What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Flibble]

Strapped some rockets to the back of my plane and tried to break the sound barrier. Mission failed. It only got to about 300 m/s before running out of fuel. I think some redesign to reduce drag is required.

[AviosAdku]

I did a few things, which could be summed up for the most part as "Trial and Error"

While tweaking the design and coming up with some new variants, I flew some more missions with my workhorse Ekymia spacecraft. The first mission (a rescue/tourist mission) went great, the second (a test flight using remote guidance to carry 3 tourists) didn't end so well.

As it turns out, tourists don't know how to operate the staging system. I think you can guess how this ended.

 

In other endeavours, I tried to get my new Skyfire rocket plane flying. The plane was pretty decent, its booster …

Attempt 1: Craft flips out at pitchover leading to emergency separation and the booster promptly making a run for it, I didn't think my flying was THAT scary.

Attempt 2: Much of the same, this time I was worried about coming down with nearly full tanks so I bailed out.

In the end, I redesigned the booster with some huge wings for stabilisers and while I ended up flying a very shallow ascent, I still was able to glide the thing all the way from the Dessert field to the KSC.

Pictured: Passing the mountains on approach to the KSC. The Skyfire may be a bit fidgety at times (and especially at low speeds) but it is truly a great glider.

 

Finally, there was the most "Trial and Error" undertaking.
Earlier on I had been goofing around with "Sounding Rockets" (basically a SRB fired skyward with a minimal payload, although one did carry instruments for a contract). Then at some point today I decided to use this architecture to fire an impactor probe at the Mun. No fancy navigation, just going straight up as fast as I can get away with without exploding critical components, timing the launch so as to assure an impact.
It didn't work out first time round. The initial design was unstable during 2nd stage flight when not launched from Woomerang (no idea why), prompting at least 3 redesigns/tweaks.

Pictured: a Sharika 4, the final design settled on, probably the 6th or 7th flight attempt.

The other issue was the timing. While I was able to make some quick calculations, I goofed with my analysis of each miss, aiming subsequent flights even further ahead. Eventually I realised what was going on and after a quick guess, I was able to get an impact trajectory:

Unfortunately, it was at night. This one is probably the best one I have of the approach. However, that was my first Munar "Landing" in this career.

AviosAdku

[AFF]

What's in the fairing?)

Answer is here ↓ 

Spoiler

Loook at my horse rover, my horse rover amazing !)

Front solar panels was broken after fairing decouple

Okay, let's remove chutes. Decoupling!

.................

 

[Triop]

Today's event:

 

[cantab]

Following the lead of Flibble earlier, I too failed to break the sound barrier in my shuttle under jet power. I didn't even get close, topping out at around 130 m/s then running out of fuel. As I found out deadstick landing it, the thing is draggy. Tempting though it is to just add more power, I might give a tailcone a go first.

Also sent some Kerbals to visit the mini-station.

[NHunter]

Today, I visited Sarnus's inner moons:

Hale:

and Ovok:

[Loskene]

7 hours ago, AFF said:

Okay, let's remove chutes. Decoupling!

Ooft. Rover decoupler force: always 0. Always 0.

[Cavscout74]

I had a wide range of activities in my career today, starting off with Jeb showing off during an eclipse by taking a jet up to 35km

Then I landed a small remote rover on Minmus.  Looking forward to the day I can do something with this rock.....

Finally, had a rescue come down at sunset over the ocean, providing a nice view:

[RizzoTheRat]

I'm using USI-LS and discovered that with 3 crew in a Mk1/2 pod there's not enough Habitation for a return trip from Minmus.  Couple that with a bug in my KOS script that failed to stage as the ship passed 70km, meant that the capsule re-entered with the engine and fuel tank still attached, parachute not armed, and no crew member able to activate the staging as they'd got fed up and turned in to tourists! 

Fortunately below a certain altitude they realised they were back home and start working again so Jeb was able to activate the stage and save the day.

Lesson learned, from now on;

• All vessels get a probe core and antenna even if they're never supposed to operate unmanned (I've also discovered this is a necessity when using Remote Tech and KOS, as Remote Tech doesn't report a connection with Kerbin to KOS if there's no probe core).
• Anything operating beyond the Mun gets additional habitation space.  At my current level of technology this means spare seats as I don't have access to any other modules that increase habitation yet.

However that one Minmus shot, and the scientists beavering away in a lab around the Mun while it was happening, has yielded about 800 science, but at the moment all 4 of my scientists are onboard MunStation1 so I either need to return one or hope I can can get another from a rescue mission to send to Minmus to reset the science experiments on MinLander1 which I left docked to MinStation1.  

I also have a less imaginative naming convention that quite a few of you , but my KOS boot script automatically loads the script with the same name as the vessel so it does help to keep them simple and descriptive.

Edited May 18, 2019 by RizzoTheRat

[Xurkitree]

Today, after fixing up my 1.7 save to work and have no RTG bugs, I went out to Urlum to complete the Argotech 2 mission, which was in hibernation around Urlum for decades while the Jool-5 Mission was being completed. After getting some bugs resolved, I went on to orbit every body in the Urlum system, collect high and low space science, complete ScanSat scans and was even able to land on Tal and Priax.

After finishing the mission in Priax High Orbit, I had 4200 Science which I got from transmissions. Now the only source of Science left is going for a Manned mission to the outer Gas giants and sending a probe to Plock.

[PhoenixRise86]

I improved and launched my best ever MK2 SSTO, with enough power and fuel to fly to and orbit almost any object in the solar system, and land on and return from small bodies (minmus, gilly, bop, pol, probably dres, maybe even eeloo with a gravity assist or two). It can re-enter and land with aerodynamic stability and leftover liquid fuel to fly to a good landing site, and has a for-aesthetics science lab and living space built into a cargo bay behind the cabin.

 

Edited May 18, 2019 by PhoenixRise86

[Jett_Quasar]

Today I posted my video for the Hayabusa 2 challenge

Challenge Link:  https://kerbalspacechallenge.fr/2019/05/01/challenge-ksc3-hayabusa-2-cahier-des-charges-modalites-et-lancement/

 - Jett

Edited May 18, 2019 by Jett_Quasar

[Frank_G]

Today i flew two more missions to get some progress with the construction of my orbital station around Kerbin. Mission 005 delivered the fuel tank and the orbital laboratory.

Mission K-OST-I 005 on its way to the station:

 

An OSV Assembler pushing the fuel tank towards the station:

 

The self docking laboratory on its way to the station:

 

And the two new modules installed:

 

Mission 006 delivered the utility truss, the comms tower and the first set of science experiments:

Edited May 18, 2019 by Frank_G

[RizzoTheRat]

In my quest for more scientists I did another double rescue mission in LKO...and got a pilot and an engineer 

Rendezvous script is working nicely though.

[Geonovast]

I've somehow yet to set up the back mouse button for screenshots in my 1.7.0 install, so despite mashing the button instinctively, I don't have any screenshots.  But last night I most-accidentally managed to land a Falcon 9 clone back on the launch pad.  Sort of.  Everything was lined up, but apparently touching down at roughly 5 m/s was too much, so the pad, and consequently, the rocket, exploded.

I guess it's time to turn on indestructible facilities.

[Cavscout74]

11 minutes ago, Geonovast said:

Everything was lined up, but apparently touching down at roughly 5 m/s was too much, so the pad, and consequently, the rocket, exploded.

Sounds like my first few (dozen) attempts to land a VTOL on the VAB helipad.

[Sky Vagrant]

2 hours ago, RizzoTheRat said:

In my quest for more scientists I did another double rescue mission in LKO...and got a pilot and an engineer 

That’s why they don’t tell you in the contract - the skies would be filled with stranded pilots nobody needs. 

[fulgur]

The rover is on my KerbalX.

 

[Red Stapler]

Boom!

Now where did those pesky Kerbals go...

Oh, hello there!

Glitch Kerman strikes again!

Edited May 18, 2019 by Red Stapler

[Triop]

Today, my country (the Netherlands) won the Eurovision song festival.

 

[ARS]

Made an improved version of my observation aircraft. Now it becomes even more bulbous than before

Some changes includes the modifications to tail assembly, different engine, and tweaking the wings' positions

Four nuclear thermal engine allows it to fly indefinitely, befitting it's role as an observation aircraft to reach faraway places

Due to it's extremely bulbous appearance, it's officialy named "Swollen Tick"

Edited May 19, 2019 by ARS

[Bubbadevlin]

Today in KSP i basically finished my stock, 1:1 Apollo Lunar Module update that has been in progress for around 1.5 years...

Now time to build the rest of a certain planned project...

 

[Hotel26]

This is a scene on Gilligans Island, 135km NE of KSC.  Bullseye in the foreground has just touched down under chutes 101m from the target Bullseye.

 

It's launched sub-orbitally, but in testing, I have been able to land a Bullseye at the twin small inland lakes at 104E which are almost exactly on the opposite side of Kerbin from the KSC.  Bullseye is intended to replace my earlier Boom Vang solution to providing affordable accommodation in remote, rural areas of Kerbin.

 

All this terrestrial stuff is getting a bit run-of-the-mill and you might think that I've come down with a case of trioppititis; so I pushed myself to go back to space and built Long March:

KAC hasn't been telling me the truth about transfer windows, methinks (my excuse, anyway), so my plan is to get a half dozen of these vehicles into a kerbolar orbit trailing Kerbin and then see what the transfer planner in the Map view has to say.  Long March puts an MPL-LG-2 mobile lab (a nice big hab), an RA-100 relay antenna and an autonomous M-700 survey scanner into orbits around any selected destination.

I'll spend the rest of the Sunday afternoon throwing darts at the Bullseyes on Gilligan Island. 

Have a nice day.

Edited May 19, 2019 by Hotel26

[RizzoTheRat]

 

13 hours ago, Sky Vagrant said:

That’s why they don’t tell you in the contract - the skies would be filled with stranded pilots nobody needs. 

As I'm using USI-LS I'm guessing I could consider them Soylant Green....

 

8 hours ago, Triop said:

Today, my country (the Netherlands) won the Eurovision song festival.

Can't say I'm a Eurovision fan but as a national of the country that came last living in the country that came first I think I can justify switching allegiances  

Worryingly my wife is suggesting we should get tickets next year as it would be local. 

Edited May 19, 2019 by RizzoTheRat

[Azimech]

5 hours ago, ARS said:

Made an improved version of my observation aircraft. Now it becomes even more bulbous than before

Some changes includes the modifications to tail assembly, different engine, and tweaking the wings' positions

Four nuclear thermal engine allows it to fly indefinitely, befitting it's role as an observation aircraft to reach faraway places

Due to it's extremely bulbous appearance, it's officialy named "Swollen Tick"

This recording of Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart suddenly became relevant 50 years later.