What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Immashift]

Been working on Duna in my newest 1.9 save.

This week I landed  and then expanded a production base. It was pretty barebones to start but it's coming along well. Can produce most needed craft in a few days and fuel them in as long.

The airship on the right is for RCS-ing small payloads onto the lander (currently at Duna Station). Low atmosphere means it only lifts ~2 tons but that's enough for some small stuff. Looking forward to Laythe and EVE airships.

Rover off in the distance was a prototype crane unit to move stuff off the K&K launchpad. It has some balance issues and I'm mainly using it for refueling the lander with the KAS connectors.

Pod connected to the left of the base is the life support systems. Base was landed with just basic stored life support, Kerbals were frozen in LKO for the trip out. Need a big greenhouse pod next though, as food is still an issue. Have a care package loaded with food and frozen Kerbals for next transfer window. Water is gotten through a fuel cell burning Hydrogen, and Oxygen is gotten through mining and converting for ship building.

Duna station is still simplistic, crewed by 2. The lander on the right is a more refined Duna lander built by Duna base, and is overfueled so every run it can deposit some into the station. It recently took a science package to Ike to further the research department.

The lander to the left came in with the station on first arrival at Duna, but has never been to the surface. I noticed I forgot to give it batteries or solar panels so it is essentially useless outside of being a big fat fuel tank for the station. I'm in the process of emptying it of fuel and will eventually undock it and aggressively lithobrake it to free up the docking port.

My Jool window opens up in 343 days, and I intend to send a fully functional base to Laythe, building on and learning from the one I have at Duna. To get it there, I'm assembling a massive vessel in LKO. This is the first stage - the drive stage. Huge MPD fueled with lithium and oodles of EC, it'll provide between 15k-30k m/s once the ship is complete. I'm playing with Bureaucracy, which gives me monthly budgets instead of boring contract money, and thanks to the success of the Duna mission, I have access to almost 900k / month. The unit is currently sitting in LKO unfueled, as that was the only way to keep it both under budget and under the 40.6t payload limit I have on my currently best launcher. I'm playing with KSTS, which makes launching things absolutely painless, if very slightly cheaty, since it lets you launch stuff of whatever shape you want, regardless if it would flip out if you actually stuck it on your launcher. I can build better launchers now - I didn't even have mainsails unlocked when I did my 40.6t launch recording, but launching to LKO for the 100th time isn't fun, so I've been lazy.

This will be the next stage of Jool Drive to be launched. It has space for the base I'll be sending, as well as Deepfreeze units for the initial squad of Kerbals I intend to send, some fuel, and a massive reactor to power that MPD. I'd prefer to use the big clampotrons, but haven't researched them yet. Guess I'll either just keep the thrust down or EVA a pile of struts in. I'll definitely be strutting the base down to the main beam, and then the beam to the drive stage.

After this unit is mated with the drive section, the command section will come, followed by a 10m heat shield up front for Jool aerocapture. Depending on how noodly this whole thing is, I'll either aerocapture, or just brute force burn my way into orbit. We'll see.

 

 

Edited May 28, 2020 by Immashift

[Cavscout74]

Made a little more progress in my career with a few probes entering Jool's SoI & getting set up for Tylo fly-by's (except the two polar relays of course).  Also designed a few things destined for Moho - a modified surface outpost with extra heat protection and a shielded rover design.  The outpost is waiting till closer to the transfer window to launch while the rover is waiting on R&D to unlock the XL3 rover wheels.

Seats two crew, with everything built around an overhead truss.  Structural panels will provide protection from Moho's intense heat while providing a mounting location for solar panels.  Snack storage provides food for 2 for several months if needed.  To perform initial testing while waiting for the XL3 wheels, a set of downward pointed trusses with TR2L rover wheels was used.  Primary power is from the fixed solar panels, but a single 1x6 retractable panel is mounted to allow charging when the sun is low on the horizon.  A folding antenna and small thermal control system are mounted on the sides while several large radiator panels are mounted under the command pod.

There is ample room behind the command pod, which may get used for additional seating or resource storage.  The aft end of the center truss mounts an RTG to keep the rover's batteries charged on the long Moho nights.  Folding ladders provide access to the surface and to the top of the rover if needed.

High speed turns are not recommended, but the solid construction of this rover allowed everything but the solar panels to survive the roll-over

And yes, I know all the heat protection isn't actually needed but I'm trying to add a little realism to my Out of the Sands career.  If anything, I want to add some angled side panels to the rover to provide additional shielding to the command module & walkway

Edited May 29, 2020 by Cavscout74

[N_Danger]

I built a probe for a Gilly contract

And tested a way to get it there.

 

 

[Guest]

6 hours ago, Stratzenblitz75 said:

Today I went to Eve:

You always blow my mind . What a craft. Good job at thinking outside the box!

Getting round 2 ready for The Little Lander Challenge. But I might as well release a mission I did a year back and never revealed:

A year back, I did a crew mission to head to Duna and back for the first time. And it almost made it home, then I ran out of fuel when I was getting back to Kerbin. If only I knew that you could have aerobraked I could have saved the mission. I would still probably view it as an unacceptable mission due to my early habit of clipping fuel. I got rid of the habit for my Moho Crew Mission back in September. And some planet crew missions I feel I have never truly completed. In a few weeks I will be attempting Jool 5, which is funny since I have never used the Control Seat. But I heard it's a game changer. Lander and Spacecraft are designed and I will be doing a demo using cheats to not worry about the launch vehicle or getting there but experimenting with the landers and moon encounters. Anyway that's the story of my Huoxing mission (yes, that which is what I called it.)

Spoiler

 

[Angelo Kerman]

Today I returned safely from the JNSQ Mun:

It took a couple of aerobraking passes to slow down and wait for KSC to line up with the K-20's orbit.

[Pipcard]

Y61, D317 - KASDA sends its first colony to the Jool system, with base modules that will land on Pol and Bop.

[michaelbezos1]

Having new laptop with windows turned on kerbal space program turning on quite slowly becose of various reasons but is much faster than lenovo ideapad 320 and after turned on (approximately 5 minutes of wait) it runs much faster and smooth than lenovo 320 but to make successfull launches and space stations builds i need to see youtube scholarship or other tuition but it is worth to do it with multitasking of other activities [visual studio, poker, ios developing and other programming[

 

Please support, motivcate.

[AlamoVampire]

I just sent a probe into a polar orbit of Eve. All the talk in the threads about where we have been gave me the itch to send something to Eve. Some day I may even send a kerbal down to the surface. Someday XD But, here is a picture of the ERA or Eve Reconnaissance Array.

 

 

030005292020

[Hotel26]

Very excited!  For context, if you don't recall/didn't see my previous on  Paxmover, just click this image below:

This has been something of a Holy Grail for me.  At the last minute, I decided to make this Type:Rover fly.  You know...  "airborne".  (As one does, when growing up Kerbal.)

It flies like a winged dog, or 'flew', I should say.  Just needed Moar Wing^TM...  of course.

So there are Two (2) magic numbers for Kerbal aerospace designers (Kerbin Aviation Department): 6.5+ km and ~942km.  You'll recognize both, I'm sure!

If your craft can climb above 6.5 km, it can cross any mountain range and it can land anywhere.  And, if your craft was never intended to fly, but must do so to reach its deployment point, 900 km gets you from the KSC to either pole, a flat spot to land, refuel and take-off from again, from which you can then reach any destination on the planet!

So I put bigger wings on Paxmover and that has done the trick: both numbers, in the bag.  Sorry to be so excited about this but, yes, it's a super-big deal!!

Bigger wings

 

 

 

 

 

It wouldn't be jacked up like this for T.O., but a better view.  Technically, it's a "mobile lounge". not an aircraft of any form whatsoever.
but it does now fly like a champion

 

 

 

 

It's a "rover", technically

 

 

 

This is my flight line at KSC.  From foreground to back, you see: Nike, Hornet, Hexapen, Paxmover, Sea Spray, Amphibian.

These are my air/sea rescue craft with Paxmover in support.  I am going to need to begin staggering them to permit easier access for Paxmover.

 

 

 

 

OK, so finally, today's missions are to fly two Paxmovers out to station one at each Pole.

                                                                              

Later that day at the North Pole:

  

 

Edited May 29, 2020 by Hotel26

[Okhin]

11 hours ago, Astrion said:

@Okhin What mod are using for the purple lights on your space station module?

Surface mounted lights, and playing wih the RGB components of each lights. I tend to put a lot of them, and the part count gets high fast, but that way I can see my space station from space. With cool lights.

 

[Cleperli]

Today I landed on Pol, which was a mission I planned aaaages ago... Before flight I planned to go to Pol and Vall with my fellow Kerbals, but I unfortunately overestimated the Dv of my mothership. So, I landed on Pol because... there's no point landing on a big Minmus, right? Also, I love those weirdy spikes you find at it's surface...

So here's Paul Kerman (yeah I also landed there for the joke) getting into the (massively overpowered) lander:

Then I smoothly landed on the almost gravityless body:

Then I planted a flag and set up those experiments:

[Cavscout74]

I continued my experiments on heat-protected Moho Rover.  I think I'm going to keep this current set up instead of waiting for the XL3 wheels - with today's improvements, it can handle at least a 21 m/s high speed turn on Kerbin without even thinking about flipping.  I also started working on a delivery system, which is going to require me to launch it to Mun for a test, because it doesn't have enough thrust to experiment on Kerbin.

Improved rover, with 6 double wheels instead of the original single wheels.  Also the vertical trusses are angled outward a few degrees to increase stability.  Parked on top of the landing platform base to test the decoupling mechanism. 

Spoiler

Rear view of the first try.  Despite setting the joint locks to disengage during staging of the clamp-o-tron, they stayed locked, making it difficult (but not impossible - just had to go back instead of forwards) to drive the rover off the platform

Second try, with probe core & batteries on the platform to control the robotics after rover decoupling

I pulled in going the opposite direction, so the back wheels are hanging off, but the re-attachment works better than expected

Full landing platform with MoRo.  Since the platform has a probe core, I figured I might as well stick a few solar panels on it and a relay antenna.

Spoiler

In initial landing configuration - ramps stowed, rover coupled

Preparing to deploy rover:

Holy **** it worked!!!!!  And nothing exploded!!!!

I didn't actually get a screenshot, but reconnecting works on the full platform as well - the ramps are a little hard to get started on, but if you line up good & hit the ramps with just a few m/s, the rover will start up them.  Then its just a matter of carefully lining up the rover & platform.

And now I'm having the thought "Hey, I could stick a drill & converter on here and use it to move the lander all over Moho....."   If I give in, this has the potential to balloon into something crazy -ier

Edited May 29, 2020 by Cavscout74

[N_Danger]

I flew my mission to Gilly. I left Kerbin with what I thought was enough D/V

I was wrong. I ended up in a very elliptical orbit around Eve.

And I had too little fuel to rendezvous get into orbit. I had to settle for a fly by. Forgetting to have enough battery power to transmit science from all the instruments was a bonus. Back to the drawing board for this one.

[Cavscout74]

So after experimenting with the Moho Rover, I decided to see if I could get it to the Mun for a landing attempt.  It's only going to take a 5m launcher with a pair of 3.75m LFO boosters to get it to orbit.  So while that is building at KSC, a few craft started arriving at their destinations in my career. 

MoRo w/ landing cradle actually fits inside a fairing!!

First was the Lancer-Duna outpost.  It actually arrived over a month before the rest of the Duna expedition, so it will wait in orbit till a suitable landing site is found.

Then 3 Jool probes arrived close together - the Laythe can lander, Jooldiver and (2 minutes behind Jooldiver) Jool Voyager.  All 3 set up Tylo fly-by's, which led straight to Laythe encounters for the Laythe lander & Jooldiver.  Jool Voyager shot out into a higher orbit and setup to fly-by Vall.  Here, the Laythe can lander approaches its destination for an aerobraking pass that turned into an aerocapture

First sunrise on Laythe - despite losing both HG-55 antennas due to a command error* that caused them to deploy during atmospheric entry, but the backup antennas were able to reach the various relays in the Jool system and the mission continued to a successful splashdown.

All the science sent back from the the various Jool probes allowed me to unlock the XL3 rover wheels, but I think I'm going to keep MoRo as-is.   Still, I couldn't resist a quick test.  Reached 88 m/s before flying off the end of the runway and into the water.  If anything this version is even more near-indestructible than the original design as a second test didn't flip till trying to turn at nearly 50 m/s and it rolled twice before landing upside down, but the wheel mounts protected the solar panels so nothing actually broke

*By command error, I mean I accidentally clicked a science experiment to transmit science during entry, causing the antenna to deploy.   TWICE!!!

Edited May 30, 2020 by Cavscout74

[Hotel26]

3 hours ago, Cavscout74 said:

Holy ****

Holy Asteroids, Jebediah, that is impressive engineering!  Nice going.

 

[michaelbezos1]

Below I give you link to invite friends at steam in case you can send me your friend code as I am quite not experienced in this game and now will try to develop more [relying on youtube movies and scholarship]. Wish to do space station, landing on moon with rover and lift off with nice come back. 

 

https://s.team/p/frbg-jwdt/cfmgpcwr 

[michaelbezos1]

Hi guys turned on going to mun mission[landindg on moon] stacked at doi burn [ go to the map view /press m)] and warp maneuver node as i taugh you. I am to lazy to write more but generally cant overcome that one, know that i can find tuition at youtube or google but youtube work slowly moreover i came into crazy, lazy period where i slept 11 hours last period and again lay on bed but hopefully will win with this lazinezz.

 

Please help with landing on moon until i find solution on google youtube. 

[Regor]

I finally did it!

Spoiler below. Do at your own risk. Title screen anomaly:

Spoiler

 

[Guest]

Meet the LMK-1 -- "Light Interplanetary Vehicle." Standard crew complement is four (two pilots, scientist, engineer), with room for three more in the main craft and three in the lander. She just completed a round trip from LKO to Duna and back. Mission went without major mishap, the only incident was loss of a non-essential antenna to aero forces because SOMEBODY forgot to retract it, and also for some reason the Mystery Goo experiment deliver to Ike failed to transmit its data despite having a connection to KSC through LMK-1.

The remaining phase of the mission is recovery of the crew and data from LKO. LMK-1 will remain there, ready for refueling and more missions.

This is loosely based on plans for the TMK-1/Mavr, but smaller. It's basically a Kelyut space station with a bunch of NTRs strapped on and rather excessive power generation.

The lander is an MK-5 with added parachutes, touching down with a puff of retro-rockets. It stayed behind in Ike orbit.

Edit: And here's the craft that performed the recovery. Recent advances in the Kumansky Fluid Dynamics Design Bureau permitted the development of the KU-170, based on the successful rocket-propelled KU-160. The KU-170 is equipped with twin SABREs and a single NTR, giving her the range to perform light liaison missions all around the Kerbin system without the need to refuel -- she has about 2600 m/s after reaching LKO. This is the crew rotation variant.

Edited May 30, 2020 by Guest

[N_Danger]

Using the Kerbal engineering philosophy of MOAR. I got to Gully with enough D/V to make orbit. And enough battery power to collect all the science.

[michaelbezos1]

On 5/26/2020 at 2:26 AM, Stamp20 said:

No picture right now but I designed a space station that I'll put in orbit of Ovok. Getting it there is a different story.
Edit: Here's the picture.

I wish to do same but even though i do not know name of most parts. 

[Xt007]

https://imgur.com/a/lHtS2dt

Nothing to see here, move along!

[KerikBalm]

I did it, I got a working reusable Eve Surface-Orbit RoRo cargo shuttle working. only a mid size mk3 cargobay and 18 ton payload, but hey:

Uses BG rotors to climb:

Gets above 10km with plenty of power to spare:

but power consumption goes up, climb rate goes down, and I engage rockets before 11km:

Fuel exhausted, but a pretty high Apo:

Separation of the orbiter:

Orbiter pushes to orbit (I'd have to replace the docking port with a shielded one in the real system)

Orbit achieved:

(a pic taken later showing payload)

But there's no time to waste, that carrier is falling back to Eve:

I had to quick load a few times to get the descent profile right....

Eventually I found an attitude that worked, but my plane entered a stable falling configuration that I hadn't anticipated:

But as I got lower, I was able to regain control by restarting the motors and pulling it into proper forward flight:

Landing it was a piece of cake, and it ended up landing close to a previous carrier for a single kerbal shuttle:

Ready to be refueled, and ground docked with the orbiter.

EC is provided by a few RTGs, and 2 fuel cells for ascent. Lots of batteries would enable it to make flights of good duration after landing, to get back to a place where it can refuel/pick up the orbiter (where ever it happens to land)

[Goaty1208]

SPACE X MISSION SUCCES!!

[GDJ]

Just now, Goaty1208 said:

SPACE X MISSION SUCCES!!

You said it! Perfect launch, perfect flight to orbit. WELL DONE!