H2O.

Nice Soyouz, i'm working on a N1-L3 myself, full sock (+ Making History DLC), 350 parts right now. Not so lag, but God, does it drags!

Hello! Right-click on the hatch on the actual part and you should be ok.

75 in a row! And to say that everybody mocked them in the 70's...

First burn was nominal. Insertion burn in 2h30.

Can you move this thread to Science & SpaceFlight please?

Ariane 5 will launch today from Kourou to put galileo satellites into orbit. If the launch is successfull, it will be the 75th success in a row! watch live : http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Navigation/Galileo/Launching_Galileo/Watch_the_launch_of_Galileos_15_18

Corrected, thanks !

That would be great! French layout can be re-mapped without downside, but why make life difficult for the user? Use physical key please.

Follow the livestream of the Vega launch from Kourou, French Guiana : http://www.arianespace.com/mission/vega-flight-vv07/

So here comes the fixed version for 1.13. Enjoy 3.01 version 119 parts instead of 120 automatic gravity turn works once again fairing tweaked for clamsell effect https://www.dropbox.com/sh/0tsouvltmmb44a8/2iyqt5_5a4

Finally I have some free time. Expect a update (a very minor one though) in the coming days.

AeroAviation, I don't know if you still have that problem but the explication is the following : On small ship, the sas is buggy when you use the "follow marker" mode. Simply use the "hold attitude mode" and make manual correction for trajectory. You will not use as much electricity.

Yes it would be updated. But I have no time for me those days (lots of work). Don't except any updates before Bastille Day. Besides it would be quite a major update, I want to use the inflatable shield .

I would like to point out that my Kassandra (link in the signature) perform gravity turn by herself in a stock install. Launch it once to give you a ballpark idea of what a good turn looks like.

Hello reking! Thank you ! Indeed, to build the Kassandra I did use the NoOffsetLimit mod. But I want to point out that all but one of the "crazy ways things are connected together" are doable in a stock editor. However, it was such a pain to do and to modify that I went with this mod. The only one that is not doable is actualy useless : it is the link between the 2nd stage and the spaceship. Here a regular link and two struts would have worked just as good. But I didn't want to wait another day for release. Those "crazy connection" help with the wobble, and with physic time warp. PS : go and install the NoOffsetLimit, such a pleasure to build with it.

I disagree with the OP. I think the ion engine is quite well balanced actually. On the other hand, what we need is a big ion engine (let's say x10 the thrust) plus a nuclear electricity generator and a bigger xenon tank. This combo would be the solution of choice for everything past Jool.

Thanks, it is always hard to know those things by yourself ! Funny you mention that. That was my basis for reflection at the very start : "if we had access to that kind of technology, what spacecraft would we build ?". So I tried making the ship smaller and smaller. Gaining weight, then reducing engine, etc. When I first had the idea of using ion engines, that was the real breakthrough. I realized that you can make something really compact with a lot of delta-v.

I just cannot believe it: it is the first time a celebrity death hurts me like that. Bowie, I mean Ziggy, Aladdin,... When I think of songs like Hello Spaceboy, my heart race. The good thing is, a lot of people are gonna listen to him tonight. Thanks man, just thank you so very much for doing music.

Ah yes, the inflatable shields, I am very interested in those. I have a few ideas and I am pretty eager to test them. The auto gravity turn : I had the idea after a few people had troubles putting previous rockets into LKO. I thought: "that is kinda silly, there are no winds or randomness of any sort in the game, something can surely be done". And after a bit of reffinement here it is! Fuel Cells : weird, you can power 2 ions engines with 4 simple solar panels on Duna ? That doesn't seems to add up.

Thanks for that man, I wasn't even asking for so much ! So, point per point : I will change that today, thank for the imput. Actually, and it is my fault that it is not very clear, this ship is not just for Duna but for the Jool system too. So it explains the high quantity of delta-v and the lack of parachutes. So on Valls a parachute descent is out of the question and I thought: "hey, if the ship can go to Valls and land there it can do it on Duna too" and so went the chutes.An other reason for the ion stage is for beginners: if they fail to dock they can still transfer Kerbals and go home. On the other hand, I feel like I am very close to a Laythe capable spacecraft so I might take your advice (and other people have talked to me about chutes in the past). It would be for the next version (after 1.1 is released). To understand what is hapening here you need KER on your install. The engine is slightly offset to give a torque in the 90° direction. I have also added a little fuel tank (clipped in the first stage, but with flow deactivated) that allows me to fine tune the center of mass of the rocket. I have also put fins on it so the air flow cancel the engine torque once you reach a certain speed. Then I spend days fine-tuning the whole stuff (and finding the best first stage/second stage ratio) to approach an "ideal" trajectory. Quite an endeavour but very rewarding. Once again, thank you for your imput. I am quite happy that my rocket is popular. It is an iteration process and it is not over yet. edit : manuel changed. What do you think of it ? (I am not a native english speaker, I always think that I write very unclear things)

Hmm, not sure what stage you are referring to. The nuclear one ? Or the lander one ? Thanks for your comment btw, really heartwarming, especially coming from such a builder as you. Can I suggest you give it a go for a launch to LKO ? The auto-gravity turn is quite something and I would love to have feedback from you. edit : stock only, some mods seems to interfer with parts weight and makes things go, well... not very well

Nice ! Good training is key to maintain the weight of a ship down. How was the auto-gravity turn ? Did it worked for you ? And the rover ? Did you had enough juice with the fuel cell ?

Hey, that is the game ! Well, I agree, for a newbie, it is a bit tricky, but if you fly this ship you should be already pretty familiar with docking. Use regular fuel to get close and to cancel relative velocity, and use monopropellant only for the last 100 meters. Monoprop is so heavy that you should really put the bare requirement on your ship, not a unit more: on my personnal version of the ship, I don't put monoprop at all and no RCS thrusters either Thank you for your review !

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