What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Leopard]

failed to get a throw away surface base to Eve - aerobraking altitude a bit too high, never entered orbit 

failed to get a probe into Eve orbit, flipping thing lost control link to KSP a few seconds before the orbital capture burn needed to start and couldn't align it properly 

both were cheap missions though, a third is in orbit, but the wrong orbit, again waiting for Kerbin to get close enough to re-establish comms

[N_Danger]

 Place a satellite in orbit to fulfill a contact.

Spoiler

I pretty much got the inclination on launch. Close enough to complete the contract with no corrections.

 

And a final burn to get on station.

Then there was a plant a flag on Minmus for Moving Parts so it was a good time to train up some more kerbals.

I don't know why people were screaming, I missed the ridge by at least 500 meters.

 

[BadOaks]

I wrapped up my mission to Eve today. Mundon and Thompsy planted a flag at the landing site and posed for a few pictures with their vehicles.

They then set about configuring the ascent vehicle for launch. First the ladder segment attached to the EAV's fairing was jettisoned, then the ISRU equipment panels were as well. With a clean aerodynamic profile, the EAV is now ready for launch.

Launch.

Retract gears and align to vertical. At 140 m/s reduce thrust to 70%. Roll to align vehicle with mothership's orbital plane.

Passing 8,000 meters. Perform 5° gravity turn pitch maneuver and begin zero-lift trajectory. Increase to full thrust in preparation for stage separation.

Stage separation.

Passing 34,000 meters at 955 m/s. Booster separation.

Without boosters the upper stage has relatively low acceleration, allowing the ascent vehicle's trajectory to flatten as it nears the top of the atmosphere.

Passing 90,000 meters at 1430 m/s. The EAV is now in space, but well short of orbital velocity.

Stage separation

The orbital stage finished its insertion burn at an altitude of 124,000 meters and 3,150 m/s. The orbit plane was off by a little bit, but that's okay because I'd given the EAV a healthy margin of dV in case something went wrong. Mundon and Thompsy have 900 m/s left to make a rendezvous. 

I was able to get a rendezvous at the ascending node before the EAV had completed its first orbit.150 m/s intercept burn and 650 m/s to match velocities. Mundon and Thompsy transferred to the Sunbeam's airlock. 

The Sunbeam used thrusters to pull away from the EAV's orbital stage, then raised its orbit to 150 km where it will wait for the next transfer window to Kerbin.

I'm really, really enjoying this career so far, as it's given me the opportunity to progress farther than I have in the past to the point that things like manned Eve missions are possible. I'm excited for when I finally get to the Jool system.

Gratuitously large album:

Spoiler

Poor ASEV looking haggard. The wings weren't drooping this much when it landed.

 

[Tweak[Box]]

First ever fly-by of Moho  (ReStock + DLC)

I think Mariner 5 went to the wrong planet 

[Pipcard]

Y74, D235 - The WiM-18 miner and Eternity probes enter Plock orbit

Y74, D237 - Eternity-b on Plock (north pole)

Y74, D240 - Eternity-d on Karen (also north pole)

[purpleivan]

After a little while away from the game I entered the Apollo Style Redux v3 Challenge.

Mission report here.

A trip taken in a very un-Apollo like vehicle.

Dumped a Launch Escape System tower a little later than planned.

Spoiler

Sent a lander to the Munar surface.

Set down by a famous landmark.

Deployed a rover/ascent module.

Used said rover to litter the surface with Mun Scientific Experiment Packages.

Bob played a bit of footy with a MunSEP.

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

Then Bob and Val left the surface to meet with Jeb in the CSM.

Selfies were taken.

Spoiler

Docking was made.

Spoiler

Before finally returning home.

Edited July 8, 2020 by purpleivan

[Dfthu]

Made a resource scanning satellite for the Mun

Launch went well, except the second second stage was pretty weak and the launch stage only made got the probe to half orbital speed.

In orbit scanning for precious ore

Then I made a Munar Prospector and a low level Scanner.

The rocket was same as the other expect the removal of the SRBs and the addition of large lower stage

The Prospector drilling for Ore and the first step for a base

The low level scanner trying to find the highest concentration of ore

In preparation for the base on the Mun, a new lander was built. A space station will also be built in low Mun orbit to support the future base and ore deliverers

 

 

Edited July 9, 2020 by Dfthu

[catloaf]

Started a new science mode play through and managed a Mün flyby, was planning on going to Minmus but stability issues in my Mün rocket ment I ran out of ksp time before that could happen. However the rocket is ready to launch tomorrow.

Edited July 9, 2020 by catloaf
Praise lord terrier engine and science jr!!

[N_Danger]

I just move a satellite from Eve To Gilly for a contract. I had to do a radial in maneuver at PE to get the science because 6 KM is still considered High Orbit. And then a radial out before impact.

And I built a new probe to send to Duna to fulfill a DMagic contract.

 

 

[The Flying Kerbal]

Today two Rusty Star Rockets vessels arrived at Duna!

The first was designed to carry a number of different pieces of hardware to the red planet for testing.

Testing the Atomic Atom Engine on a suborbital trajectory over Duna.

When all tests were finished, what was left of the craft was used as a surface impactor to see if Duna was solid and could be landed on at some point in the future.

First impressions are that Duna probably is quite firm...

A few hours later and the second vessel was rapidly approaching Duna.

Space Junk!  The RSR Orbiter approaching Duna and its moon Ike.

This time the mission was to test how efficiently the Dunian atmosphere would act to at least slow the vehicle, if not to capture it completely, and then establish a Low Duna Orbit where it will stay until a window opens to permit an easy transfer back to Kerbin.

While reducing the apoapsis of its orbit by aerobraking during a series of orbits, onboard cameras took an image of a Duna sunrise...

A blue sunrise at Duna.  RSR scientists speculate this might be because of dust in the atmosphere - or the result of using cameras recovered from the skip next door!

As it approached the Ap of its orbit for the last time before raising its Pe, the injection stage was discarded to fall down onto the planet below.  The vessel then proceeded to put itself into a 65K circular orbit, where it will wait for the day to return to Kerbin.

The orbiter in its final 65K equatorial orbit of Kerbin.

 

[Pipcard]

Y75, D322 - Mokusei Maru enters Tylo orbit

Y75, D324 - Fuji Base on Tylo

[Yakuzi]

I finished my first SSTO for KSP 1.10.0 today. My vanilla interpretation of Lockheed Martin's VentureStar, fully powered by a linear array of toroidal aerospikes .

 

Full album here

Craft file at KerbalX. It's super easy to get into orbit. No need to touch the flight controls, the only thing you need to do is set SAS to prograde at 100 m/s, burn to apoapsis and circularise.

[JorgeCS]

44 minutes ago, Yakuzi said:

I finished my first SSTO for KSP 1.10.0 today. My vanilla interpretation of Lockheed Martin's VentureStar, fully powered by a linear array of toroidal aerospikes .

Full album here

Craft file at KerbalX. It's super easy to get into orbit. No need to touch the flight controls, the only thing you need to do is set SAS to prograde at 100 m/s, burn to apoapsis and circularise.

At first I thought it was the X-33 from Angel-125... then a couple pics later I noticed it was stock  Super good looking, another of your crafts for my collection (later when I finish work). 

[SpaceCarmelo]

Came back after a month, i'm preparing a gemini trip to the Mun for a scripted rover delivery! 

Love this Gemini iva by LonesomeRobot!

Edited July 9, 2020 by SpaceCarmelo
correction

[Hotel26]

Pegasus 6, also known as "the Platypus" to its test pilots.

It trues out at Mach 4.5 carrying 14,400 kallons of kero.  It's quite happy to land under chutes while fully laden.  All-up weight: 102t.

Edited July 9, 2020 by Hotel26

[kspbandit]

I've found a way to simultaneously,propulsive land 2 rocket boosters.

I  made one booster and then duped it on to that one, and moved it into position. 90 degrees from the decoupler so during separation it won't blow up.

[N_Danger]

I sent off my probe to Duna thinking things would be routine.

Spoiler

I  drop the first stage before circularizing, It only has 18 m/s D/V left after putting my AP at 80 KM on launch. Pretty good first flight so far. 

 

And I get to Duna to find out I have already transmitted 2 of the experiments. I think I'll check the contract a little closer next time.

So I launch a mission to return the needed science to Kerbin.

Just a fly by for low orbit science because I want as much D/V as possible for a fast return back.

And I get an Ike fly by too.

Spoiler

I get my AP at Kerbin to 25 KM with one course correction just before entering Kerbin SOI. And now I coast to re-entry

 

And contract complete. The hard Kerbal way

 

[kspbandit]

I think I've stumbled onto something no one has done before. Actually is was less stumbling and more thinking. Part clipping rockets and rocket booster to control multiple different rockets or dual booster (falcon heavy landing) easily. Here is one mission I did controlling 3 to the moon at the same time. Didn't have the effort to go back to kerbin, as I thought about doing 9 at the same time for a youtube video. Here are some from the original rocket concept which worked pretty well and not too laggy.

 

 

 

 

[catloaf]

After a successful Minmus mission that unlocked the nuclear engine I built my Eve flyby craft.

Minmus mission splashdown:

 The craft in the vab:

Test firing on the pad

[Hotel26]

5 hours ago, kspbandit said:

I think

...outside of the box.  I like it.  Blue Angels.

[fizy45]

Just created and then Tweaked my small-midsize SSTO my goal was simple keep the performance and reduce the part count.

[SJC_Hacker]

I started on Hard mode with the additional of restriction of "Ironman" (no reloading).  Unfortunately already lost both starting pilots (Jeb and Valentina) because of stupid mistakes.  Jeb was able to get to orbit before his untimely demise though.   Now I'm down to a engineer (Bill Kerman) and a scientist.  Hiring new Kerbals is expensive in hard - like 130k each.   My funds are only about 200k.  Its probably a waste to get another pilot until I need one for SAS.

 I think one of the contracts is broken -you are suppose to test the "Thud" booster engine on splashdown.  However, when selecting the booster there is no "Run test" button when right clicking on the booster.     Activating it through the staging sequence on splash down does not alone fufill the contract. I had another contract, I think with the Flea, with identical language, and was able to complete it by clicking ion 'Run Test'.  So I'm pretty sure something is broken, so I ended up cancelling it.  It drained a good bit of funds and killed one of my pilots though. 

Edited July 10, 2020 by SJC_Hacker

[N_Danger]

I spent 30 minutes reverting and tweaking the launch profile for my Minmus Science return contract.

Spoiler

 

 I then went and did the mission. Got into orbit and got the science.

And then woke the return vehicle up from hibernation and sent the science back.

Spoiler

 

And got the contract completed

 

[The Flying Kerbal]

After the excitement of the two Duna vessels arriving at their destination yesterday, today was extremely quiet at Sergei Kerman's uncle's farmyard which doubles up as home to Rusty Star Rockets.

However a number of potential space tourists arrived at the gate to enquire about the possibility of contracting RSR to take them on tours into orbit and beyond.  Normally Sergei makes short shift of tourists, considering them a dangerous nuisance risking their own lives and the lives of professional Kerbanauts who have to fly with them on these nonsensical missions.  He nearly tore the head of his deputy Vasily Kerman when he mentioned the teenagers waiting outside to see him.

Sergie:  NO, ABSOLUTELY NOT, WE WON'T WASTE TIME RESOURCES AND RISK LIVES PANDERING TO THESE SPOILT BRATS!

Vasily:  But Sergei, they're off...

S:  I said NO, and that's it... that's all there is to it!!!

V:  If we do this we'll make almost one point...

S:  Are you deaf... did you not hear me saying NO!

V:  I suspect they heard you over at the KSA, but we'll make about one and a half million if we do it...

S:  NO, ABSOLUTELY NOT, NEVER EV... wait, wh... what was that... how much did you say??

V: One point five million and that's after our expenses.

S:  Will they be giving us an advance?

V: Over 100K each...

S:  Hmm... I mean I've always said, the youth of today are tomorrow's Kerbanauts and I feel it's our responsibility to nurture them and steer them along the right road to the stars... oh and make sure you don't let them run off with our pen when they've written their cheques!

So with contracts signed and money having changed hands, RSR hopes to get the first of these tourist flights off the pad tomorrow.

 

Edited July 10, 2020 by The Flying Kerbal

[Dfthu]

Put up the first stage of my Munar Space station 

Next launch will include a big habitation module

With the station now in orbit, my Standard Crew System launched with a crew of 3 to the station

And here is it docked to the station