass and other properties).

Do you have a .dll for your Mir station ?

 

[N_Molson]

More hard work on the aft section, we're getting there :

 

[N_Molson]

Cooling loops for the RD-253 engines :

 

[N_Molson]

Something that puzzles me is the stage 1/2 separation sequence...

In official Roskosmos animations the lattice structure and the aft skirt stay attached to the second stage :

In Thorton's addon that structure is jettisoned shortly after separation... I know he had excellent sources. Who is right ? Maybe this is something that changed with the different Proton versions ? I can't believe this is a secret thing, Proton tech is 60 years-old...

It seems there is no "rocket cam" footage for the Proton... That would have helped greatly...

No mention of skirt separation here (pages 2-5 & 2-6 & table. 2.3.1-1)

https://mk0ilslaunchupbj5chy.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/pdf/Proton-Mission-Planners-Guide-Revision-7-LKEB-9812-1990.pdf

But we can't rule out this might have been a trick to provide extra performance during the USSR-era, that was stopped later in order to limit the number of parts falling (the first stage don't go fast enough to burn and falls back 300 km away from Baikonur, in the Kazakhstan steppes. The less falling parts the less danger).

That nice user guide gives us the reason why the second stage 4 engines aren't the same :

The RD-0211 engine differs from the RD-0210 engine in that it accommodates a gas generator heat exchanger to supply pressurant gas to the fuel and oxidizer tanks.