jimmymcgoochie

You could set the lower probe core as the control point (right click it > control from here), or you could flip the control point on the upper one (right click it > control point: normal will become control point: reversed if you click it) and then flip it back when it's separated. Out of curiosity, why did you put the payload on upside-down?

Craft files go into KSP/saves/<your save name>/Ships, the save files themselves (.sfs) are in KSP/saves/<your save name> so moving the folder from KSP/saves will get everything.

Kerbalism automation isn’t 100% reliable, if it happened to skip the exact moment that the Ceres probe hit the high power threshold then it would never turn the science back on. I tend to turn off data transmission over experiments so that the data gets gathered first and can be transmitted back eventually. The lunar sample return craft seems to have some kind of weight imbalance as it’s applying a significant yaw input whenever the engine is running. The weirdness on liftoff could be down to the limited engine gimbal bring unable to counter this and an asymmetric thrust from the solid rockets at the same time, but with the help of the RCS it recovered to point the right way (east).

Is there a way to change the vertical scale of the altimetry maps? Both the stock Mun and RSS Moon have the same issue where most of the altimetry map is white because the terrain is above the upper limit on the colour scale, which is set too low.

When the game is loading, it loads everything into memory; once the game is running it doesn’t need everything in memory any more and can free it up again. Parts with detailed textures, especially internal spaces, will increase the memory use even more during loading.

A Molniya orbit is high inclination, high eccentricity so the satellite appears to loiter in the sky over high latitudes, with an orbital period of 12 hours. Extend that orbit even further so it takes a sidereal day and you get a Tundra orbit with less satellite downtime as it flies low over the other hemisphere. Neither of them seem particularly useful for either Europe or Australia, except possibly for the far northern reaches of Scandinavia, but someone is willing to pay to find out and EuROSTAR is never going to turn down good money. That launch went pretty under the radar because nearly everyone was focussed on the race to Venus- Procyon versus Venera. At first it looked like Venera 1 would win the race, but no signal was ever received and trajectory analysis suggested it hadn't got closer than 50,000km to Venus. The very next day, Procyon Venus sent back its first images and scientific data. A fully successful flyby, launched on a significantly smaller rocket and at a significantly smaller cost. EuROSTAR is picking its battles in the Space Race, and picking them well. In keeping with that theme, the very next launch set out to capitalise on the Blue Moon's success by modifying the flyby/impactor probe into an orbiter. It wouldn't be pretty and it would push the Princess Mk3 to its limits, but the results would be well worth the effort. The probe was fitted with cutting-edge solar panels that greatly improved their power generation while also slashing the cost of manufacture, given a suite of lightweight science experiments to maximise the chances of success and thrown in the direction of the Moon; the upper stage then pointed the probe in the right direction for its capture burn, spun up to stabilise it and then released it to coast all the way to periselene. With no guidance, solid braking rockets and the capture burn controlled by a timer since the probe would be behind the Moon and so out of communications, this was a long shot. All eyes in Mission Control were fixed on the mission clock- they had calculated the time it would take the probe to re-establish communications if the capture burn didn't happen, known as red time, and if it worked exactly to plan- green time- it would take a bit longer due to the near-700m/s deceleration. Red time came, and went... Green time came- Signal acquired! It would take a couple of orbits before the full details of that orbit could be pinned down but just getting any orbit at all was a huge success. The mission had been announced as a Blue Moon and the world was expecting another impactor mission, so the surprise announcement of a lunar orbit in June 1961 caught everyone off-guard. To the Soviet Union it was another slap in the face following the public success of Procyon Venus and failure of Venera 1; to the United States it was yet another humiliation- not only were they losing to the Soviets, but the Europeans were using American rocket engines better than America! It was about to get worse: the Procyon interplanetary probe was quickly adapted into a lunar orbiter and launched a few months after the Blue Moon orbiter, carrying a much more sophisticated science package and a full attitude control system, using its upper stage with a relightable Larch engine to perform the transfer and capture burns. Procyon Luna was positioned in a polar lunar orbit, however Mission Control soon discovered the existence of a "too perfect" orbit and some of the sensors couldn't complete all of their observations owing to the probe's orbit not being eccentric enough. The propellant reserves had been almost entirely depleted trying to resolve this issue, to no avail; the lessons would be learnt for the next one. EuROSTAR had enjoyed a string of big successes of late, but these had also highlighted the fundamental limitations of the Princess rocket. If we can do all this with a relatively small rocket, many had said, just imagine what we could do with something the size of the R-7. With the construction of a new, larger launchpad now finished and the new OR-3 rocket now being produced to use it, they were about to find out.

Rocket watchers at Woomera have been left bewildered by the launch of a Princess Mk3 late one night, since none of them could find any record of a Princess Mk2. In reality the Mk2 has been superseded by EuROSTAR's purchase of the X-405H Vega project and subsequent incorporation of the Vega engine on the second stage of the Princess Mk3. Efforts to improve the Gamma series have paid off with the development of the Larch, slightly improving ISP and thrust while reducing weight, but the Larch-8 of the Princess Mk2 was found to offer less performance than the Vega on the Mk3. Vega was unfinished when it was acquired and is still somewhat unrefined with reliability issues around engine ignition almost as great as those related to the Veronique a decade ago, however on this flight the engine worked with no problems. This launch has some lofty goals- throw a probe at the Moon and hopefully hit it- which are only possible due to the improved performance of the Princess Mk3. The first Blue Moon probe was duly dispatched by the Larch-1Vac upper stage and then positioned with its solar panel towards the sun. Shooting at the Moon is a tricky business, get the velocity wrong by even a couple of metres per second and you'll miss entirely. As the days went on and trajectory analysis was performed it became clear that Blue Moon 1 was right on track. Valuable data was sent back right up until impact, with the only problem arising from the mission being a lack of bandwidth to send all the data back as it was generated- one or two bits per second at best. Telescopes all over the world saw the brief flash as the probe impacted on the night side of the Moon, right on schedule. Mission accomplished and already mission planners are gearing up for a second one. One Goliath Mk2 carrying a pair of commercial satellites later... And then it was time for the Goliath to get the Mk3 treatment with a Vega second stage. Its first launch was another Nebula imaging satellite sent into a polar orbit. A few days in orbit to take lots of nice pictures, then the return capsule was sent back down to land in the Australian outback. There's nothing more to be gained from using this camera system, it lacks the resolution to get useful images of surface features. On a more positive note, EuROSTAR's first interplanetary mission was launched aboard a Princess Mk3, destination: Venus. The first of the Procyon science probes, Procyon Venus is kitted out with the best scientific instruments available and cutting-edge avionics that can function even in deep space, allowing mid-course corrections and full attitude control for the long flight to Venus. The probe's RCS system is something of an experiment too, since the long-term storage of HTP in space has never been attempted but it has shown a tendency to slowly dissociate into oxygen and water over time when stored on the ground for longer periods. The next best alternative is nitrous oxide, offering slightly better ISP at the cost of significantly lower propellant density. With news of a Soviet probe heading towards Venus in the same transfer window, it'll be interesting to compare their scientific findings, assuming both make it to Venus and are able to send data back. Back on Earth, Damien is getting his first orbital flight aboard Dawn 2. More experiments have been prepared for him, but the big event of this mission will be the attempted rendezvous with the Nebula 2 satellite which is still in orbit, minus its return capsule. The extra performance of the Princess Mk3 meant that the rocket's third stage had a healthy fuel margin left over to do some orbital manoeuvring and so facilitate a rendezvous within the 24 hour deadline imposed by the life support systems on this rudimentary capsule. This resulted in a much higher orbit than Dawn 1 to let the target "catch up" to Damien. The final approach was done with the spacecraft's own propulsion system as Damien brought Dawn 2 within touching distance of Nebula 2, taking a few pictures as he did. With the mission's goals all met, the plan was to return to Australia for a landing- until Damien realised he was about to fly over Europe itself and could "drop in on family" by deorbiting right away. By the time radio contact was established via the Madrid Deep Space Network site, he was already dropping through the atmosphere. He flew over the Strait of Gibraltar... ...crossed over Cornwall and Wales on his way over the Irish Sea... ...and then flew over the north coast of Scotland and left the UK behind as he kept heading nearly due north towards the Arctic Circle. He would later claim to have done the world's fastest Land's End to John O'Groats trip, a claim hampered slightly by him not actually going to Land's End nor John O'Groats. By the time the parachutes opened he was somewhere east of Iceland and starting to regret his hasty decision to deorbit early. The Atlantic Ocean in late February isn't a good place to go unprepared. Fortunately for Damien, and EuROSTAR, some fishing trawlers saw Dawn 2's descent and managed to pick him up a few hours after splashdown, eventually handing him and the capsule over to a Royal Navy destroyer the next day to be taken back to the mainland. His ears were still ringing from the dressing-down he got from the EuROSTAR board of directors when the next Goliath Mk3 took off, carrying a weather satellite and a high orbit science probe that was quickly put together when no suitable rideshare satellite could be found for the very particular orbital parameters required by the weather satellite. The Nova-Sci probe has a few newer experiments that weren't available for the old Nova-SolPolSci probe that was the second artificial satellite back in 1957 and will provide a steady stream of data about the Earth and the space around it. Some engineers have put their heads together and come up with a daring plan to turn the Blue Moon lunar impactor into a lunar orbiter by, quote "welding some solid rocket motors on the bottom and pointing it the right way before detaching from the TLI stage", unquote. This would have some obvious benefits- bragging rights at UN meetings, much more science data generated and time to transmit it all back to Earth, etc.- so this plan is being studied to assess its feasibility. Margins would be very tight, but it should be just within the Princess Mk3's capabilities.

KSP2 won’t have FTL, that has been stated repeatedly. Interstellar travel will take a realistic amount of time i.e. decades to centuries one way.

Did what I always seem to do- accept some contracts with huge advance payments but fairly tight deadlines and requiring technologies I haven’t researched yet. It’ll probably* be fine…

The Goliath has had an upgrade- the Mk2 version does without the side boosters as the improved RZ.2-Mk4 has enough power to lift it by itself, though the initial TWR isn't great. This launch put two satellites into orbit for three contracts, each of which removed the vessel once its parameters were met. Don't ask how that works. Just don't. Not all Goliath launches will be using the Mk2 configuration, such as this: the first Nebula imaging satellite which is going into a polar orbit and so needs all the help it can get. Yes, it's just three cameras stuck together, but think of all the science! It remained in orbit for a day and used up all its film before the return capsule was launched back down to Earth. Next to launch was a Princess rocket carrying a SuperNova satellite to a Molniya orbit. This launch was the first to make use of an upgraded Gamma that can restart in flight. Another Goliath Mk2 launched two SuperNovas at once: And then Romano decided to retire immediately after completing Mercury proficiency training. Your loss, Romano, the first orbital flight is imminent! With the most experienced pilot now gone, it fell to Damien to take the XR-4 Aurora out for a high-altitude flight. Turns out doing that X-15 proficiency training was worth it after all. That meant that Olga Martin had the honour of becoming the first person to orbit the Earth aboard Dawn 1, launched by a Princess rocket in what's becoming my signature capsule-wider-than-upper-stage configuration. None of that "landing before completing an orbit" nonsense here- in fact the mission spent an entire day in orbit before the batteries and life support started running out. Science was done and Olga did some broadcasts for listeners on the ground; admittedly most of the broadcast directed at Moscow was just her blowing raspberries at them. In another first for EuROSTAR, the return trajectory was vaguely on target and the capsule overflew Woomera before landing about 200km away. A thoroughly successful mission. First crewed orbit on the 25th of June 1960, well ahead of the USA and USSR to secure Europe's lead in the Space Race. Of course, the USA and the USSR will inevitably catch up and overtake in some areas, there's only so much EuROSTAR can do with a fraction of the workforce and funding. But for now, everyone is just enjoying the success of Dawn 1 and the rich bounty of scientific data it gathered. Contacts in the USA have discovered that the recently formed NASA had been funding the development of a new upper-stage rocket engine named Vega, but cancelled the project due to rising costs and repeated delays in favour of the Agena. Negotiations are now ongoing to buy out the Vega project and bring it into the EuROSTAR fold, giving it a new lease of life while dramatically reducing the time and effort needed to develop a new engine from scratch.

See how those experiment info windows say “waiting” in blue? That means they’ve already completed the experiment in that situation e.g. space high, but you can click “force run” and it’ll keep going. For contracts that require science to be transmitted but when you’ve already completed all the science, telemetry reports are probably the best choice for a forced run- reasonably small data size, generated quickly for minimal power and included in every probe core by default. If you click the second icon down on the toolbar (squiggle and dish) that will open the Kerbalism wi dow that deals with all the science, power and life support systems. Look at the data tab to see what data is on the probe, then the auto tab to make sure that data transmission is enabled.

Somebody in the PR department decided to do a public vote on which animal should be sent to orbit aboard Goliath Aster: a dog named Jake, a koala named Kevin or a chimp named Susan. A slight oversight when setting the vote up (namely the fact that sending mail from Europe to Australia is really expensive) meant that all the votes came from Australia and Kevin won by a landslide. The science team weren't particularly happy about this- and neither was Kevin! The craft spent a full 24 hours in orbit, at which point the mission team realised they should probably have positioned the capsule so it would deorbit over Australia before separating the upper stage; as it was, it had to deorbit towards central Africa which was in the dark. Aside from air-dropping a grumpy koala on some very confused residents in the middle of the night, the mission was a resounding success from a scientific, technological and PR point of view, fulfilling the promise made after Sputnik 2 of bringing our animal astronaut home alive. Getting him back to Woomera might be a bit more of a challenge though. A few days later Romano took the XR-4 Aurora out for an altitude record attempt, aiming to push above 140km. A fault in the RCS system caused serious control issues and this attempt was aborted, however it still met the secondary objective and landed safely. The fault was traced to the fuel systems and a fix applied. The braking parachute also failed to deploy again, but after several safe landings without it the decision was made to remove it rather than try to fix it. Just over a week later, Romano did break the altitude record and breached 140km, though the RCS system still didn't work properly as the previous fix caused other issues in the fuel system that will need further work. The next flight had no complications whatsoever and completed the hypersonic flight research. New pilots Damien and Olga just finished their training to fly the Aurora, but will now be straight back into the classroom with Romano to learn how to operate a space capsule in low Earth orbit. Over the last couple of years the Goliath has proven itself to be reliable and effective, but too small to carry the more advanced payloads needed to push beyond Earth orbit in a meaningful way. A new rocket was therefore designed to meet this need, using a broadly similar layout but with a larger first stage powered by twin RZ.2 engines with improved thrust and reliability. Well, that was the plan... The first launch of the OR-2 Princess, a name chosen due to the design being derived from an earlier proposal named Black Prince, was to carry a probe called Blue Moon towards the Moon where it would gather data and then crash into the surface to kick up dust and debris from the surface to be studied by telescopes. Despite the assertions from Rolls-Royce that the new RZ.2-Mk4 was more reliable than its predecessor, this launch suffered two separate engine failures on the launchpad, first one and then the other on consecutive launch attempts. Although frustrating, these early failures gave some valuable insights that could be applied to the engine design for the future to improve its reliability even further than originally expected. With the modifications made, the third launch attempt was a success. Another first for this mission was the use of a single-chamber Gamma engine to power the lunar transfer stage. Sometimes less really is more- the single engine offers a substantial delta-V advantage over using a Gamma-2 due to the reduced weight, while the lower thrust means that the transfer burn can be controlled more precisely. And then it was off to the Moon. A direct hit on the first attempt provided plenty for the telescopes to study, which along with all the data gathered during the flight makes this an exceptional scientific success. Bagging another first in the Space Race doesn't hurt either. Feeling somewhat left out by the almost entirely British Princess, a French team have been hard at work developing their own rocket engines and have taken a leaf out of the Gamma's book by designing variants of the same engine optimised for sea level and vacuum performance. Designs for the OR-3 are already being drawn up and these new Viking engines could be the key to creating a rocket to rival the mighty Sovlet R-7.

Polar orbits are better for science, you’ll cover more biomes that way for any biome-specific experiments and also orbital perturbation needs high inclination. By my calculations, 1477m/s over 17.1 minutes gives an average acceleration of 1.44m/s2 on the upper stage, which against Ganymede’s gravity of 1.43m/s2 isn’t going to cut it. Suggestion for the D-Curie: smaller solar panels. It was still at perpetual power with only one of them open so you can save some weight by making them smaller. You could also do with a bigger water tank if you’re going for solar power, but I’d still keep at least one fuel cell as a backup. That re-entry would have been salvageable on the first pass if you had rolled inverted so descent mode pushed the capsule down rather than up, you’re lucky that the crew didn’t suffocate before they landed.

In a blinding flash of creativity, the larger Nova with expanded payload options was named the SuperNova. Any questions? No? Good. It still has no guidance systems of its own, but has been upgraded with a Super Sprite kick stage to get into its target orbit as the Gamma engines can only be started once- for now. The solar panel facing almost side-on to the sun was the only issue on this mission and even then it was a minor inconvenience that made no real difference. Doing several contracts at once is pretty lucrative- let's do it again! Next up, a suborbital test of the Aster- a special satellite carrying a live mammal to space and back again(!)- to check all the systems ahead of the full orbital launch. The Sagittarius rocket can't put an Aster into orbit, but it'll get close enough to give the new ablative heatshield a good test. The Aster reached over 6km/s orbital velocity before the final stage cut out, turned retrograde and fired its retro-rockets for a full trial run of the deorbit system. Solid rockets can be a bit variable in their thrust and burn duration, however the capsule remained stable enough for a safe re-entry. Everything looks good for the orbital launch; unlike the Soviets, our four-legged friend will be returning to Earth alive and (hopefully) unscathed by 24 hours spent in orbit. Following the success of the Chimaera and Gyrfalcon rocketplanes, a team has been hard at work designing something new and even better to continue the push towards space. A new, fully pressurised cockpit should allow flights right up into space while twin XLR-25 engines will dramatically increase the speeds that the new plane can reach compared to the Gyrfalcon, which used only one engine. The XR-4 Aurora is a more conventional design than the Gyrfalcon with trapezoidal wings, rear elevators and front canards and featuring a three-axis RCS system. The first flight immediately pushed higher and faster than the Gyrfalcon ever could, peaking at over 125km and 2500m/s respectively. Romano wasn't entirely happy with the flight though, reporting that something had definitely broken on the nose during the intense heating as he descended back into the atmosphere. It seems nobody remembered to tell him that the "spike" on the nose was designed to break away in a controlled manner if it reached a critical temperature, allowing it to take the brunt of the heat to protect the rest of the aircraft whilst improving the aerodynamics during the ascent. Unfortunately, at this point Romano is the only remaining pilot as the other three have all retired. This won't do at all! Damien and Olga will be straight into training to fly the Aurora, allowing an increased flight cadence and paving the way for a crewed mission to orbit in the near future. Design work continues for the next big mission, working name Blue Moon.

Did you break anything e.g. a solar panel on the surface? That can cause this bug.

The log files will contain a lot more details to help diagnose the problem. This guide vvv tells you how to get them.

Alt+F4 IS the fix; or failing that, end task in task manager.

Designed two cluster missions to complete some lucrative contracts, grab some science and set up something of a communications network for low Earth orbit. At about 5 tons each, neither is really pushing the (brand new) LV which can manage 10 tons to orbit but they can’t be launched in one go due to size, shape and target orbit constraints. Also did a flyby of Venus the day after Venera 1 did it IRL, however unlike Venera 1- and most of my early flyby missions in various saves- this one actually had a signal back to Earth and returned much data as it flew past.

I see a magnetometer boom, some kind of radio plasma wave science array, two mystery goo-looking capsules, a camera array and something that could either be a telescope or a mass spectrometer tube. It's like every stock KSP experiment rolled into one convenient package!

It might be four weeks behind the (admittedly rather overambitious) target date, but Sagittarius Nova 1 is finally ready to launch on the 27th of January, 1957. Depending on how you count them, that's either 28 or 1216 Gammas- 28 chambers in total, four Gamma-301 boosters, Gamma-8 first stage, Gamma-2 second and third stages. Nova 1 was deployed into orbit successfully, gathered temperature, pressure and mass spectrometry readings and transmitted them down to listening ground stations. It was also easily picked up by amateur radio operators across the world until the battery ran out some hours after launch, attracting worldwide attention and stunning both American and Soviet space organisations who had until that point assumed that the public activities at Woomera were merely a cover for a military ICBM program. Europe had just won the first leg of the Space Race. Once the celebrations were over, work began on EuROSTAR's next rocket, a DR-2 Penumbra that aimed to accelerate to over 4000m/s orbital velocity and then return to the surface. Getting up to speed was the easy part, getting back down without being incinerated by the atmospheric friction... not so much. At least until someone remembered an old Super Sprite rocket stage originally built as a spare for a Viscount launch but never used. Once up to speed and altitude, the upper stage turned around and spin-stabilised the return section before releasing the payload and its deceleration stage pointing retrograde. The Super Sprite maintained its reliability streak and Lucky the dog endured a somewhat bruising but survivable deceleration and a spicy re-entry before parachuting safely to the ocean below to be picked up by an Australian naval vessel. It was now clear that larger mammals could survive the rigours of a rocket launch and the harsh environment of space, at least for a while, so planners turned to the next logical step- putting an animal into orbit and bringing it back down, alive(!) and intact. But before that, it was time to debut a brand new orbital launch rocket. The negotiations with the United States had concluded in late 1956 and Rolls-Royce began producing licence-built copies of the S-3 kerolox booster engine under the name RZ.1, which was now ready to power the first stage of the OR-1 Goliath. With two of the Gamma-301 boosters used on the Sagittarius giving it a helping hand off the launchpad and an entire Penumbra on top, with extended nozzles on the Gamma-8 to match the Gamma-2's efficiency, Goliath was only slightly heavier than Sagittarius but significantly more capable, launching the much more sophisticated Nova 2 satellite into a polar orbit where its science package could gather data over the next month or so, its batteries kept charged by solar panels covering the satellite's surface. Nova 2 remained operational for a whole month after launch, completing all its primary scientific missions and further cementing Europe's lead in the Space Race. In early October the Soviets finally launched their first satellite, a somewhat underwhelming affair that was on a par with Nova 1's capabilities but used a significantly larger and heavier rocket; meanwhile America languishes in third place after their first launch attempt didn't even make it off the launchpad. Following a significant number of inquiries, work has begun on an upgraded version of the Nova satellite that can carry a wide range of ancillary payloads for commercial customers, a potentially lucrative source of income that could fund future scientific endeavours like, say, sending a probe to the Moon?

As an aside to this conversation, landing on more than one celestial body with the same lander and then recovering it on Kerbin will only give you the science bonus from one, which I believe is the one with the highest science multiplier as when I brought back landers from a Grand Tour mission it always gave the science for a vessel landed on Eeloo when it had visited several other places including Tylo and Moho and also landed on other places after Eeloo.

Take them back home and let someone else deal with the ramifications.

A wild Moon appeared! Go, Impactor Probe! Impactor Probe used Headbutt! It’s not very effective…

Why would you land with one of the crew inside the Hitchhiker instead of the ascent stage? ESPECIALLY after an engine failed! Try adv > sun > up, it’ll hold the spacecraft pointing directly away from the sun which maximises solar panel output and also shields the crew from radiation (at least in theory, Kerbalism’s radiation system is buggy though). Never use stock SAS in RO/RP-1, it just doesn’t work properly.

There are a few things you can try: Increase the mass-strength slider on the fins, this makes them sturdier and less likely to break. Spin more slowly, a fast spin can actually destabilise the rocket or lead to parts being ripped off, especially fins. Use small solid rockets and/or small control surfaces to spin up at launch and leave the fins completely vertical so the spin doesn’t get too extreme at higher speeds. Don’t spin at all, you probably don’t need it on a rocket that size and you’d be better off with a guided rocket instead. Make the fins bigger. Those small fins won’t produce enough force to correct the drift from prograde before they fail from aero forces, larger fins might do the job. Look at the real Bumper/V-2 for guidance. Here’s what I did in my most recent RP-1 game: The camera is inside that stripy bit in the middle with the avionics above it; the top tank is jettisoned after engine shutdown and both camera and avionics are recovered together, though it would work just as well with the camera and avionics at the top, I only put them in the middle to save on tooling a nosecone. It doesn’t actually need the fins as it’s fully guided and the A-4 (and RD-100 and possibly the American V-2 as well) provide enough control for this sort of design.