What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Zosma Procyon]

I launched my Laythe sea plane base into a holding orbit over Kerbin. The window opens in 18 days. I don't even have a contract for it.

I had to add fins, Big-S Delta wings with control surfaces in this case, just to get it to launch straight up because of all the lift those wings generate. And like all of my flagship missions, this is an obscenely expensive rocket. The plane costs about 1.1 million kredits, most of that cost from several dozen NUK's to provide the on board labs drills and converter a constant supply of power, with another 3 million kredits going to the launch and transit vehicle, mostly the 12 clusters of 9 Mastodon engines in the first and second stage. And the transit stage should have enough Delta-V for the early departure I programmed after first posting this (this edit is the from the afternoon after), 12 days out instead of 18, and to decelerate at Laythe with at least 1000 m/s left over to slow it into a relative crawl before atmospheric entry (it isn't a reentry because this plane never left Laythe's atmosphere). Ironically this is actually the lightest base structure I've ever launched, and especially the lightest mobile base ever because it doesn't need heavy outrider fuel tanks and boosters to land it. It is also my fastest ever mobile base, obvious being an airplane, with a maximum tested velocity in Laythe's rarefied atmosphere of about 230 m/s, but I'll cruise at around 200 m/s. At that speed it has a range over about 1000 km.

The trick with this sea plane was getting the nose up far enough on the water for the air to pick it up. The answer to this was annoyingly obvious. Rather than adding a longer chin float, I realized that all I had to do was use the RCS jets it already needed to maneuver in space before entry. The stupid this is I discovered this entirely by accident. I was trying to turn off SAS to stop the computer from interfering with the test run, but my ASD addled finger pushed the wrong key. On went the RCS, and up went the nose and and the plane jetted off the Laythe ocean. It surprised me so much that I forgot to take my finger off the "S" key until it was going straight up. Almost killed the Jeb and Bill in my testing sandbox, again. Annoyingly even after the departure which I will do tonight, the travel time will still be over 2 in game years. That will probably translate to over a month and a half real time. But it isn't so bad, I have a rescue mission coming in from Eeloo that I launched using MechJeb's Advanced Interplanetary transfer's ASAP departure function, and it won't arrive back at Kerbin for over 7 in game years. I think i'll eventually cheat to get them home. The rocket has more than enough Delta-V to get home, but I'm just annoyed at the travel time.

Edited October 3, 2018 by Zosma Procyon
More details added because I'm ADD-ing in class on the basics of Excel, which I already know.

[Kebab Kerman]

13 hours ago, Audiobotguy03 said:

So I flew this spyplane I built (that I based of of the U-2 Dragonlady), to the edge of space.

Dat cockpit tho.

What mod is it from again?

Edited October 3, 2018 by Kebab Kerman

[capi3101]

RL kept me from getting a lot done yesterday; the approaching Halloween season means the missus will occasionally abscond with my laptop to help her with costume ideas...

I was able to get my Bill Clinton 7 grabber probe up to its target - a 2.5m to Mk 3 Adapter - in LKO and land it safely. The refinery Piper Alpha landed on Mun a full seven klicks off its target site thanks to a last minute game hiccup; I had to set down, drill up some more fuel and try again. In the process I discovered I had one of my action groups set up incorrectly - it was supposed to toggle drill deployment and radiator panels, and while it did toggle the panels, it set the drills to turn on. So I had to deploy the drills - and then get them back into stowed position for takeoff - by hand. All fifteen of them (lost one of them during the launch). Ultimately I did get Piper Alpha into its intended final position 0.15 km from Jeb's marker flag, and this morning the refinery commenced normal operations. Refueling ops for space station Munport are scheduled to begin later today.

Occurs to me that Deepwater Horizon, the refinery craft heading to Minmus, probably also has that flaw with the drill setup, something to fix if I want to keep using the design in 1.5. Dagnabbit...

Meanwhile, Next Objective returned from her mission to Minmus, docking safely at space station Kerbinport. An Auk IX flight was sent up to retrieve tourists Lembas, Sanrim and Lanfrod Kerman; the flight took nearly every last kerbuck I had (got to the station with √1885). I was able to land the plane safely earlier this morning, clearing two contracts in the process and bringing my program back to solvency with ~√400k.

I suppose I should report on the unfortunate fate of the rover Lunkhead. I had left it out on the edge of the Midlands/Lowlands about thirty klicks from the Piper Alpha site earlier in an attempt to find a better drilling zone (which I didn't) and decided to go ahead and drive it back so I could use it for utility excursions in the area. Got about five klicks before I managed to flip the damn thing up end over end...

I effin' hate Mun. Passionately...

Blew the surface scanner when the rover flipped; it was on the back end of the mast at the time. Still trying to figure out how I managed to do that. Anyway, at some point I'm either going to have to send a new rover out there or figure out a way to upright Lunkhead (you know, a 4.5 tonne Hellhound 7 rover designed specifically not to flip over on Mun). Either way, I just haven't got the money to do it right now...

 

[Sharpy]

3 hours ago, capi3101 said:

Lunkhead (you know, a 4.5 tonne Hellhound 7 rover designed specifically not to flip over on Mun). Either way, I just haven't got the money to do it right now...
 

Do not try to make a rover unflippable on the Mun. It's impossible. Instead, realize, whatever flips, should be made to flip back... and not break when flipped.

[Geonovast]

4 minutes ago, Sharpy said:

Do not try to make a rover unflippable on the Mun. It's impossible. Instead, realize, whatever flips, should be made to flip back... and not break when flipped.

And that it is not the rover that flips... but only yourself.

[NSEP]

Uhhh

 

[Tyko]

8 minutes ago, NSEP said:

Uhhh

 

was that supposed to happen?

[SwissSpace93]

Gilly-1 Returned from the first Landings on Gilly.

 

Undock from the Transferstage

 

The first steps on Gilly

 

The crew landed near the anomaly on Gilly, and the Scientisc is going to check it and take some probes of it. The KSC now needs to find out Who SQUAD is (and from which Galaxy they are)

 

Sunflare and Eve

 

Aerobrake at Kerbin

 

Album a/GP1qtVI will appear when post is submitted

Edited October 3, 2018 by SwissSpace93
Add Album Link

[Cavscout74]

Yesterday, I actually performed a proper debris removal - launched a Titan MPV with engineer on board, attached a drone core, reaction wheel, battery & finally a payload assist motor, pointed the PAM retrograde, let it burn.   Much more interesting, but much more time consuming than just slapping a TAC self-destruct on it.  There was a little bit of fuel remaining in the spent stage, but once it got out of range of the manned vehicle, it lost all control.  If I do it again, I'll have to add an actual antenna, too.  Anyway, the PAM had enough oomph to drop the Pe down to about 15km, so mission accomplished.  I didn't get much else done yesterday due to RL issues.  You know you're having a bad day when your wife sets the oven on fire and that ISN"T the worst part of your day.

Then today my Duna Courier departed for home

And my career first Laythe lander made it to the surface safely and - amazingly - dryly as well.  Probably because I attched a few small empty MP tanks to act as floats in case of a water landing.  If I hadn't stuck them on, it would almost certainly have splashed down instead of a dry landing.

[RealKerbal3x]

1 hour ago, SwissSpace93 said:

-big image snip-

‘Landing’ on Gilly? ‘Walking’ on Gilly?

What kind of witchcraft is this?!

More accurately, you docked with Gilly.

Edited October 3, 2018 by RealKerbal3x

[RoboRay]

More of a really close rendezvous, really.

[Castille7]

 

Docked the K&S Diving Vessel on a Dock, thought it would look cool 

 

[Audiobotguy03]

11 hours ago, Kebab Kerman said:

Dat cockpit tho.

What mod is it from again?

RetroFuture parts pack.

[RoboRay]

Today we start out with Earth Orbital Rendezvous, because the launches had to take place at night to match the lunar orbital plane. 

The spacecraft has some upgrades, such as an androgynous docking port on the nose, and a lunar-rated heatshield enclosed within the aft housing.  An umbilical routes propellant and electrical connections around the heatshield.

 

The Gemini spacecraft will dock with an extended Transtage featuring two AJ10-138 engines, providing 4 km/sec of Δv for the combined vehicle...  enough to go to the Moon! 

Trans-Lunar Injection places the spacecraft on a free-return trajectory, passing within 4000 km of the Moon.

I experienced some serious attitude control issues during TLI.  Neither SAS nor SmartASS could hold the spacecraft on course, resulting in a wandering, wobbling burn that nutated around the velocity vector as the guidance system alternated between under-controlling and over-controlling.

I'm wondering if these small docking ports aren't strong enough to handle the load and began flexing under thrust, but it was only a fifth of a gee of acceleration.

Regardless, we're on our way to the Moon!

A small course correction is made at pericynthion to set perigee within the Earth's atmosphere.  Then, the Transtage is dropped.

A final tiny course change is made, then the aft housing (including the spacecraft's thrusters) is jettisoned to expose the new heatshield, which is hoped to be sufficient to protect the spacecraft during an 11 km/sec reentry..

The spacecraft rolls to the side and back upright again to control the lift resulting from the spacecraft's offset center of mass.

Ascending briefly back to 80 km altitude, the equipment module is jettisoned.

The capsule's own heatshield can handle the job from here.

With the spacecraft settling gently to the ground, imagine the excitement everyone would be feeling if only there was a crew inside.

But no... this was only a test.

 

You didn't really think I'd send people around the Moon without knowing if the spacecraft could actually survive reentry at those speeds, did you?

Edited October 4, 2018 by RoboRay

[Triop]

[Servo]

Another round of tests were done on the full scale STS today, including a regimen of bay door tests, and another attempt at reentry.

I also did some work on my Boeing-Saab T-X trainer. The landing gear nose makes it so front-heavy that it flies like a pig, but I like the look a lot. 

[Sharpy]

8 hours ago, RealKerbal3x said:

‘Landing’ on Gilly? ‘Walking’ on Gilly?

What kind of witchcraft is this?!

More accurately, you docked with Gilly.

C'mon, I circumnavigated Gilly by a rover... twice! It required an efficient ion engine pointed upwards to keep the rovers pushed to the surface,  and the first time over the rover was a bit heavy and got damaged from some jumps...

Spoiler

 

 

[Jacke]

2 hours ago, Triop said:

Spoiler

Do tell.  Inquiring minds want to know.  Until then, I'm going to assume it's a Kerbal submarine.

Spoiler

 

 

[Klapaucius]

Helped with some hydrofoil advice and created a new challenge:

 

 

[capi3101]

Pretty anemic log this morning, and once again, no screenies...

Yesterday was mostly spent performing refueling operations. With the refinery Piper Alpha now in place on Mun, I dispatched the Old Bessie 7 tanker lander docked at space station Munport to the refinery. Engineer Philmal hooked the lander up via KAS winch cable, fuel was transferred and the refinery's stores were recharged. Once detached, the lander affected a rendezvous with the space station and completely refilled the station's reserve fuel tank as well as the fuel tank of the Spamcan 7a lander currently docked at the station. Old Bessie still has fuel in its delivery tank, so refueling ops at Mun were secured. I also designed and launched the Heartbreak Hotel 7a outpost module - basically a cupola, lab and hitchhiker lander - to Piper Alpha for contract; the landing there was successful and the contract in question was fulfilled as soon as Philmal hooked it up to the refinery, again using winch cables.

Space station Kerbinport also needed a refueling op and to that end I flew an Auk VIII heavy tanker spaceplane - one of those "full big orange tank to orbit" planes although the tank isn't orange anymore - to the station. The VIII is a pretty ugly bird that flies like a brick, but it does do the job; the station and the craft currently docked there were refueled successfully, and the plane then landed safely at KSC 27 (after overshooting KSC 09 by a hundred klicks). 

Earlier this morning I completed a pair of engine hauling contracts - one for an Ant, one for a Rhino (take a guess as to which one provided the bulk of the thrust) - high in Kerbin's atmosphere. With a pair of LKO rescue contracts underway, I next flew an Auk IX 4-passenger spaceplane to LKO with tourists Lisble and Ellwise Kerman aboard; the tourists were there for an up-and-down flight but I figured I could go ahead and combine the rescue mission with their flight as well for a little extra unnecessary excitement. The plane is scheduled for rendezvous with the first target - Huddo's Hulk - in a little over thirty minutes from now.

[Jaime]

I landed and returned my first manned mission to Duna!

2 launch craft(lander and ion propulsion segment) mission was completed in 5 kerbal years with3 months on surface.

[Angelo Kerman]

I continued working on the mothership's gravitic engine and conducted a test flight:

It looks like I have a lot more work to do on the particle effects, engine lights, and performance tuning of the generators and such...

[RealKerbal3x]

I played around with @Angel-125's Kerbal Actuators mod. It's great to finally have an RMS to add the finishing touch to my Cormorant shuttle.

However, we had a couple of issues: apparently switching to the grappled craft starts uncontrollable phantom rotation, and sometimes that results in exploding a few parts.

It's a pretty cool mod though

 

[Raptor42]

Finally I have time to play KSP a bit. I wanted to finish my air-launched spaceplane by building proper air-launch plane that could launch it and that would look good. 

It can launch my spaceplane onto trajectory with Ap with around 40km at max speed of around 1000m/s. Since I use FMRS I can recover the launch plane easily, so it is not completly useless. I think I'll put it to use in my career game as well.

 

Edited October 4, 2018 by Raptor42

[Tyko]

First crewed mission of new capsule - it's designed in the style of Soyuz with a cramped return vehicle and an added orbital module with extra crew space. 20% science continues to be a challenge, but I keep barely scraping by with enough science to continue. The biggest change is that sometimes I have to wait a few months for another mission to complete so I can gather enough science for my next goal. (GPP 2.5x 20% Science)

Mission: launch first crew on new 2 crew capsule and dock with unmanned 2 crew test vehicle sent up previously. Live in space for 12 days and safely return.