What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Starman4308]

As of now, Voyager V is by far my most scientifically productive mission. Since my last post, it's flown by two of the Galilean moons (Io and Ganymede), and as I'm typing I'm running a maneuver node to send it flying by Callisto. Each one seems to be producing about 2000 science for me, which means I'm gaining far faster than KCT lets me spend it (right now, I have an excess of 8306 science in the bank and literally every single accessible research node queued up!).

Also note that I've started putting most images in spoilers so it doesn't take up a ludicrous amount of screen space, particularly for my larger weekend posts.

 

The Io flyby took a bit over 12 minutes, with a flyby velocity of 22 km/sec.

Spoiler

 

 

Fun facts: Io is ridiculously seismically active, and has the lowest known water content of any body in the Solar System. I suspect the reason it has less water than Mercury is that Mercury is more seismically stable, and so likely has water trapped in the core and possibly in permanently-shadowed crater bottoms.

 

The Ganymede flyby was more sedate, taking about 45 minutes IIRC with a flyby velocity of 15 km/sec.

Spoiler

 

 

Fun facts: Ganymede likely has a subsurface ocean, and a magnetic field about 0.1% as strong as Earth's... and yet the Galileo probe was able to pick it up against the background of Jupiter's own colossal magnetic field.

 

Venera 1 (and finally, a daytime shot of the STAR 37 motor in action!) was launched... into Earth's atmosphere.

Spoiler

Fun fact: did you know that nitrogen RCS thrusters work better when hooked up to nitrogen tanks rather than hydrazine tanks?

Spoiler

Venera 2 has hydrazine RCS thrusters and a pair of Baby Sergeant motors to help spin up the kicker stage.

 

Apollo 9, with veteran pilot Laura Lawrence, rookie scientist Charles Young, and engineer Albert Eliott launched from KSC on what is now a fairly routine lark up to LEO. Slight issues with the propulsion system were identified, and will be rectified for the next Apollo-A configuration launch. And by that, I mean "upgrading from F-1 to F-1A so I have a TWR better than 1.1 going off the pad, and I don't wind up pitching the S-IVB to 40 degrees above the horizon".

Before returning to Earth, just east of South America in the Atlantic Ocean*, the crew of Apollo 9 set an altitude record of 10,000 km above the Earth's surface.

*Yes, I checked this time.

Spoiler

I also saw the water coming up really fast and realized I needed to hammer the spacebar right away, but fortunately the parachutes deployed in time.

Spoiler

 

Also got a replacement goldfish probe around Phobos. I thought about sending out a third to hit Deimos, since this one ran out of propellant due to a botched transfer, but instead I figured I'd send landers.

Intentional landers.

Spoiler

Deployed a network of relays around Mars: as mentioned previously, only the hub has a relay capable of talking with Earth, the others just bounce off the hub.

Spoiler

 

This was absolutely crucial to the success of my first Martian lander. I know it succeeded, because I did the hard part of setting up a script right, and would never make a rookie mistake like forgetting to have a battery on the actual lander itself. Because me making that sort of mistake is a physical impossibility, I know for a fact it soft-landed on Mars instead of impacting with no power at around 180 m/sec.

Spoiler

This screenshot, for example, shows the heatshield separated and landing legs properly deployed as it approaches the Martian surface.

Spoiler

This mission was deemed a complete success, and a followup lander is planned with an exactly identical design with no changes to batteries or anything of that nature.

[LordFerret]

2 hours ago, Hotel26 said:

Man O Man, look at all those ion drives!!  You've got 32 Dawns on that sucker...  That will take you all the way to the HQ of the Ionian Nation!

Having them all powered for long burns was the miracle. The 'power module', nestled between the two fuel pods, is what made it all happen.

[Hotel26]

20 minutes ago, LordFerret said:

Having them all powered for long burns was the miracle.

That and having a good book... 

[Tyko]

4 hours ago, hellblazer said:

Delivered the Hubble Space Telescope into LEO. STS - 31

 

Great work. Thanks for sharing...I'm having a hard time believing you're playing the same game I am...I don't recognize the parts or the textures 

 

[TeslaPenguin1]

14 hours ago, damonvv said:

Lithobraking complete!

[Onigato]

15 hours ago, damonvv said:

Any landing you can walk away from... Mission: Success!

[Ace in Space]

I got my last bits of Kerbin science (not counting all that "splashed down in the mountains" type stuff that I don't intend to collect) and went to do some additional Mun exploration for good measure. With all of my tech tree nodes unlocked, it's more about completionism than anything else at this point. 

I initially designed a rover, as much for looks as functionality, and tested it near KSC...

Spoiler

It looks neat and drives well, but I got to thinking... the Mun's a big place, rovers don't have autopilot or time warp, and I have a short attention span. Maybe this isn't a good idea. So I just sent a rocket powered hopper instead, but the design proved less efficient than hoped and also I... may have forgotten to put a part on it for access to biome-KerbNet. So that mission got called home early - still got a good amount of science boxes checked off though.

In other news, I've decided where to go next: Dres. But here's the thing... Dres is kinda boring. So the hope is that I can get all the science in one go, and never have to return. For reasons stated above, driving the whole thing with a rover is not really an option. Which means that I'll need to ensure that whatever craft goes there has enough fuel to bounce from biome to biome and then get home again. Since it's about the same size as Ike, I could set up a mining base and orbital station to enable these exploration efforts... but that's an awful lot of work to set up a station I hopefully will never return to. But wait, I've heard Dres has a bunch of asteroids near it! That might enable a unique approach. So I redirected my infrared camera satellite to intercept Dres - or rather, changed its plane of orbit and set up a maneuver node for it to intercept Dres - so I can get a good sense of what's going on over there. That way I can plan exactly what I want to do.

Then I did some standard maintenance... adjusting CommSat orbits, shuttling fuel to stations, etc.

Onyx Base is just not in a workable state. The solar panels are just flat out incapable of powering it. I've designed a tweaked version of the central fuel tower that has fuel cell arrays, which I intend to send at the next launch window - which will be in roughly a year. I will also send a new fuel truck that has a lamp on the front, because driving around on the dark surface in anything but direct overhead sunlight is a pain.

But I think Serena, the base's engineer, is going to need to hit level 4 for the new setup to really be effective rather than just treading water so to speak. There's a science lab on Onyx Station, so she can level up without going back to KSC, but she needs to get a few more experience points, and it seems like the simplest way to do this would be to land her on Duna. So I think when said launch window comes, I'll send another Ruby mission, with an empty seat. They can pick up Serena from the station before they land and drop her off again when refueling on the way out.

[CatastrophicFailure]

11 hours ago, JadeOfMaar said:

@CatastrophicFailure I haven't properly watched the Avatar movie so I can't say.  

It’s worth a watch, if you can tune out the clichés and preachy tone. Just look at the pretty animation. Ooooh! Aaaahhh! 

[Hotel26]

44 minutes ago, Ace in Space said:

rovers don't have autopilot or time warp

I installed Bon Voyage recently.  It's like MechJeb for rovers inasmuch as you have to install a device on your rover.  For going from biome to biome (and then exploring in each?), I think it could be quite effective...?  Bon chance!

[Emperoreddy]

Today I completed my first orbit of The Mun and returned Heb safely. 

 

I also learned that maneuver nodes don’t tell you what your orbit will be when you escape the Mun. Luckily I packed plenty of fuel. 

[Zeiss Ikon]

15 hours ago, Leopard said:

For whatever reason the parachutes failed to open, armed, but just never opened, presumably a setting wrong somewhere. realised too late to engine brake so the lander is in bits with the scientist also in bits sadly. Will revise and try again on another flight.

Default settings on parachutes require some (rather significant) fraction on an atmosphere to fire.  Duna's atmosphere is a lot thinner; they might have fired just before impact -- or maybe just after, if there'd been a little more "down" available.

[HansonKerman]

Might need to set Min. Pressure to .01 and Max deploy to-err... something. 

Anyone else staying on 1.3? (just for the record, the most popular mods have been updated.)

[Hotel26]

26 minutes ago, HansonKerman said:

Anyone else staying on 1.3

I've downloaded 1.4 and will be upgrading.  In about a year's time if my usual average delay applies (and it will).

I won't trash a world in progress just because there's a new version.  I'll run side-by-side for a while and run small exercises in the new version.  For example.  Mining.  Check that it still works the same way.  That all my craft go through some basic check-out.  Not to mention all the mods I operate have been upgraded.  I'll wait until I've heard about a year's worth of comments from everyone.  I don't know what the mission builder is yada yada, but I'm not particularly interested.  I'll eventually upgrade but I'll also eventually reach a stage with KSP where I freeze it and tune out.

"New" is not always "better".  "Change" is not always "good".

As a matter of fact, I have just completed all the preparations to get from 1.0.5 to 1.3.1 and have just started my first full world in 1.3.1  I'm now totally comfortable with 1.3.1 after all the settling in time.

 

Edited March 11, 2018 by Hotel26

[rudi1291]

Pretty shapes

[Jett_Quasar]

My first build in V1.4

 - Jett

EDIT:  The craft file has now been posted to KerbalX here:
https://kerbalx.com/Jett_Quasar/StratoLaunch-Mun

Edited March 11, 2018 by Jett_Quasar

[Leopard]

2 hours ago, Zeiss Ikon said:

Default settings on parachutes require some (rather significant) fraction on an atmosphere to fire.  Duna's atmosphere is a lot thinner; they might have fired just before impact -- or maybe just after, if there'd been a little more "down" available.

Ahhhh something to check

 

that of find a three year old who can fly better

[HansonKerman]

3 hours ago, Hotel26 said:

 

I won't trash a world in progress just because there's a new version.  I'll run side-by-side for a while and run small exercises in the new version.  For example.  Mining.  Check that it still works the same way.  That all my craft go through some basic check-out.  Not to mention all the mods I operate have been upgraded.  I'll wait until I've heard about a year's worth of comments from everyone.  I don't know what the mission builder is yada yada, but I'm not particularly interested.  I'll eventually upgrade but I'll also eventually reach a stage with KSP where I freeze it and tune out.

"New" is not always "better".  "Change" is not always "good".

As a matter of fact, I have just completed all the preparations to get from 1.0.5 to 1.3.1 and have just started my first full world in 1.3.1  I'm now totally comfortable with 1.3.1 after all the settling in time.

 

Agreed.

[Delay]

One of the things I did today was launch a tourist contract to land on Minmus.

Pitching downrange about 14 seconds after liftoff:

In LKO the lander was deployed. This launch vehicle is an SSTO with about 500 units of fuel left. Anyway: I sent the vessel to its encounter with Minmus, planned a correction and waited until KSC is in sunlight.

Then I deorbited the lifter to land close to KSC. I slightly underestimated the mass of the vehicle, so I had to manually "help".

Followed by an actual hoverslam with 0.00 seconds worth of fuel left in the tanks after landing!

And about a few weeks later the three Kerbals landed on the surface of Minmus.

Then I also sent my second satellite towards Jool. A minor course correction is planned to get a free capture using Tylo (and to bring inclination closer to 0° than the correction did), followed by a "standard" Hohmann transfer to the desired orbit.

Edited March 11, 2018 by Delay
typo

[XB-70A]

Today was a great day as Bop Express/Known Horizon has arrived at its destination without any problems.

 

Benefiting from Jool's assistance for a simpler encounter, it still took three burns before it could settle on an almost polar orbit.

Next step: a lander, but inhabited this time! Enough of the automated system.

 

Well... enough, but I had to complete all the others schedules flights too...

Starting with Moho Exploration Lander:

Released at an altitude of 11 km after a high parabolic flight , the air-launched vehicle lit on its three engines and accelerated properly.

 

 

Just to be released 2 minutes later at an altitude of 42 km. The speed was higher than expected, the second stage only having to accelerate for 180 m/s to complete the circularization at 200 km.

 

Moho is the worst destination of the stock game for sure. I mean, about 4 km/s of deceleration needed here, and just to circularize... hopefully the system still had a lot of resources available.

 

 

 

About a Kerbal's trimester later the probe has arrived at its destination, the braking maneuver being just a bit stressful as the lander was pretty underpowered with its single little Spark engine.

Anyway, it was placed on a "slightly" more elliptic orbit due to it.

 

Two days later the final landing site was selected: one of the largest impact crater, its nearly flat surface ensuring a good balance to the small lander.

 

 

 

FINALLY! The first landing on Moho I've realized in two years, and the first full stock here. It was some kind of hot for the keyboard, and with only some hundreds of m/s remaining the keys were sadly beaten by my stressed fingers...

 

 

Landing on Moho for the price of 22 893 Funds, not so awful for the campaign.

[Kronus_Aerospace]

The new engine exhaust smoke looks... Interesting...

[Ultimate Steve]

So anyone who has tried precision landing on Tylo knows the deal, it's pretty hard. I sent Tylo Lander three of six to the cave, and it only took about six quickloads. The first few were failures, one I landed 12km east of the cave, running out of fuel a few meters above the surface, and then I overshot the cave... But, on the last attempt, I actually managed to run out of fuel 10 or so meters above the surface, but I landed on the cave, on a 45 degree slope and somehow managed not to blow up anything of vital importance.

Getting the Kerbals off of the cave to explore it will be a challenge, however, and they're currently sliding off...

[eddiew]

This mission... this mission very nearly earned Tellumo the status of 'cursed planet'. Not only is it massive, cold, and unforgiving, but there seem to be a great many krakens lurking in its vicinity.

After about 5 tries, all of which gave the orbiter the jiggles, I finally got one where it stopped jiggling after a few seconds and just... was. Ok, so it's not going to do any manoeuvring now but everything on it is working and it's both acting as a relay and mapping the planet. Under the circumstances, imma take this as a victory.

As for the descent... sweet snacks, that descent. Despite multiple simulated drops with various landers, and a clear signal that this particular configuration was the best, the descent was still a nightmare. Parachutes flinging themselves out at 90 degree angles, wheels breaking when detaching the heatshield - everything that could go wrong but did not go wrong during trials, went wrong. After many attempts and an application of 'no crash damage' the lander finally behaved like it had the previous day and got the Tellumite rover down onto the ground intact.

As for the lack of solar panels on the ground station... that's my fault and I'm living with it. No atmospheric analysis this time, alas.

All that aside, once Tellumite's wheels hit the frosty green soil, everything went fine.

Except for not having put a Bon Voyage pilot module on it. Meaning I had to drive this rover nearly 30km by hand to tour 5 well-spaced waypoints. At 8-10m/s, alternating between full throttle and heavy braking depending on the incline, and not safely able to go above 2x timewarp, this was not a small task! But after nearly an hour, the valiant little buddy finally reached the last checkpoint and transmitted his findings back to mission control. And somehow in all that time, not a single F9 was required. Despite my worries about the high gravity (and having turned crash damage back on), Tellumite never once broke a wheel or flipped over. I mean sure, he's an ugly little bug, but he's remarkably tough

Final conclusion; there may or may not be life on Tellumo. More data required. Recommend second probe be sent.

Edited March 11, 2018 by eddiew

[SwissSpace93]

Today i did the first preperations for a self sustaining Minmus Base (uses TAClifesupport)

Album a/GDrF5 will appear when post is submitted

I send two ScanSat's to find water and Ore on Minmus, to find a place where i can build the Baseand get these ressources to grow Food, Water and Air

 

[TeslaPenguin1]

Downloaded Tweakscale for 1.4. Didn't do much else, as MJ is still 1.3.1  

 

Edit: Oh, forgot to mention, I saw my first Kerbolar eclipse today. I was trying out one of my rovers and the batteries weren't charging, so I right clicked and looked at the status. "Blocked by Mun" it said. I looked up and saw my first Kerbolar eclipse

Edited March 11, 2018 by TeslaPenguin1

[djr5899]

I spent about an hour trying to dial in my graphics to performance ratio, after the 1.4 update seemed to make the performance unplayable for me.  In the end, I think I actually found a much better happy medium than I was using, giving me better graphics look and feel without a performance hit.

On a sad note, spent two hours dialing in the settings with a simple manned Mun landing and re-dock with vessel to return to Kerbin.  Sadly, I put no RCS on my lander, and worse, the Dawn electric engines I had looked nice and pretty, but didn't work very well since I put no Xenon on the lander.  With little fuel left for my lander's poodle engine, Jebediah Kerman made an EVA jump for it, and was successful......but left Bob Kerman floating away in the lander.  The Poodle fuel ran out, and Bob's jump was about 1.5km away by this time.  With a good hour of switching between Bob and the return vessel (and Bob smacking into the vessel  at  17 m/s), Bob was successfully aboard the return vessel.  Set the return burn to Kerbin and away they........CRASH.  Not paying attention as I set the return trajectory to about 30km in Kerbin atmosphere, failed to realize that smacked me right into the surface of the Mun in doing so.  Good times that 3 hours I just spent.  Very short lived high for successfully rescuing Jeb and Bob with no lander fuel.