jimmymcgoochie

Tested out a few upgrades on my current fleet of LVs, launched a couple of satellites… Oh, and sent the first person into orbit almost a whole year before Vostok 1, and she actually completed an orbit, and a full 24 hours to boot. (Vostok 1 was a massive scam: it landed west of where it launched and never completed an orbit of the Earth, Gagarin had almost no control at all- the override code to enable his controls was locked in a box!- and had to eject from the capsule and parachute down separately, all of which was conveniently omitted from the Soviet propaganda… Hence why the RP-1 first crewed orbit contract requires a full 90 minutes in orbit to complete.)

Armstrong Return - Science Experiments is a bit of a long name, could do with an acronym

The Gyrfalcon lives! Landing stability issues were solved by switching to two nose wheels as the original single wheel couldn't take the strain. It still doesn't stay entirely straight on the runway but it's much more manageable and doesn't swerve off to one side and smash itself to bits. EuROSTAR is investing heavily in R&D, bringing in more researchers to accelerate the development of the next generation of rocket engines, electronics and scientific instruments. The new Gyrfalcon made frequent flights thanks to a rapid turnaround: from landing to relaunch took just 8 days including the addition of new drop tanks for each flight, airframe checks and mounting it to its carrier aircraft. Once the engineers were satisfied with the data gathered from high-altitude flight, it was time to move on to study the effects of hypersonic flight to aid the development of a larger, even faster rocketplane. Following pilot feedback about sluggish acceleration after separation, Super Sprite booster engines were added to the drop tanks on two flights to alleviate the problem; the first flight reached the altitude limits of the aircraft at just over 75km, but one of the booster engines failed on the second and nearly caused a spin before the pilot dropped the tanks early to regain control. This incident along with the increased complexity and marginal performance improvements meant that the boosters were ditched for all subsequent flights. The rocket teams were still hard at work making the occasional Adler heavy sounding rocket, but these generated minimal public interest. Fearing budget cuts, Team Adler and Team Verity collaborated on the next launch nicknamed Adler XL, carrying the heaviest payload to date. A payload record that stood right up until the very next rocket launch, the debut of the DR-2 Penumbra. Breakthroughs in kerosene-HTP rocketry have led to the development of the Gamma series of "keroxide" rockets which provide nearly all of the Penumbra's power. A late failure on one of the Veronique side boosters couldn't stop this launch from throwing its payload (1000 units!) to over 1400km downrange, at which point a fault in the data recording system prevented any further data from being recorded. Nevertheless, it was a very successful mission and demonstrated that the Gamma engines were ready for use. At this point, the plan was to use a licensed copy of the American S-3D (aka LR-79) kerolox booster engine as the first stage of an orbital launch vehicle called the OR-1 Goliath, however negotiations over the licensing costs were still ongoing with little headway being made. One engineer suddenly had a brainwave: why not use the current keroxide engines instead? This concept had already been studied and dismissed due to a lack of delta-V, but the plucky engineer ran the numbers again with a few small design changes and realised that it might just be feasible to put a small satellite into orbit by adding a third stage. And so the OR-0 Sagittarius was born. Powered by 100% British Gammas- 28 of them in total!- and split into three core stages plus four boosters, the new design was capable of sending a small payload into a low Earth orbit; the orbit would decay in a matter of days and the battery last for mere hours, but none of that would matter compared to the PR coup of launching the world's first artificial satellite. Artist's impression of the OR-0 Sagittarius launch. EuROSTAR has a bold plan that has revitalised the entire workforce: put a satellite in orbit by the end of 1956! Of course, they're not telling anyone outside the organisation that that's the plan; if anyone asks, it's a giant firework for the new year's day display.

Misnamed Adler Q montage! Each one did a contract and gathered a moderate quantity of science. An upgrade to the Veronique engine changed its propellants to increase ISP. This upgraded engine immediately failed on the first launch, though it worked second time around. The first XLR-11 rocketplane engines arrived from the US, but there's no plane to use them on- or is there? The XJ-2 Geminus is no longer useful as a jet, but its flight characteristics are good and it should be good enough to do some low-level rocketplane stuff while a new plane is under construction. So, naturally, on the first flight this happened: It turned out to be very unstable due to a weight distribution issue and the pilot only just managed to regain control and fly back to Woomera. The next launch would send a small monkey up to 3000m/s in space aboard a DR-1 Horizon SP. Or at least, it would have if the new Veronique hadn't failed again. The monkey returned a lot sooner than planned and no data was gained. An identical rocket was ready to go a few months later and this one actually worked! Construction of the new XR-3 Gyrfalcon high-performance rocketplane was completed in early 1955, featuring a novel wing design: it is in effect a biplane with the lower wing swept backwards and the upper one swept forwards, linked at the wingtips. The lower wing is equipped with full-length flaps to make landing much easier, while the upper wing has the pitch and roll controls along with a pair of canards near the nose. Powered by a new and more powerful XLR-25 engine and with a pressurised cockpit able to fly up to 75km, it's a substantial upgrade over the jerry-rigged XR-2. Pilot Elise was first to take it out for a spin. Literally. A momentary fault in the flight control systems made the plane develop an uncontrollable pitch-up force that quickly turned into a tumble, but Elise dragged it back under control and managed to complete the rest of the flight. Aside from the big spin, Elise's report was glowing: the plane is stable (when the control systems are working), glides extremely well and holds its speed at subsonic velocity, can remain airborne at under 70m/s- and immediately threw itself off the side of the runway as soon as the nose wheel touched down. More work will be needed to make the Gyrfalcon more controllable in the air and on the ground, but apart from that things are looking good. And no, a supersonic rocket biplane is not an oxymoron. A brief interlude in the form of an Adler P launch, sans return capsule for maximum altitude: And then it was Horvath's turn to take the Gyrfalcon's controls. The flight went well enough, but the landing... Once again the nose gear caused a violent left turn; unlike last time the right wingtip hit the runway hard enough to break the little wheel added to prevent exactly this sort of thing, and the rest was inevitable. Horvath ended up rolling sideways down the runway at motorway speed before the cockpit finally came to a halt, scraped and dented but substantially intact. Pilot and science data both survived making this landing officially "good". A replacement Gyrfalcon will be built as soon as the engineers figure out why the first one was so unstable on landing. Scale models are already being tested, though the results so far aren't promising.

Your philosophy on vessel modification concerns me- making tanks wider costs a lot more in tooling than making them longer (or just using a second identical tank), while those truss decouplers are just overly heavy and somewhat glitch-prone (due to the larger collision area and likelihood of clipping into engines etc.) compared to a ring decoupler or a nice thin hollow cylinder procedural decoupler. I’m sure there are better engines than the KTDU-425 for interplanetary probes too, at that distance from the Sun you could possibly get away with kerolox and a lot of MLI and small radiators. My efforts for a reusable lander usually end up with a lander that uses loads of generic thrusters and needs a tanker significantly heavier than the lander itself to ship the fuel out for each landing, though economies of scale can kick in with a really big tanker. An engine like the AJ-10 Transtar would be great for a reusable lander due to its extremely long burn time and high reliability, with some sizeable RCS thrusters to provide some throttleable thrust for landing, but that’s much further along the tech tree.

Another brand new rocket design took to the launchpad. And by brand new I of course mean "stick the return-y bit from the Verity S on top of a Viscount and call it a Viscount S". With that done, attention turned to the task of launching a rocket a whopping 3000km downrange from the launch site; by an interesting coincidence, most of the land area of both the UK and France is within 3000km of Moscow. These facts are entirely unrelated. The launch surpassed the goal, reaching around 3500km distance in total and setting an altitude record in the process. Another Adler launch gave another species the opportunity to experience the wonders of spaceflight. This time it was the turn of Hammy the hamster, who definitely wasn't "borrowed" from one of the researchers' children while they were at school. It's fine, Hammy will be back home safe by lunchtime and nobody will be any the wiser- ...oh. Oh no... The abort sequence was triggered and the return capsule detached and deployed its parachute, but there just wasn't enough altitude for the chute to open fully meaning the impact was at an unsurvivable 45m/s instead of the usual 6. (The scientist who "volunteered" Hammy for this flight is now frantically driving around nearby pet shops looking for an identical looking hamster.) In other news, the Avon jet engines on the XJ-2 Geminus have received a significant upgrade with the addition of afterburners, boosting the plane's top speed to beyond Mach 2 at the cost of significantly higher fuel consumption to the extent that the first flight actually ran out of fuel shortly before landing. Faster flights will require more fuel so drop tanks will be added in future. In what could have been an unfortunate repeat of the previous attempt, the next Adler P suffered an engine failure on the launchpad and had to be rolled back and repaired before launching on the second attempt. This run of low reliability on the A-4 engine is just one reason why efforts are being made to accelerate the development of a replacement: the best candidate so far seems to be a combination of kerosene and high test peroxide (HTP) which has a rather low ISP but makes up for it with simplicity- decomposed HTP can be used to spin the turbopumps and is hypergolic with kerosene- and a dense oxidiser allowing a lot of propellant in a smaller tank volume; it also simplifies the RCS system which also runs on HTP. But that's a story for another day. The XJ-2A reached 600m/s and sustained it for several minutes, a feat that it will repeat several more times to gather data on Mach 2 flight. Another new* rocket design, the Adler Q adds a larger capsule for a larger animal in a double-height payload bay. It was the turn of Lucky the golden labrador to take to the sky. The mission proceeded without incident. The more advanced capsule needs significantly longer to generate the full suite of data, suborbital missions won't be enough. The photographic camera array is also reaching the limits of its utility, there are only so many pictures you can take of the same areas around Woomera before they cease to be useful. All four pilots- Walter, Romano, Elise and Horvath- took the XJ-2A out for a Mach 2 cruise around the Outback. They were all slightly concerned by the temperature warning lights but completed their designated runs and gathered all the data necessary to design the next generation of high-speed aircraft. Pilot training has already begun for the new high-speed, high-altitude plane. A deal has been struck to import a few pump-fed XLR-11 engines, as used on the X-1 rocketplane in the USA, for use on the new plane. Discussions are ongoing about acquiring XLR-25s from the short-lived X-2 project as well as for a large booster engine for use on a rocket, though the latter will likely be too expensive in the short term.

Logs, a mod list and screenshots of the affected parts would be a good place to start.

That’s Ike’s shadow. What you’re seeing are eclipses. You’ll see the same thing on other planets (Kerbin and Jool) when they get eclipsed by their moons.

Have you looked at the logs? Try editing (a copy of) the craft file and change one part at a time to be a different part e.g. strutCube, that might narrow down which part(s) are responsible.

Another Verity S carried an ant farm into space and back. The ants didn't seem to mind. Before it became the V-2 ballistic missile, the A-4 was used to send cameras into space. Missile-based photoreconnaissance is probably not the way forward, but you never know until you try, right? Plans for the new heavy sounding rocket, the SR-2 Eagle, were in their early stages when a delegation of German rocket scientists arrived at Woomera. Not everyone was happy about this development given recent history, but with the ever-present threat of a Soviet invasion into West Germany and then the rest of western Europe, any contribution West Germany could provide to improve the security of western Europe would be to their mutual advantage. The new arrivals were quickly integrated into the SR-2 team and after some negotiating the rocket's name was changed to Adler, the German word for eagle. Several variants of the design were created to fulfil different mission requirements, though all shared the same basic design and carried a camera assembly in an internal payload bay which would be released after engine shutoff and parachute back to the ground with the main avionics unit. The launch travelled several hundred miles downrange before the return capsule landed safely under its parachute. Finding it in the middle of the desert took a while though... A second launch a few months later went further still. The SR-3 Verity also got an upgrade with the addition of a second stage to create the SR-4 Viscount. This second stage is powered by a Sprite peroxide rocket motor originally developed by de Havilland as a rocket-assisted takeoff (RATO) booster for the Comet jet airliner. This second stage increased the payload capacity and maximum altitude over the Verity, without taking any longer to build or costing any more than the Verity S with the biological sample capsule. The next rocket launch was a Verity S, which got away on the second attempt after an engine fault forced the first launch to be scrubbed and the engine repaired. A rabbit was sent into space this time, with the capsule triple-checked to make sure it couldn't escape after landing; Australia has history with rabbits... A newly developed jet engine has been shipped out to Woomera from Rolls Royce in the UK. The Avon, an axial flow turbojet, promises significantly more thrust than the Derwent and a significantly faster top speed. Rather than build a brand new plane, engineers took the existing XJ-1 Trident and replaced the three Derwents with two Avons to create the XJ-2 Geminus. The new engines increased the top speed from about 350m/s to just over 500m/s, a marked improvement. A flurry of rocket launches followed: A biological sample capsule was added to the Adler's return section and a few frogs got to ride into space along with the camera. The XJ-2 made several flights but quickly ran into fuel issues- specifically, not enough of it- as it was pushed to faster cruise speeds. Something different will be needed in order to fly even faster and higher. A rocket-powered plane is in development, designed to be carried up to altitude by an old Lincoln bomber retrofitted with jet engines and then released to fly on its own. It should be ready for its first flight before the end of 1953. Just as soon as the scale models stop crashing every time they try to land.

The z-fighting is because you were using physics warp and the engine was pushing that stage into the one above. Autostrut all your engines to root and that’s not an issue.

Some enterprising engineers managed to "find" a Gloster Meteor that the RAAF had marked for scrap after a mishap during landing, fixed it up and gave it a fresh coat of paint before flying it out to Woomera. It soon became clear why the plane was meant to be scrapped! The pilot was able to bail out and parachuted safely to the ground but the plane was reduced to twisted wreckage scattered across the Australian desert. With a largely British team now dedicated to designing a new supersonic jet, attention turned to developing a scientific sounding rocket to fly through the highest reaches of the atmosphere and gather data as it went. Several ideas were floated before the French Veronique, a sub-scale version of the Wasserfal engine, was chosen to power the rocket despite concerns over its reliability (or lack thereof). The Verity sounding rocket would be twice the size of the WAC Corporal already in use in the US and launch without the aid of a solid booster. The first Verity rolled off the production line in March 1951 and was ready to launch a few days later. The engine lit on the first attempt and the rocket soared into the air, disappearing through the clouds. Radar tracking recorded Verity 1's flight beyond 100 miles (160km), while the rocket's onboard sensors recorded the atmospheric pressure dropping to undetectable levels and large temperature swings at different altitudes. With limited work space inside the assembly building, the next Verity launch would have to wait for the plane team to finish their work on the XJ-1 Trident. Powered by three Derwent jet engines, the Trident's goal was to push to the sound barrier- and beyond- and record what happened in as much detail as possible. The first flight succeeded at breaking the sound barrier, cruising at Mach 1.1 in level flight, but also revealed structural issues with the aircraft and an alarming tendency to become tail-heavy when low on fuel, making it very hard to maintain control during the landing. The airframe was strengthened and a second flight carried out, flying all the way to 16km altitude before the cockpit began to depressurise and gathering valuable flight data as it cruised at supersonic speed. The longer flight meant even more fuel was used and the pilot barely managed to keep the plane under control during the approach and landing. Something will need to be done to make this plane less of a deathtrap. A second Verity was ready to launch by late August, carrying a much heavier payload to about 106km. Thermometers and barometers are all well and good, but what effects does exposure to microgravity in space have on living organisms? Two lab rats were about to find out atop the first Verity S rocket designed to return its payload to the surface under a parachute. The Veronique's success streak continued for a third launch and the mission was a go. The return capsule separated as planned and parachuted safely to the ground a few miles from Woomera. With the rats unharmed by their trip to space, more launches will be done with different animals to compare the results. The capsule is large enough to hold a variety of small animals such as mice, insects or possibly a cat, though the ethics board might have something to say about that last one. More nations have joined EuROSTAR since its inception including Spain, Italy and- West Germany?

A couple of things to consider: Scanners can only see what’s underneath them, to get full coverage you need a polar orbit. Scanners have different operating altitudes- some can’t function at all when they’re too low and all have a maximum and won’t work above this. These vary depending on the type and model of scanner Some types of scanners require daylight to see the ground (visual, biome and resource scanners) and so will only cover the day side of the body being scanned, whereas radar based scanners will work day or night. Scanners use lots of power and will continue to draw power even if they’re switched on but not actively scanning, this can drain your batteries in the dark so make sure you have the power reserves to last the night.

First and foremost: Don't put mods in the Steam copy of KSP. I made the same mistake at first and ended up in the same place many people continue to end up today- KSP suddenly breaks and there's no good reason for it. As it turns out, Steam likes to meddle with KSP's files and while this is usually fine with stock KSP, if you add mods into the equation then there's a good chance something will get corrupted causing a huge list of exceptions in the logs, errors on the screen and a KSP that either doesn't load at all, crashes immediately or runs but is clearly broken. It used to be much worse when the game was getting updates as each update brought with it a significant risk of corrupting the mods (not to mention major updates breaking mods entirely) but that's less of a problem now. The solution to this problem is very simple: just make a copy of KSP and put the mods in that instead. 1. Right click KSP in Steam library > browse local files. 2. Copy KSP/saves/<your save name> and paste that on the desktop. 3. If you used CKAN to install your mods (and you should!), click File > export modpack and save that to your desktop too. Screenshot your GameData folder with mods installed (even if you use CKAN) so you can check that you’ve reinstalled them all later. 4. Uninstall all mods from KSP. 5. Right click KSP in Steam library > properties, disable Steam cloud. 6. Completely uninstall KSP through Steam. 7. Reinstall KSP through Steam, right click > Properties > local files > verify integrity of game files. If you want to play a version other than the current release (1.12.5), pick that version in the Betas tab and verify the files once Steam has installed that version. 8. Run KSP and make sure it loads properly without mods. 9. Browse local files again, then go up one level (to Steam/steamapps/common) and copy the Kerbal Space Program directory, then paste it where you want to keep it- make sure it’s outside Steam’s folders so it can’t meddle with it in future. 10. Rename the KSP folder so you know what version it is and what mods you’re using in it (e.g. 1.12.5 JNSQ, 1.7.3 Grand Tour etc.), then add this new copy to CKAN and use the modpack created in step 3 to reinstall all your mods; or reinstall them by hand if you don’t use CKAN. Double-check that all files and folders you had in GameData before uninstalling/reinstalling everything are there again, if not then you’re probably missing some mods. 11. Move your saves from your desktop into your new KSP copy’s saves folder, run KSP, load save. A warning about vessels having missing parts is usually because a mod is missing or wasn’t installed correctly. You can make as many copies of KSP as you want, have several copies on different versions of KSP and with different sets of mods in each- CKAN makes this much easier to keep track of, but it’s still possible to do it all yourself. And remember to back up your saves before you uninstall anything!

1. Right click KSP in Steam library > browse local files. 2. Copy KSP/saves/<your save name> and paste that on the desktop. 3. If you used CKAN to install your mods (and you should!), click File > export modpack and save that to your desktop too. Screenshot your GameData folder with mods installed (even if you use CKAN) so you can check that you’ve reinstalled them all later. 4. Uninstall all mods from KSP. 5. Right click KSP in Steam library > properties, disable Steam cloud. 6. Completely uninstall KSP through Steam. 7. Reinstall KSP through Steam, right click > Properties > local files > verify integrity of game files. If you want to play a version other than the current release (1.12.5), pick that version in the Betas tab and verify the files once Steam has installed that version. 8. Run KSP and make sure it loads properly without mods. 9. Browse local files again, then go up one level (to Steam/steamapps/common) and copy the Kerbal Space Program directory, then paste it where you want to keep it- make sure it’s outside Steam’s folders so it can’t meddle with it in future. 10. Rename the KSP folder so you know what version it is and what mods you’re using in it (e.g. 1.12.5 JNSQ, 1.7.3 Grand Tour etc.), then add this new copy to CKAN and use the modpack created in step 3 to reinstall all your mods; or reinstall them by hand if you don’t use CKAN. Double-check that all files and folders you had in GameData before uninstalling/reinstalling everything are there again, if not then you’re probably missing some mods. 11. Move your saves from your desktop into your new KSP copy’s saves folder, run KSP, load save. A warning about vessels having missing parts is usually because a mod is missing or wasn’t installed correctly. You can make as many copies of KSP as you want, have several copies on different versions and with different sets of mods in each- CKAN makes this much easier to keep track of, but it’s still possible to do it all yourself.

Adding RP-1 to an existing RO career save is a good way to break the save. You'd be better off just starting a fresh save and importing any craft files you've already made in the other save. Crudely hacking the save to try and force it to comply could cause even more trouble further down the line.

Any landing you can walk away from...

Google “KSP delta-V map”.

1. Right click KSP in Steam library > browse local files. 2. Copy KSP/saves/<your save name> and paste that on the desktop. 3. If you used CKAN to install your mods (and you should!), click File > export modpack and save that to your desktop too. Screenshot your GameData folder with mods installed (even if you use CKAN) so you can check that you’ve reinstalled them all later. 4. Uninstall all mods from KSP. 5. Right click KSP in Steam library > properties, disable Steam cloud. 6. Completely uninstall KSP through Steam. 7. Reinstall KSP through Steam, right click > Properties > local files > verify integrity of game files. If you want to play a version other than the current release (1.12.4), pick that version in the Betas tab and verify the files once Steam has installed that version. 8. Run KSP and make sure it loads properly without mods. 9. Browse local files again, then go up one level (to Steam/steamapps/common) and copy the Kerbal Space Program directory, then paste it where you want to keep it- make sure it’s outside Steam’s folders so it can’t meddle with it in future. 10. Rename the KSP folder so you know what mods you’re using in it (e.g. 1.10.1 RO/RP-1, 1.12.3 JNSQ), then add this new copy to CKAN and use the modpack created in step 3 to reinstall all your mods; or reinstall them by hand if you don’t use CKAN. Double-check that all files and folders you had in GameData before uninstalling/reinstalling everything are there again, if not then you’re probably missing some mods. 11. Move your saves from your desktop into your new KSP copy’s saves folder, run KSP, load save. A warning about vessels having missing parts is usually because a mod is missing or wasn’t installed correctly. You can make as many copies of KSP as you want, have several copies on different versions and with different sets of mods in each- CKAN makes this much easier to keep track of, but it’s still possible to do it all yourself.

The bad news is, your save file is corrupted. The good news is, KSP has backups! Go into KSP/saves/<your save name>/backups, find the newest persistent_[date+timestamp] file and copy it back to saves/<your save name> then rename it to persistent.sfs and overwrite the existing file. You'll probably lose a little bit of progress but it's better than losing the entire save. You can also rename a named save file to persistent.exe but depending on how regularly you save you could lose a lot more progress that way.

The log files should give clues as to why this is happening, here's how to get them and what to do with them once you have them: A freeze/crash when the game says it's loading Breaking Ground just means that it got to the end of the loading process and started compiling but something went wrong there and it can't proceed any further, it just never updates what's shown on screen. Breaking Ground is almost never the problem.

Do you have: an antenna a docking port a source of power (solar panels, fuel cells or RTGs count, engine alternators do not)? It's hard to say for sure since I can't zoom in on the picture, but it looks like you have an antenna but no docking port and no power generators.

Here's what I think is happening: I can't really see much of the vessel in image 1 but I'm going to assume that each probe is attached to the central craft by a radial decoupler attached to the fuel tank. Another screenshot with the ambient lighting settings turned up (a lot!) or the vessel in the VAB would help. When the probe is separated, the root part of this new vessel is either going to be the radial decoupler or the fuel tank it was attached to. In either case, this is below the stack decoupler under the probe core and so the delta-V readout assumes (wrongly) that you'll be decoupling that dead weight above the decoupler before firing the engine. When the probe is in the VAB on its own, the probe core is the root part and so the readout correctly displays the delta-V with the probe still attached. If you right-click the probe core and then click "Control from here" after decoupling the probe, does that change the delta-V readout?

There might not be any mods that put parts in that node.

The only time I really use launch escape systems is in RO/RP-1, I’ve used them a few times to extract the crew from problem situations, most often due to engine failures. Otherwise, revert to launch is my LES.