What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Cavscout74]

I only got a little bit done in my career today - a trip to the dentist took priority.  Ugh.  But I did get the Moho-Pioneer sent off.  And it went at the absolute perfect time, requiring only a 24 m/s course correction maneuver after leaving Kerbin's SoI.  I think that might be the cheapest Moho correction burn I've ever done.

Then Vall took up the second Falcon II spaceplane from the desert airfield for a quick atmospheric trip to KSC.  I still had the Whiplash test contract to do, so I kept it low to complete that then just finished the trip to KSC.  That burned nearly as much fuel as the previous orbital trip.  That Whiplash is incredibly thirsty at 5000m.

Night takeoff into a Munrise

Approaching KSC just as the sky is brightening on the horizon

Parking with the first Falcon II.  Now that the test contract is completed, I can't build any more, but I really shouldn't need more than 2 of these anyway.  I don't even know when I'll use them again, but they are fueled and ready to go.  I'm not crazy about leaving the solar panels deployed, but I don't want to show up to a dead battery when it is time to fly one again.

Finally, a load of 5 tourists and a new pilot departed on a tour of Minmus & Mun.

No pictures, but my second Minmus station crew arrived to relieve the vets.  Since the new crew came in a 5-seat craft and there just happened to be two orbital rescue contracts around Minmus, Jeb commandeered the new ship & picked up the two stranded kerbals before returning home.  I don't think I actually made any money on Minmus station (the contract was only like a 20k advance & ~50k for completion), but the two rescues put the whole project in the black.

[OutOfAblator]

 

Docked the second section of my new space station, the K.S.S. Longevity. I'm playing with USI Life support, so stations actually have more of a purpose

https://imgur.com/4kH1ULfhttps://imgur.com/4kH1ULfhttps://imgur.com/4kH1ULf

[Triop]

Today, we got some sponsers.

Edit: Today's visitor:

Edited October 4, 2019 by Triop

[DeltaDizzy]

I've been reading an alternate history timeline lately called Right Side Up: A History of the Space Transportation System. Essentially an alternate take on the space shuttle/saturn-shuttle concept.

I am attempting to recreate this version of the STS, starting with the most difficult part, the RS-IC (first stage). So far it hasnt turned out that good, though I have sought help and the results for tomorrow look hopeful.

The fruit of Day 1's labors.

[purpleivan]

5 hours ago, DeltaDizzy said:

I've been reading an alternate history timeline lately called Right Side Up: A History of the Space Transportation System. Essentially an alternate take on the space shuttle/saturn-shuttle concept.

 

Interesting image, it looks like the "slap some wings on a Saturn V to make it reusable" concept that was concidered but dropped, a while before the decision to go with what became the Space Shuttle.

[Zeiss Ikon]

(1.6.1 RO/RP-1)

Over the last couple days/most of a year, I built a airplane to try to keep my astronauts, since the rebalancing of RP-1 means makes it very unlikely I'll have orbital flights available for the Big Four before their retirement dates.  No screen shots, sorry, but I apparently still don't know how to build airplanes in KSP; though I'm pretty certain I could fly what I built as an R/C model, it crashed before getting up to flying speed, totalling the airframe and killing Jeb -- and when I tried to revert, the game crashed to desktop and ate both the debris and Jeb.  I respawned him manually, but had to restart construction of the RJ-1.

On the other hand, rockets are relatively easy.  Stack the parts, make some simple stability checks, and point the correct end up before igniting.

This is SR-2.  SR-1 was the WAC Corporal-alike, a pressure-fed hypergolic sustainer boosted by a short-burn, high-thrust solid motor to get up to fin stability speed quickly.  SR-2 is based on captured missile technology, a pump-fed, regen-cooled engine burning Ethanol 75% and LOX (the A-4 -- this version of RP-1 doesn't seem to include the RD-100 in the starting parts; performance is all but identical, but the RD-100 has a nice upgrade path).  This one easily beat the contract for 125 units of sounding payload to 70 km; in fact, with a biological capsule, thermometer and barometer, and a couple parachutes inside the fairing on top of the sounding payload bay, it made 189 km and successfully recovered the payload.  Between transmitted data (temperature and pressure logs, and telemetry) and the recovered bio capsule, this one flight was good for 25 (new RP-1) science.  I've now got approximately fourteen years of research ongoing to complete the tech nodes I've unlocked.  Upgrades, upgrades, upgrades...

[Pipcard]

Y51, D213 - The Negi Maru enters orbit around Tekto, the farthest moon from Sarnus (Outer Planets Mod).

Y51, D214 - Julphia, Negy, Agaselle, and Lisliana step out onto the surface after the clouds and fog have cleared.

[JadeOfMaar]

I borrowed a Mk2 Expansion engine to convert into OPT engines and went for a test flight. Returning from that flight I decided to try landing on the VAB. This was done because lack of fitting VTOL engines has become a new barrier to play-ability for me.

[capi3101]

(1.6.1) Taking note of the fact that likes in the forum are once again functional. This is good. Makes me wish I had screenies today...

Almost had as productive of a day as I'd hoped for yesterday; had I not had an event to attend last night, I might've managed to get everything done. As it is, the day was still relatively productive, starting in the VAB adding a Kerbin-capable launch booster to the base Dystopia Planitia 7 design in preparation for the construction of a shipyard over Laythe. I remembered during the process why such a design wasn't already extant - it was because Dystopia Planitia was launched from Mun (specifically from the Piper Alpha outpost), used its mass driver to refuel its Mun-launch booster stage and then flew to Kerbin from there using the Mun-booster as a transfer stage. I had designed a Kerbin-launch booster at the time in case I ever wanted one but saved that portion as a subassembly (probably for financial reasons at the time), and since that time all the shipyards I've built that would've required a delta-V higher than that for Mun (i.e. the ones around Duna and Eve) were also launched initially from their moons. Laythe is going to be first time I'm not going to get away with that...

Design work done, my next stop was the South Base outpost near KSC, where engineers Janbles and Mathat Kerman installed the two extra drill units I had intended to install on Wednesday, bringing the reconstruction of South Base to a conclusion. South Base transferred up fuel supplies to LSV House Harkonnen in high Kerbin orbit. Meanwhile, the ferry ships Next Objective and Roy Hinkley, which Harkonnen had brought home from delivering colonists to Bop, continued to make their way to space station Kerbinport, with both ships setting up individual rendezvous with the station; average flight time was about 53 minutes. While that was ongoing, colonists Burdard and Sanski Kerman boarded a Spamcan 7 2-passenger monoprop lander at space station Minmusport, with the lander taking on fuel stores from the space station. At the same time, the station refueled J. G. Backus, which had delivered the two colonists to the station. With her job complete, Backus departed Minmusport and burned to return to Kerbin; flight time to periapsis is sixty hours. The Spamcan departed Minmusport shortly thereafter, and while waiting for her burn to land at the Deepwater Horizon outpost on the surface, both Next Objective and Roy Hinkley arrived and docked at Kerbinport. The Spamcan landed safely at DH, where I busied myself with the retraining and reassignment of the outpost's extant colonists. Ultimately it was pilot Trafred Kerman who hooked the lander up to the outpost and enabled the two new colonists to board. The outpost refueled the lander, which was then detached, with Trafred resuming his post in the station's fabrication lab. The Spamcan then launched to orbit and rendezvous with Minmusport; total flight time was just over two hours. While still the Spamcan was still in flight and with a clear window to do so finally available, LSV House Corrino broke orbit over Vall and warped into a 6,205.9 x 5,651.7 kilometer, 6.45° inclined orbit over Jool as a first step towards a final warp back to Kerbin. The Spamcan arrived and docked at Minmusport first thing this morning.

After J. G. Backus performed a course correction burn that aligned her with Kerbinport and set her periapsis at 47.5 kilometers (standard for me for Minmus return), I had nothing on my KSC schedule until the launch of Vallport, which is scheduled for seven days hence. I was ready to send House Corrino home, but first I made an executive decision regarding the continuing use of the ferry ships Necessary Evil and G. Grant docked to Corrino. Both were being utilized to haul crewmembers out to new outposts as they were scheduled, but with the delivery of the crew to Vall I no longer needed both ships to do that job. Originally I was going to send G. Grant home, but it occurred to me that Kerbinport's extant ports for Minnows were filling up fast, and that if I were to send Necessary Evil back and print up another Minnow 7b craft instead of sending G. Grant, I could use the second Minnow to balance out Corrino's overall weight distribution, which would in turn enable me to go full burn with the ship's conventional drive if I needed to. Those overriding factors in mind, I had the crew aboard Corrino begin printing up a new Minnow; M. A. Summers was finished 47 minutes later, just in time for Corrino to reach the optimal point for the warp back to Kerbin. Corrino broke orbit and arrived at 5,413 m/s; six warp-backs later, the ship settled into a 667.5 x 558.7 kilometer, 1.35° inclined orbit. M. A. Summers took on fuel from Corrino's stores and launched at that point, docking to the warp ship on the port opposite of G. Grant. The crewmen aboard Necessary Evil were all transferred off to G. Grant and M. A. Summers, at which point Necessary Evil undocked from Corrino. The G-LOC 7a return-to-Kerbin craft that had launched from the Vermilion Block 380 outpost on Vall and that Corrino had hauled to Kerbin - what I'd wanted to do all day yesterday but didn't get around to until this morning - also undocked and made its burn to lower its periapsis to 100 kilometers first, with Necessary Evil then burning for an intercept with Kerbinport. NE's flight time to intercept will be 28 minutes; she has already also burned to align the plane of her orbit with Kerbinport's.

First things on my agenda for the afternoon are going to be to deorbit the G-LOC and to get Necessary Evil to Kerbinport. The deorbiting of the G-LOC will bring my current exploration contract to a close, and it is my hope that the replacement contract will require me to have a kerbal walk on the surface of Pol; I have a crew already on Pol's surface ready to begin base construction as soon as they get the go-ahead. I've got a contract to "Plant Flag on Pol" and to drill there, so there's those too. I also intend to send up a small group of tourists to Kerbinport via spaceplane; they're headed out to Jool's sphere of influence, and which warp ship I use to transport them out there is going to depend heavily on what happens with the exploration contract. I'll probably use LSV House Atreides for the job - at least that's the plan right now. I've also had a quadcopter flight at Kerbin on my scopes for a little while now, though that may wait for the weekend. Only other thing of note is an ore con at Mun, which I can knock out any time I want. I should also probably get construction of the Laythe shipyard going too. Still nothing on the alarm clock until Vallport is launched and the only other thing after that is J. G. Backus coming home. So right now I've got free time to play with.

Certainly hope I don't need to build any more Minnows...at this point, I'm out of Gilligan's Island characters after which to name them. I suppose I could go ahead and name them after the actors if it came to it. Already have done that once...

[Cavscout74]

Didn't get much done in my career today, but I did get a few launches in and finished my tourist mission with the heavy lander.

A Dres window is approaching, so I put a remote rover & Pioneer probe in LKO to wait for the transfer.

The Heavy Lander-6 design was finally used to its full capabilities, taking a pilot & 5 tourists to a Minmus landing, then looped around Kerbin to a Mun landing before returning to splashdown at home.  Here, the transfer stage is jettisoned after the deorbit burn over Minmus

Arriving in Mun orbit with a nice view of home

The landing tanks ran dry soon after liftoff and were jettisoned, leaving the core with "just" 1200 m/s to finish getting to low Mun orbit and return to Kerbin

Dusk splashdown

 

 

[PT]

Continuing from where Research Bodies suddenly got me bankrupt...

I sent offending drone away. 100 days until it leaves SoI of Sonnah, and 116 to first course correction, so I got plenty of time to gather funds for few more pics before it will begin its dive to low solar orbit.

Having in mind my dire monetary status I was forced to return to 1.5 meter parts....

...with Ion twist. High cost of science parts forced me to limit it to mission parameters and only few cheapest experiments.
Its a bit overpowered for its current payload, but my current career has constraint of standardized designs so I had to plan ahead.

As circularizing with ions is not the best idea I had to perform cheap upgrade...

I gathered enough funds to send crewed seed for asteroid base, I just had to borrow crew from failed starbase.

KRAKEN ATTACK! Suddenly my ship just split for no reason, but I had an engineer and a screwdriver...

After an hour of hard labor I managed to gather all pieces together. Smelter and ISRU required multi-kerb force. Now I just need to rebuild to workable shape...

 

[Triop]

Today, we did some tuning.

[capi3101]

Got my craft from the surface of Vall to the surface of Kerbin. My crew sitting on Pol's surface is anxiously awaiting the go-ahead to get out of their lander and walk on its surface. The probe lands, the transmission comes in, and......

 
......goddammit, Gene. 

Guess I'm going to Tylo instead. And to rub salt in the wound, I have to send twelve more jackholes out to DH...there's fifty kerbals out there already as it is......

[SwissSpace93]

Today i Launched the Empty Crew Stage for the Jool-1 Mission, the Crew arrive just before the transfer window to Jool opened.

The Jool-Moon-Transfer-Stage is the next one that get into LKO, after it the two Landers are flying to LKO

 

I checked in my Testworld how the Rocket does in LKO with 100% Fuel

Why this Stupid Rocket has only 3.5km/s (The Return Stage has no fuel inside)

 

 

Edited October 4, 2019 by SwissSpace93
Stupid Rocket has not enough dV :(

[Hotel26]

My 1.6.1 / 1.7.3 Orbit world has been running in real time: ships I launched for Duna early in 2019 have just swarmed in on the martial planet.  It's been very absorbing (I've taken a work off from real work to deal with these aerospace responsibilities.)  So far, no casualties.  [Pictured: an RA-100, deployed by Scout, engaging a steeply elliptical polar orbit]

                                                                                              

The "arrival" has given the folks here at KSC some practical experience with the Scout advance guard vehicle.  It's performed pretty much as specified.  Inevitably though -- and I am pleased to announce -- some inevitable refactoring has suggested itself and has been performed.  Images may tell the rest of the story...

Scout on lift-off:

 

Scout clothed:

 

Scout unrobed:

Launches on a Zephyr boost vehicle (credit: @Atkara); Science Lab has been downscaled to a Mk2 lander can; a Terrapin xenon motor; an M700 survey scanner (unpropelled, but may be left in orbit by Terrapin); an autonomous RA-100 interplanetary comm relay; and a Beep combination of equatorial and polar 3x RA-2 comm relay pods.

Scout will make Duna unaided from the launchpad,  Presumably further afield if refueled in LKO.  Almost anywhere if the spent Zephyr core booster is swapped out in favor of an Escort / Mule combination.

Additional Beep modules may be docked at the bow of the ship as desired for multi-lunar destinations...  E.g. Eve, Duna, Jool.

Edited October 5, 2019 by Hotel26

[Guest]

I gave up on the asteroid mining project, it just doesn't make sense. It would be too much work for too little gain. I still want to do things a little differently in this career however, so I'm now working on a miner/ore transport. Crew is one pilot and one engineer, mission is to fly to a moon, ore up, then fly back to the orbital refinery. I'm designing it as capable of operating from Vall or any smaller body. 

This is the Tantor, on a simulated test mission to the Mun: 

The dry mass is symmetrically distributed around the tanks so thrust torque is negligible. It is powered by six Nervas, which give it enough TWR to take off and land from Vall, making any of the lighter airless bodies a breeze. It has over 4000 m/s empty and well over 1000 m/s after landing and getting fully loaded with ore, which ought to be enough for all of the target bodies. Next up is (simulated) testing in the Dunatian system -- I want to operate between Ike's surface and LDO, so we'll have to see if it has the legs for that.

 

[Hotel26]

2 hours ago, Brikoleur said:

working on a miner/ore transport

I guess the advantage of moving ore is that you don't pay to shuttle the heavy ISRU back and forth between the surface and space, and you can also run fewer ISRUs on a better duty cycle.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Hotel26 said:

I guess the advantage of moving ore is that you don't pay to shuttle the heavy ISRU back and forth between the surface and space, and you can also run fewer ISRUs on a better duty cycle.

I never shuttle the ISRU anyway -- I have a drill/refinery and a dedicated tanker to shuttle the fuel. I'm actually shuttling a little more now because I am carrying a drill plus related paraphernalia. 

The only advantage I can think of is that I have one fewer craft. Instead of a drill/refinery + tanker + orbital fueling station I have a drill/transport + orbital fueling station. But it is less efficient, both because of the extra dry mass and because I can't burn ore, which means I have to carry a bit of extra fuel back and forth for emergencies. 

(Just got the Tantor to the Mun for real, and plugged a refinery module to Mun Station "Bill Kerman.")

Edit: There is an advantage. If I have a mix of craft using different propulsion solutions (some Lf+Ox, some Nervas, some monoprop), I can convert the ore in exactly the ratio I want. This is a lot harder to plan and execute in a remote refinery, and even in the best case I'd be hauling some empty tanks in my tanker. 

Edited October 5, 2019 by Guest

[PT]

I learned how to produce Parts from Metal, which highlighted lack of part production capability in my asteroid base seed...

... so I had to send first shipment of parts to build Part manufacturing capability on site. Currently it is performing 25 minute Ion burn...

Predicting high amount of Ion's flying around I started watching DS9.

Way too much time later...

...big E class asteroid I found in perfect orbit suddenly got infected with Kraken Syndrome.

I think I'll give up on space rocks...

[FahmiRBLX]

I think I've done a lot that I'm losing patience to do more!

So just pictures. Within spoilers. And short texts telling what's going on.

As well as pics from recent but not today's missions.

 

Tupolev Tu-4LL w/ Kuznetsov NK-12 Replica

(Modified from @blackheart612's Stratocarrier)

Spoiler

Mission done last week IIRC.

I've finally figured out how to make better Beauty shots!

 

Had to shutdown #2 for takeoff. It has almost thrice the power of the Cyclones!

All engines running.

Island Airfield approach. Had to limit thrust on the NK-12 (Known within SXT as KO-TP12 Bear) to avoid unwanted yaw.

Taxiing with #2 since it amounts for most the thrust of the plane.

Another flight near KSC, approaching Runway Niner.

My Antonov An-225 Mriya Replica, Now Complete!

Flew today with Buran.

Spoiler

Literally one of the most Kerbal landing I've ever made.

This beast's good at water takeoff.

Fr-W-B-3M Bomber

Spoiler

Originally this plane had a pair of straight wings built using the B-17 wings from Firespitter (And yes, the cockpit is also originally the Flying House cockpit)

I didn't even expect the original iteration would break through the sound barrier and cruise at 1.3+km/s at full throttle, so I've decided to make a swept wing variant, as shown above.

Based on :

Cockpit : Boeing B-47 Stratojet & B-29 Superfortress

Wing & Wing Root : Tupolev Tu-16

 

Original Version :

Based On :

Cockpit : Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress

Wing & Wing Root : Tupolev Tu-16

Empennage : Lockheed L-049 Constellation

 

I forgot to put the midair refuelling probe on the B-3M variant. Will be applying shortly.

Straight-Up Launch on a Microsatellite Launch vehicle & Ended Up In Kerbolar Orbit

Spoiler

Frontinco Explorer-1, Supposedly An Eve Orbit Research & Relay Satellite, But With No Proper Planning, Ends Up In Kerbolar Orbit

Spoiler

This was initially to be launched before Supertug-1B, my first asteroid capture vehicle, derived from my Supertug-1A, a station recovery vehicle. Launched after the aforementioned tug, the Eve Orbit satellite supposedly boost network to the tug, but still didn't work. My fault on not understanding this, perhaps?

Here goes the giant soda can...

Edited October 6, 2019 by FahmiRBLXian

[Hotel26]

3 hours ago, Brikoleur said:

I have one fewer craft

I like the flexibility of an all-in-one vehicle for this.  As well as refining fuel, my Goblin also serves pretty well as surface base and roving explorer.  The drawback is the yield going to space is lower than I'd prefer.  (It uses a Skipper and, of course, it has to drag all  the refinery equipment with it.)  So this has got me thinking about splitting it into two stages.  Conventionally, it would operate together, but in a high-demand situation (primary moon base), the refinery would stay on the surface and the second stage would depart with the fuel only and powered by NERVs.)

Before I commit that to a design, this conversation reminds me that I have a  Snowflake (pictured below) parked on the Mun, awaiting trial.

I'll see if I can dock a Goblin (fuel refinery) on it and a Zippo (large capacity fuel tender) to see if I can refine/transfer/boost fuel...

(Very surely, the Kraken network is already abuzz...)

Edited October 5, 2019 by Hotel26

[Guest]

I don't like mobile refinery/drill craft precisely because the extra dry mass eats so much of the fuel payload. Refinery + tanker is the way to go. Putting the refinery in orbit appears to be more than viable, but having the whole operation on the surface and using a tanker to ferry the fuel works great too. Which one is more efficient/easy depends on your mission I think but both work.

[Hotel26]

33 minutes ago, Brikoleur said:

using a tanker

Your surface-based equipment has to move once from KSC in order to become dedicated (permanently) to its site.   Why think that the same mechanism cannot move it elsewhere, if desired?

One site (at least) on the lunar equator to function only to provide fuel to low orbit.  But other sites, mobile around the surface, at other latitudes, to aid exploration.  One mechanism to power them all.

(Think about two sets of engines possibly involved: one for delivery of the bulk refinery and the efficient NERVs for the shuttle boost to orbit function...  But if the initial installation comes down empty (mostly) of payload, it's possible that NERV can handle it all.)

The initial installation has two rocket stages: it all comes down together without staging.  The first stage mines/refines the fuel.  The second stage boosts the fuel to orbit without taking the first stage with it.  It returns and re-docks.  It can take another load to orbit.  Or, it could relocate the whole installation elsewhere as desired.  So in this conception, the same system of components is serving two purposes.

Let me see if I can demonstrate it.

 

Edited October 5, 2019 by Hotel26

[Triop]

Today, a new car was born.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Hotel26 said:

Your surface-based equipment has to move once from KSC in order to become dedicated (permanently) to its site.   Why think that the same mechanism cannot move it elsewhere, if desired?

It can, of course. It's just a waste of fuel to drag around the ISRU, which means you'll have to do that many more runs for the amount of fuel you want to provide. 

Of course sometimes you might want to relocate the refinery but that's quite different from routine fuel runs. 

Your solution is basically a refinery + tanker, except with the additional characteristic that they can take off and land as a single craft. I can see how that could be useful if you frequently relocate the operation.