What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Gaarst]

Your move OCD.

[Odonian]

The new Acromyrmex series agridome has passed inspection. Now to ship one to Minmus!

Edited December 16, 2016 by Odonian

[loch.ness]

I've pretty much abandoned my plans for a Duna aircraft on this mission, mostly because I'm not sure how it would fit on my KOSMO land base.

Today was a simulated landing of the KOSMO duna land base.  I decided to simulate it as I have with my KASE team bases - pre-docked at the SPH and then cheat menu-ed into orbit, but with docking ports attached.  Like the KASE land base I showed earlier its hard to control during decent and a bit tricky to stick the landing, but that said it still feels pretty darn impressive when it touches down.

As the Duna Train hits atmosphere it starts flipping beyond the RCS's ability to maintain control, at this point the crew would need to hold on for dear life and trust the parachutes, using retro rockets from time to time to maintain some semblance of control.  Val handled herself well in the simulator.

With all chutes open the landing rockets kick up alot of dust and smoke but allow a gentle touch down on the landing skids for the Duna train.  This part was very nerve wracking in the sim as it wanted to flip but the chutes and throttled back rockets held it on retrograde with respect to the return capsule docking port.

I had the train in simulation running 50m/s downhill with decent stability (but brakes not working very well).  I can already that I'll need to tweak the brakes effectiveness on those wheels, but it survived several small jumps without incident.

The return capsule didn't make orbit on my attempt due to piloting errors.  I hit an Apop of 300km because I wasn't paying attention to that part.  The monoprop on the final stage only had about 100 m/s left and it didn't circularize.  I think with better piloting I could make it to a stable orbit and have the LK come pick up the crew.

The train is broken into 3 cars.

Car 1 is the conductor's cabin where Val will bunk at the front with a structural section that can expand into long term quarters and a greenhouse and then it has the normal crew quarters for the mission scientist and engineer.

Car 2 is the return craft, the fourth seat will be occupied by samples for Kommand.

Car 3 is communications, supplies, and materials for expanding the habitat and greenhouse.

The Train will have ~60 days worth of habitation without expanding the crew quarters giving and more than 100 days of supplies without expanding the greenhouse for farming.

 

While the original Russian mission called for 5 cars (Habitat and labs), (VTOL martian aircraft), (Nuclear generator), (Return Rocket), (Back up Return Rocket) I'm pretty happy with 3.  The original mission idea also called for 1 year on Mars using the train to explore many areas without stopping often.  This mission has enough supplies, growing ability and habitation for well more than 200 days (far exceeding my kerbal's homesickness limits) but it would need to stop and make camp for most of that time.  I'm considering trying to add a small car for a buggy while the base is in camp mode, but when the entire camp is a rover that doesn't seem needed.

I haven't decided on where the mission will be on Duna yet but with this test my KOSMO mission is looking good.  I haven't designed the CTV for them yet, but I was planning to use a Constellation like design for it.  I still need to build the rover for my KASE mission but I'm nearly out of the design and simulation phase for these missions which is a fun feeling.

[capi3101]

(1.1.3, FAR to go) With a pressing need to get an engineer up to the Kerbinport space station, I decided to go ahead and design a utility rocket capable of making in-flight repairs at reasonable distances from Kerbin when I got around to playing the game yesterday. The end result was the Mission Creep 7 - which includes everything but the kitchen sink and whose ability to do its intended mission remains to be seen. If nothing else, it was a good way to get Bill up to the station with a fair amount of spare parts. I processed the ore at the station using the onboard ISRU, and almost managed to refuel Strange Cargo's fuel tank in the process (the remaining amount was taken out of the tanks of Nostromo also docked at the station). 

After a two-week journey, Lewis and Clark made it to Minmus and was docked at the Minmusport space station. The mission for which she was originally launched was completed thanks to the idiosyncrasies of ore-gathering missions, so at the moment the plan is for her to sit at the station until she's needed (again). 

The Bill Clinton 7a mission to retrieve the orange tank from Mün went well right up until the final thousand meters; having made the erroneous determination that the probe was okay to come in without the need for additional chutes, I went ahead and let it land instead of putting it into a parking orbit so Bill could affect a repair job. Landed orange tank first at 6.4 m/s and the tank promptly blew at impact. This was the first time I'd actually failed a mission in this career save, costing me 13 points of rep and √65,000. I'm more annoyed about the loss of rep...

After adjusting the orbit of the Beep-Beep 7b probe for contract, I got a mission to gather science from the Münar surface; I went to Hojo Delta for easy money, and seeing that it was daylight at the outpost I had Jenwin embark on the rover Merv Griffin to conduct the mission. EVA readouts in a rover are pretty awesome; no having to fiddle with stopping and chasing the rover as it slowly rolls away from you. Jenwin acquitted himself on the mission admirably, but had a jetpacking mishap when he returned to Hojo Delta...

"I know, I'll fake it! They'll never know that the leg is missing!"

This morning was the last of my overnight shifts for the semester, and I once again spent the five hours playing KSP. I used the original Beep Beep 7 probe to conduct an orbital Münar science mission, and then cheated on an ore gathering contract to mine 1200 units of fresh Münar ore and then put it on Kerbin's surface. So, I went ahead and mined the required amount of ore at the Piper Alpha refinery, then switched to the Launchpad and put a full ore tank out there; I was credited with the mission. I think next time I'll do the job honestly; mainly I just wanted to see if this could be done or not...

I next launched a Bill Clinton 7 grabber probe to conduct an LKO junk gathering mission, retrieving a Panther engine from orbit successfully. Replacement contract was to test a Goliath engine at the launch site; Lusitania 7 was loaded up for easy money there. At that point, both of the Bill Clinton 7a probes I'd dispatched to Minmus a few weeks ago were approaching the minty moon, so I went ahead and sent them to rendezvous with their respective targets - a Mk1 Lander Can, and Graphie's Debris (which turned out to be a Mk1-2 Command Pod). Due to a mishap with the probe hauling the Lander Can, it will not return to Kerbin for another 27 days. Graphie's Debris, on the other hand, was returned successfully, though the end of that mission was quite harrowing - the payload inverted after the heat shield was deployed, causing one of the craft's PB-NUK RTGs to explode and exposing the module to the heat of re-entry, spinning like a top the entire way down. Next Objective also arrived at Minmusport and three of her passengers were sent down to the surface along with one of the refugees the craft was picking up from Minmusport so they could plant a flag. After refuelling, Next Objective returned to Kerbinport with her seven passengers and two refugees (pilot Buremy once again vacating his seat so a refugee could use it to get back to Kerbin) and docked successfully with the station:

|
Kerbinport with Nostromo (foreground zenith), Strange Cargo (right), Next Objective (nadir), Laggin' Dragon (left) and Mission Creep 7 (aft right) docked.

Münbound passengers were then loaded aboard Strange Cargo; Jeb shoved his ship off and burned for Mün, where they'll arrive in another two days.

After getting some Mün surface science from Hojo Delta (antennas still worked despite the outpost being horizontal at this point), I ended my morning with a Kerbin atmospheric and pressure survey mission approximately 1500 kilometers from KSC using Billy-Bobfurt Kerman in a Bad Idea 5a surveyor plane. The mission was a success, though the craft's fuel reserves got down a little bit more than I'm comfortable with. At least TAC didn't have it in the red there at the end...firmly in the yellow, though.

Duna window is coming up in 45 days, so I'm liable to try to focus on getting all of my non-Duna related contracts out of the way in the near future so I can focus my energies there. I've got a big mission planned, that's for definite sure.

[Sharpy]

3 hours ago, loch.ness said:

I've pretty much abandoned my plans for a Duna aircraft on this mission, mostly because I'm not sure how it would fit on my KOSMO land base.

 

Option 1: send it as an entirely independent vehicle, travel independently, meet up at stops.

Option 2: Jetwing from the Buffalo mod. You'll fit it pretty much everywhere, runs on monoprop.

[RoboRay]

Bob went looking for the High Over Earth biome.

It's not at 4000 km, so he boosted to 8000 km...

Then he tried 12,000 km...

And still didn't get to it!  Oh, well...  Fire the retros and come home.

Edited December 16, 2016 by RoboRay

[steuben]

21 hours ago, steuben said:

Got 1 kt to a 115km x 120km orbit in a single lift, in stock. Now beginning design iterations to get it up to 1000k x 1000k in a single lift. Projected payload mass fraction will be about one ninth though.

Got it to work. The KT Bell can lift 1 kiloton a 1000 km x 1000 km, 0 deg inclination orbit with a 1km/s delta v fuel margin. The lifter does mass 12.7 kt, uses 48 mammoths, and needs to be launched from the runway to prevent free floating launch clamps.

[Slam_Jones]

Installed the Stock Visual Enhancements, including Scatterer, and I'm loving the new water and cloud textures!

Continuing on after putting up my Relay Sats, I bumped the two that were at LKO, and one from LMO, up to (what I'm calling) VHKO, basically as close to the edge of Kerbin's SOI as I can get without losing them.  It looks like 83million KM x 83million KM is about as far as I can push it.  Of the three, one apparently got knocked slightly off course by something (asteroid?) and ended up leaving Kerbins SOI.  I plotted a return route, and it should be back in orbit within a Kerbal Year.

I also sent a larger Relay Sat to Duna, which is now sitting in a large polar orbit around the red planet.  I again used a re-usable launcher to get the sat up there, and the launcher successfully splashed down in the ocean on chutes with only minor damage.  Still haven't gotten one to reach land yet... my re-entries are a bit imprecise at the moment

Next up: try to get some relay sats to Eve and Jool, and get some manned missions to LKO (to start with).

[Tw1]

 

Today was dig up your old favourite rovers day. (And then wash it off like so)

 

And I continued to be frustrated by current KSP's wheels. Damn it, how can I get anywhere, if I can't take the slightest slope?

This was built to traverse hill country. 

 

Also, 

Did some aerodynamic experiments. 

Managed to get a weird  effect, caused it to flip super rapidly, which led to a very slow descent. I'm sure something could be made of this phenomena, if Dany hasn't managed already.

 

Edited December 17, 2016 by Tw1

[Vanguard319]

My KSC put up their Christmas tree today:

[TheEpicSquared]

I spent a good two hours fighting horrendous lag while trying to get a mission to Minmus. I eventually endured the slideshow until I got to LKO, then closed KSP and finished my science report on modeling gravity assists.  

[fourfa]

18 hours ago, The Aziz said:

I got back Bob from the Mun and took this picture

Put here an inspirational quote about home or something.

"We are now approaching munar sunrise, and for all the people back on Kerbin, the crew of Untitled Spacecraft has a message that we would like to send to you."

"In the beginning SQUAD created the space and the kerbin.
And the kerbin was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
And the Spirit of SQUAD moved upon the face of the waters. And SQUAD said, Let there be light: and there was light.

And SQUAD called the light Day, and the darkness they called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
And SQUAD said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
And SQUAD made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
And SQUAD called the firmament Space. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

And SQUAD said, Let the waters under the space be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
And SQUAD called the dry land Kerbin; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and SQUAD saw that it was good."
"And from the crew of Untitled Spacecraft, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Kerbmas – and SQUAD bless all of you, all of you on the good Kerbin."

 

[DocMoriarty]

I looked thru old fotos and found one of my grandmom when she still was going into space:

 

[septemberWaves]

More stuff in 6.4x scale Kerbin.

First, an entirely solid-fueled rocket to orbit. It's inspired vaguely by the Explorer 1 probe. The rocket is called the Duna I, partly because I've decided to name launch vehicles in this playthrough after the various planets, and partly because Duna sounds vaguely like Juno, which is the rocket that launched Explorer 1.

Spoiler

First stage cutoff and separation, second stage ignition.

Second stage cutoff and separation, fairing separation, third stage ignition.

Third stage cutoff. This is the last stage of the Duna I rocket. The payload makes orbit on its own, and happens to also be using solid fuel to do so.

Payload separation, S-13 stage ignition. This probe circularizes using three stages of sepratrons, with the numbers 2, 4, 13.

S-13 stage cutoff and separation, S-4 stage ignition.

S-4 stage cutoff. The probe now ascends to apoapsis.

S-2 stage ignition.

The S-2 stage spin-stabilizes the probe, and places it into a slightly eccentric orbit.

The Duna series of launch vehicles is designed for cheap launching of uncrewed payloads. There are 5 rockets, Duna I through Duna V, each of which has three solid stages and leaves the payload to circularize with its own propulsion systems. There will also be a variant of each rocket that uses a large liquid fuelled upper stage. These will have a higher payload capacity, and the upper stage will be able to assist with docking maneuvers. The Duna series of launch vehicles are not kerbal-rated.

 

I also made a vague replica of Orion. It doesn't have quite the range that Orion has, arriving in Kerbin orbit with only 500m/s, but it was really just for playing around with and will not be used in this form in my playthrough. I will probably keep the orbiter section though because I am rather pleased with how it turned out.

Spoiler

Liftoff successful.

Booster cutoff and separation. They should've lasted for longer, I need to lower the thrust on them.

Main engine cutoff.

LES jettison.

The launch vehicle begins the circularization burn.

Spacecraft separation.

OMS engine ignition.

I know these are the wrong solar panels for the SLS version of Orion, but I like the way these ones look.

Circularization complete.

About half an orbit and one de-orbit burn later, the spacecraft prepares for re-entry.

Service module separation before atmospheric entry.

This re-entry consumed a significant amount of ablator. When I start doing things like Mun missions, this could get rather interesting...

Drogue deployment.

Main chute deployment.

The command module touches down successfully.

 

 

Also, for anyone who has been wondering, I'll be getting back to my stock scale career playthrough tomorrow most likely.

Edited December 16, 2016 by eloquentJane

[kraden]

18 hours ago, aramil said:

Awesome, there is just something about it's, simple clean lines, without being bland and generic. (was an absolute pig to get into orbit....)

But now it's there, flies like a dream!

You know, in the books, the Pillar of Autumn was constructed in orbit, so bravo on launching it whole!

[Angelo Kerman]

I did this!

The Valkyrie, sister ship to the Heisenberg, comes in for a landing. For some reason, she doesn't have her gear down. What are the vonKermans up to?

Uh oh, this doesn't look good.

Nope, not good at all!

I'm finding that the airship is a stable weapons platform (yes, I know the weapons would work better with the hangar bays upside down).

And with the proof of concept complete, here's a better design:

Edited December 16, 2016 by Angel-125

[The Aziz]

2 hours ago, fourfa said:

has a message

I knew my pic was similar to a real one, thank

[RoboRay]

I ran out of money and had to take some tourist charters to fund my next few missions...

[Triop]

Today the sun came up

[septemberWaves]

I tried testing the Duna IV launch vehicle, and I couldn't get the right payload capacity. The second stage became unstable regardless of what sort of second stage I tried (there were several variants). I decided to cut the Duna launch vehicle series. Working variants are the Duna I, Duna IB, Duna II, Duna IIB, Duna III, and Duna IIIB. The IIIB variant is powerful enough to transport reasonably massive station modules to orbit, or fairly large space probes. All of the -B variants have a liquid-fueled third stage instead of a solid-fueled one, and this liquid stage is fully autonomous and is able to assist with dockings as well as de-orbit itself once it is no longer needed. No Duna series launchers are kerbal-rated due to the high accelerations and high risk of a primarily solid-fuelled launch vehicle.

The final attempt at the Duna IV launch vehicle.

 

Other than that, I've finished all variants of the Sonnah I launch vehicle (the vaguely Soyuz-styled one). It covers a wide payload range, and the variants without SRBs are all kerbal-rated.

[Martian Emigrant]

52 minutes ago, Triop said:

Today the sun came up

I knew it.

I could feel it.

3 feet tall (1 meter) .

They like to nibble and play.

They are related.

 

ME

[AccidentsHappen]

5 hours ago, Tw1 said:

Also, 

Did some aerodynamic experiments. 

Managed to get a weird  effect, caused it to flip super rapidly, which led to a very slow descent. I'm sure something could be made of this phenomena, if Dany hasn't managed already.

 

I know @Hazard-ish has! He sent one to Eve.

I also tried this as a landing method, but I had the same problem. I tried adding an engine, still no luck, and wings didn't help me either. I kind of gave up, but if you find a way to tame this, do tell!

Edited December 16, 2016 by AccidentsHappen
Thingo not working...

[Halfdan]

after refueling and cargo boarding the korolev left minmus with the modules for phase 2 of the duna colony

[KerikBalm]

Today, I played some career Rald Space Program.

It "moves" the KSC off of Kerbin and to a "new planet" named Rald that is basically a scaled down, height exaggerated mars with oceans, a more earth like atmosphere, and life. Rald has the same orbit as stock Duna, so in that way its similar to Duna Space Program... only now Duna is a tidally locked moon of Rald (as Ike was to Duna), and Ike is moved farther out to be more like minmus. Science yields are adjusted so that Duna's science yield is similar to stock Mun, Ike's science is simialr to stock Minmus, and the science yields of Kerbin, Mun, and Minmus are increased (by a lot for Kerbin itself)

Combined an aerial survey contract of a desolate area of Rald with some tourist rides to space:

Spoiler

Set my sites on Rald's biggest moon, Duna:

Also did some tourist flybys of duna in a lowish tech spaceplane that works just fine on Rald

Attempted a landing, but the lander had no docking port, and ran out of fuel just after attaining duna orbit, I unlocked enough science to get the claw, and sent a rescue mission to refuel the lander, and Jeb took it down again to get some more XP... but he hit the same biome unfortunately...

 

The refeuling ship in orbit waiting for the rendezvous, Ike is visible in the distance... Bob is in orbit there (Ike) now... T - 1 day until Pe where he'll start sending EVA reports of the different biomes.

[Big Kerbie]

It was a mediocre couple of days at the KSC. With Jeb, Bob and Bill on vacation, the rest of the Kerbalnauts save Val who said she wanted more time in the simulator preparing for the Mun 2 mission, took the Karibou Rover out for a spin. The scientists needed more data and field testing on several things. They cruised around the space center and surrounding shores area doing science.  They were going to set up the PackRat Rover from the KIS lockers on board, but someone got the Karibou stuck on the launchpad and recovered. Much science points were returned. Another day I suppose. The Mun 2 mission is a ways off yet.

Then, a contract to collect surface pressure data was accepted. One of our dauntless scientists jumped into the Tomcat Mk3-D and raced a quarter way around Kerbin at Mach 2.8 until she reached the target area. She successfully landed and completed the contract. (New parts unlocked by several missions will see the Tomcat upgraded once more, and possibly replaced by the new Mk2 space plane parts into a new jet)

Then, a contract to study the magnetic fields of Kerbol was accepted without really reading it. A high and low orbit study, at an obscene inclination of 54 degrees and an eccentricity of .50.  The engineers said it should be no problem. Well just strap a crap ton of fuel and boosters to as small a package as is absolutely necessary and punch it. Well, it went ok. Sun Diver 1 was the first spacecraft to leave the Kerbin SOI. It did send back high Kerbol science data. However, it did not reach the desired attitude. Just not enough fuel. It only got to about 34 degrees and .44 eccentricity. It was decided that it could just stay where we put it and we'd try again with Sun Diver 2. There has been talk of trying to slingshot around the Mun or Minmus to gain more velocity and a closer to target inclination upon ejection from Kerbin. Also talk of Moar Boosters!

The Minmus Flyby 2 mission completed its science mission and successfully returned to Kerbin. Much science was gained! 

There are several (10) outstanding contracts to be completed. The eggheads at the Admin would really appreciate them getting completed before any more were accepted. 

The science returned from several missions has unlocked many secrets and a wide range of technology and rocket parts. We are on the cusp of leaving Kerbin's sphere of influence and traveling to the other planets. The Duna transfer window is less than 125 days to go.

On the horizon is the first Kerbin space station, Port Kerbin. Haven't decided yet if I want it at Geostationary orbit altitude or LKO. It will be followed quickly with Port Minmus, our second space station.

Designers are still working out the details. MKS is still new to me so, while it's really pretty, I haven't got the operation totally figured out yet.