What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Frag2000]

4 hours ago, Jimmidii said:

Lost my first Kerbal in my ironman save today

Was a ridiculously stupid mistake too.

Had a basic rescue craft put together, probe core, capsule for reentry.

Unfortunately Jeb sneaked into it when I wasn't looking, and I only noticed about 2 seconds after launch.

I immediately powered down and went for a quick powered landing back on the launchpad, which probably would have worked... until the launch pad blew up, tipping the rocket over and destroying only a tiny percentage of the craft, which unfortunately included the percentage that contained Jeb.

The last time he sneaked into a pod like that I accidentally made him the first kerbal sent to Mun on this save, so I guess he sorta had some bad luck due.

Make me wonder. What happen with an Ironman save if the game crashes ... will you be able to reload it? I usually play hardcore style, if a kerbal dies ...he dies. But I sometime do exception, like when a ship explodes because of the Kraken, or an uncontrollable bug sentence my crew to death. So I a sometimes reload an older save...

[Jimmidii]

10 minutes ago, Frag2000 said:

Make me wonder. What happen with an Ironman save if the game crashes ... will you be able to reload it? I usually play hardcore style, if a kerbal dies ...he dies. But I sometime do exception, like when a ship explodes because of the Kraken, or an uncontrollable bug sentence my crew to death. So I a sometimes reload an older save...

If it crashes it'll just go back to the last time it autosaved.

If I'd really wanted to I could probably have terminated the game process and saved Jeb, but it would have defeated the purpose of playing ironman style.

[RizzoTheRat]

Inspired by the real world Kerbal looking aircraft thread, I installed Firespitter and had a go at at some Rutan-esq designs.  I've been thinking about taking an electric prop aircraft to Duna so why not design something interesting.

The Vari-Eze variant turned out pretty well

My attempt a Voyager flew well but doesn't really look a lot like the original

 

However the way I haul cargo I think I'll be better off with a more conventional central fuselage and twin engine design unless I can think of a good way to carry one of these in to orbit.

Edited January 30, 2018 by RizzoTheRat

[Tyko]

4 hours ago, Geonovast said:

Hm.  I thought there was a setting you could turn off to prevent it from auto loading the kerbals.  If that function isn't in a mod, hopefully someone can make one!

 

There's a mod called BetterCrewAssignment by @Snark that'll do that.

 

[Frag2000]

7 minutes ago, Jimmidii said:

If it crashes it'll just go back to the last time it autosaved.

If I'd really wanted to I could probably have terminated the game process and saved Jeb, but it would have defeated the purpose of playing ironman style.

Exactly. My next campaign will be a full blown career in IronMan. I really like playing that way since it adds a lot of pressure and testing phases. It's an ole new game when you discover this...

[Fearless Son]

4 hours ago, Brikoleur said:

I see a cargo bay there.  That glider deploy a probe rover?  

[Martian Emigrant]

10 hours ago, LordFerret said:

I scoff at your goldeness! RELEASE THE KRAKEN!!!

I don't know how old you are but that makes me feel old cause I know exactly where that comes from.

Not the specific of the episode but still...

 

ME

[Geonovast]

What do you do when you need to deploy a comm sat but have limited probe control?  This!

(sorry - cubeupload seems to be running slow tonight)

http://u.cubeupload.com/Geonovast/ezgif1fb93507e0b.gif

Edited January 31, 2018 by Geonovast
Gif seems to be bogging everything down - changed to a link

[Damon]

I made @CobaltWolfs BlueDog Design Bureaus Saturn V reusable.

[ARS]

1 hour ago, Geonovast said:

What do you do when you need to deploy a comm sat but have limited probe control?  This!

(sorry - cubeupload seems to be running slow tonight)

Dude, that was a very nice improvisation!

[Starman4308]

Today was an unlucky day for me. Real life didn't go so well, and I had three mission failures.

I've got to admit: for the last of those failures, I used the debug menu to cheat a little. RP-0's contract durations are brutally short. My first attempt at a Venus flyby fell short by ~100 m/sec, and I couldn't wait for another optimal transfer; waiting for the next window would take almost all the remaining duration, and the travel time would push it over the limit.

Mariner I, first probe designed to get a Venus flyby, was short maybe 100 m/sec. It's on a heliocentric orbit now, with a full suite of instruments. Thing is, it probably would have had the raw delta-V... if only I'd launched it five minutes later. The booster didn't have quite enough delta-V to reach orbit, and the kicker stage based on an RD-105 had only one ignition, so I was forced to start the burn early (to avoid reentry) and badly off-target. I actually wound up overshooting Venus, and wasn't able to brake enough on the hydrazine propulsion system.

Emergency Mariner II was stripped down: 45 kg of scientific payload removed (leaving just 4 kg of the lightest instruments), and the hydrazine monopropellant system was replaced by a more expensive, higher-performance UDMH/NTO system. On top of that, I put 4x Castor SRBs on the first stage, which was enough to get the upper stage to orbit. I had to rush its production for over 4k funds to meet a sub-optimal window, which on paper, it had more than enough delta-V for. In reality, the 28.5 degree latitude of KSC meant the Earth ejection burn was 1.5 km/sec more than what Transfer Window Planner reported, and both times I tried the ascent, I wound up a little short.

I got frustrated, and just turned on infinite fuel for a bit. I'm thinking what I'll do is only activate one experiment to fulfill the contract obligation, and then try again at the next transfer window, to pretend the contract window lasted a little longer. Only once I get a successful, non-cheaty Venus flyby will I accept any further Venus contracts.

At that point, though, I should have access to better engines; Staged Combustion with some glorious Russian staged-combustion kerolox engines is coming off the stack in about 100 days, and the specific impulses are amazing: 345 s^-1 for an upper-stage engine, and 338 s^-1 for a restartable orbital engine.

 

Rewinding the clock to yesterday, though:

The wonderful Agena bus comes built-in with an orbital camera, so I was able to put a satellite based on it into a polar orbit from Vandenburg, and return lots of science from over every Earth biome. On top of the Agena bus was an early probe core, into which I stashed all the science results, since returning the entire Agena bus would've required a fairly large heatshield and parachute.

I also snapped a screenshot of my primary limiting factor in advancing my space program.

 

My final Moon flyby probe made its pass low enough to get low-orbit science from three biomes. Like the prior Moon flyby, I was then able to set up a maneuver to also complete an impactor contract. Now all that's left is orbiter and lander contracts. My initial attempt at an orbiter will be made using a very slightly modified version of the flyby probe, that should have enough to get into an elliptical Moon orbit.

 

Back to today's chain of failures. First up was the second mass-demonstrator mission of the R8-Atlas-Able booster. This time, no UDMH or NTO were dumped in the ocean! Shown is ignition of the LR 105-5 sustainer engine form the Delta E/F rockets.

It even could have gotten to orbit, if it weren't for a combination of a bad decision on my part and Test Flight demonstrating why that was a bad decision. On ascent, I set the gimbal limit on the AJ-10s down to about 25% to reduce overcompensation when steering, an issue I'd had before. However, one of the two AJ-10s went to 50% thrust, sending the Able upper stage into a loop. I was able to recover once I put the gimbal limits back to 100%, but by then, I'd wasted too much propellant to quite hit orbit. Despite the failure to reach orbit, I'd call this a partial success due to thoroughly testing the entire rocket, and discovering that, at 100% gimbal, the stage can recover from a 50% loss of thrust on one engine.

 

Then came my first attempt to launch a Molniya satellite to orbit from Vanenburg AFB. It's not an ideal place to launch into a Molniya orbit; launch range azimuth restrictions mean you can't quite launch far enough east, so by necessity, it involves some doglegging. The first stage was nominal. The second stage... guess which engine failed? You guessed it, an AJ-10. Completely, this time.

The wild spinning this induced made it very hard to reach any orbit, nevermind a highly eccentric Molniya orbit. I resorted to very brief pulses of the AJ-10 when it was roughly pointed prograde, which got my perigee up to maybe -30 km. The SRBs weren't much help, winding up being roughly neutral since I was still spinning, but once those burned out, I was down to the 200 kg probe. I was able to stop the spinning, and finally get into a stable orbit, completing a weather satellite contract. Mission failure, with a small compensation in completing an unrelated contract.

I've got a copy of this mission rolling out to the pad now, with only a couple weeks until contract expiration. To be extra sure about it, I replaced the original R7-Castor-Able-222 with the -242 version, which should give me a little more delta-V to deal with a poor launch azimuth situation.

 

And here's Mariner I, going off into heliocentric orbit. The Ranger core is really fun to build small probes around, even if the 300 kg control limit is difficult to work with.

[Cadet_BNSF]

2 hours ago, Martian Emigrant said:

I don't know how old you are but that makes me feel old cause I know exactly where that comes from.

Not the specific of the episode but still...

Can't be that old. I have seen it and I haven't graduated from high school yet! The old Irwin Allen shows were great. 

[Zosma Procyon]

I did a drop test to see if the latest version of my Eve Lifter could survive a moderately hard landing, and this happened.

The rocket did not break on impact, so I call it a success, but the runway did not share that impression. The speed at impact was about 5.9 m/s, which is what I'm usually getting with parachute landings on Eve.

[MAXIMUS]

was doing some early career surveying and couldnt be bothered flying back to KSC; went to the south pole instead because its easy to land

 

[Martian Emigrant]

1 hour ago, Cadet_BNSF said:

Can't be that old. I have seen it and I haven't graduated from high school yet! The old Irwin Allen shows were great. 

That reply is also making me feel old.

When Lost in space was cancelled Neil Armstrong wasn't the man in the moon yet. I Got out of high school when disco and the Bee Gees were it.

 

ME

[LordFerret]

3 hours ago, Martian Emigrant said:

I don't know how old you are but that makes me feel old cause I know exactly where that comes from.

Not the specific of the episode but still...

 

ME

Warning! Warning! Danger Will Robinson!!!

Classic stuff. Yes, I'm old, too old... 61.

 

3 hours ago, Geonovast said:

What do you do when you need to deploy a comm sat but have limited probe control?  This!

Wow. You know, if I tried that the damned solar panel would break. Lucky!

 

In my world:
Driving up on Dres, day 2. I'm about 30km from the anomaly, and, Murphy's Law, I flip the rover on its side. No damage was done, but I'm not able to tip it back over. So, now I've got another rover on the way. The driver can't do anything or go anywhere, so now he waits... and I mean waits, it's going to take over a year for help to arrive.

Also while driving up on Dres, I ran across the mother of all seams. "It's full of stars!" I had to drive a few Km's to find a decent spot to jump it.

[RizzoTheRat]

Docking, lots of docking.

I discovered a problem with my Tug, it has Gigantors and I'd not realised the temperature rating on them is pretty low.  This means it can't aerobrake, which I want my Minmus tanker to be able to do.  So the solution was to launch a modified Tug with surface mounted solar panels (cargo modules will need panels if I ever goes further from the sun) as part of a Duna mission (a repeat of a mission abandoned due to Kraken attack), and swap them over

So from right to left I have:

• The SSTO booster, which will wait in orbit to return with the crew after they've been to Duna and Ike
• A Hitchiker to get the number of seats up enough for a Station in Kerbin orbit contract, this will stay on the booster
• A Lab for a Surface base on Ike contract, this will be abandoned on Ike
• The modified Tug
• A hitchiker for the Duna/Ike crew, this will be re-docked to the booster for re-renty
• A fuselage section with a pylon and large undercarriage to be tested in Ike orbit and then abandoned
• The "Disney Castle" Tanker module that's been hauled to Kerbin by...
• The original (Gigantor equipped) Tug

So then I had to split it between the Lab and new Tug, undock the old tug and dock it to the lab, undock the new tug and dock it to the front of the tanker module, undock the lab & old tug from the booster & hitchiker and then dock the lab & old tug to the back of the hitchiker/fuselage/tanker/tug combo to get this

Then dragged the whole lot up to about 150,000km orbit ready to have a go at a Oberth manoeuvre when I get a Duna window, ie drop the PE down to around 100km, top up the tug's tanks, disconnect the tanker, and then burn for Duna while the tanker which can hopefully now aerobrake if required, heads back to Minmus for a top up.

 

[JadeOfMaar]

Getting out of the SPH and playing the game without modding it even more is a hard thing to do, seriously......especially the getting out part. Here's a small concept plane taking its maiden flight. I'm on the fence about keeping it. If I do keep it, it gets to meet with a main ship that was HyperEdited (for now, maybe) around one of the local moons.

(Nope, not on GPP here.)

[Abpilot]

Everyone pumped about the falcon heavy launch. I’m gonna be on ksp with kk’s falcon heavy and science 818’s launchpad plus real KSC by cloud i think his name in RSS/RO at Cape Canaveral and watching the launches livestream so as soon as they say launch, i launch the rocket and I will mimic its manuvers, i will copies its launch profile and no time warp, and will also launch a Kesla kerbster playing David kermans a space ordacity.  

[Guest]

I'm starting preliminary plans for an Eve surface return mission -- the first time I'm attempting it ever, actually, despite having played a lot of KSP. 

My idea is to dust off an old and proven rocket-powered SSTO design, upgrade the technology (engines to Vector clusters, mainly), and introduce a new feature, which I call Brikoleur's Patented Controlled In-Flight Disassembly (BPCIFD), also known as, um, staging.

The plane is my heaviest rocket-powered SSTO lifter. It has four yuge engine pods built around Rockomax 64s in an X configuration around the main fuselage. I will add decouplers and small fuel tanks around them, attaching the wings to said decouplable small fuel tanks. And I'll replace the neck and payload pod with a small Terrier-powered rocket. The central payload node will be made aerodynamic and carry a single Vector; behind that is an interstage fairing, and behind that, another fairing which carries an ISRU.

To get there, I want to fly the plane up normally, fly it to Eve, do a conventional propulsive capture to LEO, and burn any fuel I have left retrograde when entering at a very shallow, careful angle. Empty, the plane should be light and draggy enough to survive entry. Then I'll fly it down, detach and deploy the ISRU with its fairing, and fuel up. 

To return, I want to take off like a plane, and then point myself straight up as soon as possible. This done (by which time the small tanks to which the wing attaches should be empty), I'll shed them with the wings. Once the four Rockomax 64s are empty, I'll shed those too, leaving only the central fuselage carried skyward on a single Vector. And once the central fuselage is empty -- by this time I hope either out of the atmosphere or at least very nearly so -- that will come off too and the final stage will make its way to orbit and, eventually, back to Kerbin.

I've run some numbers and it looks like it ought to be doable. What I don't have a sense for is just how difficult it is to push through the soupy Evian atmosphere. With this design, it could range anywhere from easy-peasy to impossibru. So I'm first going to try this with a probe. I'm fairly convinced I'll manage entry and landing -- the small probe mission showed that it should work at least -- and with an attempted return, I will find out whether the design is feasible at all. So the mission objectives for that are --

• Primary: reach Eve, survive entry, make a soft landing, deploy ISRU, and refuel.
• Secondary: take off and execute the flight plan and BPCIFD (er, staging) sequence described above.
• Tertiary: have the payload module reach orbit.
• Quaternary: have the payload module reach Kerbin orbit for reclamation.

In the unlikely case that I reach all four objectives, I'll attempt the same with one of our little green volunteers at the helm. At which point I hope to have officially earned my Kerbal Space Program spurs.

[Whisky Tango Foxtrot]

Explorer 1 returned from Dres

She docked with Minmus Station and her crew then transferred over to a return module (a Mk2 crew cabin with parachutes attached) which was then attached to her lander so that both could return to Kerbin at once.

With her Dres mission complete, and her planned Eeloo mission re-assigned to Explorer 2, Explorer 1 is now just waiting for a transfer window to embark on her final, unmanned mission to Eve, where she'll attach herself to Gilly Station and function as its science lab.

[Guest]

11 hours ago, Fearless Son said:

I see a cargo bay there.  That glider deploy a probe rover?  

Nope, that just carried ... pretty much everything really: the probe core, batteries, a reaction wheel, science experiments and a science collection lunchbox because I figured (correctly) that I wouldn't be able to transmit them as quickly as I collected them as I passed through the atmosphere and over a bunch of biomes. 

Good idea though. I think I could make it work: basically take everything that's already there, put wheels on it, add a docking port so I can release it, and make the bay face downward so the glider will drop the rover after landing. Even antennas work from inside bays so I could move that from the skin to the rover. Only added mass and volume would be the wheels and the docking port. Hmm...

[XB-70A]

Gilly Explorer finally reached its intended target after a 184 days journey!

The time to realize a final burn to change the inclination to 0 degrees, and the second stage was finally separated with around 800 m/s still available on board. To evade any waste remaining in orbit, the maneuver was realized on a crash trajectory.

 

 

A correction being conducted at 102 km over the ball for the impressive amount of 7 m/s...

 

 

Then it was the time to release the main payload from its carrier. The last one being equipped with three different antennas, it was lowered to a 50x49 km orbit and will stay around Gilly definitely (helping the two others probes orbiting Eve to establish a good connection with Kerbin)

 

 

After having completed four multiple science experiment in high orbit, the next step was to lower the orbit to 8x7, and with the warp killing occurring below 8000 it was slow...

 

 

REALLY SLOW!

 

 

I finally took the decision to leave Gilly and to park the probe in a high orbit around Eve, waiting for its return transfer.

I just hope 3 km/s will be enough to ensure a safe trip back to Kerbin, as there is around 5000 science points sleeping under the probe fairing right now...

 

 

Otherwise I decided to rebuilt some of my oldest launchers, optimizing their appearance as well as their performances:

Gamma II 792, with a Opportunity/Spirit inspired rover as the payload.

 

Neutron with a Luna 24-like lander.

 

And my little favorite:

A probe destined to performs studies around Laythe (it's useless to name from who the inspiration is coming from). As the main probe is only equipped with a narrow-band scanner, plus its small lander, I decided to put another small unit carrying a survey scanner. Both will be launched under the same fairing of a single Giant IV B.

[MaxwellsDemon]

Figured out which part was giving me trouble in the changeover from Station Parts to Redux, and it wasn't the one I was expecting... it was the "Intercedor" station core.  I moved that part and its associated files in by itself-- since I have a station currently on orbit that uses it it's not disposable.

Been having a lot of IRL stuff getting in the way... car repairs, taking stuff over to my parents', kids' play practices, yadda yadda...  looking forward to this evening when (after cooking supper) I can settle in for a nice long KSP session.     My wife doesn't quite get it-- but hey, she's got her Pokemon Go and I've got my Kerbals!

[Geonovast]

9 hours ago, MAXIMUS said:

was doing some early career surveying and couldnt be bothered flying back to KSC; went to the south pole instead because its easy to land

 

That plane would be much easier to land (and more stable at take off) if you spread the rear wheels apart further.

 

8 hours ago, LordFerret said:

Classic stuff. Yes, I'm old, too old... 61.

It's not that bad.  It's only barely more than twice my age.

 

8 hours ago, LordFerret said:

Wow. You know, if I tried that the damned solar panel would break. Lucky!

Gotta have a light touch   Also it was already drifting away, so that probably helped.  I was just being impatient.