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What did you do in KSP1 today?


Xeldrak

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Optimizing for efficiency has doomed one engine back into the darkest depths of the storage... i am now going with a 7 R.A.P.I.E.R setup and some tilted rear wings for additional lift. It actually performs better than with 8 engines. Now it has 310 m/s of Delta V left, once it reaches 84 km circular orbit with its 36 ton payload. The tilted rear wings make piloting this SSTO far more easy too... it really wants to go to space now :). Now all it needs is a bit more DeltaV once it reaches orbit... but maybe a different ascent profile can manage that already...

jdJtirE.png

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After figuring out the problem on the tourist rocket (the parachute indicators are lying to me), I sent 4 tourists to Minmus. They came back, aerobraked, and descended at a sedate 5 m/s into the water. The rocket would have survived such an impact on land.

But I guess the rocket was made of salt, because it dissolved into the water.

Reloaded, even though I had said earlier I wasn't going to, because that doesn't seem right. I used the engine to slow down to a tiny speed just before hitting the water. Same result.

Eventually, I got it over land. I figured that that would work better, because it would support the rocket better and not break it as much. As I was going down, I ejected the fairing (I had kept it for re-entry) so I could deploy my parachutes.

All four Kerbals died as the bits of fairing ripped through their capsule. This problem had not come up during testing, even when I used an LES while the fairing was ejecting. I failed the contract and gave them a memorial service at the flagpole.

But I earned money from it! So it's all good!

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I did another crazy solids-to-the-Moon thing. This time with less than a full TLI on the solids so I had to launch during a lunar window and fire the solids shortly after upper stage burnout.

 

 

So yeah, that meant after burning out the upper (into a 2000x150km orbit or so) I had to find a TLI maneuver point in the next minute or so with precisely the dV required. It was probably more luck than skill that it worked the first time, because all I did was eyeball the moon's position before launch, I didn't calculate the exact UT to launch. (Desired position was 1/8th before nadir, so launching from a site at the zenith of the plane and burning to the Moon would arrive at nadir at the same time as the Moon give or take).

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Made 80k Ap with a 3 1/3 ton rocket. Literally over half that weight is the whiplash jet engine I used on the main stage. Fuel tank was a FL-T100 with oxidizer removed. A shock cone was my nose cone. Circularized with the second stage, a spark engine on a FL-T100. Payload was just a probe core but it still had 250 dv to spare. Maybe with a little work it can be used for a purpose other than to see if I could.

Edited by Red Shirt
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Well, Tandan, Sigrid and Bilfal are on their way to Jool and Laythe. Danvey, Lealin and Lindra are on their way home from Duna.
All of that will take a while.

It seems like Jebediah, Bill and Bob will indeed insist on taking Ikaros_H on it's virgin voyage, now that the Eve mission is indefinitely postponed - due to technical and financial difficulties. Valentina, Madly and Kimene are still telling everybody stories about their recent Laythe mission, appearing in TV-shows, signing at book stores...

Leaves Mission Control and Dr Horst with Cerly, Eilla and Asdra, a... 'feisty' gang. ...Cute and lovely, ...when they're happy... - Ambitious.

...But Dr Horst had a plan...

screenshot3560J.jpg

 

The gals were blissfully speechless for for a precious moment. Then: "-What the *** is that rusty heap of junk supposed to look like?", Cerly spoke from the heart and for all of them.
" It's a special mission", says Mission Control confidently. "And kinda low profile. ...Secret even. ...You could say. And it's one of the best rockets we've ever built."
Dr Horst nods gravely: "The Firebrand_F".
"Firebrand? wasn't that the obsolete Mun rocket that got replaced years ago with the Lensman?" asks Eilla suspiciously.
"-Replaced?!" laughs Mission Control. "You don't replace the Firebrand".
"The program was never closed down", explained Dr Horst. "It just went into hiding. ... From the bean counters. Which makes it ideal for,.. shall we say,.. some missions."
"Hiding?" Asdra raised her eyebrows.
"The only budget we need for this is the fuel and the rover", mused Mission Control smugly. "We have plenty salv,.. er, surplus parts to build rockets from. It's cleverly accounted for as scrap metal."
"It is scrap metal" Cerly insists.
"My dear Cerly, you'll love flying the Firebrand_F. - I promise you!" said Dr Horst seriously.
"What's so 'F' about it?" asked Eilla.
Mission Control pointed proudly. "The rover. And then it has a docking port too".

 

So, much later:

screenshot3567j.jpg
"Is it supposed to vibrate this much?"

 

But Dr Horst von Kermin was right. Soon Cerly flung around the rocket the same way she drives her little red sports car.

screenshot3581j.jpg

 

And the special mission?  The "secret" mission?  ...Well, then it wouldn't be so secret, would it?

screenshot3606j.jpg 

- Yeay!  The Mun!

...but that's not all there is to it.

 

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Spent half an hour looking for a spacecraft I left in the Jool orbit two Kerbin years ago.

Turned out its orbit got perturbed by Tylo and Laythe and it crashed directly into Jool while I was attending to business in the inner Kerbol system. Indeed, I remember hearing some explosions, but I thought it was a spent second stage or the like...

Time to hire a new engineer in place of the deceased one, send him to Mun and Minums to gain XP, then replenish my space fleet in the Jool system.

 

Edited by uncle_jew
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My first mission after a long hiatus, setting up a kerbo-synchronous communications satellite network! Orbital periods are all within 0.02s of each other. I definitely overbuilt my rocket, but the whole flight went off without a hitch once I stopped using MechJeb.

Didn't take too many screen shots, as I was focused on not messing anything up so I wouldn't have to revert. Here is the album, with some descriptions and stuff, and here's a shot of the final installation:

mERsjgx.png

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Today I got a notice that Min-bus was low on water.  4h30m on the clock.

Turns out 31 days of supplies +2years of snacks vs 5 kerbals on a minmus trip does not add up.

 

At the moment I've burned 800m/s to hit minmus PE in just over 4 hours, with 750 out of the 1100dV required to make orbit.

Bill, meanwhile is scavenging parts, fuel and supplies from the Minmus base to make a rescue ship.  So far it looks like he's got 3000dV to catch, resupply and return, but the timing will be tight and the navigation will be tricky.

 

 

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15 minutes ago, suicidejunkie said:

Today I got a notice that Min-bus was low on water.  4h30m on the clock.

Turns out 31 days of supplies +2years of snacks vs 5 kerbals on a minmus trip does not add up.

 

At the moment I've burned 800m/s to hit minmus PE in just over 4 hours, with 750 out of the 1100dV required to make orbit.

Bill, meanwhile is scavenging parts, fuel and supplies from the Minmus base to make a rescue ship.  So far it looks like he's got 3000dV to catch, resupply and return, but the timing will be tight and the navigation will be tricky.

 

 

Good luck my friend. WHY IS HE THIRSTY ON A PLANET THAT IS LITERAL FROZEN WATER?!

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1 minute ago, MatttheCzar said:

More of the N100

<blockquote class="imgur-embed-pub" lang="en" data-id="a/tx7yZ"><a href="//imgur.com/a/tx7yZ">View post on imgur.com</a></blockquote><script async src="//s.imgur.com/min/embed.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Use the 'i' in the toolbar with just this part: tx7yZ

 

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