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RSS-Origin Exclusive add-ons with hundreds of asteroids, comets, moons and overhauls for RSS Brief Introduction Like the title, this mod is basically an expansion for "Real Solar System", and currently it includes following parts: RSS-Origin CelestialsPack, the major part of this mod, which adds plenty of asteroids, asteroid moons, comets, moons of gas/ice giants, dwarf planets, dwarf planet moons, and interstellar objects into real solar system, currently 141 in total. (dozens more in the future) (compatible with Principia) RSS-Origin RSSTexture&TopoRevamp, which overhauls some RSS celestials with more accurate, more realistic and higher res textures and topography. (16k maximum) RSS-Origin JSUNrings, which adds accurate and realistic rings to the 4 gas giants in our solar system. RSS-Origin GalaxyTex, which replaces your skybox with a high-quality Milky Way background. (64k maximum) Since RSS-Origin has a complete documentation on its github repo, more details will not be elaborated here. You can refer to the links below. RSS-Origin's Github More details about RSS-Origin Download Links Installation Guides & Points for attention & Dependencies & Compatibilities Gallery Discord channel in Kopernicus Discord channel in FoxTech Credits Change Log License Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International

I was looking through the localization folder of KSP, when I found this: and also: I understand the second one is an error message from when something goes wrong determining the size of an Asteroid or Comet, but what is a Class I object, and why is there only a limited time to visit it? There also another Class, Class H which is the same size but not "strange." I've never seen anything higher than a Class F in the tracking station, and never heard anything about them. Does anyone have any information on these?

I've been thinking about the idea of redirecting a comet ever since 1.10 was released. If a comet went over the KSC every half-hour and showered the whole place with star dust, how cool would that be? Reading this thread, I finally decided it was time to find out. I'm gonna try to put a comet into LKO. Preliminary groundwork: Immediately, a comet was sighted. A small, near-Kerbin comet with Ap near An. Perfect! Go sick 'em, Jeb! Here is the liftoff of the mighty rocket. 7 Mammoths underneath a massive bundle of boosters and a bloated fairing. Craft and comet. This megalith-mover has 7 Rhinos, 4 drills, 7 ISRUs, 6 gargantuan Thermal Control Systems, and a whole menagerie of fuel cells. Oh, and dozens of reaction wheels, because how else am I going to turn the thing? This craft can really move without a comet strapped to the front. The full TWR is about 3. The burn out to nearly Jool's orbit lasted less than a minute. Jeb and Bill drifted out into space for a couple years, and then it was time for the adjustment burn. Now for another couple years of drifting back down to the intersect! Oooh! We're getting close! That trail is absolutely huge. There it is! The great big hunk of ice! Successfully grabbed! Of course, there were some kraken problems, but spamming "Autostrut: Heaviest part" on everything did the trick! 90% ore, wow! If only I could find the place this comet came from, all my ISRU dreams would come true! Now to move this megalith... The comet is now at Ap and An, and it's time for an inclination change! The 7 Rhinos are at full blast, providing a whole 0.07 of a g! The burn was divided up into four-and-a-half burn/refuel segments. Here is the Cometron's burn almost finished up a just over a day later: 0.0° inclination! We have proof-of-concept! The big burn is next, over 1600 m/s. I calculate it to last over the course of four days. But I am not a kerbal, which means I do have to sleep! So, "to be continued!"

Hey guys! I'm about 200-300 hours into my first KSP career mode, and I recently got a contract to take a surface sample from a comet my Sentinels found. Like most comets (from what I gather), it's really far away and in an inclined, eccentric orbit. What I've been doing so far to plan my missions is a basic DV chart - here's an example of one that worked (just to see how it's *supposed* to work), and then my attempt for this comet mission: Minmus Ferry/Recoverer Mk1 Start End dV dV + 15% Stage Kerbin Surface Kerbin LO 3200 3680 I Kerbin Surface Kerbin LO 200 230 II Kerbin LO Minmus Apoapsis 930 1069.5 II Minmus Plane Change 300 345 II Minmus Apoapsis Minmus LO (10km) 160 184 II Rendevous & Capture 200 230 III Minmus LO Kerbin Capture 160 184 III Minmus Apoapsis Kerbin LO + Aerocapture 300 345 III Stage Totals I 3680 II 1828.5 5508.5 (I/II) III 759 Total 6267.5 Tanner Comet Lander Mk1 Start End dV dV + 15% Stage Kerbin Surface Kerbin LO 3200 3680 I Kerbin Surface Kerbin LO 200 230 II Kerbin LO Kerbol (Sun) Apoapsis 950 1092.5 II Kerbol (Sun) Apoapsis Inclination Change 250 287.5 II Comet Rendezvous & Land 2350 2702.5 II Comet Rendezvous Transfer to Kerbin LO + Aerocapture 1000 1150 III Stage Totals I 3680 II 4312.5 III 1150 Total 9142.5 Originally my stage 2 was ~2700 m/s delta-V, which I realized after a few launch attempts wasn't going to be nearly enough, so I upped it to the 4300 it's at now, but I still don't seem to have enough fuel to make the rendezvous. My biggest issue troubleshooting this is not knowing if I'm doing the maneuvers inefficiently causing me to need more fuel, or if I just need more dV. That reason is why I started doing these charts in the first place, but when I'm not navigating between bodies listed on the kerbal "cheat sheet" where the dV values are roughly known, I'm a bit lost at what dV values to put in my chart. For instance, once in a solar orbit, the inclination change takes ~1000 m/s at the AN/DN on the way to apoapsis, but only ~400 m/s if I wait all the way until I hit apoapsis and come around to the other AN/DN - which is right? If I do this sequence of burns, I run out of fuel: Leave Kerbin LO (~2000 m/s to get apoapsis near comet's), Inclination change so AN/DN=0 (~1000 m/s), then prograde/retrograde burn about halfway from last node to apoapsis (~600), gives me about 800 m/s left to rendezvous, but my relative speed is still usually 700-800 m/s, so I burn all the rest of my fuel just to stay within, say 200,000 km of the comet and can't get any closer. These dV values are from my maneuver nodes I've set up during these attempts. Is it best practice to launch into an inclined orbit from Kerbin, or just do a standard 90? When I've tried launching into an inclined orbit, I can't figure out the relationship between Kerbin LO inclination and solar inclination, so my Kerbin inclination attempts of 10-45 degrees all resulted in a solar inclination of ~5 degrees. My target comet has around a 10 degree solar inclination. Also, *when* do you launch to intercept a comet? I think I want the comet to be about 15-20 degrees behind Kerbin at launch but would appreciate some confirmation. Last, just some notes on my chart/design for the comet lander - the 3400 for Kerbin LO is split up so I dump a stage ~68km and then fully reach orbit with my second stage - not leaving junk in space is a big objective for this career. Since there isn't a planet to crash a booster stage into around here, I designed the lander to leave the second stage attached to the comet and just detach the third stage to return home (though I have absolutely no friggin idea how much dV that'll take). Also, what engines would you think to use for this mission? Thought about using six xenon engines for second stage & a single terrier for the third stage, but I couldn't really get my TWR above 0.6 with the xenon's which I figured would make a rendezvous difficult. Thanks for any help guys!

Latest Release (GitHub) Latest Release (Spacedock) Source Code Edmond’s Komet Discovered “It’s truly exciting news,” says Walt Kerman, head of Public Relations at the Kerbal Space Center. “The Sentinel telescope,” Walt said, referring to the SENTINEL Infrared Telescope, a special instrument designed to hunt for asteroids that might harm Kerbin, “discovered something new. We found a komet! We’re calling it Edmond’s Komet, after Edmond Kerman, who accurately predicted its orbit.” Astronomer, physicist, and mathematician Edmond Kerman was attempting to use Newton Kerman’s laws of motion to predict where an asteroid would appear so that it could be targeted and identified by the Sentinel telescope. But what he found was no asteroid. “The readings were all wrong,” Edmond said. “It had a weird orbit. It wasn't as rocky as it should be. It had a long particle trail flowing off of it. No other asteroid had a particle trail. We finally determined that the trail consisted of water vapor. “I wanted to call it Edmon’s Giant Space Snowball,” he continued, “because that’s what it is. A giant snowball in space, with water vapor sublimating into the vacuum and forming a giant tail as it orbits near Kerbol. But when I wrote my comment on the printout, somebody misinterpreted what I wrote, then a spellchecker failed, and before you know it, my ‘Comment: Giant Space Snowball’ became known as a komet.” “Never before have we seen such a phenomenon,” says renowned theoretical physicist Albert Kerman. “The very notion of a komet is so new, our instruments still treat them like asteroids. We track them like asteroids, our older sensors still see them as asteroids, and it's only after careful analysis that we are able to determine their true nature. We'll probably have to put out a press release when we discover a new one to avoid confusion...” Ever wanted to have komets orbiting your solar system? With KerbalKomets, now you can! This modlet adds the ability to transform asteroids into komets! Features include: Komet tails! Newly created asteroids have a random chance to become komets. Optional support for Community Resource Pack (CRP). With CRP installed, komets are mostly water. Unique komet names. komet-specific surface sample results. How It Works KerbalKomets works by converting asteroids into komets. As such, they are tracked like asteroids from the Tracking Center. Komet orbits are highly eccentric, so when you track an asteroid, you'll know that it's a komet by the shape of its orbit and its long orbital period. You can also tell by the name of the object; komets begin with the "Kmt." prefix while asteroids begin with the "Ast." prefix. Each time an asteroid is created, there is a slight chance that it will be converted into a komet. You can increase or decrease the chance of converting into a komet by changing the Komet Discovery Chance field on the Settings->Difficulty->Kerbal Komets tab (see image below). Important Note If you are in Career mode, you won't be able to discover komets until your Tracking Station can detect asteroids.. Right now you can manually convert an asteroid to become a komet. When alpha is done, that ability will be turned off. There are bound to be issues. Screenshots Acknowledgements Module Manager by Sarbian License

Where could you find comets? I've never seen one...

This is a modified part of Sentar Expansion mod made by Borisbee, which itself is a modernized Planet Factory by Kragrathea. Both of them did a massive great job. My longstanding opinion is that KSP should get a body like Ascension (and Ablate, for that matter) for its unique qualities and mission opportunities, but years have passed and no development regarding the solar system was observed. For those reasons I've decided to do make this modification so that a stockalike comet reaches wider audience. Some crucial parameters of the original comet have been tweaked after calculations and experimenting in order to make it behave more realistically for stock KSP solar system. All the original orbital parameters have been preserved as Kragrathea made them. Only the comet itself has been reduced in size and mass and its surface has been darkened. Sadly, there is no tail because I really don't know how to make one, but if/when circumstances allow it, it will get both coma and a tail full of poisonous goodies, preferably variable in size. fuel requirements - Missions require loads of Δv and careful planning. This is way worse than trying to catch an asteroid about to hit Kerbin. Speed differences are enormous. thermal protection - Be careful with timing your mission. If you stay on the comet during perihelion, whatever you landed there might cook. surface mobility - I recommend Kerbal Attachment System mod to anchor your vessels firmly against the surface. Kerbals should use jetpacks as they can't walk. "Orbital mode" for the view could be used without any issues as "down" is barely applicable here. Rovers can't use wheels, but tiny landers with reaction wheels can happily hop around. One must observe care when orbiting Ascension or moving on its surface. KSP experiences floating point errors at extreme values, being large or small . For example, gravitational constant gets wonky. Also, Ascension rotates at 66.6% of maximum (superfast rotator) speed, so if a Kerbal jumps from the equator, it's possible there is no coming back if the cliff is high enough. It's entirely safe to jump on poles, but make sure you pack propellant unless your Kerbal doesn't mind spending hours falling back. Even though surface gravity is enough to keep them on the ground, the floating point problem gets even worse in the case of Kerbals just standing on the equator. They aren't held by the ground properly. That's KSP's problem, not something that I can solve. home signal - Mind the aphelion distance because even the strongest stock relay antenna will lose signal near comet's aphelion. Features tiny inactive comet, a crumpled rubble pile problems catching it and staying on it periapsis below Moho and apoapsis above Eeloo (or, if you use Outer Planets Mod, between Sarnus and Urlum) "biomes" gravity so low Gilly feels like your mom Plans coma and tail(s) active surface (gas jets) surface scatter (approximation) Recommended mods - Kerbal Attachment System - Probes Plus - Antenna Helper Download links https://spacedock.info/mod/1409/Realistic Ascension https://kerbal.curseforge.com/projects/realistic-ascension Installation if you have "Sentar Expansion" mod installed, delete the Ascension folder from it, for obvious reasons extract the "Realistic Ascension" folder into your GameData folder like this: Kerbal Space Program\GameData\RealisticAscension install latest Kopernicus fitted for your version of KSP Licence GPLv3

Who Else believes Kerbal Space Program should add in comets. You would find them the same way as asteroids but they would have there elliptical orbit and would have jets of gas going into space and if you landed on these comets you could see the jets of gas, and like real comets there tails would only be there if they were close to the sun. I would also like to thank the mod "Kerbal Komets" where these pictures were taken for ideas, to show for the ideas These are some images in mind of what comets could look like and how to find them, and get to them, and the naming system, and tracking system.

Some of you know about Planet Factory, mod by @Kragrathea, one of the first mod planetary bodies addons for KSP. It died long time ago and was resurrected by Sentar Expansion which was also forgotten, but it still works. So I've pruned the mod and left Ablate (sungrazing burned body) and Ascension, a comet. Ascension was a great concept, but poorly made, so I've edited it and thus made a fork of this mod. More on calculations and changes I did can be found here. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/156656-tweaking-ascension/ It made a lot more difficult to catch. SOI became appreciably small and gravitational attraction at orbiting heights so low, the periods turned to days not far from the surface. That's what comets offer in real life. First I've sent Procris 1 (thanks to @Aethon for the name) which was a total failure because the amount of fuel it had was not enough. Procris 2 was a success. I've used a two stage rocket and a KSPX ion engine. It took a couple of years to finally get an encounter. Catching bodies on highly eccentric interplanetary orbits is a nightmare. I flew past it really fast and it took a lot of time to remove relative speed. Procris 2 is now in orbit. It's at 6.3 km, highly inclined circular orbit, orbiting at 2 m/s and it takes more than 7 h to complete one turn. Ascension is no longer a featureless snowball. Now it's crumpled body 1800 m wide (tracking station says 2 km, but I've made it 1800 m) that looks and behaves like a tailless, real life comet. Gravioli detector can't detect anything at this distance from the nucleus. Geiger detector is exposed to normal interplanetary ionizing radiation. Magnetometer says there's little to no detectable field, and radio plasma wave scan is detecting electrostatic pulses from the dust ionized by Kerbol. I think Procris 3 will feature a lander. Rosetta-Philae style. By the time it gets there, the comet will already be close to Kerbol.

I'm aware that that most people on this forum are probably astronomy buffs, so you probably know about some of these already, but just in case there's some you haven't heard of here's the list of the top 7. February 11th: Comet 45P/HMP will be making its closest approach to earth. February 26th: Astronomy lovers in the southern hemisphere will see an annular solar eclipse, aka a "ring of fire eclipse". March 29th: Mercury, Mars, and the Moon will all be close together in the sky. Mercury will also be in its highest and brightest position in the sky. April 10th: Jupiter will reach its opposition and pair up with the Moon and Spica, the lead star in the constellation Virgo. August 21st: Much of North America will experience a total solar eclipse as the sun darkens daylight skies in a narrow swath from Oregon to South Carolina. November 13th: Jupiter will pair up with Venus low on the horizon creating a spectacular conjunction. December 13th: The beautiful Geminid meteor shower will reach its peak activity close to midnight when the waning crescent moon will depart the night sky. Be sure to mark your calendar!

http://www.drewexmachina.com/2014/10/02/the-fate-of-comet-halley/ Well based on this article the precise orbit of Halley cannot be predicted beyond a revolution and a half, therefore its future orbit cannot be predicted. The introduce a variable known as the Lyapunov exponent which sets a maximum limit on predictability.

http://nationalreport.net/halleys-comet-hit-earth-2061-experts-warn/ Not sure if this is some misguided repurposed bovine waste, or actually real. In 2061, Halley's Comet has an 80 Percent Chance to hit Earth, causing another mass extinction- this is because of a perturbation from Uranus, whose gravitational impact was the strongest due to the "Puck Effect". Not sure if this is actually a thing, but the "Puck Effect" is a effect that occurs when Puck, a moon of Uranus, gets a lower orbit, and increases Uranus' net gravitational influence. And this is not a conspiracy website either, reporting this. The Guardian reported on this too.