michal.don

Hello all, some of you might know me as an administrator of the v5 of the Shuttle challenge on the forums. After running it for quite some time, I passed it to another shuttle enthusiast and I took a long-ish break from KSP as a whole. But in these home-staying times, I started playing a bit again, and decided to take part in the challenge, since I never properly flew some of the later missions. I designed a new orbiter, started to learn how to fly shuttles again, and I'm having a great time doing so. Also, I decided to create video reports of the missions, instead of just posting screenshots. I'm new to the whole video-editing thing, so it's really nothing too complex, but I decided to post it here anyways, to share my adventures, hopefully getting some feedback about video editing, and to spread awareness about the phenomenal Shuttle challenge, if you haven't tried it yet I highly recommend you to do so, it is, in my opinion, one of the best and most complex challenges around here. Now, to the shuttle missions. I've completed the first set of Kerbin missions: STS-1a and STS-1b - proving the orbit-worthiness (is that a word? ) of the shuttle and carrying a 40 t fuel pod to space: STS-2a and STS-2b - Deploying a keostationary comm network and recovering the fuel pod from the previous mission back to Kerbin STS-3 - Designing and deploying a space telescope to LKO - my first experience with the "new" robotics stuff STS-4R - Rescuing the crew of a stranded space shuttle STS-5 to STS-8 - Building a space station in LKO using your shuttle I hope you enjoy the videos, I will post more here as I finish the next missions, which will take me asteroid hunting into deep space, to the Mun, Minmus and various planets in the system. Michal.don

Space station finished, the video is about 7 minutes, I had to cut out probably an hour of dancing around with the shuttle/station/MMUs/payloads. A plus of a twin cargo bay shuttle is bigger capacity, a minus is a lot more docking Michal.don

So, two more chapters of my new shuttle adventures, STS-3 and STS-4: Enjoy, Michal.don

Thanks! I have to say, after a while off, my piloting is pretty bad, but boy I'm having fun! I've already completed STS-3 and STS-4, too, so more video reports coming soon

Alright, I have the answer: yes. But it takes several attempts and it's really difficult, so I won't be landing anything even close to 80 tons ever again STS-2a and STS-2b completed. Report here: And now it's time to learn robotics for the telescope. Michal.don

Ok, one mission down, plenty of them to go This time I'm aiming for the stock badges for a change, my last go was with modded parts, especially heavy SRBs, since we didn't have them in stock game yet. Modlist and a few pictures of the shuttle in the spoiler: Video report here - I opted for this format of reports this time, I hope it would be more comfortable to judge than a bunch of screenshots And a proof that the fuel pod is full: And now comes the question... Will I be able to land them both at the same time? Honestly, I have no idea. Michal.don

Good to hear that, hopefully there will be one or two out when I finish the existing missions And I heard about the Factorio/KSP combining mod as well, but I don't thgink that's neccessary, both of the games are pretty time-consuming on their own, so...

Yeah, work and stuff are the worst... And I also played some other games that I've owned for quite some time, like Factorio - that's another addicting one.... and, in advance, I have to ask - are there possibly any new missions coming soon? Michal.don

Alright, since we have a round two of corona incoming where I live, it's probably a good time to get back to KSP again, and while I'm at it, I could try and get the badges for the missions I designed and never have flown properly So, I'm learning to fly shuttles again, and I'm designing a shuttle to take me through the missions as fat as it can. So far I've completed the preliminary design of the orbiter: We'll see how it goes in a few days, and hopefully, I'll come around to claim a badge or two from time to time Nice to be back again, Micha.don

I have to admit, this answers my question quite completely I did not have an opportunity to have a proper look at the report yet, but I sure will check it soon, and send a few likes your way And, in my opinion, this one is firmly in the "skunkworks" territory, but I'll leave the honors to @sturmhauke Michal.don

Pretty much as the other guys guessed, the fuel limitations exist to make the player use gravity assists. The mission is of course possible to complete without any fuel on the lander, but I tried to not make it too difficult for players who are not that profficient in gravity assists yet.

Great job with the badges! And I'm really curious about the new mission. It sounds like a good occasion and excuse to build a new shuttle, and maybe claim the badges I did not have the chance to claim before... Michal.don

I like it, it has the charm and style of the previous ones, but will be more distinguishable (is that a real word? ) from one another. Nice Michal.don

Great to see you around again, my friend I can't say I know exactly what battling MS is about, but I wish you the best of luck, and of course, I'm looking forward to seeing your missions, since they've always been something special. I won't be the one awarding the badges this time, but I'll check the mission report for sure Michal.don

I must have missed that, thank you! Michal.don

Hello, I've started playing around in RP-1 after quite a while, the last time I tried was in 1.3.1 RP-0. I'm wondering, is KIS/KAS compatible with RP-1? I remember it was back in the day, but is it still the case? I can't find it anywhere in the wiki. Thanks, Michal.don

Oh, thank you very much It's been a while since I've been awarded a badge, feels good, not going to lie And i can see the thread is a few pages already, it seems that the transition went quite well! Michal.don

v5 is dead, long live the v6! Good luck, and may the shuttles here bring you as much joy as the ones in the previous version brought me! And who knows, after I manage to cure my burnout, maybe I'll come for the badges |I did not have the chance to claim myslef as the challenge admin.... Michal.don

Hello, could you please lock the "Shuttle challenge v5" thread? After two and a half years, I retired from the challenge administrator position, and someone else took the challenge to its "v6" iteration. Thank you! Michal.don

Alright, the transition was faster than I expected. So, After a long, long time, I pronounce the v5 of the Shuttle challenge finished, thank you @sturmhauke for taking the administrator seat and I wish you the best of luck with the v6, and thanks to all of you for participating - I'll be watching all of you in the v6 from time to time Michal.don

Hello there. It's me again. First of all, I'd like to apologize for not being around lately. The beginning of the year was quite busy for me, but lately it's been another issue - I got a proper case of "KSP burnout" - I haven't played the game in months (which would have been unthinkable before ), and haven't even visited the forums. When I came back and saw the new entries and people around here, I couldn't help myslef and felt ashamed - the shuttle community here is going strong, new designs and amazing mission reports are appearing here, and I am, simply put, not doing my part. A community as involved and amazing as this one needs and deserves someone who has the time, the enthusiasm and energy for running this challenge. So, after two years and a few months, 89 pages of over 2,200 entries (and with over 120 000 views, wow...) , I decided to retire as the challenge moderator, and let somebody else take my place, and create a v6 of this challenge. And, since he was so kind to agree to take on the challenge, this guy will be @sturmhauke, one of the most involved people in this community, who you all know so well. From now on, I won't be judging your entries (and I apologize to all of you who were waiting for the review for quite some time), but Sturmhauke will judge the ones in this thread and award you the proper badges before this thread will be locked and a new one, "Shuttle Challenge v6" will be started. So, big thanks to all of you, who shared your mission reports and great shuttle designs with me and with this whole community, it has been a great pleasure to run this challenge for you, good luck to our new challenge moderator @sturmhauke, and see you soon in the new thread. I hope and believe that you guys make it even more awesome than this one. Michal.don

I sense that the regular missions are getting too easy for you... But I love the fact that you create your own goals to fulfill during them, and even add a bit of a story.... As always, I have no reservations about your mission, so I'll go straight to the badge-awarding part... Good job! And you did a great job as well! A bit on the easy side, but an important one, nice mission, and good job landing the plane too! Well... Sorry, but in this case, this would be a "no"... I always try to encourage a creative solution, but this is not the intended goal of this particular mission, and I believe that this is the case I mentioned in the rules of the "Test pilot" mission: "An STS-or-Buran-looking shuttle+LV is strongly reccomended. You might not be able to complete certain missions with a significantly different design!" I hope you don't mind too much and it won't discourage you from completing the other missions. Sorry. Yep, that's quite a bit of an overshoot But that's where the fuel reserves come in handy, so, no problem Good job, nice mission, another badge, you know the drill It looks like the end of december was quite the RTLS season... An impressive mission as well, it looks like you got quite far downrange, and still had enough boom in the tanks to get back. Also, a very precise landing! Congratulations! I was wondering how you managed to fit the hab segments into the shuttle... I'm not a big fan of sticking cargo to the exterior of the shuttle, but since this is additional cargo to the payload in the bay, flies up in a fairing, and ends up being towed behind the shuttle in orbit, I don't have an issue with that Again, the station is a great piece of engineering, and the shuttle flying through the ring is a great ending to this awesome series of missions! Very good job! And of course you modified the mission again to make it more challenging I'm genuinely getting curious how you'll fare in the later missions at Duna, Jool and Eve... Good free return trajectory planning, and nice two munar excursions! Very good job! I hope I got them all, Michal.don

Hey guys, I'm back after the holidays, it's been a while, but I finally have a bit of time to sort through all the entries, sorry for the delay... It's been a busy couple of weeks gor me... I think I'll never grow tired of this kind of sight - two shutles dancing around each other in very close proximity. It just feels sort of... Beautiful? Magnificent? I'm not sure of an appropriate word, I just like it And, of course, brilliantly performed mission on your part, all objectives met, so a new badge for you: Congratulations! This... This is what still amazes me about this game, and this community. Just when I think I've seen it all, somebody comes along and proves me wrong I don't think I can express how impressed I am, this thing is really beautiful, and insanely complex. Very, very good job on your part! Because of the IR and Dockrotate usage, I have to qualify this mission as "modded", but I hope you don't mind! Congratulations! Genuinely curious where this is going (Next page of reports soon, will merge the posts afterwards)

Oh, I did not think about checking the orbit window, I'm used to older KSP versions and having to rely on KER.... In that case, no objections from me, here's your badge: Congratulations! Haha, the small airplane looks really cute, compared to the shuttle Almost guessing who is carrying whom Jokes aside, great mission and a nice landing! About the "deploy shielded" thingy, another workaround is attaching the wheels to tanks and then ofsetting them into the desired position manually. (oh, and I'm curious both about the telescope, and the RTLS abort protocol... ) Michal.don

So, about a week has passed, so let's take a look what we have here: Very nice! There is a lot of stuff that I like about this one, beginning with the robotic arm holding the telescope in place, the MMU work with the panels, the shutter deployment, and finally, the landing straight from the inclined orbit! Very good job, this badge is very well deserved: Congratulations! Welcome to the challenge! That's a very unusual design, I can't even remember if anybody flew a twin-fuselage shuttle here, and we've seen plenty of shuttles, indeed On top of that, your shuttle is capable of lifting two Mulletdyne pods to LKO? And on your first mission here? Very impressive! The orbit is very precise, and a runway landing? That makes it a very successful mission, worthy of two badges: I'm looking forward for more missions of your shuttle, congratulations! Oh, and another one from you Well, it's the first time someone actually landed two pods, if I remember correctly, so I'm willing to overlook the fact that you pumped the contaminated fuel from one of the pods into the tanks of your shuttle This is even more impressive than the first one, even not considering the beautifully spaced CommSat constelation and a booster landing! Very good job on this one, here are your badges: (by the way, the STS-2a and STS-2b missions can be flown separately, but I guess this clarification comes a bit too late...) Congratulations! I like the fact that every sat has its own unique design, and its own name But I guess it shouldn't surprise me that much, given the level of detail that you give into your shuttle program. But if I can see correctly, there isn't a picture showing the final orbits of the sats in your report. Before I can award you the badge, I need to see that the sats are (at least approximately) in geostationary orbits. Would you provide these screenshots, please? Thanks! Michal.don