What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Tyko]

11 hours ago, Jett_Quasar said:

LOL, I did the video before I found out the center stage crashed.  I've been waiting for somebody to call me out on that one; you're the first.

 - Jett

  I was thinking about this last night. It's a really well done piece and is a great primer for how the whole system is supposed to work.

Maybe you overlay some text on the center booster portion that basically says something like - "simulation, this is what's supposed to happen. In the actual first launch 2 of the 3 engines failed to re-start and the booster was destroyed on impact with the ocean"

Thanks again for making this. I've shared it with a few people who were asking me questions about it

Edited February 10, 2018 by Tyko

[Starman4308]

Progress was made on the auto-lander script!

Shortly thereafter:

The issue on that run is that I had final landing set to initiate burn if vertical velocity got above 4 m/sec... but I should have checked if it was below negative 4 m/sec. That run still somehow landed with antenna intact.

But no more shall I talk of developing that script! Instead, have a Soyuz-Agena launch!

Here is the S1.5400 engine burning. It was subsequently reprimanded for stopping in the middle of lunar injection.

Agena-lander separation, after Agena used its last 300 m/sec to begin descent:

High-gate took a long time to complete, since I hadn't very carefully checked the descent stage thrust, which provided a mere 1.2 lunar TWR at engine ignition. By the time high gate completed, I was at 13.4 km altitude, such that I gained 100 m/sec before the first low-gate engine ignition.

And success! Note that the RCS thrusters firing is because I completely forgot to disable MechJeb steering beforehand.

 

Mariner V managed another Venus flyby, discovering 2 biomes it hadn't found on the prior flyby. Unfortunately I don't think I'm going to be able to get it into Venus orbit: it's down to just a few hundred m/sec of delta-V, and this polar flyby affected inclination a fair bit.

 

I also designed a new vehicle I'm calling the Aleph-Centaur 402/442/482, based on a dual-engine Centaur, a 2x LR105 sustainer stage, and a 2x E-1 first stage with 0, 4, or 8 Castors, though I'm going to wait about 300 days before I test it. I'll have to compare that design to "slap a single F1 engine under that Centaur", because I'm about to get the F1 from heavy rocketry.

[Hotel26]

My first ever xenon refueling operation (after my first ever run around my new lunar pylon course).  What great fun!

[kerbinorbiter]

cracked the RTLS mathematics, not precise enough though i am still testing (no not the electron) the error on the script but its rather simple on an earth scale Kerbin having an accuracy of about 15 kelometers is alright, pretty good after traveling 10000 km 

Edited February 10, 2018 by kerbinorbiter

[eddiew]

To orbit! And almost beyond.

Following on from the success off the Boostenthruster, mission control gives the nod to a larger variant that will carry a heavier science payload. Upon reaching orbit, it becomes clear that someone in the engineering shed had performed all the calculations assuming all burns are performed at atmospheric pressure, with the result that Lyssa has nearly 900m/s of vacuum delta-v to spare. Waste not want not...

[Jett_Quasar]

1 hour ago, Tyko said:

  I was thinking about this last night. It's a really well done piece and is a great primer for how the whole system is supposed to work.

Maybe you overlay some text on the center booster portion that basically says something like - "simulation, this is what's supposed to happen. In the actual first launch 2 of the 3 engines failed to re-start and the booster was destroyed on impact with the ocean"

Thanks again for making this. I've shared it with a few people who were asking me questions about it

Cool!  Unfortunately once a video has been uploaded I'm not able to edit it to add captions, however there is a note at the end of the video indicating that it contains both actual footage along with computer simulations.  Also, I have updated the description with a note on the center booster landing.

 - Jett

[Geonovast]

Since I'm slowly increasing immersion in my shuttle program, I tested a shuttle recovery tug.  Only change to my shuttle was replacing the front nose cone with the shielded docking port so the klaw had something to grab.  (As expected, refused to grab the nose cone.)

First the ASD-11 Trinity dumped a pointless satellite in orbit.

Sent out the tug... which is dependent on solar, we'll need to change that, since we had to stop half way and wait for daylight.

Also had to deploy the solar panels on the shuttle so they didn't die on the runway. (I really gotta see if my LS can exclude vessels landed at the KSC)

Once leveled (There's gear on the front of the tug to level it for docking), lift the front gear of the orbiter for towing.  Front wheels aren't too happy about it, apparently.

 

Delivered to the VAB!

 

Also, small PSA.  If you use KJR and have noticed that the Klaw doesn't pivot like I did, the fix is here.

Oh, also did my very first IVA docking.

 

Edited February 10, 2018 by Geonovast

[drhay53]

I got tired of single biome apollo style missions to Minmus and Mun, in my 30% science career save (still waiting on a few tech nodes before I start building stations for lab use). So I sent up a big tank of hypergolic to refuel the lander. Should be able to easily make 10+ trips up and down before needing to head back to Kerbin.

[Daveroski]

Toe Dipper was launched, destination Ceti.

 

 

 

 

It's mission is to gather science data and to return that data to Gael.

 

 

It will leave behind a ground based com station.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once all of the data has been gathered, the data pack launches to return home.

 

 

 

 

When it reaches home it will drop the drive and power section. It will hurtle, unguided but self-righting into the atmosphere at over 3000m p/s.

 

 

 

And finally popping the chutes for a safe landing. (unless it lands in the sea because it doesn't float.)

 

 

That was fun... now I have to send a station and a lander to Ceti so the guys have something to do.

 

 

[Delay]

I tweaked my shuttle's boosters a bit and managed to get a successful liftoff and a nice 85-86km orbit. I got out my payload (a fuselage with a docking port to dock to my space station) and docked. And I was really happy because it took less time than I expected...

From here on out, everything went downhill. First off: I'm using a Klaw to rotate my payload into position (what's the maximum angle on that, by the way?). Putting it back into the cargo bay didn't work and it got stuck at roughly 45°. I managed to decouple the payload and pretend like I fixed it fix that and re-entered the atmosphere.

The further I went down, the less stable the shuttle got. That's exactly the kind of behaviour I like on vessels with no parachutes. It inevitably ended in violent spinning and RUD when I gently touched the water at 80 m/s. I tried again and this time the command pod wasn't destroyed, so I was at least able to recover the crew.

Turns out that the center of lift was in front of the center of mass by a lot. I redesigned the orbiter, so it now flies nicely with empty tanks and cargo bay.

The launch vehicle was also redesigned so basically I'm back to square one. Well, at least I know it'll function correctly this time.

[Atkara]

4 hours ago, ProtoJeb21 said:

My giant Hermes II craft has 3,634 m/s of Delta-v in the main to-and-from Moho stage. Is that enough for a Moho orbital insertion and a return to Kerbin? 

Your orbital insertion dv requirement, depends on the parameters of your transfer burn -specifically, how much radial in/out did you have to add, in order to get the intercept. It should be enough -I hope...

But a Kerbin return on top? My not-so-professional opinion, is no. Do you remember how much dv did your transfer burn cost in total?

[Colonel Cbplayer]

I was able to record some dogfights after re-engineering this plane for a bit. This thing is a beast!

 Of course, I'll be teasing battloid combat for later

 

[ProtoJeb21]

33 minutes ago, Atkara said:

Your orbital insertion dv requirement, depends on the parameters of your transfer burn -specifically, how much radial in/out did you have to add, in order to get the intercept. It should be enough -I hope...

But a Kerbin return on top? My not-so-professional opinion, is no. Do you remember how much dv did your transfer burn cost in total?

The dv value I posted was for the main vessel after its Moho transfer burn. I managed to get it into orbit between the time of this post and my last one, but barely any fuel was left. I could only get Hermes II in a heavily eccentric, polar orbit. 

[Guest]

Pelican 2 is on its inaugural mission. This one is a simple one that only tests its basic functions and doesn't come close to pushing its limits: recovering Orpheus. 

Orpheus was caught in a bit of a pickle as some propellerhead at Mission Control forgot to check the CommNet status again. It was unable to perform its mid-course correction burn on account of being out of contact. Consequently it ended up on a polar orbit at the very limits of the Kerbin SoI, rather than low orbit as in the mission plan.

Pelican 2 took up a tug, which hauled it back down and parked it in a Klaw on the Pelican's cargo bed, specially installed for the purpose. 

Now it is in orbit, waiting for KSC to appear below it for re-entry and recovery.

In the meantime, Valentina enjoyed a spectacular view of the Jolian system from just above Bop.

Then she planted a couple of flags.

That instrument landing in pitch blackness into a valley was a bit nerve-wracking, but Valentina aced it. Now she will stay put until next Bopian morning, at which point the orbiting tanker will join her and the Bop ISRU operation for refueling. Then she will set out for Pol.

...

In case anyone is interested in the differences between Pelican 1 and Pelican 2, the main one is with the forward fuselage. I got rid of the truncated Mk2 one and put in a streamlined 2.5 metre one, adding some wing connectors to keep the whole thing together. I also designed a new surface tanker with the same capacity as the old one, but aerodynamic. Additionally I made some more minor tweaks, the biggest one being replacing the wingtips by simple deltas, and adjusting the pitch of the flatbed/wing. 

As a result, Pelican 2 is much more efficient aerodynamically, while remaining incredibly easy to fly -- on a test flight, I actually forgot to switch on Atmosphere Autopilot and didn't even notice. It's still not the slipperiest plane in existence but the difference is dramatic. The plan is to send it and the new tanker up in the next transfer window. What will become of the old Pelican remains to be decided. Any ideas?

Edited February 10, 2018 by Guest

[Atkara]

15 minutes ago, ProtoJeb21 said:

The dv value I posted was for the main vessel after its Moho transfer burn. I managed to get it into orbit between the time of this post and my last one, but barely any fuel was left. I could only get Hermes II in a heavily eccentric, polar orbit. 

Moho is so close to the sun, that a direct transfer from Kerbin is an expensive dv affair, as you know anyway. And due to it's proximity, it's orbital velocity is so high, that any deviation, any deviation from the optimal transfer window will either have you chase the encounter with radial in/out (which throws any pre-calculated capture burn, straight to the trash bin) or wait for the next window.

I sent 3 vessels to Moho: A miner, a surface outpost and a car. Because of the above-mentioned deviation, the outpost's transfer vehicle barely got a capture and the miner had to use the fuel of the other one, carrying the car. And to think that they didn't come straight from Kerbin -they got refueled around Eve and transferred from there instead. If it wasn't for that miner, I would have equipment and Kerbals orbiting Moho, with no way to land...

[Hotel26]

3 hours ago, Brikoleur said:

In case anyone is interested in the differences between Pelican 1 and Pelican 2

Yay, Pelican 2.  KerbalX when you're satisfied it is completely complete?  I would certainly like to test-drive it!

[MagicFireCaster]

Made a rendezvous with an old lander on the moon and collected some science, also launched my first scansat over kerbin.

[Starman4308]

I sent a repeat lander to the Moon, this time landing near the poles. Except, I lie, it's not a repeat lander: it had 30 kg more science, and replaced the hydrazine monopropellant system with an MMH-MON3 bipropellant system, increasing both thrust and delta-V despite having more science onboard.

Between the improved lander propulsion, the S1.5400 not failing this time, and replacing the Soyuz 1 booster with Soyuz 1.1, there was a stupendous excess of delta-V remaining aboard the craft, so it was decided to attempt a suborbital hop northwards.

The last transmission indicated the lander had run out of propellant with significant altitude and vertical speed remaining. It is clear that, while relatively efficient for landing from orbital velocities, the landing program sent to the probe is horribly inefficient for high-arc suborbital hops.

After that, I launched the first Titan-Centaur with a mass simulator. While significantly more capable than the similar Agena E thanks to wonderfully high-performance hydrolox, significant boiloff occurs within a single orbit (150 m/sec of 691 m/sec remaining once in orbit), suggesting that launch windows be carefully planned to minimize boiloff.

After that, I have authorized construction of the first Aleph-Centaur 402, based on the 2/2/2 RL-10/LR-105/E-1 architecture I talked about yesterday. This will likely be used for preliminary long-range manned Gemini missions.

Finally, I designed an unmanned LOR mission with fully 49 kilograms of scientific equipment, including two biological samples. When all is said and done, almost 7 tons will need to be sent to lunar injection.

Even the recently designed Aleph-Centaur 402 can barely carry that to LEO, nevermind lunar injection. To handle this payload, the Bet-4 and Bet-6 boosters have been designed. These use a 3-engine Centaur upper stage. The core stage uses a single RD-108 sustainer engine ignited on the ground alongside 4 or 6 E-1 boosters. The Bet 6, with LEO payloads, barely scrapes inside the 800-ton launchpad safety limit, but has an estimated LEO payload of 27 tonnes, with a preliminary estimate of 8.5 tons to lunar injection.

And yes, the Bet 4 looks a bit like a supersized Soyuz. It's also the first time I've used the Saturn 1 avionics; everything else needs at most the early 3m core with 300 tons capacity.

EDIT: Also, 6 years to the Grand Tour window, with improved electrics (and truly long-range antennas) coming off the stack soon. Methinks I'll be be using at least quartet of Bet 6 launchers to set that up.

Edited February 11, 2018 by Starman4308

[Hotel26]

Gossamer Albatross on approach to land at Xen Pylo C after de-orbiting from a refueling in LMO, courtesy Hawk X tug/xenon pod.

Spoiler

 

Second Lunar Pylon Course challenge announced.  Can now be downloaded as a complete ./saves/<world>, ready to go.  (Doesn't get easier...)

Edited February 11, 2018 by Hotel26

[Whisky Tango Foxtrot]

Mostly fairly mundane housekeeping tasks for the last few days. I got one of those "conduct seismic surveys near X" missions which gave me a chance to take my Pol rover for a spin.

It actually worked fairly well, despite the fact that Pol's low gravity meant that the vehicle spent very little time with its wheels touching the ground. I was able to use the rover's on-board reaction wheel to keep it steady in the air, though, and use the few moments of ground-contact I did get to make any necessary course and speed changes.

My Duna->Kerbin transfer window arrived and I sent the crew of my Duna and Ike installations home, leaving the planet uninhabited, a state that it will remain in indefinitely.

Uninhabited doesn't mean unvisited, though, since I've also sent a new ship on its way to the red planet.

This one consists of a fuel transport craft that was originally assigned to Moho (but replaced at that planet with a tweaked design with expanded fuel capacity) which will be sent to Ike, along with a rover to be landed on Duna (giving me the ability to obtain science data from the surface even without a crew present) and a telescope satellite to be placed in an orbit between Duna and Kerbin.

Mostly, though, I've been spending the last few days carting ore from my mining base on Pol to my mini-station orbiting Tylo, where it's being converted into fuel for a manned Tylo landing craft. I was actually hoping to attempt the landing today, but it looks like it'll take one more fuel shipment before that's possible.

[Ace in Space]

Well, Duna will apparently have to wait. I'd rather not have Jeb orbiting the sun for years waiting to intercept it, so I'm going to wait until the planets align better before sending anybody over there. Turns out interplanetary missions are harder than Mun missions. Who knew?

In the meantime I decided to do some other stuff, like gathering science to get RAPIER engines so I can make a spaceplane, earning money, and rescuing kerbals because we're too cheap to hire them. I've built a combination rescue/tourism vehicle that hauls tourists up into orbit for sweet, sweet funding, and at the same time can be used to retrieve kerbals who are stuck up there. Tonight I launched one of these with a special attachment - a data canister to bring science back from Jade Station, since transmitting it directly didn't seem promising.

So ultimately this craft is returning to kerbin with two tourists, its pilot, and a newly-rescued kerbal who'd gotten himself stuck in orbit around minmus (going the opposite way of Jade Station, naturally). And as it's entering the atmosphere, I lose power. I couldn't keep the heat shields pointing prograde.

Astoundingly, the craft's lack of anything even resembling aerodynamic stability when not in SAS mode was what saved it. It tumbled wildly in the most chaotic spin imaginable, which managed to keep any one part of the craft from taking the brunt of the reentry heat. On either occasion - the first pass through the atmosphere captured the craft but did not slow it enough for de-orbiting, so it went around and entered again, this time being dragged down to the surface. Both times, spinning wildly. Amazingly, nothing exploded and I was able to deploy the parachutes successfully; all four kerbals walked away alive and even the science canister survived.

Meanwhile, at mission control:

[CatastrophicFailure]

51 minutes ago, Ace in Space said:

It tumbled wildly in the most chaotic spin imaginable, which managed to keep any one part of the craft from taking the brunt of the reentry heat.

Now that right there is how you use entropy against itself. 

 

Me, after entirely too much Kerballing this week, what with taking two days off for Falcon Heavy and incredibly only needing one, I just posted a mission report.

In other Kerbalish things, I got a rusted stuck wheel off my truck in an amusingly Kerbal way, by just unbolting the whole dang thing from the spindle. Extensive percussive maintenance to follow. 

Then sat thru a movie for two hours trying desperately hard not to spend the whole time yelling at the screen “space doesn’t work that way! And like... neither does weather...” 

[RealKerbal3x]

11 hours ago, Brikoleur said:

What will become of the old Pelican remains to be decided. Any ideas?

Try landing it on Jool.

[Hotel26]

11 hours ago, Brikoleur said:

What will become of the old Pelican remains to be decided. Any ideas?

Ensure that all crew have vacated the ship and have some place to go for shelter.  This Point Is Very Important: ensure that all crew have vacated the ship.

(OK, I already said that.)  Then go to the Tracking Station.  Terminate the vessel.  R-click the Terminate option and select the check box With Extreme Prejudice (i.e. mega-explosions, and also applies a strong bacterial fumigant/personal deodorant) and set the self-destruct timer to 10 seconds.  Ah yes, check the Sound Klaxon box as well in case anyone is still in the dunny and didn't get the SMS.

That's what I do, anyway.

[Seriously, that's how those '60s "cowboys" got us into all this trouble with "space junk"...]

Edited February 11, 2018 by Hotel26

[Guest]

8 hours ago, Hotel26 said:

Yay, Pelican 2.  KerbalX when you're satisfied it is completely complete?  I would certainly like to test-drive it!

Certainly. I'll upload it once it's on its way to Laythe.

Continuing to tune it. The first mission was not an unqualified success; I had a dry CoM problem and ended up landing tail-first. Fortunately I had a bit of fuel left so I did a retrograde burn and only lost a few control surfaces.

After some aero tuning and a re-redesign of the surface tanker, the Pelican 2 completed operational tests and performed its second operational mission. It lofted a probe bound for Moho to ejection orbit at 500 km.

This was a good test mission for it, especially given the CoM issues with the previous one, as it pushed it a bit outside its comfort zone. The payload was much lighter than usual, giving a sub-optimal centre of mass on take-off, and the return was a good deal hotter than usual, since it was from 500 km rather than the usual 75-100; a return empty is also not within its usual operating parameters. 

This time,  Pelican 2 performed impeccably through all stages of the mission. It was a little nose-heavy on re-entry as expected, but pumping the remaining fuel towards the back was sufficient to address the issue. We also performed a supercruise test, followed by a deadstick landing onto the runway.

I've also determined that with the newly-designed streamlined tanker, it meets the mission requirement of delivering 2880 units of Lf with Ox to match to LKO.

It's ready to go to Laythe.

--

In case somebody's curious about how I test these planes, here's what I do -- it's something I've developed over this career, and it reduces the amount of explosions dramatically. Roughly:

1. Taxi test. Tanks full, payload loaded. Accelerate and brake on the runway, lifting the nose without taking off, then brake to a halt. The objective is that it goes straight, is controllable, and the nose lifts up between 70 and 150 m/s at the latest.
2. Dry take-off and glide to a landing. I start with almost dry tanks. The objective is to take off, circle around, and land dead-stick without incident.
3. Dry high-g manoeuvring. Like above but with a bit more fuel. I climb to about 2000 m and about 200--250 m/s, then hit the controls all the way back. The objective is that the craft doesn't stall and flip backwards or come apart.
4. Maximum weight take-off to orbit. Like the taxi test, but this time we go to space. During the climb I look at how the navball lines up with the vector (should be aligned during the acceleration phase), and how the TWR feels. It should be able to climb easily to 5000 or so, then accelerate to orbit at a 20-degree pitch, give or take a couple of degrees. Once up there, I check the Lf/Ox balance: is there a big surplus of one or the other? 
5. Re-entry. How does it behave when it hits the atmosphere? Can I keep it pitched up? Does it want to flip backwards? How well does pumping ballast back and forth help control this? Do some parts experience dangerous thermal stress? When and how does it transition to normal flight? Ideally, I'm looking for a constant 60-90 degree pitch in the high atmosphere, with transition to normal controlled flight around 30-35k. If there are phases in which the craft is not fully controllable, it should be passively stable, e.g. settle into a fixed steep pitch that allows regaining control once past it.
6. Bush landing. How easy is it to land in rough terrain?

If I do tests 1-3 carefully enough, usually 4-6 which are a lot more work go in a few tries only. The reason Pelican 2's first operational flight had all those problems at the end was that I had neglected test number 3.