UT-47A Kodiak
Overview
The UT-47 Kodiak Drop Shuttle Landing craft is an extremely versatile and FTL capable single-stage to orbit, space to ground, vertical take off and landing Utility Transport craft used by the Systems Alliance Navy.
Manufactured by Heed Industries, the UT-47 Kodiak, designated the "NS-1" by it's manufacturer, is a heavily redesigned military varient of their third generation Kodiak-class transport shuttle, designated the "SH-3", and has been in service since 2169. The UT-47 would recieve an extensive modification in 2186 that would lead to it being redesignated as the UT-47A.
Lighter and more versatile than it's bigger brother, the HT-50 Goliath, the UT-47 Kodiak, nicknamed the "Combat Cockroach" by marines due to it's extreme durability and appearance was designed primarily as a transport for Alliance personnel and marines between locations.
It is capable of both atmospheric and exoatmospheric flight and limited faster-than-light space travel. Achieving lift by completely countering it's own mass through mass effect fields without requiring any vertical thrust.
Due to it's nature of lift, the craft is notoriously hard to fly, requiring constant, precise adjustments to the mass effect fields in order to keep it heavy enough to absorb recoil from it's own weapon and impacts from enemy weapons, while still keeping it light enough to stay in the air. In the hands of a skilled pilot, the Kodiak can be an extremely agile and versatile troop transport. Most Kodiaks that fall into the hands of pirates or criminal groups tend to only last a few months at most before their less experienced pilots destroy them.
Dimensions
The Kodiak measures 15.6 meters in length, 2.7 meters in height, not including it's antennae, and 4.8 meters in width. With a mass of 27 metric tonnes.
It's troop compartment measures 4.9 meters in length, 2.4 meters in height and 4.7 meters in width. Giving a volume of 55.3 m.
Fuselage/Hull
Due to the nature of how it achieves lift, the Kodiak does not require wings or an air foil. The craft is essentially a box with thruster and a slightly curved nose. Covered in 40 mm of layered ablative ceramic armour plating. designed to boil away when heated, dispersing the heat and negating the effects of anti-aircraft laser fire and the intense heat of atmospheric reentry.
The Kodiak is also highly durable. Extensively tested in the sulfuric acid clouds and extreme temperatures of Venus, the completely environmentally sealed and pressurised craft can comfortably and safely operate in atmospheric pressures ranging from completely vacuum to upto 1,000 atmospheres and in temperatures ranging from near absolute zero to over 900 degrees Celsius. While maintaining a constant 1 atmosphere of pressure within the crew compartments maintained at around 22 degrees Celsius.
Due to it's ability to withstand high-pressure environments and the fact that neither the crew compartments nor any vital components are exposed to the elements, the kodiak is also theoretically capable of traversing under water, however this has yet to be tested outside of a controlled environment.
The shuttle consists of three modules. The cockpit at the front, the troop compartment in the middle and the power and the power pack at the rear.
Crew and Complement
The cockpit for the Kodiak has the pilot and copilot seated side-by-side and though a co-pilot is highly recommended to operate the shuttle effectively, a skilled enough pilot could be capable of flying the craft solo.
The cockpit module doesn't possess any windows or viewports in order to protect the pilot during a combat drop. Requiring the pilot to rely on a sophisticated sensor suite similar to those used on warships in order to navigate. Including radar, ladar, thermal imaging and motion tracking. Though the Kodiak does also possess external cameras to display virtual windows, pilots rarely use them since they're unnecessary and can sometimes be distracting.
All flight controls use haptic adaptive interface technology similar to other space craft, with no manual back-ups. HA interface systems function by tracking the motion accelerometers within the pilots finger tips (either inside gloves or implanted under their skin) and responding based on the positioning of their hands. The holographic displays serve as a visual guide only and though not actually tangible, force feedback in the accelerometers allow the pilot to feel their way around a screen that isn't actually there.
The factory standard UT-47 Kodiak had the cockpit and crew compartment separated by a vacuum rated bulkhead blast door. The UT-47A line removed this separation to make transitioning between the two compartments simpler. In the case of decompression, automated safeties trigger an environmental field to isolate the compartments. Consisting of a thin membrane of sulfur hexafluoride held in place by mass effect fields. This field contains the atmosphere in the still pressurised compartment while still allowing large objects, such as the pilot, to pass through seamlessly.
The troop compartment is fitted with seating and an arms locker. With a vacuum rated hinged troop compartment door on either side of the shuttle. In the 47A, this was replaced with more ergonomic sliding doors.
In addition to the pilot and copilot, the Kodiak has additional seating of upto 12 fully armed and armoured marines as well as space for an additional 10 standing up or additional equipment to support ground operations.
Power and Propulsion
The Kodiak is powered by a sealed hydrogen-oxygen power cell located to the rear of the troop compartment.
A power cell consists of two electrodes, a negative electrode (or anode) and a positive electrode (or cathode), sandwiched around an electrolyte. Hydrogen is fed to the anode, and oxygen is fed to the cathode. A catalyst at the anode separates hydrogen molecules into protons and electrons, which take different paths to the cathode. The electrons go through an external circuit, creating a flow of electricity. The protons migrate through the electrolyte to the cathode, where they unite with oxygen and the electrons to produce water and heat. This engine design is standard with most air and ground based vehicles in the Alliance, having replaced fossil-fuel engines over 70 years ago.
As a contragravitic vehicle, the kodiak does not possess sufficient vertical thrust to lift it off the ground. Instead it achieves lift by completely countering it's own mass. It's element zero drive consist of a core of element zero. An electric current from the power cell is run through the element zero to generate mass effect fields capable of altering the mass of a bubble of space-time around the craft, allowing it to reduce it's weight to the point that it literally floats on air. The downside of this method of flight is that the Kodiak is notoriously difficult to fly. Requiring constant, precise micro-adjustments to the mass effect fields to keep the vehicle airborne while still being heavy enough to absorb gunfire and recoil. However, in the hands of a skilled pilot, the kodiak possesses incredible levels of acceleration and agility. It allows the pilot to perform maneuvers in atmosphere that would be impossible for an aircraft of it's size.
The eezo core is also responsible for powering the shields, weapons inertial dampeners and a-grav plating. The eezo core also gives the Kodiak limited Faster-than-light travel capabilities. Allowing for short-range FTL jumps between planets and locations within a star system, however, it lacks the necessary fuel capacity and drive endurance for interstellar travel.
Primary horizontal thrust is provided by four antiproton drives, two on the front and two on the back, mounted on rotating pylons with a depression of 40 degrees.
Antiproton drives inject antiprotons into a reaction chamber filled with hydrogen. The resulting matter-antimatter annihilation provides unmatched motive power. The drawback is fuel production. Antiprotons are produced one at a time in massive solar arrays orbiting energetic stars. Making them both expensive to produce and easy targets during wartime. The exhaust of an antiproton drive is measured in millions of degrees Celsius. Any ship caught behind it would melt like wax in a blowtorch. These provide the bulk of the Kodiak's propulsion and maneuvering.
four vertically mounted liquid hydrogen-oxygen RCS thrusters on the ventral hull assist in leveling out kodiak when landing. They also assistant in maneuvering.
Shields
The Kodiak features a robust kinetic barrier array for it's size, linked to a Model 5 kinetic barrier shield generator.
The exterior layer of the hull is covered in tiny emitters spaced evenly across the armour plates. An object with mass traveling above a certain velocity trigged the barrier's reflex system, generating a localised repulsive mass effect field around the point of impact, deflecting it.
This is not without risk, however. The emitters themselves can only repel objects up to a limit. Sufficiently massive objects traveling at a high enough velocity can pass through the barriers unimpeded. Additionally, the kinetic barrier generator takes power from the vehicle's mass effect drive. Even if the projectiles do not penetrate, consistent impacts can put strain on the generator, this strain in turn is carried back to the drive. To prevent potential drive failure, the drive is designed to temporarily shutdown power to the shields until the field stabilises once again. The sudden, abrupt shutdown of the generator causes all emitters to discharge residual energy build-up. Triggering the characteristics "shattering" effect.
This allows the craft to withstand impacts from kinetic-based weapons, but doesn't do anything against Directed Energy Weapons such as lasers.
The strength of the kinetic barrier depends on the size of the mass effect drive, the amount of element zero used and overall design of the drive and generator. The more powerful the mass effect fields the drive generates, the more powerful the shields can be.
Armament
The original line of UT-47s were unarmed, relying entirely on speed and shielding when performing a combat drop onto a battlefield. That said, it was not uncommon to see soldiers firing out of the opened troop bay doors. A tactic that was technically against regulation and not recommended as opening the troop bay doors creates a sizable gap in the protection provided by the Kodiak's kinetic barriers and exposes it's more vulnerable interior to return fire.
The modifications made to the UT-47A line included a modest armament upgrade to defend itself and it's troops during a drop.
The primary armament includes 2 M-432 155 mm subordinate mass accelerator turrets mounted on either side of the nose. Mass accelerators reduce the mass of a solid metal slug then accelerate it to high velocities using precisely controlled electromagnetic attraction and repulsion. Mass accelerators are able to achieve such high velocities that slugs had to be designed to deform on impact to increase the amount of energy transferred to the target. Otherwise it would pass right through, doing minimal damage. The M-432 fires fires the same 6 kg 60x252 mm sub-calibre armour piercing round as the M-35 Mako at 16 km/s every 2 seconds.
Secondary armament includes two retractable manned M-302 microscale rapid-fire mass accelerators mounted inside the troop bay. One beside each door. Once the troop bay was opened, these turrets could be unfolded and moved along a track to be positioned infront of the door. This was one of the more controversial modifications made to the Kodiak, however, due to how effective firing from the troop bay had been in the past, especially for air support, the Alliance decided to at least give their troops better weapons to work with. Each turret is equipped with a 3 kg block of ferric titanium alloy. The Kodiak'z VI calculates the mass needed to reach the target based on distance, gravity, and atmospheric pressure, then shears off an appropriately sized slug from the block. The slug is accelerated to 58 km/s with a fire rate of 900 rounds per minute. A single block can supply roughly 7,000 rounds.