Karrajor

This week I am celebrating my 1 year anniversary with KSP And on this occasion, I would like to share my old major milestones: 1) "Sonda 3_2" - First probe in orbit: Name can be translated into "Probe 3_2" and this was my first naming system. It was my 3 major attempt, second modification. Back than I was guessing what the parts do and so it has RCS, but no tanks and no solar panels. It was on a highly eliptical orbit with apoapsis at about 680km. Sadly, the picture of the rocket was never made. <a href="http://www.imagehosting.cz/?v=sonda32prv.jpg"><img src="http://www.imagehosting.cz/thumbs/sonda32prv.jpg" border="0"></a> 2) "KOM 1" -First probe in a 200km (approximately) equatorial circulal orbit. A communication style probe. After seeing that chaotic button pressing is not the way, I set smaller goals and created programs. First was "KOM" and my goal in this program was to learn how to get into a circulal equatorial orbit. <a href="http://www.imagehosting.cz/?v=kom1naobez.png"><img src="http://www.imagehosting.cz/thumbs/kom1naobez.png" border="0"></a> 3) "Skokan 2" - First Kerbal in space. I accidentaly cut some of this picture out. "Skokan" or "Jumper" program had a goal of taking a Kerbal into space. After the first succesfull unmanned (or unkerbaled?) flight the second took Jebbediah into orbit. <a href="http://www.imagehosting.cz/?v=skokan2nao.jpg"><img src="http://www.imagehosting.cz/thumbs/skokan2nao.jpg" border="0"></a> 4) "Luna 1_1" - First probe to visit the Moon: The Luna program was extremely flawed, but one probe managed to get to the Mun making it the first craft that entered another bodies SOI. <a href="http://www.imagehosting.cz/?v=sondaluna1.jpg"><img src="http://www.imagehosting.cz/thumbs/sondaluna1.jpg" border="0"></a> 5) "ZOND-NG-2" - First probe that landed on the Mun (sort of): Although a probe core from Zond 6 survived, I did not take that as a success. So I have reworked the Zond probes (with NG standing for "New Generation") and finally landed a probe relatively intact. After some RCS play I got it actually to stand on the landing legs... <a href="http://www.imagehosting.cz/?v=zondng2pri.jpg"><img src="http://www.imagehosting.cz/thumbs/zondng2pri.jpg" border="0"></a> <a href="http://www.imagehosting.cz/?v=zondng2pos.jpg"><img src="http://www.imagehosting.cz/thumbs/zondng2pos.jpg" border="0"></a> 6) "Skokan 6" - First Kerbals on the Mun: Since docking was out of the picture, a giant ship was made. Kirman Kerman, Seanler Kerman and Elnand were the first to step on another world. The original three was taking a day out after a succesfull fly-by of Mun in "Skokan 5". And also Jeb was mounting some extra boosters on the main rocket if I remember correctly. <a href="http://www.imagehosting.cz/?v=posdkaskok.png"><img src="http://www.imagehosting.cz/thumbs/posdkaskok.png" border="0"></a> <a href="http://www.imagehosting.cz/?v=kerbonautn.png"><img src="http://www.imagehosting.cz/thumbs/kerbonautn.png" border="0"></a> 7) "KSS" - first docking while making the Kerbal Space Station: After 2 hours of horryfing dancing around with my badly designed station parts and watching Scott Manleys tutorial on how to dock, I made my first succesfull docking. The work on the KTS later accelerated and was ultimately was replaced by more advanced and usefull KTS - Kerbal Transit Station. <a href="http://www.imagehosting.cz/?v=ksspospoje.jpg"><img src="http://www.imagehosting.cz/thumbs/ksspospoje.jpg" border="0"></a> 8) "X-4" - first SSTO aircraft that can carry a Kerbal into space: Parallel to my rockets, I started to learn to make a SSTO. Compared to my advancing rocket designs, the SSTO program was falling behind with no progress. So I decided to find a working design and with slight modifications use it. So the X-4 was born. <a href="http://www.imagehosting.cz/?v=screencjc.png"><img src="http://www.imagehosting.cz/thumbs/screencjc.png" border="0"></a> And those are the milestones of my KSP playing. Since than I have done many more things, visited many more worlds. The most precious thing I am proud of, is my Kerbal death toll - 0 (= zero). Of course there where few (about 15) simulations with bad endings in the beginning, but those were just simulations, which were ended with the "F9" option. After finishing the simulation, all Kerbals were able to walk (sometimes run ) away. Every craft in my program has to be tested without Kerbals and have emergency systems to save them. And today, with my most modern Ion powered SSTO flying towards Minmus, I hope that a year from now, I will by able to write down, that I have visited all the worlds out there...

First asteroid that got into Kerbin SOI showed me, that my concept of a fleet of 200ton space ships wasnt the right answer, so I got my crew from it out and now its left in a 300km orbit until I find some use of it. In response to this I had to come up with some improvised and fast solution to my asteroid problem, so I rushed to develop my Asteroid Catcher. It performs well, but the first craft didnt have a RCS tank in its space stage so it was a nightmare to manouver. After catching an asteroid and circulazing its orbit I finally completed my Minmus holiday village. The first Kerbals that got tickets to it were of course Jeb,Bill and Bob. I got the idea for the holiday village when I realised that my Kerpolo landers can make it on there fuel reserve safely back to Minmus (they were originaly build for Mun). <a href="http://www.imagehosting.cz/?v=screencwc.png"><img src="http://www.imagehosting.cz/thumbs/screencwc.png" border="0"></a> <a href="http://www.imagehosting.cz/?v=screengwg.png"><img src="http://www.imagehosting.cz/thumbs/screengwg.png" border="0"></a> <a href="http://www.imagehosting.cz/?v=screenigi.png"><img src="http://www.imagehosting.cz/thumbs/screenigi.png" border="0"></a> On the picture, we can see two old Kerpolo landers on the left (one still has enough fuel to get into orbit, other one landed only on RCS and is empty, but landed safely and still fully operational). Closest to Jeb (who took the picture while jetpacking around) is the newest module - "Minmus house", which provides extra comfort and also some light in night. Itis the first module actually intended for this base. Right behind it is my Simple Crew Rover (SCR), which main purpose is to move Kerbals that dont know how to use there back pack around. In the center there is a type "Mun-3" probe that was sent to Minmus. It originaly landed elsewhere, but had enough fuel to make the jump here. In the back is my transport system for the SCR and on the right we have a launch platform of my RoboLander system. So basically I just got all the leftover junk+one house to one place and called it a holiday village

I have send a crew and a improvised refueling rocket to my Emperor class anti-asteroid ship and made a first trial run to Mun and back. Found 6 minor design flaws and I also wasnt much impressed about the fuel consumption. While I am renewing the design, I dont know if I will be launching another 2 ships as planned. I will see how it will perform in 75days when an asteroid will be passing Kerbin about 900km away and then I will decide the future of this enormously expensive project. <a href="http://www.imagehosting.cz/?v=screencyc.png"><img src="http://www.imagehosting.cz/thumbs/screencyc.png" border="0"></a> <a href="http://www.imagehosting.cz/?v=screennen.png"><img src="http://www.imagehosting.cz/thumbs/screennen.png" border="0"></a> <a href="http://www.imagehosting.cz/?v=screenpmp.png"><img src="http://www.imagehosting.cz/thumbs/screenpmp.png" border="0"></a> <a href="http://www.imagehosting.cz/?v=screenygy.png"><img src="http://www.imagehosting.cz/thumbs/screenygy.png" border="0"></a> Besides that, after a succesfull testing of my Let 6 Sprinter high performance aircraft I started the development of Let 7 Ã…Â ipka (translated into English its "Dart") which was to have many firsts (my first SSTO in career, first SSTO completely my design with no inspiration from the internet, first SSTO using one intake per engine concept). First flight with Lars Kerman aboard topped at 1242km/s at 32,5km. Also the first prototype was lossed due to a piloting error. Lars wanted to return to the KSC but overestimated the capabilities of the craft resulting in a spin. Fortunetally the recovery system worked fine and Lars is currently flying on the older Let 6 Sprinter to practice his skill. After this flight I made some improvements ( redesigned front wing section, added two reaction wheels and 4 small solar panels) and had Jebbediah try out the new craft. I didnt expected better performance, but having Jebbediah in the cockpit seems to be improving the craft in every way. Jebbediah utilised his piloting skills and got into a 80km orbit, in one flight he made all "my firsts" true. From now on, Jeb will be the first pilot on every aircraft I will build Also I will have to work on the landing gear, since both turbojets were lost at touchdown... <a href="http://www.imagehosting.cz/?v=screenpqp.png"><img src="http://www.imagehosting.cz/thumbs/screenpqp.png" border="0"></a> <a href="http://www.imagehosting.cz/?v=screenttt.png"><img src="http://www.imagehosting.cz/thumbs/screenttt.png" border="0"></a> <a href="http://www.imagehosting.cz/?v=screenrsr.png"><img src="http://www.imagehosting.cz/thumbs/screenrsr.png" border="0"></a> <a href="http://www.imagehosting.cz/?v=screenyly.png"><img src="http://www.imagehosting.cz/thumbs/screenyly.png" border="0"></a> <a href="http://www.imagehosting.cz/?v=screenbgb.png"><img src="http://www.imagehosting.cz/thumbs/screenbgb.png" border="0"></a> <a href="http://www.imagehosting.cz/?v=screenkxk.png"><img src="http://www.imagehosting.cz/thumbs/screenkxk.png" border="0"></a> <a href="http://www.imagehosting.cz/?v=screenbxb.png"><img src="http://www.imagehosting.cz/thumbs/screenbxb.png" border="0"></a>

In the past few weeks I had done more usuall exploration stuff to get science. After the success of my Heavy Ion Probe program I had improved the design and sent out two more Heavy Ion Probes. One to low Sun area, that should return and one equipped with RTGs to go to Eeloo. Also my Joomber 1 encountered some glitchy behaviour. First, while departuring from Kerbin SOI, it simply halted and fell back down to Kerbin. I used much of the fuel on board, but managed to get it back on track to Jool, only to see a weird explosion this morning, when bits of the ship were ejected at ridiculous speeds far away: <a href="http://www.imagehosting.cz/?v=screenyty.png"><img src="http://www.imagehosting.cz/thumbs/screenyty.png" border="0"></a> So I had to send out another one (I have done so after the first glitch) as a replacement. But the main thing is the ARM update. Since long ago, my Kerbals dreamed about giant ships, but there was no use for them and also I didnt had enough knowledge to get anything "giant" into orbit. My largest lifter (the Uragan II), that I designed only few days before ARM, was able to put about 100tons into LKO. But with the first asteroids beginning to apear, I find an excuse for the giant ships and also the power of the new parts is simply ridiculous. In about 5minutes I created a lifter, that can get over 200tons into space. Dont know exact numbers yet, because the payload had to do a lot of burning to. So without any more texting around, I would like to present you the first ship of my Emperor class - President (the names are translated, original names are in Czech, just wanted to keep consistent ): <a href="http://www.imagehosting.cz/?v=screenwmw.png"><img src="http://www.imagehosting.cz/thumbs/screenwmw.png" border="0"></a> <a href="http://www.imagehosting.cz/?v=screengyg.png"><img src="http://www.imagehosting.cz/thumbs/screengyg.png" border="0"></a> <a href="http://www.imagehosting.cz/?v=screenlul.png"><img src="http://www.imagehosting.cz/thumbs/screenlul.png" border="0"></a> <a href="http://www.imagehosting.cz/?v=screenyhy.png"><img src="http://www.imagehosting.cz/thumbs/screenyhy.png" border="0"></a> <a href="http://www.imagehosting.cz/?v=screencvc.png"><img src="http://www.imagehosting.cz/thumbs/screencvc.png" border="0"></a> <a href="http://www.imagehosting.cz/?v=screenrzr.png"><img src="http://www.imagehosting.cz/thumbs/screenrzr.png" border="0"></a> It has a fuel capacity of 13 500 liquid fuel and 16 500 oxidizer, powered by several RTGs to be independent of the Sun, 8 nuclear engines as main propulsion and one Skipper for extra power. It also has 2 small probes for the ship exploration. But they can be changed with any other modules. With these it has 4530 monopropellant and tons of RCS ports. There are also 3 advanced SAS modules. Maximum crew capacity in this configuration is 9 Kerbals, but I intend to use it with a crew of 3. I plan to make a total of 3 ships of this class. The main purpose is to redirect any asteroids, but it will also be used as a shuttle between my future stations at Mun, Minmus and I want to take it even interplanetary. So far its the biggest thing I have ever put in orbit in one piece. At this moment, the President has a mass of 183tons, while having 3/5 of fuel onboard. After some refueling and getting a crew to it, I will begin trial runs. But it can also fly on its own of course.

Since my last post I did a lot of stuff. Noticeable I was able to get my Heavy Ion Probe from close Kerbol orbit to Eve, which cleared the space from junk and also got me some science from EVEs atmosphere. Also I departed my first lander to Moho (after a succesfull orbitting probe got there) and departed to Jool with my Joomber 1 project (short for Jool Bomber, because its a main probe with 6 small probes along side, like boombs ). But the biggest accomplishment came from my newest aircraft design, the "Let 6 Sprinter". Designed as a very powerfull, but small and light aircraft. And whats so good about it? Its the first aircraft that I was able to get into space only with jet power. On second flight it 2 times leaved the atmosphere of Kerbin. Also its the first craft that was able to circle Kerbin with one small jet tank and still have enough fuel to continue for few hundreds of km. As I am preparing for my large SSTO craft project, I am going back to basics of aircraft design to optimize my designs and also learn how to get maximum out of air breathing engines. This craft will be very usefull in this. <a href="http://www.imagehosting.cz/?v=screenhqh.png"><img src="http://www.imagehosting.cz/thumbs/screenhqh.png" border="0"></a> <a href="http://www.imagehosting.cz/?v=screenvpv.png"><img src="http://www.imagehosting.cz/thumbs/screenvpv.png" border="0"></a> <a href="http://www.imagehosting.cz/?v=screenjpj.png"><img src="http://www.imagehosting.cz/thumbs/screenjpj.png" border="0"></a> <a href="http://www.imagehosting.cz/?v=screenkqk.png"><img src="http://www.imagehosting.cz/thumbs/screenkqk.png" border="0"></a> <a href="http://www.imagehosting.cz/?v=screenrmr.png"><img src="http://www.imagehosting.cz/thumbs/screenrmr.png" border="0"></a>

Its not today, but more like last week I finally got a probe to go to Moho and reached a stable circular orbit. However I wasnt quite satysfied with the design: <a href="http://www.imagehosting.cz/?v=screenrkr.png"><img src="http://www.imagehosting.cz/thumbs/screenrkr.png" border="0"></a> Its a probe that is a part of my DeepSpaceSat program, which purpose was to replace my aging Intersat project. The Intersat project had 3 probes, no nuclear engines but gave me the abillity to spam science from interplanetary space, Eve SOI and Duna SOI. Only the second probe didnt reach its target - Dres (bad launch window ). The DeepSpaceSat has however not been working out much. Some probes exploded after the launch vehicle was detached, others didnt had enough deltaV to get to theyre target (near Kerbol space). So I fitted one of these things with a big fuel tank and one nuclear engine, which did the trick. But as you can suggest, its big and bulky so I opened few programs to boost efficiency of my space program. After some experimenting I finally had my Heavy Ion Probe project ready to go to the near space of the Kerbol. But the initial mass of 1.38tons and a not ideal solar panel array left me with a about 20h "burn" (basicly running KSP in the background while doing my school projects) and yesterday I finally finished the "burn". My first Ion probe to go interplanetary is going for the Kerbol near SOI, to collect valuable data: <a href="http://www.imagehosting.cz/?v=screensws.png"><img src="http://www.imagehosting.cz/thumbs/screensws.png" border="0"></a> Im really happy I got a probe to go near Kerbol, while the entire mass at launch was only 55.89tons. DeepSpaceSat3 which went to Moho had a launching mass of 346.58tons . Also, being a little (read "a lot") inspired by Xactar, I started my own Ion powered plane project. It was working well, however Thombret was on the plane at the moment his brake started and in his free time he wanted to go for a swim. Engineers were "happy" to clean the plane afterwards and Thombret was replaced from the testing by Obfel, which managed to crash the damn thing to the R/D center (I dont have a photo with that, but he survived. Low speed and the fact he was just rolling on ground saved him)... <a href="http://www.imagehosting.cz/?v=screenpfp.png"><img src="http://www.imagehosting.cz/thumbs/screenpfp.png" border="0"></a> Bottom line, I had lots of Ion powered fun (thanks Xactar for the motivation to use Ion engines again! )

Advice: Never ask Jeb what he wants to build next. Or this can happen: <a href="http://www.imagehosting.cz/?v=screenkkk.png"><img src="http://www.imagehosting.cz/thumbs/screenkkk.png" border="0"></a> <a href="http://www.imagehosting.cz/?v=screenctc.png"><img src="http://www.imagehosting.cz/thumbs/screenctc.png" border="0"></a> <a href="http://www.imagehosting.cz/?v=screenfyf.png"><img src="http://www.imagehosting.cz/thumbs/screenfyf.png" border="0"></a> Apparently Jeb saw Pacific Rim and concluded that KSP needs a Jaeger program...

Obfel and Chadcal Kerman returned from the surface of Minmus, docked with Melbus who was waiting aboard the main craft. Then got on a trajectory to Kerbin. The Lander was sent back to Minmus to a location I (randomly) picked as a site of my future Minmus base. The landers are design to be able to crash to the terrain after taking the Kerbals safely to the main craft. But Minmus has small gravity and even on the RCS fuel it was able to land (this one landed even with standard fuel). These landers will function as houses for the Kerbals and also (the ones with fuel remaining) as an backup solution if case it was necesary to quickly evacuate the base. And finally, after a long time, I got into plane building again. Unfortunetaly I dont have all the parts unlocked yet, but I managed to make a relatively good design aircraft, the "Let 4". Performance trials reveiled it handles well under power, but is unstable at low speeds. Current record of altitude is about 17km and speed 520m/s. After that it started to turn right and Thombrett Kerman was forced to shut down the engines to slow down and regain control...

1) I registered on this forum (I am sorry for my English in advance, I am not a native speaker) 2) I found my first bug in KSP on my own: At least I hope its a bug. Another option is that my landers are cursed with the soul of some dead kerbonaut, who still wants to do science... I know its probably an already known issue, but I dont read forums and this made me happy. Also the remote controled test of my Kerpolo 2 ship with lander proved it was capable of reaching Minmus without any changes and a manned (or kerbed?) mission is on its way. 3) And finally I launched my first probe (counting even the sandbox) to Moho. On the image you can see it soaring to the stars on top of my standardized "Energia III" launcher vehicle: