I read in the Space Review today (www.thespacereview.com/article/543/1) that someone's building an add-on for the DH-1 re-usable TSTO from the recent book "The Rocket Company."

Is there any truth to this?

It's true. I read the book a couple of months ago and thought it would be cool to make an add-on for the DH-1, since it has some interesting features (e.g., two-stage reusable LV, both stages piloted, launches straight up rather than easterly so the first stage can return to launch site for a hover landing, orbital stage has a heat shield for entry and uses a parasail for landing on a runway).

I started to play with animr but realized it would take a while to learn to make decent models, so I asked Andy McSorley if he could use the info from the book to make a proof of concept model since he has some 3D modeling, add-on, and spacecraft.dll (and multistage) experience. He agreed, built it, and we both did some flight testing that he used to further tweak the model.

So it basically works, but we agree too that the special features of this launch vehicle/spacecraft will really need a custom DLL to implement well. The 3D model also lacks textures at the moment, and should probably be more detailed. It also needs other things, like a drogue chute for the first stage, landing skids and parasail for the orbital stage, and some tweaks to the flight model for re-entry. The first stage also has the usual problems of hover-landing a tail-sitter.

I privately asked a couple of add-on builders if they would have an interest in taking over and completing development, but the answer was basically "looks interesting, but too busy for the forseeable future." So I just emailed Andy that we should "go public" as we previously discussed. This means that when he gets a chance, Andy will post to Orbit Hangar the zip file containing the model, animr files, technical data spreadsheet, test scn's, and some detailed design notes that I wrote up (with pictures and operational details extracted from the book).

This will be clearly labeled as a work in progress (flyable but rough), and when it's up, Andy will post a forum note inviting any add-on developer(s) with an interest to take it over. In the meantime, anyone else will be able to download and play with it as it is.

That's the story for now. I expect to hear from Andy in the next day or so.

-Bruce

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Go Play In Space (new 2006 Edition): www.aovi93.dsl.pipex.com/play_in_space.htm
Space/Orbiter blog: http://flyingsinger.blogspot.com

Hi All,

I've just uploade what's been done so far to Orbithangar:
www.orbithangar.com/searchid.cfm?ID=2121


From the Read-me File:

This add-on is very much a work-in-progress, and is essentially a *** prototype model *** to test the concept of a two stage to orbit launcher. There is no seperate payload with this model, though the mass has been added to the second (spacecraft) stage. A method of attaining orbit is detailed at the bottom of the included spreadsheet. Currently the second stage is not configured correctly to make a stable re-entry and landing.

To progress further, this or an improved/finished model needs to have a dedicated DLL written for it, as this is way beyond my capabilities.

Briefly the launcher takes off vertically and maintains this attitude until seperation of the second stage. The first stage then returns to the launch site using a parachute and vertically mounted jet engines for a soft landing. The second stage continues to orbit, releases its payload and returns to the launch site using a parasail. More details are to be found in the included PDF file.

To run it in Orbiter you need to install Vinka's Multistage2 and Spacecraft2 DLLs available here: users.swing.be/vinka/

With the above two DLL's installed this addon should work. However some users have experienced problems. All I can recommend is you use a fresh Orbiter installation updated to the latest patch, then install vinka's multistage2 and spacecraft2 dlls and try it from there.

Also installed into you orbiter folder with this addon is a folder named Rocket Company DH-1 Spec. This folder contains a excel spreadsheet fom which I developed the ini files, the Anim8tor file from which I made the meshes and a PDF file by Bruce Irving detailing the concept, with relevant information extracted from the book.

If you choose to pick up this project the books author has registered with the main orbiter forum, and has made a couple of posts on the subject. Unfortunately I can't place the exact thread/s at the moment, so Patrick if you are there, would you like to comment on this.

Andy

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Cheers,

Andy


Virtual Spaceflight
My Flickr Site

mmm..looks interesting. I think I'll have a play with it over the weekend.

Mark