Greetings!
Welcome to Scifi-Meshes.com! Click one of these buttons to join in on the fun.
Quick Links
3DCTS Andrasta
Borkless171
Posts: 0Member
In the year 2253, mankind has spread to the stars. Leaving an earth depleted from nuclear war, they settled on new worlds, terraformed them to the best of their limited ability, and set up homes. But with new frontiers, a need opened up, a pressing need for stuff to be moved.
The CTV (Commercial Transport Ship) Andrasta Is a ship to fill that need. A modified Avalon Aerospace AC-999 midbluk transport, she has space to store 48 1.5m stowage cubes in the hull, plus more in the sponsons, she can haul a significant amount of goodies from place to place. True, bulk container ships are cheaper, but they're also ponderous to dock and incapable of quick FTL jumps. They're also harder to sneak contraband about in.
Her belly sled contains the majority of the FTL drive mechanics, with large-bore coolant leads heading to radiator arrays. The arrays must be stowed before a jump, however.
For sublight travel, for high-efficiently bipropellant engines provide ample thrust and enough DeltaV once the FTL drive gets you close. All four engines have their own single-axle turbopump feeding both fuel and oxydizer. The tubopump exhausts are grouped in the center of the engine cluster.
The cargo sponsons are connected to the main hull by a central pressurized tunnel, allowing for crew/cargo access, and two pipes for fuel/oxidizer transfer.
A shot of the cockpit area. The forward translational RCTs still need to be cut into the main hull, and the docking port is currently a scaled-up version of Mikey-B's superb ILIDS system. (it's a stand-in for the moment, I'm working on my own version.) The hatch is 2.5 meters in diameter, allowing for a 1.5m stowage cube to slide though easily.
A size comparison between Andrasta and a simplified (but dimentionally correct-ish) apollo CSM.
The CTV (Commercial Transport Ship) Andrasta Is a ship to fill that need. A modified Avalon Aerospace AC-999 midbluk transport, she has space to store 48 1.5m stowage cubes in the hull, plus more in the sponsons, she can haul a significant amount of goodies from place to place. True, bulk container ships are cheaper, but they're also ponderous to dock and incapable of quick FTL jumps. They're also harder to sneak contraband about in.
Her belly sled contains the majority of the FTL drive mechanics, with large-bore coolant leads heading to radiator arrays. The arrays must be stowed before a jump, however.
For sublight travel, for high-efficiently bipropellant engines provide ample thrust and enough DeltaV once the FTL drive gets you close. All four engines have their own single-axle turbopump feeding both fuel and oxydizer. The tubopump exhausts are grouped in the center of the engine cluster.
The cargo sponsons are connected to the main hull by a central pressurized tunnel, allowing for crew/cargo access, and two pipes for fuel/oxidizer transfer.
A shot of the cockpit area. The forward translational RCTs still need to be cut into the main hull, and the docking port is currently a scaled-up version of Mikey-B's superb ILIDS system. (it's a stand-in for the moment, I'm working on my own version.) The hatch is 2.5 meters in diameter, allowing for a 1.5m stowage cube to slide though easily.
A size comparison between Andrasta and a simplified (but dimentionally correct-ish) apollo CSM.
Post edited by Borkless on
Tagged:
Additional credits
- Icons from Font-Awesome
- Additional icons by Mickael Bonfill
- Banner background from Toptal Subtle Patterns
© Scifi-Meshes.com 2001-2024
Posts
i'd hope by 2250 we could build things bigger than that...
its a bit sad to send such a big ship for such small cargo.
And I do love BSG, so the observation is not entirely unwarranted. (though battlestars are covered in armor plating, not thermal blankets)
Thanks! I do love adding twenty-minutes-into-the-future style greebles to her. And there's a bunch more to come (need to add additional monoproellant tankage for the RCS, guy-wires for additional structural stiffening, and thermal blanks over the sponsons)
- - -
And, so this isn't just a text update, here's a quick sketch I did of one of Andrasta's crew. (image in spoiler because it's rather large)
She's the loadmaster on Andrasta, a privately-owned midbulk transport flown by Hawke Shipping. As the loadmaster, her job entails lots of floating about juggling stowage cubes into their proper places, and the occasional EVA to snatch some "totally-legal" cargo from hidden lockers placed around Andrasta's superstructure.
Her spacesuit a gasless mechanical-counterpressure garment, similar to the Space Activity Suit. A skintight leotard, woven of spandex and strategically placed inelastic cording squeeze down on her body, replicating atmospheric pressure when she's EVA. Additional metalized kevlar provide ballistic and radiation protection, and a combination of shape-memory fibers and a network of buckled straps allow her to ease the fit when in a pressurized environment, or when donning/doffing the suit. (It also helps if she gains a little weight, but she'd never tell anyone that)
A thick rubberized orange jumpsuit covers the inner layers, providing additional resiliency. A pressure-rated zipper runs along her right flank, and she often zips it down to her waist when aboard ship. Her boots have loose covers, to ease cleaning, and patches of synthetic setae, similar to those of gekos, to allow her to walk in free-fall. Similar patches adorn her knee and elbow pads. A much weaker version on her gloves lets her maneuver and use tools more easily.
Since she spends a lot of time suited up, has markers for tagging cargo readily available, and gets bored easily, Valerie has a few doodles on her suit. The "rawr" is her most recent decision, after deciding the snaps and pull-tabs on her chest pouch looked like monster.
A hemispherical backpack contains Co2 scrubbing gear nested around a spherical high-pressure tank of pure Oxygen. The O2 replenishes the suit's 50/50 nitrox atmosphere, for a design suit-time of 200 minutes, though strenuous activity obviously limits this.
In case you're wondering, she isn't wearing her helmet because I wanted to show her face and have yet to find a design I like.
Not only the BSG'ish mix i've recognized but isn't there a little bit of "space 1999" to be found at the cockpit area ? Anyway: it'S great and i love it. Watching the progress closely.
(BSG + Space 1999 ... my alltime favourites !)
Cheers S.
And, I love it!
I've never actually watched Space: 1999, so My knowledge of the Eagle rather limited. I certainly wasn't thinking of it consciously when I designed this ship, but as I look at it again, I see what you mean. The Eagle would certainly fit right in to this verse.
Thanks!
Actually not. The tech is similar (other than this ship having FTL) but I hadn't planned to integrate the two.
I love the Phoenix, taught me that space exploration is most awesome when started atop a pillar of hypergolic fire whist blasting Magic Carpet Ride.
The wing-like radiators serve mostly to dump heat from the FTL drive immediately post-jump. The a net of pipes imbedded in the dorsal aeroshield (the big thing behind the cockpit) serves as the primary radiator for live-support systems. As a bonus, the system can be reversed, using the hull as a heatsink to keep the shield cool during aerobreaking.
And, now that that's out of the way, on to the updates!
- - -
Nothing terribly major today, spent most of my time sorting out proper rigging instead of modeling. However, I do have a workable model of Andrasda's UADS (Universal Androgynous Docking System), pronounced You-Ads. In universe, it's always called a docking port, or some similar slang term. The up-scaled ILIDS port it replaces is to the side.
When docked, the guide tines fold up into the adjoining port, allowing just enough room for a 1.5m stowage cube to squeeze though. If the ship was transferring fluid goods, large-diameter hoses would be strung though instead. (this is also how Andrasta refuels, though the "waist" ports further aft are traditionally used for that.
The soft-capture ring has a fair amount of slack, with hydraulic shocks easing an off-axis approach back into place. (and yes, the ring is fully rigged, and I can animate it however I choose.
As the UADS is slightly larger than the up-scaled ILDS, the nose looks a little different. (the structural fins and torus tank are gone, for example). This is just a size-test render, however. I'm planning on adding struts and fins to brace the structure.
Also, in the above render, the UADS is stored with the ring locked down to keep it from bouncing about and putting undue stress on the shocks.
Anyway !
I love the "near future" - style of your ship and design. Often we have scifi models wich are settled in a future many years from now, but yours (seemed to be) it is not. That's what i like a lot.
Nice update. Keep on going. Happy modeling.
Cheers S.
is there a rubber skirt in there or what ?
Androgynous refers to the ability of the docking system to act as the active or passive participant in the docking process. The ISS ans space shuttle used APAS- Androgynous Peripheral Attachment System- for instance. In their case, the shuttle was the active participant. It's a signiicant advantage over the older probe and drogue system used on Apollo and still in use on Soyuz.
Thanks! I love making realistic-ish stuff. It's surprisingly hard to make a glorified tube look cool, and extremely satisfying when you do.
EDIT: Or, you could just look at Mikey-B's post. He is the master of the docking port.
It means this docking port can dock to any other port. (Unlike, say, the Apollo docking system, wherein the active port could only dock with a passive port, eliminating any CSM/CSM or LEM/LEM dockings)
Though as I look at it, this port would be useless for docking as well. The soft-capture ring is so long it would be impossible to hard-dock. Should be an easy fix though, I'll probably put pics up later today.
I really should make a version that I can rig up in MAX... trueSpace was such a bear for rigging...
Went back and re-checked the dimensions on the UADS port, now it's able to close and lock for a proper hard-seal. The docking sequence is as follows:
Two ships approach each-other, one rotated roughly 180 degrees along the docking axis. Even though the UADS is androgynous, one ship will nearly always assume the passive role.
The soft-capture rings guide each other into place with their guide tines and lock together. The two craft are soft-docked, but not structurally mated.
Finally, the pistons cradling the soft-capture ring bring the two ships into alignment and tug them together (reaction Control Thrusters may be used to ease the process if a particularly large ship is attempting to dock) 18 clamps secure the two ships, and transfer of goods and personnel may commence.
And, because I get distracted easily, I grabbed a low-poly model of the ISS off Nasa's website and docked Andrasta to one of the nodes. (and I checked my math three times, the two craft are in scale)
EDIT: forgot top upload this, but here's Andrasta with her new nose. (the block to the side is a 1.8m tall human facsimile)
if i translate your port back inside the ship, at cockpit's height, i dont see how i could stick a chair (even if its in 0-g, you need a chair) without hitting the head on the top, and the ass on the airlock tunel
Also, it's docking port, not an airlock. (though I may have referred to it as such earlier) Stowage cubes aren't rated for hard-vacuum exposure, so there's no reason to build an easy way to space them into Andrasta. If you absolutely have to space something, bulkheads around her waist docking ports can be sealed, turning the entire waist segment into a make-shift airlock. There is a personnel airlock planned, but I haven't gotten around to modeling it.
Finally, loading and unloading of cargo is done by a payload specialist who is attached to the ship. The specialist (also know as the loadmaster) needs to know the ship's flight plan, so things can be unloaded in the right order, as well as have a fairly intimate knowledge of the ship itself. Weight distribution is critical on a space ship. (Having your own loadmaster also helps if you're smuggling things.)
There's actually a fair bit of space, the windows are just long. It's a little cramped, but there's space for a pair of seats and enough free space for another two people to float about. (and Andrasta is BIG, see below.)
- - - UPDATE
To better illustrate my point to L2K, I threw together a render of Andrasta and the ISS. As you can see, she's longer and, if you don't count the solar arrays and truss, wider. I also added some TKS-style monopropellant tanks for the RCS.
(Another version of same I rendered earlier, but the angle didn't make the size disparity as obvious. But it looks cool, so might as well put it up here)
I also rigged the radiators to fold. They'd be left open during normal flight, but tucked away before an FTL hop. The aft radiators are rigged to fold as well, but are not shown here. (Also, in these renders, her waist ports are the dimensionally-incorrect early versions. I'm planing of fixing them once I get the port design totally locked down.)
Here's the whole ship with her radiators stowed.
To answer your question, I have the interior partly laid out, but nothing is modeled yet. It's mostly empty space with racks for securing cargo though. Nothing terribly fancy.
now... UPDATE (little one though)
- - -
I fancied up the waist section, adding better mounting blocks for the docking ports, guy lines to stabilized the cargo sponsons, and some detailing on the sponsons. There's also part of the ship's radar poking through the aeroshield.
I beefed up the after RCT quads, and added some piping for monopropellant.
Finally, Andrasta as she stands at this moment. I removed the x-bracing on the belly sled because it wasn't working right with the beveled edges. I plan on remodeling it properly once I get all the belly detail locked down.
does the armor plate on the back is a kind of heat shield for re entry ?
anyway, well done this is certainly the most realistic project on here at the moment.
Cockpit proof.jpg Partly. Andrasta's not meant to dive into thick atmospheres like earth's, the shield serves well enough for aerobraking on planets like mars, who's atmosphere is tenuous at best.
It doubles as radiator and thermal blanket to keep the cargo/crew area cool. (Andrasta usually flies with her back to the sun, meaning she only needs half her hull insulated.)
Well, the main engines can gimbal a few degrees for steering under thrust (no point wasting monopropellant when you can just vector your thrust). The RCS is really only for fine-maneuvering when attempting to dock with something and/or atmospheric interface.
I'm planning more detail on the aeroshield. It's supposed to be thermal blankeing like you used to see on Mir Like this but I haven't decided how to do that yet. And the waist ports are mirrored up/down, letting the pilot choose how he wishes to be docked with. At least for the moment. I'm planning on switching one port for a smaller-diameter port to allow Andrasta to carry a small shuttlecraft on her back.
The Engines are chemical bipropellant engines, but with a much higher Isp. (~800 compared with ~350 for most engines.) While NTRs are more possible in the efficient, they're also enormously heavy and troublesome to deal with. Since anything outside of the very narrow cone of the shadow shield will be irradiated, docking can only be done nose-on. Plus, refueling is a pain, and maneuverability and Thrust To Weight Ratio aren't that
great.
Since Andrasta uses her FTL drive to get to places (it acts like a reboot-BSG drive: instantaneous transference between two points while maintaining relative speed and momentum) the higher DeltaV of an NTR isn't worth the tradeoffs. Chemical engines with their higher TWR are more useful in the orbital adjustment and docking maneuvers that Andrasta typically executes.
Also, if you want most realistic, check out Mikey-B's Contact Lost He's even got the launch vehicles modeled up.
I like the radiators as they are. The aeroshield on her back (plus additional shields on the cargo sponsons) handle most of the heat-rejection issues. The stowable radiators are really only there so something can move dramatically as the ship spools her drive.
3-5-13_NewNose.jpg
The new RCS pods, wearing their WIP textures, are inspired by those on the SpaceX Dragon (Though without aft-pointing nozzles). Orange hazard tape, their raised nature, and prominent warning signs in both English and Russian prevent anyone going EVA from stepping where they shouldn't. (also, my Russian is at a purely Google-translate level, so if the translation is off, I'd appreciate being told.)
3-5-13_NoseRCT.jpg
I also started in on the personnel airlock on the "Bottom" of the nose pod.
3-5-13_Airlock.jpg