N1: 7K-LOK on its way!

Whoopsie. I was on a roll and I forgot to take progress pics. Sorry!
But what is more important: it looks quite good. And that is what counts. I am not making paper stuff for this blog. I make a blog about my paper stuff.
Anyway.
I used an AXM designed Soyuz for the 7K-LOK moon orbiter. (LOK= Lunniy Orbitalny Korabl) I extended the service module and redesigned the longer and wider engine skirt, using the shroud calculator you can find in the sidebar. There was a new engine section needed so that was also made in this same calculator. All cone-shaped rings. Very handy machine. Thanks to whomever designed it. I really love using it.

The upper part of the 7K-LOK is almost similar to the Soyuz. It's just the docking piece on top which is very different. Here's where I am now, some more pictures below.

The 7K-LOK had a set of radiators around the engine section. It ran on fuel cells, and they needed no solar panels for this vehicle. However, creating energy also creates heat and they had to dump that. That's where these radiators were used for. Dissipating heat to the coldness of space kept the vehicle relatively cool and operable. The Apollo also used radiators but those were integrated into the hull of the Service Module 
  

Using embossing balls, I was able to keep the capsule's shape less edgy and the seams more subtly worked away in the spacecraft's shape. Small hardly noticeable feature: I also punched holes for the reaction control thrusters around the capsule's base.

The lines over the capsule aren't panels. Like the modern Soyuzi (plural form of Soyuz), this spaceship is insulated by a layer of green cloth. It burns up in the re-entry phase but protects the spaceship from most dangers around the Earth and Moon, mainly the heat and the cold.
 

Close up of the radiators and the sensor boom sticking out.

You won't really see it when the lot is stacked but it is there. The engine base with the four thrusters. It looks quite crude but well, that's what macro does to your models.

To finish, here are some pictures of the LK lander inside the shroud, showing the docking plate the 7K-LOK could literelly hook in to after the LK returned from the surface.
Contrary to the U.S. method which used a very precise and delicate docking system which required lots of training and skill, the Soviets used this simpler method. The top was a plate full of holes as where the LOK had a small arrow-like probe to push through one of those holes. It didn't really matter whether it was one of the outer ones or the exact middle one.
Quite practical, but then their method of transferring the occupant of the LK back to the LOK was elaborate. Choices...
 

Around the 'upside down hat' there are propellant tanks for the RCS thrusters that stick out of all sides.

And here's the 7K-LOK on top of the L3 train. Just for showing how it is looking now:

Well, again, sorry for the lack of actual progress pics but well, you cannot always have it all, isn't it? (-:

See you soon.
--PK