Search the Community

Any capsule or probe has a range of 200Mm, but the communotron 16 and communotron 16-S antennas only have a range of 500Km. Shouldn't it be the other way around? As they stand now, communotron antennas are useless. Or I'm wrong? 500Km = 500,000 meters and 200Mm = 200,000,000 meters.

Someone did here's the https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.technologyreview.com/2021/12/07/1041420/spacex-starship-rocket-solar-system-exploration/amp/Article, ( and there was a open letter by some people at NASA talking about using starship and that NASA need to start to dream big). Just to give an example: a deep space fully refueled V3 starship can give a 9KM/s DV to a 150 tons payload. And if that payload is a 15 tons probe, and 135 tons fuel with an engine with storable propellant that has 300 seconds of ISP, this gives the 15 tons probe 7 km/s, enough for a direct transfer and propulsive brake to Neptune. With a probe 20 times heavier than voyager. But transfer time with a Hohmann is 30 years to get there. If we could speed up and down 0.5km/s (1km/s total) the travel time get cut to 12 years, and we would probably still talk about a 10 ton probe. And numbers get even more stupid if we start to refuel starship to a tanker that is fully fueled on a highly hell optical orbit, like getting a 500 ton probe to Jupiter orbit, or 200 tons to orbit one of it's moon, all done with only propulsive method.

Part 6: Need for Speed: Tylo Flying Christmas Tree 2 drops Tamarromobile on Tylo. It's a completely different experience than it was with Dancing Porcupine, with sustained speeds between 150 to 200 km/h. As Tylo is big, this piece of report only covers the first half. The second half of the circumnavigation is still underway. Two pictures to get a clear view of the western emisphere of Tylo. Flags are 90 km apart Meaning that between flags 10 and 11, as well as 15 to 16, I crossed 90 km in 28 minutes. It gives an average speed of 193 km/s (53.5 m/s, close to the maximum of the wheels at 58 m/s), but the time includes planting a flag. 6.1) I thought docking issues would be a thing of the past 6.2) Beautiful desolation 6.3) Mountains ahoy! 7.4) Bonus: Back to El camino de muerte

A person is a bag of water, so their hydrostatic pressure would balance with the outside pressure. It would be similar to deep-sea diving, without a hardsuit. The recreational dive limit is 100', with heliox mix 200' and more is possible. So at 9 gees, being under 1' of water would be like being under 8'-9' of water, which is easily doable although it gets painful on the ears without equalization (a skill I never mastered; I even have difficulty popping them during an airliner descent). As to how practical or effective it is, I don't know, I ran across the concept while reading Arthur C. Clarke's (with Gentry Lee) Garden of Rama (unofficially aka Rama III in the Rendezvous With Rama series)

Well that's actually not bad, although it's not the same as what you said before. Regardless of that, when I'm looking at an initial TWR of 0.15-0.4 on LKO, which is usually how it is for my long-range transfer stages and space planes, I'll generally divide the dV required to get up to just short of Munar capture (~830 m/s) into at least 3 separate periapsis kicks of 2.5 minutes or less. If you divide those evenly across your point of ideal instantaneous ejection, i.e. where you'd place the node in KSP1, your cosine losses up to that point are pretty trivial. If you're going to Duna or Eve, you can set up a Munar assist from there that will get you an intercept for less than another 100m/s. If you're not going to bother with that, you can do the rest for a little over 200 with just another final kick, still losing very little from boosting off prograde. If the destination is further out however, requiring more than ~400m/s above a minimal Kerbin escape trajectory, there are other things you can to reduce wasted dV on the long final burn that's required. One of these is to raise your PE to 500-1000km from your distant AP, which costs you a little in dV terms due to Oberth losses, but more than pays for itself with the reduced cosine losses you'll suffer doing that long burn out of a slightly slower and significantly higher-radius orbit. If you're doing a Munar assist, you can also divide your final burn into two shorter ones at your Kerbin and Munar PEs, taking maximum advantage of the Oberth effect in both places. As I said before, I have done a whole lot of this sort of thing in KSP1, and planning such maneuvers under that system is something I can do in my sleep. In KSP2, I have still not figured out how to do it anywhere near this precisely. Lastly, for Tylo or any other vacuum body, the most efficient possible (theoretical) landing plan is to set your PE to zero and do an instantaneous retrograde burn of exactly your surface velocity at exactly that point. As this is of course impossible, the best physically plausible approximation of that is to plot a purely retrograde, continuously full thrust "suicide" burn, starting at whatever point prior to that tangent PE that will bring your velocity to exactly zero when you reach the ground. This is not an easy thing to do, especially for Tylo, and definitely not something you want to attempt with a marginal TWR, but to the extent you can approximate that descent profile, you will make it more efficient. TBH, I never really use a maneuver node to try to set this up, because neither system will have you boosting in the most efficient, continuously retrograde manner. So I usually just seat-of-the-pants it, giving my F9 key some exercise if I come in hot or stop too short. On that score, I'd say that stopping at 2km up on Tylo would probably be a do-over for me, as even a near-instantaneous braking burn near the ground from there will cost you over 210m/s, and in practice you'll probably spend closer to 400-500 to put yourself down safely.

Issue with this is that they have to have radio or they could not hear the satellites. Radio is just 125 year old, much less in practice as in able to communicate with an satellite even if pretty powerful. Assuming we do this in 200 years. The alien will be less than 300 year behind us or ahead, so ahead is much much more likely and we are likely to could talk directly to them, but sending an probe with data would make sense. If not they could not get anything from the satellite and you have to land, if they are doing agriculture you should probably be able to spot that from orbit. Send down an lander. If they don't have fields with crops they would be hard to spot. Named this image first contact, an cat like alien trying to eat an small rover. We did not know of them before she spotted the rover and went to investigate.

Y3 D325-Y4 D169 - Jool Explorer So, hot on the heels of the departure of Draco, we have another historical event taking place: The arrival of Jool Explorer at the Jool System! If you recall, Jool Explorer was launched all the way back in the middle of Year 1, almost two and a half years ago! Heck, that was all the way back when Jerry here was an intern! Ha ha! What's that, Jerry? You're still an intern? Oh. Well. Talk to KR about that. In any case, as Jool Explorer is approaching its goal, this is a good time to review its mission objectives: Minimum Objectives (If we don't accomplish at least this much, we'll wind up sitting in front of a Kongressional hearing.) One flyby of Jool One flyby of Laythe Primary Objectives (These are the objectives that the probe has been designed to achieve.) Two flybys of Jool Two flybys of each of Jool's large moons: Laythe, Vall, and Tylo Deploy one atmospheric probe on Jool and one on Laythe Secondary Objectives (Once the Primary Objectives have been completed, if the probe has any capability left, we will attempt to accomplish these additional objectives.) Flybys of Jool's minor moons: Bop and Pol Additional flybys of Jool and its large moons. So, this morning, Jool Explorer crossed over into Jool's SOI. Our first task is to adjust its trajectory coming in to the Jool system. The folks over in Orbital Dynamics have worked up a plan for us that will let us use a gravity assist at Laythe to capture Jool Explorer into the system rather than burning fuel, which will help extend the life of our propellant load. If you're unfamiliar with the concept of gravity assists...well, go ask the guys in Orbital Dynamics. There's a reason I'm in management. This maneuver will also check off our first minimum objective with a flyby of Laythe. So Jool Explorer burns at the very edge of the Jool system to set up its capture maneuver. However, as we all know, the Jool system is huge. It's going to be almost sixty days before the Laythe flyby. So, back to work, everyone. We'll get back to this in a couple months. ---------- Well, here we are back with Jool Explorer on Day 384. The Science team has been hard at work over the last several weeks getting preliminary readings from the experiments on board Jool Explorer, and they've already been releasing some stunning photography. Today is the day we discover if our burn two months ago was good. Jool Explorer is rapidly approaching Laythe. And, so far, it appears that we are right down the middle of the slot. Science has all of their instruments and cameras ready to go for our first flyby. We'll be passing about 140 kilometers away from the surface. And we have our first successful flyby! Flight just got back and let me know that their numbers indicate that Jool Explorer has successfully captured into an elliptical orbit around Jool. Excellent work! So now Orbital Dynamics is getting to work on plotting the next burn, which should be at JEs first apoapsis in a couple of days. ---------- Day 387 now, and Jool Explorer is getting set to burn at its Jool apoapsis. This burn will set us up for releasing our first atmospheric probe into the atmosphere of Jool. The burn was successful, so Jool Explorer is now on a sub-orbital trajectory for Jool. We'll get back to it in a couple of days for the probe separation and burn. ---------- And now we're back on Day 389. Jool Explorer is about an hour away from entry to Jool's atmosphere, which we obviously would like to avoid. So, first up, we trigger the separation of the Jool Atmospheric Probe. Then Jool Explorer immediately turns and burns to increase its periapsis above Jool's atmosphere. This would not be the time for an engine failure. <nervous laugh> But, thank goodness, that burn was successful. Now we can turn our attention back to the atmospheric probe. This is an important milestone of the mission, so obviously we hope that the periapsis was set to the correct height to ensure proper entry. <glances nervously over at the Orbital Dynamics folks sweating in the corner> The probe enters the atmosphere and is almost immediately enveloped in plasma, entering radio blackout. It's a long five minutes. But eventually, radio contact is restored. The probe survived atmospheric entry! It immediately begins radioing back data from its instruments. When it reaches about 200 kilometers below entry, its parachute deploys. It continues to sink deeper into the Joolian atmosphere, sending back pressure, temperature, and spectrographic data as it goes. However, although the probe is tough, it is not indestructible, and the Joolian atmosphere is unforgiving. Finally, after sinking an amazing 500 kilometers into Jool's clouds, the probe stops transmitting. That was an incredible outcome, and I'm sure the Science team will be parsing through that data stream for a long time. Meanwhile, Jool Explorer's instruments have not been idle, and they have recorded their data from their first flyby of Jool, meeting our second minimum mission objective. So, we have met the minimum mission requirements! Now JE is headed back up to its apoapsis above Jool, and OD will be plotting our next move. ---------- Back at periapsis on Day 393, and Jool Explorer is burning prograde this time to set up another flyby of Laythe. This is a pretty major burn, but it will set us up for the release of the Laythe Atmospheric Probe, which is a major milestone of the mission. So the fuel expenditure is justified. See you back in five days for the flyby. ---------- Back now on Day 398. Jool Explorer is approaching Laythe once again, this time on a suborbital trajectory. An hour away from entry, the atmospheric probe is released. Jool Explorer immediately burns to raise its Laythe periapsis...and its Jool periapsis? Or so the OD guys tell me. I don't get it either. I just keep pressing the "I Believe" button. In any case, Jool Explorer is safe now and recording data from its second Laythe flyby. Meanwhile the atmospheric probe is burning its way through Laythe's atmosphere and we're all holding our breath. The probe hurtles tantalizingly over a couple of major land masses... ...deploys its parachute... ...and settles into the ocean. That's fine. The probe floats. We'll probably get better data from Laythe's liquid water than we would from dry land anyway. In any case, another successful probe deployment, and a second Laythe flyby checked off of our primary mission objectives. Jool Explorer passes out of Laythe's SOI and then sweeps down to its Jool periapsis. The probe's orbit is very low now. The good news is that this gets us a very close flyby of Jool, which marks our second flyby of Jool itself and makes the Science team very happy. However, the low orbit will make it very difficult to perform flybys of the other Joolian moons. We could just burn to raise our orbit, but the Orbital Dynamics wiz kids have a better plan. They want to use another Laythe flyby to raise the probe's orbit with a gravity assist. So, here we are now, just a couple of hours out of Laythe's SOI, and we're burning at Jool periapsis to set up another Laythe flyby. I guess we'll see how that turns out in a couple of days. ---------- Well, Day 400 now, and Jool Explorer is swinging by Laythe again. After the flyby, Flight confirms that the gravity assist has raised Jool Explorer's orbit by a considerable amount. And Science has collected their data from Jool Explorer's third Laythe flyby. So now JE is back on its way to Jool apoapsis and we're setting our sights on the rest of the moons. ---------- Four days later now, Day 404, and we're back at Jool apoapsis. Orbital Dynamics has another burn scheduled that should set Jool Explorer up for its first Tylo flyby. Exciting! ---------- In other news: As Jool Explorer is coasting down Jool's gravity well, Draco reaches its mid-course correction burn on Day 406. The crew of Draco have been following the progress of Jool Explorer with great interest. (Because, let's face it, they don't have much else to do.) As they look out their windows and see Jool as a sparkling green gem in the sky, the Kerbol System doesn't seem so large after all.... ---------- Three days later, Jool Explorer is approaching Tylo for the first time. The probe swings by in a close pass and collects its data. It then exits Tylo's SOI and carries on. The next day, 410, Jool Explorer is back at Jool apoapsis. Orbital Dynamics assures me that a small burn here will set it up for another flyby of Tylo in a week or so. ---------- Day 419. We're back for our second Tylo flyby. This, unfortunately, is a more distant flyby. Science is disappointed. But OD assures me that there is a method to their madness. After Jool Explorer has exited Tylo's SOI, the probe burns again. And this burn sets it up for its first flyby of Vall next week. As an aside: Once this burn was completed, Flight sent me a notice letting me know that Jool Explorer has reached 50% of its initial fuel load. Good to know. ---------- It's Day 425 now, and we're excited that we're passing through our first Vall flyby! Science has all of their data, so Jool Explorer is just going to keep coasting for now. ---------- It's Year 4 Day 4 now. Happy New Year, everybody, hope you all had a good holiday. Jool Explorer is approaching Jool periapsis, and OD has a burn planned that will bring it back for its second flyby of Vall. That went well, Flight tells me everything is in order. It's a long haul back to Vall, but we'll see you back in a couple of weeks. ---------- Okay, Day 24, and Jool Explorer is flying by Vall for the second time. So, for everyone who hasn't been keeping score, this means that Jool Explorer has successfully deployed both atmospheric probes, and completed two flybys of Jool and all three of its major moons. This means that Jool Explorer has successfully completed its primary mission objectives! Since we still have almost 50% of our fuel load remaining, we've given the go ahead to start into the secondary mission objectives. Orbital Dynamics should be getting us some flight path options for those any day now. Right? <Orbital Dynamics guys look startled for a second, then run back to their offices.> ---------- Day 27. Jool Explorer is back at Jool apoapsis today. And Orbital Dynamics has given us a flight path that is...ambitious. The plan is this: Jool Explorer is going to make a minor burn at apoapsis today that will put it on a course to flyby Vall. It will get a gravity assist from Vall that will put it on a course to flyby Tylo. It will get yet another gravity assist from Tylo that will put it on a course to flyby Bop. I am pounding that "I Believe" button today. So Jool Explorer makes its burn. ---------- Day 28, we have our third flyby of Vall... ---------- Three days later, we have our third close flyby of Jool... ---------- Four days after that, on Day 35, we fly by Tylo for a third time... And after we exit Tylo SOI...well, I'll be damned. We will need a course correction burn, but not a major one. I guess that worked. Good job, folks. ---------- Now on Day 40 we have our course correction burn for Bop. We're right on target. Things move even slower here in the outer reaches of the Jool system. See you all back in two weeks. ---------- It's Day 54 and... Heerree'ss Bop! Science is very excited, although all it appears to be is a captured asteroid. Jool manages to look small from out here. So our next target in the extended mission is Pol. Unfortunately, there are no large moons out here to provide gravity assists. So we will just have to burn for it. Orbital Dynamics is working on a plan for that. ---------- So, did I mention that things move slowly out here? It is now Day 131, two and a half months since we left Bop, and we have finally reached the burn for Pol. Now we have to wait more than two weeks for the flyby. All for just another captured asteroid. <yawn> And Flight has just informed me that this burn brings Jool Explorer below 25% of its initial fuel load. ---------- So, it's Day 148 and we're getting the first pictures and data back from the Pol flyby... ...aanndd...that is not just another captured asteroid. I will be very curious to see what Science has to say about that one. ---------- So, after the Pol flyby we have some hard decisions to make concerning Jool Explorer. The probe has accomplished all of its primary mission objectives, and all of its secondary objectives. It has roughly 22% of its initial fuel load remaining. It is in the outer limits of the Jool system, with no gravity assist targets available, so any destination we pick for it will require a large expenditure of fuel. And there is a possibility that if the probe is allowed to orbit uncontrolled in the Jool system it may crash into Laythe, possibly contaminating its surface with the radioactive contents of the probe's radiothermal generators. So KSP management have decided that the probe should use its remaining fuel to achieve a controlled disposal in the atmosphere of Jool. Day 155, a week after the Pol flyby, Jool Explorer performs its final burn. ---------- Two weeks later, Day 169. Jool Explorer is a couple of hours out from entry now. Still sending back data. The probe is hurtling towards Jool's atmosphere at over 9,000 meters per second. This is the closest it has ever come to Jool, still getting good data on the planet. And as the probe enters the outer limits of the atmosphere...end of transmission. What a mission! Atmospheric probes deployed on Jool and Laythe! Four flybys of Jool, three flybys of Laythe, Tylo, and Vall, and flybys of Bop and Pol! A staggering amount of data! We'll be turning our attention to Draco and Duna here in just another week, but after this it will be hard not to be imagining what a kerballed Jool mission would look like. Eh?

As far as I can tell, this part does not seem to work properly, at least for transmitters built into command pods/probe cores. They all seem to have a range of 200 Mm, which sort of invalidates the Communotron 16 and 16-S for any application that is not heavily reliant on bandwith. Is that something on my end acting up or something not quite working as intended?

So I managed to learn enough in Visual Studio to modify this mod. It can now automatically switch resolution and UI scale based on scene. All it needs is a config file with the scene name (e.g. 'EDITOR', 'FLIGHT', etc.). Each setting config now includes a "scale" attribute in addition to name, height, width and fullscreen. Bonus, now you can set the UI scale beyond the slider limit of 200% which is VERY nice. Let me know if you @linuxgurugamer are accepting pull requests. In the meantime... https://github.com/KerballOne/AnyRes

I just skip those missions. You're right. For the trouble you take to do this mission at this stage of the game, you're far better off just flying to Dres or something. I honestly thought 200 tons was a typo the first time I saw it.

We have the issue with items especially docking ports and probe cores overheating inside fairings if they are the front item who docking ports often is. So lots is going on on launch, aerodynamic, heating and of you use side boosters its additional forces in play. On top of this takeoff is also graphic intensive. It had been nice to be able to seal an fairing or cargo bay. Sealed it get the loaded weight and center of mass but is one item until opened. Obviously anything inside would not be usable until opened, this would be nice if you brings lots of probes or rovers. Having said this once in deep space I have no issues even during burns with ships with +200 parts.

By “next” manned launcher, I mean the next space agency in the world to achieve manned spaceflight after the Russians, Americans, and Chinese. By the way, I looked up the Apollo Command capsule and found that the capsule itself without the service module only weighed 5,800 kg. The Apollo service module provided the propulsion for entering and exiting from lunar orbit and wouldn’t be needed for missions just to LEO: COMMAND MODULE Crew size: 3 Length: 3.5 m Maximum diameter: 3.9 m Habitable volume: 6.17 m3 Total mass: about 5,806 kg (structure 1,567 kg; heat shield 848 kg; reaction control system 400 kg; recovery equipment 245 kg; navigation equipment 505 kg; telemetry equipment 200 kg; electrical equipment 700 kg; communications systems 100 kg; crew seats & provisions 550 kg; crew mass 216 kg; misc contingency 200 kg; environmental control system 200 kg; propellant 75 kg) Reaction control system thrusters: 12 x 410 N propellant: NTO/MMH specific impulse: 290 s total impulse: 257 kNs L/D hypersonic: 0.3 Power: Ag-Zn batteries; 3 × 40 Ah each, 28 V DC; 3.4 kWh; inverters produced 115 V AC Environment: pure oxygen at 340 mbar http://www.braeunig.us/space/specs/apollo.htm Also, surprising is how little mass is required for the environmental control system, at only 200 kg out of the 5,800 kg. Bob Clark

Hiya guys. So I've been having a docking problem for at least two weeks now, tried around a hundred methods to solve it, none did and I'm on the verge of going insane, because I can't progress with building the iSS. So currently I'm adding the P3/P4 trusses and solar panels, and for the love of god the half-hexagonal connectors (T-400 Truss Connection Mechanism (Integrated Type A) just don't want to dock/connect anymore. All went smoothly when adding the P1 and S1 Trusses to the main S0 truss, t docked perfectly without problem, but for some reason I can't progress any further, because no more trusses would connect. All other ports for ships and the shuttle work like the C-100, C-150 and the C-200, but the T-400 connectors don't work anymore. I've been moving these parts to their places with little grabber drones, and I haven't changed docking type, added more mods, nor flipped around the connectors. Also not even the magnetic thingy works when the connectors are close enough. It acts like they don't fit, or they are facing the wrongs way, but they just can't be facing the wrong way. Any ideas are welcome, and literally loosing my mind.

The Minmus lander was sent off. The first landing was successful so plans were made for a short hop to a new biome. Which did not go well due to losing comms 100-200 meters above the surface. Mission accomplished, all objectives were achieved.

I restarted the campaign (woah, I forgot how many million FPS you get at first!) and progressed to Mystery Signal on Minmus and Lil Chonker. I have a fairly typical tech level for this point in the campaign and just unlocked NERVS. So I thought to myself. "Well, let's do both missions at the same time, because Lil Chonk is /totally/ worth the 35 science points reward." (sarcasm). So, got to work with a 260-ton lander with 4 poodles, several reaction wheels (because landers have to be maneuverable) and a couple NERVs for Minmus orbital burns and landing. We don't have landing gear long enough yet to clear poodles, so we're going to use some medium horizontal stabilizers as landing struts instead. Should be fine in the low gravity of Minmus if we touch down softly. 13 mainsails and 12 skinny solid boosters for the launcher, with little rocket engines on top and bottom to safely carry each stage away. And away we go (thanks to K2-D2 for controlling launch profile leaving me to concentrate on rotating the vessel to ensure each asparagus stage could drop cleanly). It turned out that the Kerbin TWR of the lander was about 0.50, which just coincidentally was very close to the TWR of the final stage of the launcher. So this meant I could just perform one continuous burn from LKO to Minmus and the projected trajectory would still be fairly accurate. I'd use up some of my lander mass, but that's why the lander is 260 tons and not 200. I like to put my vessels into polar orbits because it means with enough time I can reach any particular point on the body. This was no different. On reaching Minmus I gave the vessel a high AP and burned to change my inclination to 90 for about 50dV. After settling into a 16 000 m orbit, the landing site was only a few orbits away. This is a completely manual landing, thanks to Micro Engineer that gives you separate readouts for vertical and horizontal velocity. I've come to learn that the ideal burn for landing has you saying "too fast, it's gonna crash, too fast" until about the last 10 seconds. Also look at the pretty green reflected lights on the skin of the lander near the glowy bits! So pretty. Good job KSP2 devs. I had like 4700 dV remaining after the landing. So I scopped up all remaining science on minmus and head back to orbit for a Kerbin return. But, why waste dV on a direct burn when you can gravity assist off the Mun and return back for only 98 dV? Yes, I did that. Landed in the mountains, which I had yet to visit on Kerbin, so performed some science there and recovered the vessel! Yeah. That was TOTALLY worth 35 science points.

Hi! I just started playing KSP a little under a week ago, and I have been enjoying it a lot! The only issue, is that I launched a mobile processing lab orbiting the mun (it has a connection dw), but I have over 200 science but only 800 battery. I'm only able to transmit about half the science before it says "aborting transmittion." I can't send a portion like half of the science either, the require complete and allow incomplete settings on the antenna don't matter, it still won't let me send ANY of the science!!! This is maddening and I don't know how to fix it. If there's a simple button or something I'm missing, please help

I used the HT-240B. Only for a testflight. It is docked to the shuttle via C-200 CBM. I have installed IR + DockingFunctions + IRConnectionSystem + PayloadRetentionSystem.

Just had photos for the engineering club at my school; we're near an airbase. The planes were like 200' above us directly and doing dives and barrel rolls. I swear they were showing off.(They train daily here)

In an effort to recover some funds and make the whole endeavour profitable, a mission was launched to attach a control probe and parachute packs to the Phoenix's lifter, which I'd forgotten to do in the VAB. It all looked so promising. Alas, t'was not to be. Without airbrakes to slow the massive booster, nor enough spare fuel in the tanks, the stage was never able to slow to a safe velocity for even the drogue parachutes to deploy. The lifter hit the ocean at high velocity, destroying pretty much everything of value. This was rather pretty, though. Another contract involved getting crew reports from a pair of locations on Gilly. This mission was an absolute breeze, the only risk being if I accidentally timewarped into terrain. Yet another contract asks for a scan of a Duna Meteorite. While I could probably survey every Duna biome with the Matador, the lander has no scanning arm, and having to repeatedly land and take off from Duna in a craft with its low margins would be both time consuming and risky. As such, I designed a rover to do the job. At launch, its only science instrument was a Surface Scanner. Having realised I forgot the Scanner Arm, the thing that inspired this project in the first place, I sent up a mission to add one... except I got distracted and used that flight to carry deployable science experiments instead. I only realised after reaching orbit. So I sent another mission up, which finally installed the device. Let's hope it survives entry into Duna's atmosphere. I have updated the Krakatoa Ultra-Heavy Lifter (50 tons to LKO, reusable) with proper landing legs that don't explode. This is the Leopard Rover. The on-board habitat, cupola, recycler and hydroponics farm allow the vehicle to operate for around 200 days with a crew of four. It has a pair of advanced RTGs, solar panels, and an LFO fuel cell for power generation, to ensure that its hungry life support systems are always powered. Over 8,000 units of EC battery storage ensures that the 0.75 scale monster wheels can keep on trucking for a very long time. It also has a Bon Voyage controller, so I should be able to just set destinations and let it go while I handle other missions. The Matador's scientific instruments will be transferred to the Leopard, as a cheaper alternative to adding them prior to launch. On a final note, I find it odd that the original Bison command pod is more aesthetically pleasing to me than the Bison 2's. I tried to dock it with the 2m port but the wheels got in the way. Antelope will carry Leopard to Duna at the next window. It has plenty of delta-V to spare - 16,000 m/s. I considered increasing the size of the sustainer stage so Leopard could make the transit to Duna by itself, but rejected it on the basis that part of my philosophy for this entire series was that I didn't want to send whole armadas of vessels out at the same transfer window, because making sure they all arrive safely is a pain. That's also exactly how I ended up with the Ronin flying off into deep space. Better to have only two craft transit to Duna, even if it will split up on arrival. Next up, Eve contracts. I've got a tourist who wants a flyby, and a World Firsts requiring that I send something to Eve and land it back on Kerbin. That can be a command pod. I'm thinking I'll design a dedicated interplanetary crew transport, and have it bring whatever command pod carries the tourist up dock with it (has to to transfer tourists anyway) and bring it with for the whole mission.

Rocket download here https://drive.google.com/file/d/1V88bacJOnow65gsWFgV2mxYtl3Rm1bfe/view?usp=sharing

The V-2 and R-7 turbopumps are rotated by H2O2 decomposition products. MHD can work on any fuel. A turbine needs just any expanding gas. The reason why the C-Stoff was abandoned is that post-WWII countries live on a planet with oxygen atmosphere and rich with natural oil. The Mars isn't. http://www.airpowerworld.info/aircraft-engine-manufacturers/walter-hwk-109-509.htm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_HWK_109-509 Its ISP is low, about 180 s, (17 300 N / 8 kg/s / 9.81 m/s2) It's not a fuel of choice when you have alternatives. But poor conditions sometimes need poor solutions. 0 .. 2° C (water and hydrazine freeze). But it's easier to keep a hangar +4°C warm than cryotanks -200°C cold. Also maybe it's wise not to keep it mixed (to store the hydrazine hydrate apart), so methanol can stay liquid even outdoors most part of the year.

Because of the low air density on Mars the lifting performance is approximately 200 times worse than airships on Earth. It has to be huge just to lift it's own envelope. And then you're at the mercy of the wind.

I sent 2 rescue missions for Bill. The first one was destined for failure at my ability level. I didn't think I would have had enough dV to land and return (although after finishing the second mission, maybe I would have). The only good thing that came out of the first mission was some extra science points banked to unlock another node on the tree. Did I need it... no, but it was gonna happen. I didn't actually expect success so the initial rocket design, launch and such I didn't capture. But I was able to get close enough to Bill to be comfortable. Now, as you can see it wasn't the closest rendezvous in the world, but I figured I can walk it. But even better, why walk when you can use your EVA Jetpack? I was able to close 5km in short order. Unfortunately when I got to Jeb and the return craft, the game had decided to push it over. Should have left SAS on. I tried an ill fated takeoff but I couldn't orient myself with the controls and that ended in failure. Had to reload an autosave. Round 2 (3 actually - don't impact the ground at 200 m/s, it doesn't end well), with SAS, and we're all set to go. Although the game seems to have forgotten my custom flag. Loaded, saved, ready to get the heck outta here. Notice the excessive dV remaining. I need insurance on my missions. Oriented for the circularization burn, and soon transfer burn. I was finally confident at this point. Hurtling back towards a 30km PE. I got to see some more reentry effects with a larger craft. I also decided to burn off that excess fuel because why not. As long as the parachutes pop, the past hour or two will have been worthwhile. Back on Kerbafirma. Hopefully the next mission to the Mun won't be such a hassle.

It looks like ESA is transitioning away from ArianeSpace being the sole provider for European space flight so I’m writing this here rather than the ArianeSpace thread: ESA Publishes Call for Reusable Rocket Booster Concepts By Andrew Parsonson - February 10, 2024 The phrasing of “liquid reusable booster” and the fact that the programme will potentially be aimed at existing launch systems suggests that this may be part of an Ariane 6 evolution. If this is not one of the direct aims of the initiative, ArianeGroup will certainly be in a position to utilize BEST! as a means to fund, at least partially, the transfer of the knowledge gained during the ongoing development of the reusable booster demonstrator Themis to an evolved Ariane 6 variant. https://europeanspaceflight.com/esa-publishes-call-for-reusable-rocket-booster-concepts/ This is great news for European space flight. I find it quite notable the author of this article on the new ESA push for reusability is asserting that it may involve an evolution of the Ariane 6. This is important, for if it is to be reusable then the solid SRB’s must be dispensed with. Now, it is possible such an evolution would involve the methane-fueled Prometheus engine. But in my opinion, using a completely different engine with even different propellant should not be regarded as an evolution of the Ariane 6. It would be an evolution of the Ariane 6 to reusability if using the same hydrogen-fueled Vulcain engines but not using the SRB’s. Quite key for these new launcher developments is to follow the SpaceX model of private financing for the launchers. That way 90% of the development costs can be saved: a mid-sized orbital launcher can be developed for only a few hundred million development cost, not the billion dollars thought necessary when such launchers were government financed. See discussion here: Towards Every European Country's Own Crewed Spaceflight, Page 2: saved costs and time using already developed, operational engines. https://exoscientist.blogspot.com/2024/01/towards-every-european-countrys-own.html The key, and most controversial, points there: 1.)Any European country can field their own, independent, manned flight capable launcher in under 2 years, IF they design it around already developed and operational engines. 2.)By eliminating the two SRB’s on the Ariane 6, and instead adding 1 or 2 additional Vulcain engines on the core stage, ArianeSpace can field such a launcher in less than a year. 3.)In any case, such a manned flight capable launcher by following the commercial space approach spear-headed by SpaceX could be developed for less than $200 million, assuming they didn’t have to pay engine development costs by using already operational engines. Bob Clark

I surmise the most silly was an accident happened during A'Twin maiden flight. A'Twin is a ship designed to complete a real solar system grand tour with stock parts and kerbalism. kerbalism does add a bunch of additional complications to the game in the form of complex life support, difficult isru, radiations, and a bunch of other stuff. great to add extra challenge. to tackle all that, A'Twin was enormous. It needed a large habitable section to keep stress levels in the crew under control, and it needed 100 tons just for radiation shielding, and 200 tons of water to be able to support the crew in the long voyages between worlds, and it needed multiple spare parts to deal with malfunctions... and then all this huge ship needed a lot of fuel to have a good deltaV, it topped at above 7000 tons. life support with kerbalism is a complex chain of events. kerbals eat, drink, breathe, and they produce carbon dioxide, waste solid, and waste water. and i had a bunch of processes to recycle all of that as best as possible, so that the total consumption of resources was only 500 kilograms per crewmember per year. in particular, after many calculations, I determined that the most efficient way to reuse solid waste was to burn it in a chemical reactor to produce carbon dioxide, which was then used to grow plants in the greenhouses. it turned out, though, that the chemical reactor only burns solid waste if there is a "solid waste" resource. and i did forgot to include a solid waste container. so the solid waste produced could not be stored, and the chemical reactor could not burn it and turn it into CO2. the other sources of CO2 in the ship were not enough to provide enough to grow the plants fast enough for the crew to eat, and the whole life support system was made unusable. Yep. I had a 7000 ton ship made unusable because i forgot to include a crap container. I couldn't even fix the issue easily with eva construction: crap containers are kerbalism parts, and were not upgraded with the newest functionalities yet: they could not be manipulated with eva construction. I had to launch and entirely new ship. A seven thousand tons ship. Because the crew could not be instructed to take a dump in a plastic bag.