What did you do in KSP1 today?

[nelso]

Mission plan was a single stage from Kerbin orbit, land on Tylo and back, using ISRU on Pol first, then Tylo.  I used 6 Terrier engines for the low TWR burns, because they're pretty efficient (345 ISP).  For the tylo landing and low altitude "oberth effect" burns I had a single Vector engine (315 ISP).  Since it was already pretty heavy, it was easy to stick all sorts of accessories on it.  Delta V was about 4500 for terrier engines alone, and 4200 when adding the Vector.  Landing on Tylo it's best to have a pretty high TWR so you can approach fast and not pick up too much vertical speed on the way down, and also take off fast.

Pol was chosen for its low gravity and not a huge burn to Tylo (only 210 m/s or so to a Tylo gravity assist) and small inclination.  Bop was beyond my patience and probably not a huge savings on delta V.

Burn from Kerbin to Jool/Tylo

Capture from Tylo and encounter with Pol next orbit.  Not that efficient but couldn't pass it up.

Pol landing and ISRU

Pol to Tylo gravity assist to a future Tylo encounter at slower speed.

Arrived at Tylo in a polar orbit, which was not a big deal since it rotates so slowly.  For the Tylo landing I first used the Terrier engines to get to about 1600m/s, then switched on the vector engine and used mechjeb "land somewhere" - not the most efficient but Tylo was really hard to judge for starting a suicide burn.  Landed near the equator for the future burn to Kerbin.  I tested landing and takeoff a lot before committing to a mission, to make sure I'd have enough delta V to get straight back to Kerbin.. in retrospect it would have been smarter to go back to Pol for refueling - that way I burn to slow down at kerbin and land the whole craft.

Tylo landing.  Some delta V to spare and great TWR of almost 4.

I had 1 large drill (balanced by some empty ore tanks and an experiment storage module), 1 large ore converter, 2 fuel cell arrays, 3 RTGs, 4 solar panels, and 6 antennas.  Ladders on opposite side.

A neat Jool-rise on the Tylo takeoff.

Due to massive oversight, this was NOT a good way to re-enter kerbin at 4000 m/s and it would flip around and explode.  Luckily I had included a decoupler just in case, and took all the 2500 science into the command pod for reentry.  Was hoping to land the whole thing on Kerbin but didn't want to go through the trouble of gravity assisting to a reasonable speed.

Original craft at launch

[Hotel26]

How to describe what is going on here?  I'm not sure I know how...

  

It looks like it's going to be some kind of "trailer park"...  Gives new meaning to "heaviest part" auto-strutting.

I'll park spent boosters here and the Mosquito ('roid miner, pictured right-side) can gradually fuel them up for another launch?  Or just sit outside and watch the fuel flow...

Edited November 25, 2019 by Hotel26

[RizzoTheRat]

9 hours ago, proteasome said:

After a few hours of learning, I made my first KoS script to automate rocket launches and it works! 

I know there's a launch autopilot in Mechjeb, but it's way more satisfying to use an autopilot I created myself.

Welcome to a whole new world of missions taking way longer as you tweak the software and revert to launch again...

Followed by the immense satisfaction when you get it right.

[capi3101]

(1.6.1) Fairly active weekend to report to y'all today. My day began on Friday at the SPH, where I designed a Wisent 7 utility rover variant (the Wisent 7c) to tow the Auk XI 10-passenger spaceplane that I landed at the C. P. Baker outpost on Laythe on Tuesday back into takeoff position and offload its passengers. The design also included a pair of RAPIER engines to replace a set that had been lost during the landing. Design work done, I headed out to Baker to order up construction.

Now the damn Runway shows up! Where the hell was the stupid thing when I was trying to land?!?!?!

Construction of the Wisent took 3 hours and 44 minutes to complete, which was an awful long time for the plane's passengers to be sitting on the tarmac. Hopefully they won't try to get a refund...

While that was ongoing, I headed out the Samwell Tarly Yards over Gilly, where I'd gotten news that the new space station print scheduled for a contract was finished. After passing along supplies of monopropellant from the shipyard, the new space station launched.

Something finally went according to the gorram plan. It's about time...

Once the contract had been awarded, the unnamed space station's RCS thrusters were activated to send it back into the drydock, wherein it was promptly recycled - as I've said before, I had no need for a third orbital station over Gilly, but the exercise did show me that production of my standard weigh station design could take place at orbital shipyards. That could save me the headache of a ground launch at my remaining three worlds as I get ready to head to them, so it's worth noting.

At that point I got the signal from the Alexander L. Kielland outpost on Eve - the redesigned Woodsy Owl 7 Eve Ascent Vehicle was ready for a second attempt to haul Module L-H80 to orbit. The same crew that had been doing the mission up to this point - namely pilot Lerod Kerman and engineer Taning Kerman - went on EVA to mount L-H80 to the new launch vehicle. The payload area on the redesigned booster wound up being a little higher up than on the original design and as a result the effort to mount the payload got a little ridiculous.

This worked for that team out on Minmus...why isn't it working here? Hold still, Lerod!!!

During the operation Taning went to go get the ladder off of the Echo 3 quadcopter like she had done during the first attempt, but the ladder decided it was done taking abuse and exploded. The two eventually did get the payload into position, at which point Taning re-boarded the outpost and Lerod took shelter aboard Echo 3 (which had a second ladder, fortunately). Fueled up, the Woodsy Owl 7 launched. Then promptly RUD'd.

Another launch, another crappy booster design...

After the fourth launch attempt, I was at rage-quit point - I went to Mission Control and told Gus to stuff the contract where the sun don't shine, then had ALK recycle the craft, payload and all. Lerod re-joined the crew aboard ALK in disappointment. Maybe next time I try to haul garbage off the surface of Eve (assuming there is a next time), I'll design a better booster. The abort left me with a Bill Clinton 7c grabber probe - the recovery vehicle - in orbit of Eve that I didn't have an immediate use for. Fortunately the thing was still within physics range off the Caue Serpente Yards in orbit where it had been built, so I simply had it grab ahold of the shipyard for possible future use. Those things tend to wind up being useful at some point.

Baker finished printing up the Wisent at that point, so I had pilot Jedbrett Kerman and engineer Monty Kerman board it and head out to where the Auk had come to a stop. Once they arrived, the first order of business was offloading the passengers; Monty hooked up a Mineshaft crew tube to the plane's docking port at the passengers offloaded to the Wisent. That job done, the plane was temporarily detached so that Jedbrett and Monty could get into position to mount the replacement engines to the plane, a job that went fairly well all considered.

Monty and Jedbrett looking at a pair of freshly mounted RAPIER engines.

That job done, the Jedbrett put the rover right in front of the plane and the Mineshafts were re-attached, this time to tow the plane onto the Runway and over to the base for refueling. A snag occurred there when it came time to get the plane onto the Runway resulting in the loss of the front four wheels of the Wisent; fortunately the craft was reasonably well balanced so it was still drivable and could continue its job. Still, it became necessary to unhook the rover from the plane, drive the rover onto the Runway and then use the plane's own engines to get it onto the Runway. The two craft were re-linked and proceeded down the Runway.

-
Nope. Not getting close enough to fuel, dammit...

Given all the issues I'd had getting the plane onto the Runway in the first place and the fact that I'd have to get the plane off the Runway to refuel it, and given the fact that the plane actually still had most of its fuel stores (it used a little for deorbiting and then some for powered flight prior to landing and that was all), I elected to go ahead and tow it backwards to the start of the Runway instead of fuel it up all the way. The plane was placed into takeoff position, at which point the Wisent detached from the plane and Monty retrieved the Mineshaft from the plane's docking port (which happened first thing on Saturday). The Wisent drove back to the base where Monty made the necessary fixes to hook the rover to the base for passenger offloading, with Jedbrett taking the opportunity to board the outpost at the same time. Monty detached the Wisent from the outpost, and then given the damage it had sustained, proceeded to recycle it before resuming his post aboard Baker. During towing, the outpost's mass driver spontaneously combusted; the crew printed up replacement parts for them and Monty proceeded to install them. All that work finally complete, the Auk was given clearance and the plane took off for  a rendezvous with space station Laytheport. Fuel turned out to be a little tight but otherwise the rendezvous took place without incident after a 55 minute flight.

For a while there I was pretty sure this plane wouldn't be returning to this particular station. Glad to be wrong in this case.

The plane docked successfully, at which point Gilligan and J. G. Backus - both of which were still docked at Laytheport - departed and conducted separate burns to rendezvous with LSV House Harkonnen in high Laythe orbit. Gilligan was able to get a direct rendezvous at its intercept point with a total flight time of sixteen minutes. Owing to the delay in departure, Backus wasn't quite as lucky but still got an intercept scheduled for eighteen minutes later.

So while this was all ongoing, I got the word from the Piper Alpha outpost on Mun that its print of a TBD 7e Mun base-seeding rover and lander was finished. When I began my day yesterday I saw that the print had finished two hours prior and went ahead and headed out to PA without bothering to look further down the events list (i.e. without remembering just how soon it was to Gilligan and Backus's scheduled intercept events. The new lander was fueled and given the previously planned amount of Equipment for its mission, at which point scientists Stadous and Roddon Kerman along with engineers Linbo and Giller Kerman boarded and the craft proceeded to launch northward toward a target point along Mun's equator. While burning retrograde in preparation for landing, I got a KAC alarm for an alignment burn for Backus, at which point I realized the need to plant the rover on the ground as soon as I could. Fortunately, it turned out I still had time - the TBD set down at 0°5'37" S by 142°23'48" E in the Munar Lowlands not terribly far from the Twin Craters. The biome is different (PA is in the Midlands), so I'll need to get out there next opportunity to see if the spot is viable or not. If not, I'll have a little bit of driving to do...

Didn't blow Backus's alignment burn by too much; got to within 0.88° and was able to burn to set a rendezvous with Harkonnen after tending to Gilligan's rendezvous and docking. Seventeen minutes later, Backus arrived at Harkonnen.

The practical end of a long and event-filled weekend. 

With Backus in dock, my next order of business was to head out the Usumacinta outpost on Tylo - the Tylo shipyard was finally completed and ready to launch. Unfortunately, Extraplanetary Launchpads didn't bother to fuel its booster when I hit the "Release" button (as it's been doing out there the entire time) and after the very long revert process MemGraph was showing the game using 5.7 GB of memory (my KSP box only has 8 total), so I decided the time had come to call it a day. The shipyard launch is first up on my agenda for today.

So aside from the shipyard launch, today I'll probably be doing a refuel run between Baker and Laytheport; Baker's mass driver may or may not have enough accumulated guidance data yet for a shot but I need to try anyway. Both House Harkonnen and LSV House Atreides are ready to come back to Kerbin at this point (Atreides had been staying in Eve orbit to pick up the Clinton hauling the Woodsy Owl payload, which isn't going to happen now), so I'll likely also be sending them that way today. Atreides was scheduled to do the initial flyby of Dres for the exploration contract; I have no real reason to deviate from that plan. The only other long-term thing I have going on at the moment is the return of a junk-hauling mission from Minmus; that's still got about two more days left on it. I do have a new tourist mission but it's only for three kerbals, so I want to wait a bit before getting it started. It's also interplanetary and LSV House Corrino is probably going to be heading to Dres in the very near future, so I'll have to get one of the other warp ships home first anyway. I do have a new Mun base to attend to and I may get to that today, but I'm thinking my day is probably going to be filled with warp maneuvers. I'll keep y'all posted.

[Laie]

I've parked an asteroid.

[micha]

Just a "simple" mission to rescue a couple of stranded kerbals in low-Kerbin orbit.  While at it I figured I may as well take some KEES experiments up to my station (had a contract to run one of those as well) and hope that one of the kerbals to be rescued would be an Engineer to attach to the station.

Well, of course, no Engineer... and I'd forgotten to attach RCS thrusters to the rescue ship so that would've made docking at the Station a bit challenging to say the least.  So, retro-burn for home, steep descent trajectory, hopefully land close to the KSC to get some money back. May as well try to recover the engine and fueltank as well to minimise the losses.

At 60km altitude (and dropping rapidly) I realised I had also forgotten parachutes!!!! Just as well I still had the fueltank and engine attached! Full blast of the Terrier, ship starting to glow cherry-red. Will we make it back to orbit??

Managed to claw back into orbit (got down to 40km altitude) - thank the Kraken!  So off we head to the station after all - need to get the Kerbals into slightly roomier accommodation (and with more Snacks) until we can mount a rescue. Worst case, get close and EVA over.  But some rather skillful maneuvering, if I may say so myself, and we were aiming straight for a docking port. Shortly afterwards with a satisfying *clunk* we were docked and munching on a Snack or two to recover from that rather harrowing flight.

Jeb lives to die another day!

[Pipcard]

Y58, D165 - Negi Maru in Moho orbit

Y58, D166 - First Kerbals on Moho (Calble, Nedsted, Keldos, Haddon, Lisgee, Newmore)

(Eilya, Dudo, Dozor, Genelorf, Philbo, and Tedul)

[RealKerbal3x]

Today, I headed out to the Mun, in my new crew vehicle design.

Sorry for the dark image, I just thought that this was an awesome looking screenshot

[herbal space program]

After a a ridiculous amount of difficulty, I made my first solar prop-powered, non air-breathing  SSTO space plane last night. Using 6 8-blade ducted fan props, 2 aerospikes and a Nerv, it made orbit with a whopping 295 m/s dV left in the tank, enough to go...nowhere.  That's a far cry from the ~5km/s I was typically getting with Rapiers and Nervs, but it's a start!  The idea of course was to make an Eve SSTO, so I've got a long way to go....

[Nezclaw]

2 hours ago, herbal space program said:

The idea of course was to make an Eve SSTO, so I've got a long way to go....

Is that even possible??

[capi3101]

14 minutes ago, Nezclaw said:

Is that even possible??

People have done it before. The trick is to utilize a mod that has some kind of electrically driven propeller (stock might be capable of doing the trick nowadays) to get you through the thick soup so you don't have to carry fuel for it. Between 12-15 kilometers ASL, atmospheric pressure on Eve is the same as sea level on Kerbin; 27.5k or so on Eve very roughly corresponds to 15k on Kerbin where you're generally ramping up your speed. You do have to get to a higher orbital velocity for 100k, so you would need more fuel for the rocket portion of the flight. Same general idea though: get as high and as fast as your conventional motors will get you without melting in the process, then switch over to rockets and get the heck outta Dodge...

Edited November 25, 2019 by capi3101

[Retro Starship]

Did a little redesign of my express bus for orbital tourism around Kerban last night. A bit more Delta-V for 4 passengers and myself. I call it The Von Braun Express II rocket. Nice and smooth, with much more DV in orbit so I can chase after other contracts floating around the planet and I actually got 3 of them in one flight and returned home with a lot of science.

[herbal space program]

40 minutes ago, Nezclaw said:

Is that even possible??

It has been done only once in pure Stock AFAIK, with a gigantic, crazy ship that took off from the highest point, like 7km. What I'm hoping to do is use the propellers from the Breaking Ground expansion to get my plane to ~25 km without using any fuel, which might just make it possible from ASL with a more normal-looking plane. But it's going to be tough, as those propellers are both really heavy and really draggy and hard to manage once you enter the rocket phase of the ascent. It took me three solid days to produce a Kerbin SSTO with electric propellers and no air-breathing engines, and an Eve one will be quite a bit harder. 

[Triop]

Today's visitor: Bean Kerman

EDIT: Sorry UK people, I forgot you drive on the wrong side of the road...

Fixed it:

 

Edited November 25, 2019 by Triop

[Cavscout74]

My career continued with the first rendezvous & docking, first manned orbit of Mun and the first manned landing.  Additionally, the first interplanetary probe was launched to Duna.   Full info here

New CF-02 Vampire jet, just barely capable of breaking the sound barrier at sea level

First Mun landing

First probe to Duna

[nelso]

2 hours ago, herbal space program said:

It has been done only once in pure Stock AFAIK, with a gigantic, crazy ship that took off from the highest point, like 7km. What I'm hoping to do is use the propellers from the Breaking Ground expansion to get my plane to ~25 km without using any fuel, which might just make it possible from ASL with a more normal-looking plane. But it's going to be tough, as those propellers are both really heavy and really draggy and hard to manage once you enter the rocket phase of the ascent. It took me three solid days to produce a Kerbin SSTO with electric propellers and no air-breathing engines, and an Eve one will be quite a bit harder. 

You mean this?  The engineering sounds insane.  I'm interested how well the stock electric props do, but I imagine solar panels could introduce a lot of drag which is something his ship tried to avoid.

 

[herbal space program]

2 hours ago, nelso said:

You mean this?  The engineering sounds insane.  I'm interested how well the stock electric props do, but I imagine solar panels could introduce a lot of drag which is something his ship tried to avoid.

 

Yes indeed I meant that, thanks for digging it up! As to the drag factor, I think I can say from experience that whatever drag you might incur by tiling your craft with OX-stat solar panels, it will be far outweighed by the drag from the propellers themselves. On the plus side, something not so far away from my current design was able to reach 23 km on Eve pretty easily. Not sure what the exact pressure is at that altitude, but it's definitely a whole lot less than it is at 7km. And there's not only the drag to contend with. There's the awful engine ISP you get at >ASL pressures. It makes getting off the surface such a maddening problem. Anyway, I'm not sure if a plane is really the way to go. I have a feeling that just helicoptering a regular rocket to 20+ km will end up working the best,  but it would be so cool if it could be done as a plane, so I'm trying that first...

Edited November 26, 2019 by herbal space program

[Arco123]

Bombed all of ksp with clusters from bd. Made a trailer for The Kethane Wars. Link https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hd_uTidDFNbr58dGd1A_jmFvH3_67i43/view?usp=sharing 

Tested the 50 cal turrets and remade the Omega. 1500-part space battleship of death. Also, lets not forget killing Jeb.

[maja]

Jool 5 mission is done. It went smooth-ish, but we learn every day

imgur album

[capi3101]

(1.6.1) I didn't get as much accomplished yesterday as I'd hoped, but it was still a red-letter day for my career save. The day began at the Usumacinta outpost on Tylo, which had completed the print of a Dystopia Planitia 7 orbital shipyard with an attached Kerbin-rated booster. The outpost transferred fuel to the shipyard and engineer Madorf Kerman took a seat in the forward cupola for the launch. Upon release of the docking clamps, the booster promptly destroyed Usumacinta's launchpad; I have yet to get back out there to install a replacement. Extraplanetary Launchpads hosed me over again fuel-wise, only loading each stage with 45% of their rated capacity - if I was planning on launching anything else directly from Usumacinta to Tylo orbit, I might be rather annoyed at this. As it was, I hit quicksave when I meant to take a screenie, which kinda committed me to the launch. As may be expected, the booster ran out of fuel before attaining Tylo orbit, and it was necessary for me to activate the shipyard's mass driver for an emergency shot of fuel supplies from Usumacinta, draining the base in the process. It turned out to be enough, however - the newly launched Nomina Perplexa Yards was able to attain a 127.8 by 126 kilometer, 0.14° inclined orbit over Tylo before discarding and deorbiting its core booster stage.

The point from which I'll be launching anything else Tylo-related in the future.

The successful launch not only completes the intended infrastructure for Tylo but for the Jool system as a whole.

After shooting up fuel supplies via mass driver from the C. P. Baker outpost on Laythe to space station Laytheport in wake of the recent return of the Auk XI 10-passenger spaceplane to the station, the rest of my day was spent in warp maneuvers. LSV House Atreides was up first, breaking orbit over Eve and warping to Dres for the scheduled initial flyby.

Oh yeah, I can easily kill off 15 kps to enter orbit...

As hoped, the flyby's success unlocked Dres for orbiting. I've had two satellite contracts for the untrustworthy regions for quite some time now; it'll be nice to finally knock those out. Atreides then proceeded to Jool en route to Kerbin.

Mildly aggravating, in all honesty - to fly all the way out to Jool so you can lose enough speed to get to Kerbin. This was my thought as I took this particular screenie...

Atreides arrived at Jool at 5,982 m/s, slow enough for direct orbital entry; the ship settled into a 6,808.6 by 5,723.1 kilometer, 1.33° orbit. After that, LSV House Harkonnen broke orbit over Laythe in her first step towards heading back to Kerbin, arriving over Jool at 4,215 m/s; she settled into a 10,483.3 by 9,187.9 kilometer, 1.44° orbit fairly rapidly.

With Dres at go for orbit, I next checked the fuel status of LSV House Corrino in high Kerbin orbit; resupplies of Xenon Gas and Exotic Matter were shot over from SL Shai Hulud also in Kerbin orbit and Corrino began maneuvers to take her to Dres. Now, lately I've been attempting to solve the mathematical problem of being able to warp directly from one planet to another, and I thought I had it all grokked out before leaving Kerbin. Nope. Wound up spending nearly 45 minutes trying to get Corrino slowed down sufficiently for direct entry at Dres without success; at the present time I'm trying to get the ship into orbit at Jool. She's almost slowed down enough for that at least, but it's still going to be the first thing I attend to in my next session. Was so focused on the math I didn't bother to record how fast she was going at SOI entry nor how many times I've had to warp back so far...

Plan for today is still to get House Corrino to Dres and to attempt to get House Atreides and House Harkonnen to Kerbin. I don't like doing multiple warp maneuvers at the same time; right now I've got all three of my warp ships trying to get places, so that's liable to eat up my time today. If I do manage to get them to where they're going, I'll be busy enough - Atreides has tourists returning to the surface, and Corrino will be setting up satellites at Dres to begin biome analyses prior to outpost construction. I've still got a new outpost on Mun to try and get started, and I'm about twelve hours away from the return of some garbage from Minmus. Not much to talk about otherwise. I'll keep y'all posted.

[Retro Starship]

Well not much last night except for a load of parachute testing in my career mode. Maybe the company that makes parachute's got some bad news from Boeing recently. (sorry but I just had too, lol)

Edited November 26, 2019 by Saturn5tony

[Fierce Wolf]

Landed a manned mission on Eeloo, the last celestial body for me to visit. I caught 'em all!

 

 

edit: typo

Edited November 27, 2019 by Fierce Wolf

[NHunter]

...Meanwhile, I visited Leto:

The location I've landed at was actually quite interesting. There was a mysterious stone arch there. And a brave pilot went flew there to explore the anomaly:

Turns out, it's just a stone arch. But one gets quite a view from its top.

 

With this, I've planted a flag on every rocky body within the Ciro system. There is still the nearby Grannus system to explore, but I think I will take a break from this save for a while and go back to my BH career for a bit.

[Vanamonde]

Interesting design, @NHunter. 

[Cavscout74]

Just a short update to my career today, didn't have a lot of time.  Details here

This is the view I want at work:

Second manned mission to Mun for this career: