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KERBAL SURVIVES 200 METER FALL DURING INITIAL SPACEFLIGHT Two hours ago, Kerbal I launched on the first Kerballed suborbital mission. Launch proceeded nominally, likely due to the fact that Commander Jebediah Kerman was locked out from control access, until just after capsule spacecraft separation. When given control of the capsule spacecraft, he expended 95% of his capsule’s spacecraft’s RCS propellant firing all the translation thrusters at the same time, and then locked the SAS to prograde, draining the battery and causing him to lose all control over his capsule spacecraft. He survived a prograde re-entry, only to be informed by Val, in her capacity as CAPCOM, that Mortimer took the parachute home last Friday to patch it and forgot to replace it before liftoff. Gene immediately started flipping through procedure books, while Jeb flipped the only unlabeled switch in the capsule, which ejected the capsule spacecraft hatch around 10,000m. Gene grabbed Val’s headset and told Jeb “At this point, you might as well jump.” Jeb undid his harness. At 350m, according to the camera on his pressure suit, Jeb shifted his weight to roll the capsule spacecraft, and fell jumped out of it. He hit the runway of the Old Airfield head-first, and miraculously survived. Upon leaving the hangar and encountering Jeb, recovery crew leader Gus Kerman reported significant swelling of both his head and ego, remarking “I’ve never seen a head quite that big!” after the post-flight medical check. As a result of the flight, Wernher is investigating other ways of parachute-less spacecraft recovery, Mortimer is working on the finance team, Jeb is in rehab, Bill is looking for ways to reduce the size of Jeb’s head, and Gus is putting the finishing touches on Kerman II. Walt Kerman Public Relations Peon, Kerbal Space Program

KERBAL SURVIVES 200 METER FALL DURING INITIAL SPACEFLIGHT Two hours ago, Kerbal I launched on the first Kerballed suborbital mission. Launch proceeded nominally, likely due to the fact that Commander Jebediah Kerman was locked out from control access, until just after capsule separation. When given control of the capsule spacecraft, he expended 95% of his capsule’s spacecraft’s RCS propellant firing all the translation thrusters at the same time, and then locked the SAS to prograde, draining the battery and causing him to lose all control over his capsule spacecraft. He survived a prograde re-entry, only to be informed by Val, in her capacity as CAPCOM, that Mortimer took the parachute home last Friday to patch it and forgot to replace it before liftoff. Gene immediately started flipping through procedure books, while Jeb flipped the only unlabeled switch in the capsule, which ejected the capsule spacecraft hatch around 10,000m. Gene grabbed Val’s headset and told Jeb “At this point, you might as well jump.” Jeb undid his harness. At 350m, according to the camera on his pressure suit, Jeb shifted his weight to roll the capsule spacecraft, and fell jumped out of it. He hit the runway of the Old Airfield head-first, and miraculously survived. Upon leaving the hangar and encountering Jeb, recovery crew leader Gus Kerman reported significant swelling of both his head and ego, remarking “I’ve never seen a head quite that big!” after the post-flight medical check. As a result of the flight, Wernher is investigating other ways of parachute-less spacecraft recovery, Mortimer is working on the finance team, Jeb is in rehab, Bill is looking for ways to reduce the size of Jeb’s head, and Gus is putting the finishing touches on Kerman II. Walt Kerman Public Relations Peon, Kerbal Space Program

@CobaltWolf I really am enjoying your mod. I recently discovered minepagan's KerbalX spacecraft builds, and would really like to use those ETS spacecraft in the game (particularly the AARDV). Where do I find the parts for those?

@dennislee-if you want methods for controlling stock asymmetrical LVs, I'm afraid I can't help you. If you're ok with using mods/changing the hardware, I would direct you to @CobaltWolf's Bluedog Design Bureau, which has Atlas-V-alike parts, and whose RD-180 analogue has plenty of gimbal. The Daleth-CGR-60 "Sapphire", which is also part of the pack, is capable of acting as an analogue for the SRMs and does not produce too much thrust for the RD-180 analogue to handle.

Yeah, but then players can use the symmetry tool in the VAB to put like 64 of them on the back of the probe and increase the thrust to something reasonable if they're so inclined. Besides, is anything about resonant cavity thrusters reasonable? Don't they like break newtonian mechanics?

@Beale - What about reducing the thrust and size to change its function from "OP Ion drive replacement" to ultra-low-power linear RCS?

@CobaltWolf I'm really enjoying your mod! I've been wanting to mess around with Muo V configurations for a while, and the thing about all the really interesting ones (or at least the ones that are interesting to me) is that they've got strap-on SRBs (http://www.rocket.com/atlas-v-solid-rocket-motor). Can you recommend a particular SRB from your mod pack to act as the analogue for them?

So if I'm playing on 1.1.3, what's the most recent version I can use that I can download from Github?

@CobaltWolf this is an awesome mod you've developed! I downloaded the beta for 1.0 and couldnt get KSP to load past he agenaAntenna part. When I remove the two files associated with that part, the game gets stuck on loading the agenaPort part. Can you (or anybody else) help me get the game to load so I can use your awesome mod?

So which mods do I actually need to in my install to try yours?

@hraban this looks really great! Is there a reason I need TACLS to download and use this mod? It looks absolutely amazing (particularly the spaceplanes/winged RVs) and I'd love to try it out, but I don't use life support mods (spaceflight is hard enough for me without them).

Oh, we're back online now?

@Ricardo.b wait you worked out a launch trajectory formula using kos and ksp? What data did you get from kos that helped you develop this?

@ZooNamedGames what's the current status on the next launch attempt?

I'd just like to express my interest in contributing to this project in some way. I do have a couple questions though- will you be using DMP or something with a similar effect? What kind of mission control type support, if any, do you @NathanKell envision needing in addition to the Pilot, PAO, and the Flight Director during live streams? Or are you basically looking for hardware/kOS developers at this point?

I have yet to make it to Ike, because I still have yet to master powered landings, especially when the thing I'm landing on hasn't got an atmosphere (I've successfully flown spaceplanes of my own design and parachuted probes onto Duna flawlessly, but for some reason suicide burns always prove fatal to me).

@WellItExplodedAgain what's happening on June 10? Feel free to PM me if there's more convenient for you.

@Kerbiter we have a Public Affairs Officer who's responsible for providing comments on live streams and videos. I have not yet seen the most recent launch attempt video since I was there so I'll have to take a look at it. @Gaarst because we haven't had to do orbital maneuvers yet we haven't had a whole lot of work to do in terms of flight planning. But what I and two other people I'm working with want to do is basically plan out maneuver nodes in advance of the entire flight, inasmuch as that's possible. FDO in my mind is responsible for keeping track of where our spacecraft have been, are, and where they're going and also monitor all OMS firings.

At T-24:30:00 and counting, Flight Director is pleased to report that we are go for launch! Nominal T-0 for our upcoming launch attempt will be at 20:00 UTC/4:00 PM New York City local time on May 8. Everybody is invited to watch the end of the countdown and the flight at https://www.twitch.tv/realspaceprogram we hope to start streaming around 19:30/3:30 PM

@Moose Rocket Science PM me your skype username and we'll go from there ok?

@Florid Monkey- we don't have permanent mission control console positions. Our process so far has been to post the launch date and time and the open mission control positions in our skype chat and here and with only a couple exceptions, (Flight Director must have previously run a console, astronaut must have the appropriate hardware and software setup, Booster and GNC should be involved in development of their systems if possible) its first come, first served. So if the person who will be Retro on Sunday wants to see what it's like to be FDO or EECOM or LOD during the next launch, there's nothing stopping them except other scheduling conflicts they might have and how quickly they express interest in a different console.

@Florid Monkey welcome to the forums! You don't need port forwarding to do anything w RSP except fly the spacecraft during tests and missions. If you're interested in mission control consoles, kOS or hardware dev, or flight planning, and have an Internet connection, we want to work w you to get you involved. Can you send me a PM w your interests and we can go from there?

@Dman979, @ZooNamedGames, @EladDv, @CliftonM, @MRMCNUGGET and everybody else who's interested- Our astronaut, @Ethan3369, just advised me that he is no longer available for the upcoming launch attempt on Sunday. If we're gonna fly, we need an astronaut, therefore, it is my pleasure to announce the following: The Real Space Program is now accepting astronaut applications! Astronauts need to be able to run KSP with all the mods RSP uses (check with dman for that info), be able to port forward for Telemachus and kOS, have audio equipment set up so they can be in touch with the mission control team via discord, and be old enough to use all these services without violating their EULAs. No piloting skills are required, as this launch will be, for the most part, autonomous. Interested parties should message me ASAP through the forums or skype!

@WellItExplodedAgain thanks for the advice! To be honest, that's substantially more precise than we're currently capable of targeting landing zones. We know from testing that our current hardware will lead to a capsule landing about ¼ revolution of the earth east of the retro fire location, and we have coded our kOS program to start the retro sequence around 150°W. We're also not at the point kOS-wise where we can do an autonomous lifting reentry with a capsule (though I hope to change that soon).

@Rolacume not all roles are so math intensive if you're concerned about that. If you're interested in taking FAO EECOM or Retro for our next flight please send me a PM w your skype contact info and we can go from there.