Nope, it's not an acronymShouldn't that be "STARlab"?
Randy
Starlab as the successor to Skylab, naturally. ETS already did Spacelab so...
Nope, it's not an acronymShouldn't that be "STARlab"?
Randy
Nope, it's not an acronym
Starlab as the successor to Skylab, naturally. ETS already did Spacelab so...
Hell yeah can't wait for Energia-Polyus To The Fucking MoonThat's right everyone, Buran is dead in the water. What implications does this have for the Soviet space program going forward? You'll have to stay tuned...
Has Skylab been deorbited / reentered yet or is it still in orbit in 1976?View attachment 794529
Hey everyone, in anticipation of the upcoming Chapter 2, I thought I'd show off a diagram of one of the overlooked differences between the Orbital Workshops of OTL and SSGL! Hopefully we can finish the final portions of Chapter 1 as a nice Christmas (if you celebrate it!) present to y'all.
Well, Skylab 5 reboosted it, so it should still be up there for a while .Has Skylab been deorbited / reentered yet or is it still in orbit in 1976?
I hope someday Talv becomes a member here
Coming soon...
(Thanks to @Talverd for the render!)
My guess is that it's a lifeboat variant of Apollo that can hold 5 astronauts like the Skylab Rescue capsule IOTL, except here it's docked for long periods and changed out periodically.I'd missed that bit, but yeah, that's a rather substantial departure from the normal Apollo capsule layout - assuming that even is an Apollo derivative, instead of a fresh-built capsule mated to an Apollo service module.
Not if it's targeted to station crew rotation, not assured Shuttle return capability. You're probably not leaving 7 people on-station, Skylab would have some difficulty usefully supporting that, so 5 is probably fine. This also has the benefit of meaning you have room in the Shuttle crew (which technically flew with as many as 8 and had provisions for 9) for not only the Commander and Pilot to simply fly up, oversee the exchange, and come home, but also a few short-stay astronauts up only for the duration of Shuttle's visit to station.The awkward bit there is if Shuttle can still carry it's OTL passenger load of 7 astronauts - because a 5-seat Apollo Lifeboat would limit them to only using 5 seats on each Shuttle flight (given the limited number of docking ports prevents deploying a second Apollo Lifeboat).
Well I imagine not all the 7-person crew of a shuttle is there for a full expedition on the station. The commander and pilot definitely don't stay, so that's 5 seats free for a rotation crew, or 4 and a short stay if someone is staying for a double rotation (if that's a thing ITTL).The awkward bit there is if Shuttle can still carry it's OTL passenger load of 7 astronauts - because a 5-seat Apollo Lifeboat would limit them to only using 5 seats on each Shuttle flight (given the limited number of docking ports prevents deploying a second Apollo Lifeboat).
This is actually a minor rendering mistake that Talverd made, and will be fixed when the renders show up in the actual posts. Apollo has a probe port as normal, with Starlab's nadir port remaining an Apollo drogue port like Skylab's and the other two converted to APAS.Apollo with integrated APAS???
This is actually a minor rendering mistake that Talverd made, and will be fixed when the renders show up in the actual posts. Apollo has a probe port as normal, with Starlab's nadir port remaining an Apollo drogue port like Skylab's and the other two converted to APAS.
Oh that's not a mistake- the Apollo ACRVs are using essentially unmodified leftover hardware to save costs, and an orbital only SM as seen in ETS would have been costly to develop. Remember, it's only a temporary solution until a (design undisclosed to our readers, I can't spoil everything!) more advanced ACRV is developed clean-sheet.Just an FYI but its also rendered with a full SM stack instead of the "orbital only" short SM planned for the 'ferry/life-boat' version Literally no need or requirement for the full "lunar" SM stack in Earth orbit operations.
Randy