It's the Little Things That Make This Game so Enjoyable!

[Korbit]

After suffering from a NO POWER situation I vowed "Never again!!" I started using four solar panels rather than two.

During one mission I glanced at the power meter and the batteries weren't charging. What in the world?

"What in the Mun" would've been more accurate: It was a Munar Eclipse!

Love this game!

[Goddess Bhavani]

One fateful Friday the 13th, I was re-enacting the flight of Apollo 13.

Although I averted issues with the oxygen tank by simply refusing to stir my morning coffee (it was bitter, but at least it didn't explode), disaster struck anyway.

Right after separating the LM from the CSM, a munar eclipse struck, cutting all solar power. Well, just wait until it passes and abort the landing in the meantime, right?

Right...

Except for the fact I had already de-celerated the LM, which is now coasting, out of battery into the East Farside Crater, impacting in 25 minutes. The scientist on board had no ability to revert to manual controls.

I decided to do the thing even the likes of NASA would not do.

I panicked.

[SickSix]

I had that discovery yesterday with my Munar science lab. Could not figure out what was going on and then saw the message "Sun blocked by Kerbin" haha

[Sharpy]

Munar eclipse? I had a Kerbin eclipse while on Minmus. Think of the chance of that, with the highly inclined orbit and the distance.

[Korbit]

pandoras kitten, I can't imagine a more inopportune time for and eclipse to occur than what you described! Great story!

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I think an eclipse will be the first thing I think of during future power interruptions!

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The odds must be astronomical!!

[FancyMouse]

However devil is in the details

[Sharpy]

Solar eclipse by Mun on Kerbin and vice versa is fairly common thanks to Mun having 0 inclination: the eclipse happens every orbit.

Now, Minmus eclipse is rare - it can happen only near Minmus ascending/descending node, and that must be lined up with Kerbin and the Sun.

[annallia]

I agree.

[Edax]

One fateful Friday the 13th, I was re-enacting the flight of Apollo 13.

Although I averted issues with the oxygen tank by simply refusing to stir my morning coffee (it was bitter, but at least it didn't explode), disaster struck anyway.

Right after separating the LM from the CSM, a munar eclipse struck, cutting all solar power. Well, just wait until it passes and abort the landing in the meantime, right?

Right...

Except for the fact I had already de-celerated the LM, which is now coasting, out of battery into the East Farside Crater, impacting in 25 minutes. The scientist on board had no ability to revert to manual controls.

I decided to do the thing even the likes of NASA would not do.

I panicked.

Good thing the real Apollo 13 did not use solar power.

[Goddess Bhavani]

True, we need early tech access to low end fuel cells at least, if we want to go to that level of realism. That would actually be very welcome in that awkward stage of the early career where we don't even have solar panels but want to send low tech probes flying to the Mun and beyond.

The crew of Apollo 13 did have to jury rig a power coupling between the damaged CSM and the LM though - I'm wondering backwards if a backup solar array on the CSM would be useful in such emergencies, allowing it to keep itself charged during the flight home.

[monstah]

Wish we could rate threads on all sub-forums, this is awesome!

[mikegarrison]

LM did not have power generation of any kind. It operated totally on batteries. So the KSP equivalent is to just slap on moar batteries.

[Edax]

LM did not have power generation of any kind. It operated totally on batteries. So the KSP equivalent is to just slap on moar batteries.

The Apollo 13 LM did have plutonium batteries, though they weren't plugged into the LM battery system, and we're stored on the outside so they could not be jury rigged into the power supply in anyway.

A small solar panel for the CM would have helped, it would have recharged the reentry batteries and might have provided extra power to the LM via the umbilical connection.

[MaxwellsDemon]

I was really surprised the first time I experienced an eclipse, also... I was tooling around KSC with a rover, and was trying to charge it back up and nothing was happening! I right clicked on it and saw... "blocked by Mun"! I panned up, and sure enough, there was the darn Mun crossing the sun's disk. I actually laughed out loud (not the first time KSP has done that to me, nor the last). After reading some of the forum notes, I came to understand it's not an uncommon situation, but it throws you for a loop the first time out!