Project Soyuz 7K-T Custom

[thermocalc]

HI diogom,

thanks for the hint, indeed "local light sources" was OFF , I also didn't know of its existence and role played...now I can see the panel well and illuminated. Thanks.
ehehehehe....take care.

 

[diogom]

Starting to have time for this again with the semester winding down, but not quite ready to go back 100% yet. So, had a slight change of plans.

I wanted to wait until the VC was more developed and stable, but I've now worked up the English translation. New version here:


Russian is still the default, for English copy and overwrite the files in "Textures\Sirius_7k\Eng" to the main "Textures\Sirius_7k" folder. A few small things are still untranslated, mostly radio-specific terminology which I need to do a deeper dive on to figure out the English equivalents. But for now they're just eye candy anyway.

 

[Urwumpe]

Starting to have time for this again with the semester winding down, but not quite ready to go back 100% yet. So, had a slight change of plans.

I wanted to wait until the VC was more developed and stable, but I've now worked up the English translation. New version here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LZvhVbNe9O_JRANomzyOHCCEbTa-ylW-/view?usp=sharing

Russian is still the default, for English copy and overwrite the files in "Textures\Sirius_7k\Eng" to the main "Textures\Sirius_7k" folder. A few small things are still untranslated, mostly radio-specific terminology which I need to do a deeper dive on to figure out the English equivalents. But for now they're just eye candy anyway.

View attachment 28208

If you need somebody doing research on the stuff and answer technical questions, you can now also ask me. I have the Soyuz book now in my Hessian exile (and some other literature and old spaceflight related lecture notes).

 

[N_Molson]

Also I might suggest some research on "Zond" (Soyuz 7K-L1), because we are probably going to have the rocket for it by this Summer. Simulating with some accuracy the crewed lunar fly-by mission that never was could be some good fun.

 

[Urwumpe]

Also I might suggest some research on "Zond" (Soyuz 7K-L1), because we are probably going to have the rocket for it by this Summer. Simulating with some accuracy the crewed lunar fly-by mission that never was could be some good fun.

Sure, I should have some minimal material about it, since it almost was.

Maybe more in the oral history, but that takes more time to research since it isn't structured by projects.

 

[diogom]

If you need somebody doing research on the stuff and answer technical questions, you can now also ask me. I have the Soyuz book now in my Hessian exile (and some other literature and old spaceflight related lecture notes).

Thanks, will do. Actually got the Soyuz book last year, but don't have much else. Chertok's memoirs might have something in there, I'm hoping. I remember back in the day someone had some original sounds too, like the alarms.

Zond could work, I've seen some hints on the VC at least (no Earth globe, for example) and a lot of it can be ported over.

 

[Urwumpe]

Zond should have been using the "Saturn" integrated display system, which was a similar intermediate design as the N1-L3 panels (Uran, Orion, Luch), from the old Soyuz 7K and Soyuz T panels (Sirius-7K) to the modern Neptune panel, between third and forth generation of the Soviet panel designs.

 

[Urwumpe]

Boris Chertoks "Rockets & People" contains only little information about the Zond flights. Essentially it only states, that they happened. That the entrance hatch for the cosmonauts was on top of the shorter fairing might be interesting now, but I also have no clue yet how the cosmonauts entered the spacecraft. Likely through the hatch in front of the Soyuz SA, but I can't tell how this worked with the minimal OM used for Zond.

 

[Gargantua2024]

Boris Chertoks "Rockets & People" contains only little information about the Zond flights. Essentially it only states, that they happened. That the entrance hatch for the cosmonauts was on top of the shorter fairing might be interesting now, but I also have no clue yet how the cosmonauts entered the spacecraft. Likely through the hatch in front of the Soyuz SA, but I can't tell how this worked with the minimal OM used for Zond.

According to an article in Encyclopedia Astronautica (Podsadka - Failed Plan to Win the Moon Race), the Zond spacecraft will be launched unmanned by a Proton rocket, and then, a 7K-OK or 7K-OKS variant of the Soyuz spacecraft will rendezvous and dock with it to transfer two cosmonauts onto Zond. The true mission of Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 is to demonstrate this capability, as they have lost the Moon Race at that point and the N1 had just destroyed its launch pad a few months before

 

[Urwumpe]

According to an article in Encyclopedia Astronautica (Podsadka - Failed Plan to Win the Moon Race), the Zond spacecraft will be launched unmanned by a Proton rocket, and then, a 7K-OK or 7K-OKS variant of the Soyuz spacecraft will rendezvous and dock with it to transfer two cosmonauts onto Zond. The true mission of Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 is to demonstrate this capability, as they have lost the Moon Race at that point and the N1 had just destroyed its launch pad a few months before

That was possibly one design option there, but the Proton had a very successfully operating launch escape system. You don't need it if you launch unmanned. But the reliability of the early Proton rocket was REALLY bad.

What I am more looking for right now are the difference of the L1 craft to the standard Soyuz. It had a completely different guidance system as the normal Soyuz (Also all means for docking had been removed there. No Igla, no periscope, etc.) I currently also look if the attitude control system was reduced to save weight. Since the spacecraft did no docking maneuvers, two degrees of freedom had no longer a purpose.

 

[Gargantua2024]

The poor reliability of the Proton at the time is a major contributing factor why Zond is planned to be launched without a crew on the Podsadka strategy. Pardon me for asking, but what do you meant for the standard Soyuz? In the 1960s, the very standard Soyuz of the time is the 7K-OK variant

 

[Urwumpe]

The poor reliability of the Proton at the time is a major contributing factor why Zond is planned to be launched without a crew on the Podsadka strategy. Pardon me for asking, but what do you meant for the standard Soyuz? In the 1960s, the very standard Soyuz of the time is the 7K-OK variant

Exactly that one. Essentially everything before Soyuz-7K-T became the new standard. And even that shared much with the Soyuz-7K-OK. The Soyuz-T was the first new standard version that incorporated a lot of the innovations developed for the lunar variants.

 

[N_Molson]

The Proton launcher will have an (optional) reliability setting (you can fine-tune from the scenario file) and failures simulation, with each stage having a "dice roll" and a table of failures, in the "Race Into Space" spirit. Blowing stuff is part of the fun. ?

 

[Urwumpe]

OK, seems like it can be confirmed by multiple sources: The DPO thrusters of the Soyuz-OK had been removed to be converted into the L1. Only the weaker DO thrusters remained. So, it will likely not have any controls for the DPO thrusters, instead controls for the Blok-D and its SOZ should exist. Possibly there had also been status indicators for the Proton rocket.

Also, it seems like the hatch for the removed backup parachute acts as entrance hatch to the spacecraft for the crew, instead of using the top hatch as usual.

 

[N_Molson]

Yeah they kept only the bare minimum for the L1, mass budget was very tight.

 

[thermocalc]

Hallo "diogom",
nice to see your new update.
I would like to ask you something about the rendezvous sequence ... I still didn't fly a full rendezvous, but i was curious to try the default scenery when the Soyuz is already docked.
If I correctly understood your pdf, the Soyuz was capable to do an "automatic rendezvous" once close to its target...so I decide to undock and see if the Soyuz was able to dock again automatically....bit it didn't happen....so don't know if my understanding was correct (i.e. that the Soyuz can do an automatic docking), or if once undocked the automatic docking didn't start as maybe I didn't set properly some commands (something to set? some key to "hit"?), or maybe I need to be far from the target XXX meters before starting docking again...
could you please shed some "light" on this docking capability? thanks.

 

[diogom]

Hallo "diogom",
nice to see your new update.
I would like to ask you something about the rendezvous sequence ... I still didn't fly a full rendezvous, but i was curious to try the default scenery when the Soyuz is already docked.
If I correctly understood your pdf, the Soyuz was capable to do an "automatic rendezvous" once close to its target...so I decide to undock and see if the Soyuz was able to dock again automatically....bit it didn't happen....so don't know if my understanding was correct (i.e. that the Soyuz can do an automatic docking), or if once undocked the automatic docking didn't start as maybe I didn't set properly some commands (something to set? some key to "hit"?), or maybe I need to be far from the target XXX meters before starting docking again...
could you please shed some "light" on this docking capability? thanks.

Had a quick look, confirmed broken, or rather unimplemented. Hoping to have a look this week.

Igla for now only requires the other autopilots to be off and hitting "I", and the hardcoded limit is 6 km, but not fully automatic at close distances. Basically doing it after undocking, it should correctly enter the alignment loop, except the way I structured it, at close distances the algorithm is only thinking in terms of decelerating in an already established approach, so it will continue to drift away. It only really considers the usual rendezvous starting condition in the current state (I'd say between 3 and 6 km from station-keeping). Overall the starting conditions need a more thorough look to be a bit more versatile at closer starting distances.

A way around it for now is to nudge it forward a bit after alignment, aiming for around -0.3 m/s in "Rel vel z", ship and station will do the required dance on their own. For some reason though it's also not maintaining this maximum speed if you go over manually, need to look into that.

 

[diogom]

Had a quick look at Igla. Expanded the starting conditions a bit and fixed a bug in the sequencing (Igla was starting without any calculated data aka distance and relative orientation and speed and thus skipping steps). Should do the docking now from close range. Though considering Salyut is a slow mover, starting it from close enough at a large enough misalignment might result in the Soyuz going through the station's side. That's something else to have a look at later.

Module fix attached.

 

[diogom]

Been working on some miscellaneous things while giving that Soyuz-TM crew manual a full read. A lot of useful info in there, familiar terms and systems.

Got a new light on the BO, by the Igla antenna, based on 7K-OK:


There's two more visible on the Soyuz-4/5 footage, right up front, though I'm less certain if those carried over from -OK to -T. Not sure why the new mesh groups overall reflect a lot more and are more metallic (across different orientations) than the bottom lights, I basically duplicated the objects, same materials and textures, exact same values on the D3D9 debug thing.

Eventually the SSVP hatch and the docking assembly might need some rework.

Also learned what the "ОТСТРЕЛ СМ" button does, so now the docking assembly can be jettisoned if Salyut doesn't want to let go.

 

[Gargantua2024]

Also learned what the "ОТСТРЕЛ СМ" button does, so now the docking assembly can be jettisoned if Salyut doesn't want to let go.

This almost happened in Soyuz 10 when it failed to undock properly the first try