michal.don

Alright, several new entries over the weekend, let's have a look at them! Welcome to the challenge! And thanks for re-uploading the larger screenshots, the small ones were pretty... confusing Good job on your first mission, you managed to get your shuttle to orbit just fine, and the reentry seemed to bring you to the general vicinity of the KSC - just a bit of practice, and you'll be landing on the runway without any trouble So, here's your first badge, pilot! Congratulations! One small detail though - could you, please, hide the screenshots in a spoiler for the next report, so the thread is not too picture heavy? Thanks! Ah, and a swift upgrade to commander level, here you go Managing to land on the runway without a correction burn is an example of either good planning, great flying, or amazing luck - not going to judge which one of these was the case here Anyway - great mission, and a great report - here's your badge: (also, for the next time, please also hide more of the screenshots in a spoiler, the thread is getting rather picture-heavy Thanks!) Wow, that's a lot of kerbal on board! Great mission, a nice explosion and a happy end - what could be better? (more explosions possibly? Nah, this is just fine ) Good job rescuing your stranded crew, and a well-deserved badge: And here comes station building time! Michal.don

No reason why that would not be allowed. I'm just curious how you'll manage the docking with the very tight cargo bay, that's all

Alright, now we have a proof of your shuttle's notable cargo capacity to (at least) LKO, and with quite a bit of fuel to spare! Very precise orbit, and a pinpoint landing, so a badge for you: I can't help but notice though, the fuel pod is quite a tight fit in the cargo bay - I'm curious how much trouble it's going to do in the recovery mission.... Wow, the Octosats look very good And very nice usage of action groups to deploy all the stuff on them simultaneously, looking very nice in the video! Very good job building the comm network, and it seems you're getting the hang of the reentry procedures, too - you seem to get closer and closer to KSC every mission! So, a third badge for you: Congratulations, Michal.don

Exactly as @hoioh said, gold star is for commander level, and silver branches are for "modded" category.

Ah, alright then From the video, everything seems ok, so congratulations on the first (hopefully, of many) successful mission! One thing I'm curious about is the ascent though - it seemed pretty inefficient to me - is this on purpose, to get out of the atmosphere as soon as possible, or did you just not care too much, because of sufficient margins on the first mission? In any case, here is your first badge: and I'm looking forward to seeing what comes next! Michal.don

I'll wait for the final video edit, but this looks very good I like the shuttle design, and find the huge fairing the proper kerbal way of launching it Sure, you can launch multiple modules in one shuttle, but there have to be four total shuttle flights.

Ok, the traffic here got a little more intense recently, many new faces around here - I love it First thing I'd like to announce - after some thinking, I decided to adjust the rule considering autopilots during atmospheric flight. From now on, attitude control instruments (like mechjeb's SmartASS) are allowed during the reentry, to keep the shuttle in a desired attitude. The final approach and landing still have to be flown manually though, and that's one thing I'm not willing to change. Second - I'll leave the special Christmas mission online for about a week in January, then it will be officially finished and deleted from the OP. So, if you think about delivering some presents and getting the Christmas badge, you better get at it now Now that I got that out of the way, let's get to the missions: That's quite a precise landing you've got there Now that the mission contrlo has read the fine print on the end of the contract, there remain no reservations on my part Good job, and the second badge for you: I'd say they are pretty enough, and show an interesting design approach! Thanks for the teaser, and I hope that after the slight rule change you'll fly the real missions, too Glad to see you here, too There are several new missions compared to the original, if you're ever in shuttling mood, feel free to come around and fly some Another of Santa's helpers gets the job done, and again getting all three of the presents! Great mission report and great job, so a christmas badge for you: Yup, I admit the thing kind of grew in time and got more excessive than most of the challenges on the forums But I can't really take credit for all of this, it was already pretty awesome when I got it, so.... Also I'm quite curious - quite a few of the forum all time greats have visited the thread recently - what happened? Was the thread mentioned or featured somewhere, or is it just a (pleasant) coincidence? Michal.don

Good job! Nice detail of adding the openable shutter to the telescope And yes, the "separotrons" seem a bit excessive Anyway, nicely flown and definitely badge-worthy, so here you go: That's quite the dedictaion, welcome back And I'm more than happy to award you the badge, good job! Are you sure the fairing is not actually making the aerodynamic properties worse? It sure doesn't look very aerodynamic.... Anyway, good luck with your mission, I'm curious how it will turn out! Successful rendezvous and crew transfer, precise reentry and a pinpoint landing, the crew is safe, great mission! ANd onother badge for you: Gyus, please, let's not go this way.... Welcome to the challenge! The teaser is looking great, good luck with your mission(s)! As I stated a bit earlier in the thread, I'm really careful about allowing atmospheric autopilots, because this challenge is about both payload design and flying the shuttles. But if you are really oposed to holding attitide during reentry by hand, there is a little trick of adding a probe core rotated by 15° relative to the shuttle, setting "control from here" after entry burn, and setting SAS to prograde, which does pretty much the same thing I understand your reservations about the rules, and I'm sorry this discourages you from joining our ranks, but I do not think allowing atmospheric autopilots would benefit the challenge. Oh, did not notice you already flew the mission.... Great maiden voyage of a new shuttle, looks really powerful and elegant (well apart from the engine pods floating above the cargo bay doors, but hey, if it works... ) This is proper STS-1a, but unfortunately, to qualify for the STS-1b badge (fuel pod), the orbit must have way lowe Ap and Pe difference - see the OP for the exact numbers. So, only one badge for you now, but I hope you come back to claim the other one pretty soon Michal.don

Thanks for understanding Good luck with your missions, and let us know when you plan on streaming your attempts, I'm sure some of the folks here would love to watch it live

While I would encourage aiming the reentry more precisely ( ), I think in this case the autopilot can be used to "just fly straight for half an hour". But usually, it takes just a few test flights to get the hand of a new shuttle, and you should be able to get it to reenter in the general vicinity of the chosen landing spot. So, in conclusion, you can use the autopilot to "hold the stick", but please, do not try to make it do more, because I would not like it to set a precedent for others. Michal.don

@Artienia, @4x4cheesecake, thanks guys! I'll edit the previous post, and allow custom made fuel pods.

Welcome to the challenge! To answer your questions: 1) I'm not familiar with that mod, but from the name I suppose it's a collection of parts with size between mk2 and mk3? Generally, mods are allowed here, with the exception of really overpowered engines and some straight cheaty stuff, which I do not think will be the case here. 2) Yes, no problem with that. 3) The fuel pod here is 2.5m in diameter, I don't know the dimensions of the mk2.5 parts. Before I'm able to give an answer to this one, I'd like to ask @Artienia about his fuel pod - I honestly do not remember allowing a custom made fuel pod - could you, please, send me the mission report or the link to our discussion about that? Thanks! (I got the answer I needed, you can design your own fuel pod, it has to weigh at least 40 tons, and try to roughly match the resource ratios of the original one, if possible) (edit: one note though - the "fuel pod missions" are considered bonus missions, you don't need to complete them to progress through the mission series, they are completely optional) 4) Yes, jets are allowed, and quite common around here I'll get to you with the third answer as soon as I can, and I hope I cleared all the doubts you had. Have fun shuttling and I'm looking forward to seeing your entries There are a lot of folks doing crazy things around here, that might not be the best way to distinguish one from another And the work is done, and it's done in style Not your typical, Skylab-looking-Skylab, but the rules don't say anything about that (surprisingly ). Good job, and a well-earned badge:  Well, I try not to be too restrictive in the "Test pilot" missions, but I state in the OP that they are designed and meant to be done with an STS-like vehicle. So, by the rules, you technically can use jets, but you're making it easier for yourself, so shame on you I hope I got it all, Michal.don

I can see a few new entries, and a few new faces - so let's do another round Wow, the screenshot of booster separation looks so good Great mission with two stops on different celestial bodies, three presents recovered and a pinpoint landing - very good job! A Christmas badge for you, my friend: I second that (next page coming soon)

Thanks, now I can see all I need, here's your badge: good job! Ok, let's put it this way: In the first two Mun missions (STS-1 and STS-2-4), each shuttle has to land on the Mun.

No problem, I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything important Good luck with the second flight!

Alright, holiday madness is over, all the family meetings survived with mental health mostly intact, so let's get to business Sorry, but some bad news on my part - the final orbit is not within the required parametres (Pe and AP difference too big). Unfortunately, I can't award the badge. Oh, I just noticed the edit, disregard, everything is in order, so the badge is rightfully yours On the other hand, this is right and proper, very good job! So, at least one badge for you, congrats! Ho ho ho, Santa Shuttle is coming to town Great job recovering the two presents and succesfully landing them at the North pole, despite your RAM issues A holiday badge for you: And again, @Alchemist showing us all how it should be done Great job, great video report, and all three presents recovered - definitely worthy of a christmas badge: Looking good I'd like to check the station in a little more detail though, it's quite dark in the screenshots. Could you please provide on of the whole station, preferably on the day side of Kerbin? Thanks! I you're talking about the first Mun mission, I'd say yes, you may deploy the outpost while flying, but the shuttle has to land on the Mun at least once to complete the mission. Wait, there is only one shuttle flight in your report - am I missing something, or is this just a WIP so far? If that is the case, I'll wait for the second flight... I hope I did not miss anything, Michal.don

Please, hang on for a while longer, I don't have the time to manage the thread every day, I'll hopefully get to it tomorrow

So the crazy LV really works Mission looks good, but I'll have to ask for at least two more screenshots documenting: 1) The final orbit of the fuel pod, for chcking the tolerances 2) The pod with the resource tab open, to check if it's still full Thanks! Actually, that would be no-go. I have to draw a line somewhere, and while it would not be such a big issue in this mission, it's not possible to utilise infrastructure not built by the shuttle program. If I let this go, some people would launch all kinds of stuff to help them in their missions. So, try the fuel-balancing trick to land your shuttle - it might work. You don't need a lot of reaction wheels to land from LKO, if your design is aerodynamicaly decent I'm sorry and I hope you understand my reasons, Michal.don

Of course! My craft file doesn't work in 1.3? I tried using only stock parts i thought have been present for a long time.

I sort of got used to hard things not taking too much time around here, but it still surprises me how quick some of you are Nice report, beautiful pictures and great job getting all three presents in one go - I hope you enjoyed the mission and, of course, a Christmas badge for you: Michal.don

Same here Unfortunately, no... Just a nice picture I found on google Yeah, the seismometer ribbons are quite part-heavy But they are there just for the looks, feel free to remove them if you suspect things would go too laggy

My fellow shuttle-holics, there is a special Christmas mission available for the duration of the holidays. You will be catching lost christmas presents in space and delivering them to the North pole (the full description is in the OP) There is also a special badge for anyone who completes this mission I hope you will have fun with this short mission, and I wish you all very happy holidays, hopefully spent with the people who you care for and who really matter in your life. All the best to all of you, lots of luck and happiness in the new year, And I'm looking forward to seeing each and every one of you around here and the rest of the forums. Michal.don

Damn, I just noticed I missed the mission part of your post! But I saw it now, and it looks great! Awesome atypical telescope and solar array design, and a succesfull maiden voyage of a new orbiter+LV combination - congratulations! Definitely a badge-worthy endeavour, so, here goes: Good job! Awww, this one's even better

Sorry for the slight delay again, full christmas-madness is starting to take more and more of my time.... Interesting debate about the CoM shifts and possible CoT adjustments - that's one of the things I love about this thread.... Anyway, let's check the entries: Great execution of the free return maneuver - and without correction burns, good job! And great improvised change of landing site, that's a feat worthy of a great test pilot And, I don't know why, but I absolutely love the screenshot of the shuttle changing the inclination in the atmosphere - that's a great picture! I was looking forward to seeing creative solutions of this one - and I'm certainly not disappointed - recovery via a giant bathtub Not the most elegant craft around, but gets the job done for sure. So, good job on both of your missions, and congratulations on being the first one to claim the new badge! Michal.don

It's an AutoCAD drawing with pictures inserted. If you want just the basic timeline with travel times, they are possible to download, the link to them is in the original post of the challenge