ROXunreal

The Taker has been orbiting Kerbin with a captured Class A asteroid for a while now. Following the completion of our Kerbin Orbital space station, it was finally time to complete the last phase of this old asteroid capture mission and attach the asteroid to the station itself for study. The Taker was specifically designed for this phase, the grabber hand unit being detachable from the rest of the craft and having independent RCS capability. Rendezvous. Detachment Asteroid docked Following docking, the main part of the Taker craft was left adrift, the engineers failing to include a second probe core on the craft which would enable it to safely deorbit. The official statement by the engineer team during the subsequent investigation was "Post-it note adhesive failure resulting in engineer oversight". Since having such a massive hulk adrift so close to the station was judged to be "an unacceptable eyesore", it was decided that the station's autonomous tug unit was to dock with the Taker, thus providing it with control ability, and that the Taker would then deorbit using its own engines and remaining fuel. This left a lasting trauma on the station and ground control crew, as this tug had been brought up with the very first station module and had played a crucial role in nearly all of the following new module assemblies. It completed its mission and final flight as flawlessly as everything it was involved in before. Nameless tug, you built this station as much as anyone else did. Salutations, and godspeed. Final resting place of the Taker and nameless tug. A memorial Tomb Of The Unknown Tug is to be built on this site.

The Duna Orbital Sanctuary, a monolithic space station (or more like space lifeboat), has been brought up to Kerbin Orbital for refueling and parking until it's due to be sent towards Duna. Its purpose is to basically be a floating stockpile of fuel and supplies around Duna if worse comes to worse, and a place where the manned mission crew can chill. It also carried a secondary science payload to the station. Science payload separating to dock with the station Docking the Duna Orbital Sanctuary Aaaaaaand docked.....after a terribly long time due to imbalanced RCS, the position of the docking port and sheer mass of the thing. Luckily most of the fuel tanks launched empty.

For the eye candy: For the station parts: I also recently got Near Future Construction and Near Future Solar but haven't used them yet. Edit: can't help the formatting of these link-previews...

Finally, the last major expansion of my LKO station is completed, in what was a launch that touched the upper limit of the mass I can comfortably bring to orbit, as the craft barely fit into the VAB. This launch brought the Spectrometron Module and the very heavy Fuel Storage Module filled up to full capacity meant to refuel heavy interplanetary launches, and a crucial stepping stone for my upcoming Duna Orbital Sanctuary station, which itself will be critical to a safe manned Duna mission as it will be loaded with generous amounts of supplies and some fuel, in case the crew gets stranded around Duna. The cost of this launch was quite outrageous at just under a million credits. Launch The retrorockets were barely powerful enough to put any distance between the stages upon separation due to the lower stage's mass, and here I hoped that they would actually maybe deorbit the thing. The amount of lower stages the size of small cities I'm leaving in orbit lately is unnerving... Rendezvous with the station Separation after having docked the Spectrometron Module Station fully assembled! While no further major expansions are in plan, there might be a few smaller ones, the most notable of which will be the attachment of a Class A asteroid that I brought to LKO a while ago.

Kerbin Orbital just got its life support module, curiously named: Life Support Module, and thus became habitable over longer periods for the first time, and got its first crew of two. Three more Kerbals will join them on the next expansion mission. Bill Kerman also did the first station spacewalk where he reinforced the Life Support Module and the Main Axis Module with struts.

Pillaging Minmus for science recently has enabled me to develop heavier launch craft, which has accelerated the building of Kerbin Orbital station. In two separate missions, two power modules and two combined Cyclotron/power modules have been installed. The first two dedicated power modules Station with power modules fully operational, this was taken before a correctional re-docking to better align the module orientation, as they weren't symmetrical with the station main axis. Still no batteries, these will be due on a separate module later on. Launch number two is my heaviest lift to date. Two extremely heavy Cyclotrons combined with more power production capacity. Guess who finally got some modded eye candy going. Lord forgive us for leaving a stage the size of a small city in LKO... Kerbin Orbital's automated tug setting out to dock with the Cyclotron delivery craft. The tug docked one Cyclotron module to the station, while the launch craft docked the other one after they separated. The station as it is now Next is the life support module, along with the first crewed visit to the station. So far it has been built exclusively by automated craft.

Mod works on my machine but is pushing the upper limit, especially during takeoff of large and complicated craft. Is there a way to tweak the settings to tone it down a notch, especially in atmosphere, while still sticking with the 4k pack? Also, is it possible to tone down/change the space background? The nebulae are a bit too bright and unrealistic for my taste. In any case massive kudos for this mod.

If all else fails you can always send a craft with 10 lower stages for your lander to Eve orbit, and use those disposably while the upper stage would be reusable.

Made the sexiest lander of my life for a nine-Kerbal mission to Minmus. The mission had three objectives: 1. Scan Minmus with the M700 survey scanner for a future mining operation and refueling station 2. Do several biome jumps and collect science data 3. Provide training and experience for the crew of nine mostly fresh Kerbonauts It was a great success, all objectives were met and science from five different biomes gathered. Leaving Kerbin Surveying Minus Final landing burn after having detached the scanner and transfer stage Group photo! What a great day for our space program! The experience gathered here will enable these Kerbals to crew the as of yet unmanned stations under construction in the orbits of Kerbin, Mun and Minmus, as well as manned missions to Duna and Eve Detachment of the science module after the final biome is explored and science transferred to the main craft Landing on Kerbin

Thanks. The issue with the "drum" arrangement is that it doesn't "snap" horizontally in the VAB when attached to a surface, meaning that the wheels attached to the Science Jr aren't perfectly centered with the front wheels, making it turn slightly which is very annoying when time warping and traveling a you have to constantly correct the heading, and if you do so at too high a speed it can make the whole thing flip. I guess it could be centered properly with a lot of testing at SC to make sure it goes straight or mostly straight over longer distances. I'll figure out a different way of deployment altogether for Duna as this was somewhat clumsy even on the Mun. It'll probably be a sky crane of some kind, meaning I'll have to make room for an attachment point on the top side.

First manned rover mission in my 4 single player games that I've played through the years. It was a test for the planned manned mission to Duna. The three-crew mission landed on the edge of Mun's Polar Crater and gathered science data from the crater itself, from Mun's midlands, highlands, one highland crater and from the edge of Mun's north pole. Total distance traveled was more than 70km (maximum distance from the lander was 30km). The rover was balanced on top of the lander and used RCS to transfer itself to the ground after detaching from the lander Charging up the batteries with the auxiliary solar panel before a prolonged roving in the shadow of a mountain, the sun is low on the horizon near the pole. Science officer Samsey Kerman transferring a trove of science data from the rover to the lander before departure, after having broken one solar panel during a clumsy jetpack maneuver. Using the leftover fuel in the landing stage for liftoff on the return journey. And the return stage after jettisoning the landing stage The lessons learned will be useful for an upgraded rover design for the eventual manned Duna mission, namely: more battery capacity and only placing wheels in symmetry (due to a VAB issue I had to place them separately which ended up with the rover not going completely straight which would lead to dangerous loss of balance when applying correctional urning at above 12m/s ground speed)

Hah, I just landed a very similar rover on the Mun today. It's a test bed for my upcoming remote Duna rover. Upper stages in launch configuration Re-docking with rover for landing configuration After the science is done, the small science result module separates from the rover, flies back to orbit and docks with the lander stage to be taken to my station at Kerbin orbit, from where it will be retrieved to the surface by another craft.

Recently I've sent up the core Main Axis Module of my Kerbin orbital station. The Main Axis Module contains living quarters and the stock lab (which I pretend is a living quarter thing because I have the other lab from Station Science), plus some corridors and a small docking hub. Along with it I've also sent a tug probe and a Plant Growth experiment for later use when the station is expanded. Today the first major expansions of the station were conducted. The first expansion brought the crucial Main Hub module to which the heaviest parts of the station will be connected, as well as the Orb Module with one of the two main docking ports for third ships that the station will feature. This mission was crewed because the agency needed a few pilots on the station to test out some control systems. The Main Hub Module and Orb Module arriving to the Main Axis Module and becoming one with it. The crew leaving after having spent a few hours on the station. The station still has no functional life support and is thus not fit for extended stays. The second station expansion was the heaviest craft I've ever put in orbit, and contained the heavy Science and Command Module and the Zoology Module. This also marked the first time the station could produce its own power via the solar arrays on those modules, even though these are secondary arrays, since the bulk of electricity is to be produced by the upcoming modules designed specifically for power production. Quite a big mess here as the big tug that I've brought up on this flight to assemble the modules was incorrectly loaded with liquid fuel instead of monopropellant, making it stranded since it lacked its own engines. Luckily the smaller tug that was brought to the station with the core module turned out to be quite adequate for the task, despite being much much smaller and lighter than the modules it was handling. The station as it is now: At least four more flights are planned before completion, as well as rendezvous with an asteroid tug hauling a class A asteroid that will be attached to the station.

How many big kibbal storage tanks would I need to perform all the experiments on one station?

That's why I'm taking no chances with my imminent first creed Duna mission - I'm sending unmanned life support and fuel resupply craft and lifeboats just in case. They will double as relay satellites.