xub313

I know HarvesteR took the Aries 4A to Duna once, but I think the thread was eaten by the Forum Kraken.

OP's probe core is in the correct orientation, the problem is that when the wheel is placed at an angle >45 degrees, the wheels are more horizontal than vertical, so they turn as if the craft was vertical rather than horizontal.

I usually use a LV-909 or a 45-7s to boost my probe into a munar slingshot trajectory and then use the PB-ION. Low altitudes also block sunlight for the solar panels most of the time. Yeah, those solar panels are overkill. That probe was meant to go too Jool and Eeloo but I didn't feel like waiting for a the launch window.

Ion engines are great for Interplanetary probes. They are especialy useful for visiting many planetary bodies in one launch without a large rocket. The whole thing weighs less than 4 tons and was able to visit five celestial bodies, and the longest burn was only 10 minutes long. Ions are pretty mutch useless for manned missions but they have plenty of uses.

The bottom of the VAB has no limit, so flipping the rocket upside down or building from the bottom up will let you make rockets taller than the VAB.

Is the rocket at full throttle when it explodes? It may just be accelerating too quickly with those big engines. Try keeping the throttle at 2/3 and see if that helps. Does this happen to the prebuilt stock rockets too? If so then it is likely an issue with one of your mods.

The Thorium Launch System looks great! One tip I can give is to run some fuel lines from LRBs to the ET, then run some more from the ET to the LRB's engines (the engines themselves, not the fuel tanks). This allows the LRBs to continue firing even when its tanks are empty and allows the shuttle to eject them at almost any point in the flight. It'll give the shuttle some redundancy when launching payloads of different masses.

Gauss Station with a space shuttle docked. The left crew module is for happy kerbals and the right is for the scared ones.

Perhaps you enabled precision control with capslock? As of 0.21 precision control mode will balance the thrust of RCS jets. Then when the rescue craft docked to the shuttle the precision mode was turned off, thereby reenabling the RCS thrusters.

I belive DMagic meant pressing Alt + F12 to open the debug console and cheats. Alt + F2 will only bring up the debug console.

Try launching the prebuilt Kerbal X. If the rocket still explodes then it sounds like a problem with a mod. Pictures and a mod list would be helpful.

Actually the reaction wheels should be placed close to the center of mass, not away from it. I see your logic but reaction wheels don't work like levers. To move an object with a lever the other end must be "pushed" like when using RCS. Reaction wheels, however, rotate around the part's center, not the ship's. So to get a rotation about the center of mass, the part must be at or near the ship's center of mass. To visualize this, imagine grabbing a long piece of rebar and trying to rotate it with one hand. Grabbing one end and rotating it is hard and is offcenter, but rotating the rebar at its center will preserve the position of the center of mass and make it easier to rotate.

Perhaps you could do a little experiment to prove it to yourself. Launch a rocket straight up without a gravity turn. If you get up high enough you should be able to tell which way Kerbin is rotating. If you land west of the launchpad then that means Kerbin has rotated to the east because of its spin.

You can click and drag with a mouse while thier pack is activated to change thier pitch. It is pretty fun to make your kerbals do backflips on the mun with this.

The LCLS 01 at full power.

Took the LCLS 01 on a trip to the mun with Adny Kerman. I had previously done munar flybys but had never orbited with this vehicle. I am pretty happy with it and it is a great improvement to my 0.18 shutle. The LClS 01 is all stock but i did use a vab glitch to get 5-way symettry on the ET's engines.

I flew an unmanned mission to test the Legacy MkI orbiter and got a lot of useful info from it. It mostly taught me how to land the thing. Previous orbiters had large delta wings and canards so i usually came in at a shallow angle. The Legacy MkI however flies like a brick and I must come in at a steep angle and pull up just before landing, kinda like the real space shuttle. Imgur album Also I forgot to take pictures of the launch vehicle but those will come soontm.

Took the legacy MkI on her maiden voyage today.

I found a a nice picture from my 0.18 space shuttle mission.