What did you do in KSP1 today?

[jimmymcgoochie]

More testing for the Beyond Home Space Race, this time checking the in-space performance of the Endurance and its propulsion systems. Not hindered in any way by the fact that the main engines don't show any delta-V, TWR or burn time so I had to calculate those myself. Using a test rocket I stapled together I got easily 100km/s of delta-V out of it in the less efficient high thrust engine mode, with a burn time of probably an hour or more; this probably means that the much larger and heavier Endurance will have a burn time well into the hours and a total delta-V into the hundreds of kilometres per second.

The tests also revealed a potentially problematic issue with the engines though- they're pretty bad at staying pointing in the right direction, especially using high physics warp values; spinning the probe on its roll axis helped stabilise it to some extent, but spinning the Endurance too fast resulted in RUD and the loss of pretty much all the ring modules, oops...

[Popestar]

KERBARAGUA SPACE AGENCY MEMORANDUM

In Re:  Mission File 05

Vessel:  WinterOwl I

Time:  Year 1, Day 24, 3 hours, 25 minutes

To:  President Manuel Kerman

Mr. President, I hope that today finds you happy and well.  We have some exciting news to share with you, and we trust that our efforts here at the KSA are bearing the fruit you had in mind when you requested this agency be born.

Please inform the CEO and the rest of the board at WinterOwl that we have put the requested satellite into orbit.  The materials bay that was requested is in fact in place, even if we had to extract a lot of the materials that would normally be in there.  It's not our fault if the contract doesn't mention the bay having to be operational, nor is it our fault that the bay is a one-time-usage thing; we needed the information from that far more than we believe WinterOwl does.  But at least we now have the ability to communicate farther into deep space.

Please give our extreme thanks to the guys at WinterOwl for letting us work on this project; we told them we wouldn't fail, and we were able to live up to that.

On a semi-related note, we received your memorandum requesting we do a fly-by of Minmus.  While we here at the KSA are excited about pushing forward, we have to admit that we may not be ready for that journey just yet.  Bob is still writing out the mathematical formulas that we used to get to the Mun - those darn sticky notes keep flying away on him! - but you can rest assured that as soon as he has finished that we will be doing our due diligence and getting there.

Sincerely,

Herman Kerman

Director, Kerbaragua Space Agency

[Guest]

Premiere of long awaited video in 90 minutes. Come Join!

 

[Guest]

Premiere starts in 3 minutes!

[N_Danger]

I have never messed with asteroids until this JNSQ game. So I have been practicing intercepting for the past couple of sessions and today I did my first grab of one.

Spoiler

Booster separation. 

Kind of looks like a Atlas from the back.

The second stage places us in orbit.

 

This is just after the intercept burn.

20 meters out ready for contact.

And like the dog that finally catches the car, I say now what? Well with the mass of the asteroid added I have 5m/s of delta vee. So not a lot. I need to get nuclear engines and resource mining so I can put one in orbit. But this was good practice.

 

 

 

[The Flying Kerbal]

Not just today, but a few days here!

Sergei and the gang over at Rusty Star Rockets have had an amazingly busy week.  With launch windows opening both to and from Duna, it was lucky nobody caught a cold in the draught! 

First things first, and with Duna in the perfect position for the orbiter RSR sent out to the Red Planet back at the last launch window, to begin its journey home, it was time to see if the "Goodrax" engine would reignite after being shut down for so long in the icy cold space around Duna. 

It Did!  The Duna Orbiter Performing Its Kerbin Injection Burn.

After a very successful injection burn, the engine shut down as the craft began its long and lonely journey back to Kerbin.  Loaded with science, the plan is to rendezvous with the Monstrosity Space Station in Kerbin orbit, to transfer it over to the science module for processing.

As one window closes, another opens and so it was with a good alignment for a Kerbin-Duna transfer.  Not to miss any opportunity, Sergei had planned for two launches as part of RSR's Project Geonikis, the mission to ultimately see a Kerbal plant the company rag flag on the surface of Duna.

Geonikis II is virtually a carbon copy of Geonikis I, an orbiter with a small lander attached which will be dropped unto Duna to find out what the surface is made of and carry out some science experiments.  The lander has been modified since the Geonikis I test dropped it unto the North Pole of Kerbin, with the landing gear having been greatly beefed up to help absorb the higher impact expected because of Duna's weak atmosphere.

Geonikis II On Top Of A Rust Box Booster, Ready For Launch.

The launch went without any problems, orbit around Kerbin was achieved, and a few hours later the transfer burn out to Duna was successfully completed.

Geonikis II In LKO.

Geonikis III was next off the pad.  This launch was highly controversial, even by RSR standards, because it was rumoured some raving lunat... someone had wanted this not very reputable shower of rogues, ruffians and villains to test an "Atomic Atom" nuclear engine over Ike.  Sergei immediately said no but then he heard the financial reward being offered was over three hundred grand, and suddenly we had an atomic engine on the launch pad!

Geonikis III Clears The Tower.

Again the launch was perfect, the Rust Box-LB3 lift vehicle pushing it up to an 80K orbit

Geonikis III In LKO.

Apart from the atomic engine test, Geonikis III will put a small probe into an orbit of Ike where it will take a number of temperature readings and, using the much larger relay antenna on the Geonikis II orbiter, signal them back to Kerbin.

And finally, and much nearer home, "Project Skip Hoaker" was successfully completed, when a small asteroid - nothing more than a pebble really - had an even smaller probe attach to it as part of a program to learn more about these potentially dangerous objects.

Project Skip Hoaker Carrying Out The Burn To Intercept The Asteroid.

Just Seconds Away From Contact...

Contact Light!

This probe has been stuffed with science experiments because I really have no idea how KSP deals with asteroids when they leave the Kerbin system.  I suspect they'll just be on rails like the planets, but hey... maybe Kerbin's gravity will fling it towards another planet, and I might get some dirt cheap science!

@The Doodling Astronaut

That's a super cool looking rocket you used to launch your asteroid grabber, ten time better than the pile of rubbish I used to do mine.

But then again, your space agency is funded properly whereas Rusty Star Rockets has to rummage through bins and rubbish dumps to acquire their hardware! 

But seriously, that thing looks really classy mate. 

Edited November 5, 2020 by The Flying Kerbal

[jimmymcgoochie]

Tried to upgrade a save game from 1.9.1 to 1.10.1, found a bug in a mod that was causing the game to throw an exception for the BG solar panel part- this happened to me the last time I tried a similar upgrade with a different set of mods, so I compiled a list of mods common to the two and steadily eliminated them until I found the culprit. I had no idea SimpleLogistics was messing around with BG deployable science parts, but removing those patches made everything work.

Unfortunately Kerbalism then threw a massive tantrum about stuff in the save file being in the wrong order or something, making the game unusable. Oh well... Maybe I’ll try upgrading the JNSQ save I tried first, now that I know how to resolve the problem I had with it before.

[DerkyJerkyWreaksHavoc]

Today i questioned myself on why my forums couldn't have 2204 pages? Im jealous... 

Actually... I BECAME THE NEWEST POSITIVE FORUM MOVEMENT MEMBER!!!*

sorry for capital letters and bold. i got excited.

*Mind you, im not even a moderator...

 

Edited November 5, 2020 by DAFATRONALDO2007 IN SPACE

[Selective Genius]

I designed and flew a crewed spaceplane in a 2.5x Solar System. There's room for improvement, of course. It carries 3 kerbals to orbit and returns them safely, but it looks hideous.

The spaceplane comes equipped with an abort Solid motor which doubles up as third stage if a mission abort is not required. Oddly, this is the first time I managed to circularize in orbit with only SRBs. Granted it was not perfect, 98x115 km when I wanted a 100x100 km orbit, but it was good enough. The Service Module at the back end of the spaceplane has 700 m/s of delta-v for orbital corrections. The Service Module is ditched upon re-entry.

I have not thought of a name yet. For now it is just called 'Spaceplane Mk 2'... Any suggestions for an inspiring name?

[Goaty1208]

1 hour ago, Selective Genius said:

I have not thought of a name yet. For now it is just called 'Spaceplane Mk 2'... Any suggestions for an inspiring name?

Never ask this as people will reply "Call it Mr. Yeet"

Spoiler

Call it Mr Yeet

 

[RP1IsSuperior]

On 11/2/2020 at 9:11 PM, Clamp-o-Tron said:

Tested designs for the Dunas 9 future launch vehicle in my Leonidas save.

The rocket and mobile launch platform are higher than the VAB door...

Yes, you see that right. SLS core with 2 4m (3.125m KSP scale) Raptor-boosted RTLS boosters.

It's designed for very heavy payloads on trans-Duna orbits in JNSQ. I think it can manage 20 tons.

The boosters separate at about 20 km and 600 m/s.

And boost back to KSC (or across the ocean, if I need more payload).

Landing these boosters is a strange experience. They have an enormous TWR of ~8 when nearly dry, so the nominal landing burn is about 2 seconds long, and there is no way to achieve a pinpoint landing without ~10 seconds of engine gimbal. 

Core stage separates at about 70km and 2.5 km/s.

Of course, why would I ever waste those four SSMEs?

I have an inflatable heat shield for that!

The engine section splashes down 1,500 km downrange. It floats with the heatshield attached, so recovery ops should be fairly simple.

This flight carries a large habitat atop an Altair lander, pushing the upper limits of the Dunas 9's performance. The upper stage is an entirely self-sufficient spacecraft, equipped with RCS, comms, solar panels, a pair of super-efficient RL-60 engines, avionics, 0-boiloff tankage, and a docking port so it can service multiple payloads, kind of like ACES.

Unfortunately, this payload exhausted the upper stage's LOX and LH2 fuels so it will be expended.

I also tried out a design with the Pyrios boosters that were proposed for SLS. It has much better performance, but costs more per-flight due to the expendable nature of the LRBs.

I love shuttle derived launch vehicles and advanced booster concepts for SLS, this looks so cool!

[Kerminator K-100]

On 11/4/2020 at 1:04 PM, capi3101 said:

folks have done seven impossible things before breakfast on a nearly daily basis.

Why not round it off with dinner at Milliways? The restaurant at the end of the universe! (Or however the quote goes, it's been a while since I've read that book)

[Francois424]

On 10/20/2020 at 7:01 PM, JorgeCS said:

After almost a couple months doing no KSP at all and barely coming to read and like posts, I had an idea. Probably only nostalgics (elders like myself hahaha!) will know the ship  which is still an early WIP

Very nice rendition of on of my childhood favorite cartoon of the eighties,
"The Odysseus" (At least that was the french ship's name) <3

[munman19]

a few days ago i attempted to launch a sock shuttle but somehow the force of the ET's decoupler put it back on a sub orbital trajectory

and i forgot the action group for the flaps so i had to do it manually one flap at a time and that caused it to nose dive and crash but hey at least the cockpit survived, like they say, any  landing you can walk away from is a good landing

unfortunately i don't have screenshots 

[DerkyJerkyWreaksHavoc]

I was attempting on another romantic voyage to laythe with jeb and val (the romantic voyage was for them to kiss) and we made it safely... yay! but then mission control came with terrible news... they sent an attachment to us of bad news, and let me tell you... IT... WAS... BAD...

 

Val started crying and Jedediah had to calm her down. soon he was crying too. Valentina and jebediah were so in love that when one cried, the other cried too. THE END!

10 minutes ago, munman19 said:

a few days ago i attempted to launch a sock shuttle but somehow the force of the ET's decoupler put it back on a sub orbital trajectory

and i forgot the action group for the flaps so i had to do it manually one flap at a time and that caused it to nose dive and crash but hey at least the cockpit survived, like they say, any  landing you can walk away from is a good landing

unfortunately i don't have screenshots 

But a great landing is one where you can use the vessel again. ok ill stop

Edited November 5, 2020 by DAFATRONALDO2007 IN SPACE

[Guest]

So Jeb flew all the way here, and all he found was some rocks.

In case you're wondering, the fuel tank is where it is because of balance. The centre of mass has to be as close to the docking port as possible to minimise thrust torque on the KISS Peace In Our Time.

[eatU4myT]

5 hours ago, Selective Genius said:

...suggestions for an inspiring name?

Planey McPlaneface?

[jimmymcgoochie]

@Selective Genius how about the Pterodactyl? Because it’s a dinosaur (DynaSoar)  

Spoiler

If you have no idea what I’m on about, google ‘X-20’

 

[Popestar]

KERBARAGUA SPACE AGENCY MEMORANDUM

In Re:  Mission File 06

Vessel:  Kerbeagle II

Time:  Year 1, Day 54, 3 hours, 20 minutes

To:  President Manuel Kerman

Mr. President, I hope that today finds you happy and well.  We have some exciting news to share with you, and we trust that our efforts here at the KSA are bearing the fruit you had in mind when you requested this agency be born.

If you read the Vessel information closely, you'll see that we here at the KSA have figured out how to recycle existing ship names and attach them to new vessels.  Why would we want to do this?  Well, beyond the fact that we aren't feeling all that creative today, we launched a mission similar to what the original Kerbeagle I was designed for...with a bit of a twist.  Not too much of a twist; one of the ladies in accounting threw a hip earlier, and we don't want to put her back in the hospital.  No, just a small twist:  we did a fly-by of Minmus.

Our second moon is largely a mystery to us, and after our success in setting Valentina down on the Mun, we decided to stretch our cosmic legs a bit and see if we could get to Minmus.  Or, at the very least, get close to it.  Which we were able to do, as you can see in the attached picture.  Granted, you can't really see anything other than a large floating rock.  For all you know, this could be the Mun.  It isn't; trust us that it's Minmus.  Valentina was up there for quite a while, and she can attest to how lonely she got.  Unfortunately for her, we hadn't figured out how to send 2 Kerbals up to space at once until she was almost home.  But she survived, and we are better off for it.

Our next mission now is to land someone on Minmus and get them safely home.  As we now have the capability of sending 2 Kerbals up at once in the same ship, at least they won't be lonely should they be unable to get home.

Give the wife our love, and keep those tasty funds rolling in!

Sincerely,

Herman Kerman

Director, Kerbaragua Space Agency

[Goaty1208]

1 hour ago, DAFATRONALDO2007 IN SPACE said:

Val started crying and Jedediah had to calm her down. soon he was crying too. Valentina and jebediah were so in love that when one cried, the other cried too. THE END!

... I have no words...

 

[Clamp-o-Tron]

Started modeling my first KSP part ever!

It's the OSIRIS-REX sample return capsule. If anyone knows enough about Wings 3D to offer me some advice, I'd love some, especially with smoothing the bottom of the capsule.

[N_Danger]

I sent a probe to Edna. We had an early morning launch.

Spoiler

The gravity turn was really good on this one. 22 m/s to circularize 

And arrival at Edna.

After getting the high orbit and low orbit science I put the probe into a 750 x 750 km orbit to do some mapping. When that is done we will move over to Dak. And hopefully after that we will try for Dres.

 

[Selective Genius]

6 hours ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

how about the Pterodactyl? Because it’s a dinosaur (DynaSoar)  

Yes, I know about the DynaSoar. That was on my mind when I designed this craft. But instead of X-20, I ended up with a ESA Hermes. Pterodactyl is a nice name, if a bit mouthful.

6 hours ago, eatU4myT said:

Planey McPlaneface?

Not bad, considering one of my choices was "Wingy Mama".

10 hours ago, Goaty1208 said:

Call it Mr Yeet

Because it 'yeets' 3 kerbals to orbit? That's reasonable...

But 'Pterodactyl' or a version of it would be the name of this craft. Thank you for the suggestions.

[Guest]

I have been getting positive feedback for the latest video. Thanks to y'all who enjoyed it. Would you guys like to see next? I am already booked with other Upsilon content so you know that will be coming out too!

[The Flying Kerbal]

Today saw a very rare contract come up for RSR, a rescue mission!  Most Kerbals stranded in space after some in flight catastrophe would much prefer to take their chances drifting helplessly through the Cosmos, than risk their lives by getting into a Rusty Star Rockets vessel, but occasionally exceptions do crop up!

The Mayday came from an engineer named  Tomoly Kerman - immediately and forever to be given the nickname Major Tom - who, while he may be a very good engineer, couldn't fly a paper plane if the predicament he got himself into on the surface of the Mun is anything to go by.

But his luck was in, RSR CEO Sergei Kerman had personally been working on a special rescue lander in his garden shed, so when the call went out he reckoned this would be the perfect opportunity to see if the thing could actually fly!  Quickly getting his wife to pop it unto the back of the pickup, he had it whisked over to RSR for it to be hoisted on top of a rocket and readied for flight.

It was a masterpiece of rusty simplicity... basically a flying fuel tank with a tiny little capsule, just big enough to hold half a Kerbal if it didn't suffer from claustrophobia, it was obvious from the start that even by RSR standards, this thing wasn't built for style or comfort.  However, that big tank give it over 3000 Dv after commencing its descent to the surface of the Mun, giving it plenty of time to hover and loiter as it searched out a safe landing site close to any stranded Kerbal who happened to be in the area.

No Creature Comforts Here!  Sergei's Rescue Lander In The VAB.

A few gallon of superglue later and it was perched on top of a Rust Box-LB2 booster, on the launch pad and raring to go!

On The Launch Pad, Raring To Go!

Although RSR has never managed to shake off the reputation of being shoddy and incapable of launching a rocket in any way close to being safe, this isn't really true anymore, with a success rate and safety record which today at the very least equals and - some would say - might even surpass that of their bitter rivals at the Kerbal Space Agency.  This record would once again not be endangered by the flight of this rocket, as it powered off the launch pad, delivering its payload into a stable 72K orbit without incident.

RSR has always had accusing fingers pointed at it, claiming all they've achieved was possible only because they use stolen technology from the KSA and other, smaller, private space companies.  Sergei has always maintained his total innocence of such accusations, saying they come from the mouths of the envious and should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Unfortunately it has to be said, the selfie Tomoly managed to somehow take of himself on the Mun doesn't do Sergei's cause any favours...

Incriminating Evidence..?

That selfie has caused uproar, threats of legal action from the KSA, and raises more questions than answers.  What was a KSA capsule doing proudly wearing an RSR logo?  Exactly who is "Major Tom", he wasn't on the official roister of RSR Kerbanauts when he sent his distress message yet seems to be flying for the company.   How did he end up on the Mun?  All launches can be accounted for, and none have landed on the Mun in months.  Why was Sergei so determined to rescue him before the KSA?  And let's not ignore that logo, while it's clearly RSR it's one that nobody in the company has ever seen before.  All very strange...  However I'm sure the press will be fit to come up with all sorts of conspiracies to explain all this, you can join in too if you like!

The rescue itself went better than expected with the lander setting down just 24.5 meters from the stranded Tomoly (I'm pretty proud of that, my precision landings can be a bit chancy at times!).  Grabbing his equipment, Tomoly quickly jetted his way over to the rescue ship, hopped in, and blasted off into a 15K orbit.

Back at Mission Control a flight plan was being quickly stitched together, one that would see the rescue craft plunge into Kerbin's atmosphere to a depth of 35K.  However Sergei "happened" to walk in to see how things were proceeding, took one look at what was being devised, then casually said, "Oh I forgot to tell you, Tomoly will be practicing his rendezvous technique by meeting up with the Monstrosity Space Station".  More puzzled looks but Sergei turned and left, seemingly unaware of the stares penetrating the back of his head, and giving no time for awkward questions...

So the Pe was set to 45K instead, dropping the Ap to just over 900K,  A few short burns and an inclination change later saw Tomoly successfully meet up with the RSR space station in its 100K orbit.  And here again, another mystery: Major Tom didn't just meet up with the Monstrosity, he went on EVA to deliver a sealed cannister over to the science module, even as Sergei sent a message up the station, warning the Kerbals onboard they weren't to open or interfere with it under any circumstances!

If Tomoly was expecting a warm welcome back after getting stuck on the Mun, Kerbin's atmosphere didn't fail to deliver.  Upon departing Monstrosity, he set his Pe at -200K, which absolutely guaranteed fireworks would be provided as he tore through the atmosphere, landing  in the water close to RSR Headquarters, for a particularly lengthy debriefing carried out by Sergei himself!

Major Tom's Homecoming Creating Some Fireworks.

The medical review after his ordeal concluded that he is basically fit and healthy, with the effects of sitting in the small capsule with his knees tucked up under his chin wearing off in about a week to ten days, enabling him straighten his back again.

Edited November 6, 2020 by The Flying Kerbal