adsii1970's sandbox micro-challenges (New Challenge - December 16, 2022)

[adsii1970]

54 minutes ago, GuessingEveryDay said:

I'm starting to feel like I should be doing this in a Career save instead. 

<snip>

I play in both career and sandbox. So, yes, these missions would easily work for both.  I chose to call them "sandbox" because many beginners are overwhelmed with the demands and limitations of career or science mode. 

So, why not do them both ways? They'd only serve to sharpen your KSP skills!

[GuessingEveryDay]

3 hours ago, adsii1970 said:

I play in both career and sandbox. So, yes, these missions would easily work for both.  I chose to call them "sandbox" because many beginners are overwhelmed with the demands and limitations of career or science mode. 

So, why not do them both ways? They'd only serve to sharpen your KSP skills!

I'm pretty worried about the Eve returns. But I can't wait to gather the other contracts it'll open up. And career will bring more exciting contracts. Don't know how Strategia will handle it though...

[adsii1970]

1 minute ago, GuessingEveryDay said:

I'm pretty worried about the Eve returns. But I can't wait to gather the other contracts it'll open up. And career will bring more exciting contracts. Don't know how Strategia will handle it though...

Earlier, before I learned how to calculate trajectories, needed escape velocities, and the like, I had Kermen tossed all over the system! In .90, I decided to change my strategy - no Kerman left behind. And yes, I reverted a lot. One of the best things you can do is to get to the point where you can transition into Minmus or Münar orbit with very little effort. In reality, when you guys asked for a mission outside of Kerbin's sphere of influence, I decided to really toss you one out there.

But that's why there are going to be at least two more probe missions to Eve before you toss out a crewed mission. And one mission, you'll have to return the Mystery Goo Container to the KSC to complete the challenge. But that's to get you able to plot a return to Kerbin.

 

[JB182]

1 hour ago, adsii1970 said:

I had Kermen tossed all over the system!

what?! you left kerbals out there alone!?

 

[Stormpilot]

Just a bit of kerbals here on eve, and some more kerbals on duna. Let spread a couple more around jool...

Spoiler

Oh you guys know your not returning right?

 

Edited April 7, 2021 by Stormpilot

[adsii1970]

55 minutes ago, JB182 said:

what?! you left kerbals out there alone!?

 

Yup. Sure did. But I've been careful for many years now. If you look at some of my newer craft designs, there's always an evacuation pod in place.

8 minutes ago, Stormpilot said:

Just a bit of kerbals here on eve, and some more kerbals on duna. Let spread a couple more around jool...

  Hide contents

Oh you guys know your not returning right?

 

And some floating out of the immediate system into a highly elliptical orbit of Kerbol to return in 3001, The Final Space Odyssey... 

[JB182]

if i left someone out there, ill be: oh no! hes on duna alone! i better get 'em!

or: meh, i dont care

[adsii1970]

Around version 0.25, I began sending rescue missions to retrieve all of the wayward Kerbals. I refused to update to 0.90 until they were all home. When 0.9 hit, I always sent them in pairs.

[JB182]

29 minutes ago, adsii1970 said:

Around version 0.25, I began sending rescue missions to retrieve all of the wayward Kerbals. I refused to update to 0.90 until they were all home. When 0.9 hit, I always sent them in pairs.

how did you left them behind?

[adsii1970]

2 hours ago, JB182 said:

how did you left them behind?

At first, it was easy. They weren't real. But when I began becoming more serious about missions and actually noticed I had "go to" Kermen for certain missions that always made it back, I realized I couldn't just leave the ones out there. It began to seem sacrilegious to even think about upgrading to the newer version without everyone being back on Kerbin.

[KingDominoIII]

https://imgur.com/gallery/GaLKwHY

Had a few issues with Eve surface features. Hope this counts. 

[adsii1970]

6 hours ago, KingDominoIII said:

Had a few issues with Eve surface features. Hope this counts. 

@KingDominoIII - Oh, yeah! I say you nailed it! Fantastic!

[Lewie]

This took a little bit longer then anticipated, but I hope you guys like it-

Spoiler

I forgot to take screenies of the comnet path science reports...but I did it, and the relay works. Is this ok?

Spoiler

I didn't get a good pic of my finished Minmus base, so here it is! I gotta say...parallx is STUNNING!! 

Now here's the mission-

Spoiler

LIFTOFF! The Falcon Nine carrying the relay and lander roars into the sky!

The Falcon easily slips into a the standard gravity turn as it climbs higher and higher

As the Falcon climbs higher and higher, its Kerelox supplies start to run quite low. The team has declared that a boostback and landing attempt is a go!

Engine Cutoff, all systems healthy, we're looking good for flip and burn!

Second stage separates flawlessly and will burn for only a few seconds before it enters the coast to apogee

Boostback is looking good!

The Booster is looking a bit dirty now, but it's on target!

Engines lit,  legs down, we're looking good!

Right before touchdown, the Booster's telemetry indicated that the engine's ignition had started just a few seconds late...the booster was going to smack down hard!

Most of the booster survived, it'll be recovered for post-flight analysis to improve the landing of the Falcon boosters. 

Meanwhile, the second stage lit its engine up for a few seconds, putting it in a 76/75 orbit.

With the telemetry looking good, the team back at mission control gave the flight computers the 'go' for the Eve burn

After a successful burn the second stage shuts down and will remain dormant until it's time for a course-correction burn at apogee. 

The Flight controllers back at mission control booted up the second stage's computers and sent it the data for the course correction burn. 

(I didn't get any more screenies of it, sorry! but I did end up on a polar orbit with apogee of 100 km)

Hello there, Eve!

Burning to enter Eve orbit. The team was jumping up and down with excitement at this point!

Now that the probe has entered a highly elliptic orbit, the Relay will separate from the lander leaving the lander on the booster. It'll fire up it's engine for the last time, sending both the lander and booster into the crushing depths of Eve's atmosphere. To help save the Space Dolphins, the second stage will be destroyed upon atmospheric entry. 

Periapsis has entered Eve's atmosphere, we are good to decouple the Lander and we are go for EDL!

Gene barely had his team in control! The weeks of sitting in mission control, drinking mug after mug of coffee leading up to this mission were finally coming to fruition! 

With the lander now in Eve's atmosphere, the MC crew lost all contact with the lander. The team bit their nails, praying to the Kraken to spare the lander from the hardships of Eve's killer atmosphere. 

purdy!

The lander is finally coming out of blackout. With Entry successful, the team cheers! Now to tackle descent and landing.

With a whoosh (and 11 gees!) The lander deployed its chutes and glides down to Eve's terrain!

Touchdown confirmed!

The team started up the lander's scientific instruments only to find that a drill to collect samples had been left out! Now they must send another land to Eve. Grr!!

The relay probe fires up its Ion engine and slowly lowers its apogee. 

With the second lander built, the team got ready for launch-

The Falcon 9 soared into the sky!

Booster cutoff-

Stage separation looking good! The team gave the booster the 'go' for boostback and landing...they were excited that maybe this time the landing would be successful! 

With the burn looking good, the booster deployed its grid fins and began the descent-

Due to a pesky  software glitch, the booster's telemetry kept cutting in and out...in the last few seconds of data the Flight team found that the booster had incorrect yaw/pitch parameters, leading to violent RCS corrections...The booster spun out of control and broke up in the atmosphere.

However, the second stage was bug-free and worked like a charm!

Safely in orbit, the burn for Eve came and went smoothly

EDL is a go!

The booster contained a few small fuel cells that provided the lander with power throughout the journey to Eve

goodbye!

getting pretty toasty...thank goodness the lander had the aeroshell!

Second stage began to break-up in Eve's upper atmoshpere-

goodbye....

The lander now is on a lone journey to the surface of Eve

Plasma blackout has ended, the lander is doing great!

Aeroshell deployment-

The lander descended through the soupy clouds, providing loads of data about the voluminous clouds of explodium 

 

Land is in sight!

Chute deployment confirmed! 

Touchdown!

The team was ecstatic with the success of the lander, and RnD was just as excited (if not more) about all the juicy science they received. 

I hope you enjoyed this, I know I did!

Cheers!

-Lewie

 

Edited April 11, 2021 by Lewie

[Stormpilot]

@Lewiewhat visual mods do you use? (Other than parallx of course). Also very cool! 

Edited April 12, 2021 by Stormpilot

[Spaceman.Spiff]

36 minutes ago, Lewie said:

Second stage began to break-up in Eve's upper atmoshpere-

Looks great Lewie!

I think I saw some of this on discord. 
Where do you get the lighting effects from the reentry?

[Lewie]

1 hour ago, Stormpilot said:

@Lewiewhat visual mods do you use? Also very cool! 

Thanks! I use TUFX, scatterer, EVE, planetshine, engine lighting continued, and distant object enhancement. ( maybe a couple others, I'm not sure)

1 hour ago, Spaceman.Spiff said:

Looks great Lewie!

I think I saw some of this on discord. 
Where do you get the lighting effects from the reentry?

Thanks Spiff!

The lighting effects would be from TUFX, while the plasma trail/sparks from re-entry effects continued. Cheers!

Edited April 12, 2021 by Lewie

[Spaceman.Spiff]

9 minutes ago, Lewie said:

The lighting effects would be from TUFX, while the plasma trail/sparks from re-entry effects continued. Chee

Ah, I do need to install TUFX, I’ve been putting it off for a while. 

[Lewie]

3 minutes ago, Spaceman.Spiff said:

Ah, I do need to install TUFX, I’ve been putting it off for a while. 

It's quite nice, you'll like it

[OrdinaryKerman]

15 minutes ago, Spaceman.Spiff said:

I’ve been putting it off for a while. 

Why?

[Spaceman.Spiff]

13 minutes ago, OrdinaryKerman said:

Why?

No idea. 

[Stormpilot]

@adsii1970next challenge is April 12th (tommorow) eh? 
 

Spoiler

It’s the 60th anniversary of the first human spaceflight (April 12th 1961).

 

Edited April 12, 2021 by Stormpilot

[Stormpilot]

@adsii1970when is new challenge coming out?

[adsii1970]

@Stormpilot -

Sorry about that - I've been away from the forum for a few days for three different reasons:

• Bought Satisfactory (so you can thank @Snark, @goldenpeach, and @Gargamel ) and have already reached nearly 100 hours (94. since I purchased it on April 15th) as of today, that averages to  11.75 hours a day that I've binged on this game.
• Before that, I was in the grading rush. It's that time of the academic semester where my life revolves around grading final papers and exams, starting Sunday (April 25th). This will end by May 6th when I post my final grades.
• I had another eye injection last week to help preserve the vision in my right eye.

I already have the next challenge designed. I just need the time to create the signature badge and write it out. I'm hoping to push it out this week.

[Stormpilot]

@adsii1970 can’t wait for it! Thanks ! Hope your well!

Edited April 24, 2021 by Stormpilot

[Spaceman.Spiff]

20 minutes ago, adsii1970 said:

I had another eye injection last week to help preserve the vision in my right eye

That sounds very uncomfortable! I hope you feel (and see!) better soon.