Small steps into flight in Realism Overhaul

A career in Realism Overhaul/ Realistic Progression One for Kerbal Space Program

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From 1954 until 1957, while lighter tanks and better engines for getting into orbit were developed, sounding rocket contracts were completed by a larger version of the Belemnite II, the Belemnite III. It was able to get higher than before, with much more payload, but still nowhere near orbit.

Finally, in early 1957, the LR-79 and the AJ-10-37, long in development, were unlocked, and an attempt could be made to get the first satellite into orbit. A very light satellite with some experiments, like a geiger counter and a micrometeorite detector, was placed into a fairly circular low earth orbit by the Charnia I rocket on the 27th June 1957, launching from Cape Canaveral.

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In 1954, the space program unlocked its first high-speed cockpit, the conical or X-1 cockpit (appropriately from the X-1 aircraft, the first to break the speed of sound in level flight).

It was used, encased in a fairing, and with parachutes attached, to break records in crewed flight, and perform high atmosphere and suborbital crewed flight. It was launched on top of the Belemnite II rocket with an RD-102 engine. Pilots often experienced high g-forces upon returning through the atmosphere, so flight was not particularly comfortable. They reached at most around 200km above the Earth.

Sounding Rocket contracts were completed in this year by a similar launch vehicle, the Belemnite II, with varying amounts of payload, reaching around 400-480km above the Earth.

A bit of a dead-end design in terms of completing contracts for supersonic flight, the subsonic, low flight contracts having dried up, was the X-3, using the cockpit and engine from the real-life X-1, it was able to get above the sound barrier, but not much else.

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Later, from 1952 to 1953, a Belemnite sounding rocket with an RD-100 engine (based upon the engine used in the A-4) launched the first camera and biological sample experiments over 100km, and so into space, and returned them to Earth.

A update to the standard aircraft used for low crewed flight contracts with a larger wingspan for more efficient flight, and some increase in service ceiling, is now the standard aircraft used.

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The first sounding rocket, the Ammonite I, ascends in the morning in March 1951. It reaches a height just above the Kármán line, collects and transmits telemetry, pressure and temperature data, then falls back into the sea.

Later that year, the first aircraft, the X-1 collects data from other areas of Earth, completes a time at altitude contract, then lands back at Cape Canaveral.

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A New Career

I’m going to be starting this blog up again with my new Realism Overhaul/ RP-1 playthrough. Screenshots to follow.