astroheiko

Also from me - Congratulations @all The Leto Mission has arrived today. Here is the link and a photo. Leto Arrival Greetings

Today the Leto Mission arrived at the finish line. The mother ship must do a braking maneuver for 3810m/s to get an orbit. Now I have just 536m/s dV left - not particularly much. Now I release the two relays out. The connection to the KSC is miserable, I often lose it. I just managed to position the two relays, a few days later nothing works anymore. Maybe I'll never get more contact and I've got 2 dead sattelites out there forever. The problems are endless. The mothership now has not enough dV to land itself, so I fill the rest of the fuel into the lander, which now has 796 m/s dV - that should be enough. Biome I could not even mark any, I wanted to actually use the Relays. But without radio connection ... That is why I want to bring fuel to the mother ship, the antennas are stronger. For this I would like to mount the Narrow Band Scanner to the lander, usually I take my claw for this. The lack of radio connection does prevent that and I have to undock it and let him drift. Then I can catch him somehow with the lander. Unfortunately he is not very useful to me, because I have no KerbNet access ... I will probably have to land on good luck and hope on some ore. I have luck and get a point with ore on the first try. I had not much fuel reserves, but now I can fill up. At the same time, I do the first scientific research. Then I dock again on the mothership. Unfortunately, I have to dock in front, since this damn Narrow Band scanner at the other end of the lander occupies the docking port. To land the mothership, however, the lander must be at the rear end of the Mothership. I have to rebuild it somehow but I can not use the claw since I have no damn radio connection. To all misfortune I need also the connecting piece of the claw. In order not to lose the claw forever, I activate it and undock it. At the same time, she catches a part of the mother ship and hangs tightly. Now I can undock the connecting piece and it is in space and is drifting away. So I can catch it with the bottom from the lander, dock the Narrow Band Scanner and hang the lander to the lower end of the mother ship. What an effort - and only because of this missing radio connection. This is how it looks now. Due to the refuel action I have now enough dV to land the mothership and refuel completely. What the hell ... When I approach the landing I actually see a...big rock? So big? I take a closer look and see...an arch. Could someone have so much luck? So - I'm down. And there is also ore. Only the Narrow BAnd scanner is squeezed a little - Bad luck for you - if you would work properly then you would have been spared. Now we have to refuel. Now I need a break after the stress ... Stupid radio connection ...

The test phase of the new Mothership begins by mounting the rover on the lander. Besides, I take one of the additional tanks with Iota. Works everything quite well so far. The new Rover also works as it should. The crew discovers a huge hole in the surface. Perhaps we can solve our garbage problems in the future by using the hole as a garbage chute. The tank was filled and everything comes back to its place at the mothership. The next thing to test is to land the whole ship on Iota. It works more or less well. The place must be very flat otherwise it can easily tilt. The start is again smooth. Afterwards I wanted to see if I could use the mothership to catch asteroids - this is only the second time that I visit an asteroid. For this, I fixed the claw at the bottom of the lander and the lander to the front end of the mothership. Theoretically, I could then use the ISRU of the lander. I could catch the asteroid but unfortunately the drills are too far away from the surface of the asteroid. This means that I have to make small changes to the final design again. When I'm at it, does anyone of you know a way to calculate the range when you use an asteroid as "additional tank"? Can the formula DV = 9.81 * Isp * ln (Mw / Md) be used? How much fuel can be produced from e.g. 2000 tons of ore? A ton of ore - a ton of liquid fuel at 100% ISRU efficiency? That would be great. Questions about questions.

So you know the problem. Thrust Offset Angle can be really difficult if you want to build asymmetrical. Without KER, it would not have been possible to get the ship to fly. I pushed the outer tanks slightly upwards so that the fuel tanks form a kind of counterbalance. The thrust offset angle is initially 0.3 degrees, then rises to 0.9, drops to 0 and then reverses and rises again to 0.9. Here is a picture from the bottom - after landing on Iota.

Thank you for the compliment. Once the mothership is in orbit, it can be controlled normally - now. I spent half of the construction time adjusting the thrust angle. The thrusters were sometimes too far down, then too far up. If it is full of fuel, it always wanted to steer "up" when it is almost empty then "down". I then also had to adjust the order as the tanks are emptied and mount some Reaction Wheels. Now it can hold the course. I build such monsters just because I'm too stingy to constantly send rockets up. I also want to be as flexible as possible when I visit a system. And I'm always afraid to have too little dV. What I still lack is a reasonably cargo SSTO aircraft. The only thing I did was terrible. And - I just ran out of likes - every day the same thing. Greetings

An illuminator with white light is mounted on the claw. I forgot to turn it off. It is very close to the docking port.

So you have managed to build an airplane for Laythe which can also startt from the water. Congratulations.

By the way: I like your rockets - especially the upper stage of the project "Iron Sands"

@JadeOfMaar

Today I brought my new mothership into orbit. The old design was not bad but I wanted to have a slimmer design. The launch was a bit difficult but this is always the case with the huge mother ships. At the third attempt it worked and the mothership arrived in orbit. It then waited in a 600 km orbit to the rest of the equipment. Here comes the rest. One lander, a rover, two satellites and a claw. The rendezvous has worked and I dock. And here it is. Complete equipment with all the stuff. Here is a picture from the front. The lander can also dock in front, in addition, the two outer tanks are designed for docking. This allows you to increase the range or mount one of the tanks at the lander to better refuel when the mothership can not land alone. Now begins the test phase. The mothership is to complete extensive test runs at Iota before I send it elsewhere. It is also very useful as an asteroid catcher when the lander is attached at the front and the claw is placed at the bottom of the lander. But I have to try it out.

Lilli - Definitely. It is not able to land at...ahem... It 's best to try it out yourself. I don't want to spoil.

People ... get ready for really epic pictures. Edit: Holy mother...He did not promise too much !!!

@eddiew That looks far from lumpy. I think I mentioned it before but for safety I say it again: Because of YOU I have begun to build more beautiful vehicles. Your pictures are always very beautiful and inspiring - always. @JadeOfMaar Did you mean that Pack with the "Hades" Engine? I just installed it and look at the new parts. There are exactly the parts that I missed. I thank you for the hint. Hopefully my old i7 870 can still work with it. Now I am able to compete . For the many parts I will need some time, but at least a few days. Maybe we can also pull Lovahullus into the boat, his vehicle from the profile picture ... awesome. Again, all this is not a (real) competition - so do not take it too seriously. I personally like it exactly as it is now. A friendly atmosphere and you learn a lot - small jokes are welcome. To remain at least something with the topic: The installation vin 1.2.3 worked as always problem-free. I had only minor difficulties to get the Skybox to run but this is not part of the pack - the ore problem I will probably never get rid of, does not matter.

@JadeOfMaar I knew it. I've already known it before ...That I must build a new mother ship. That is an awesome piece of art you have built there. Since I now really need some good design ideas to keep up with the stock parts. Just give me a few days.

Damn it. And again he has me on the hook. So the next goal is called: Grannus Orbit and back with ISRU - and a new fence. You're driving me crazy