Kerpollo 12 Has Landed!

[iamdigitalman]

So, I did all these once before, but I figured I would do them again, they are fun, plus I forgot to take screenshots. I built and launched a Surveyor 3 probe that soft landed on the Mun, then 2 game years later, landed my Kerpollo 12 spacecraft within 200 meters of it. Just wish I took a picture before, as the old style of the LT-1 Landing Strut better matched the real Surveor 3, and allowed it to be much shorter. Had to redesign it a bit for them to work, and it makes it about 4 kerbals tall. Then again, they are pretty short to begin with.

So, here is the real thing first:

And here is my mission:

It's kinda small and hard to see, but my lander is off to the right in the screenshot. Scale is a bit of a problem with this game when trying to replicate reality.

My plan is to recreate all Apollo missions, all skylab missions, then diverge from reality and improve Apollo era technology as I wish NASA would have done rather than develop the space shuttle. (in a perfect world, they would have done both).

[sal_vager]

A day shot would be better, but I can see what you've done here, how about accelerating time a bit and posting another pic?

[WooDzor]

that is just too cool.. close up of your lander?

[AeroAviation]

Nice, I gotta try something like this soon!

[iamdigitalman]

A day shot would be better, but I can see what you've done here, how about accelerating time a bit and posting another pic?

It is day Kerbol is just low in the sky. I started a KSP historical series on Youtube, building replicas of historical spacecraft and aircraft, and the Kerpollo series is on a near-accurate Saturn V booster. The Surveyor was also launched and landed the same way NASA did it, which was hard too, that final decent took many tries.

So far, I have done replicas of Sputnik, Explorer 1, Ranger 7, Mariner 2, Mercury, Soyuz, Gemini/Agena, Apollo, ASTP, and Skylab. Now I am turning toward aircraft, working on a X-15 replica, drop launched from a wing mount on a B-52 replica, just ironing out the bugs, primarily the landing. It works great, even though it makes the mother ship asymmetrical. But that is for another day.

Anyway, here is a shot of the lander. I am really proud of it, it's 2 stages just like Apollo, and can reach a 101x122km orbit after launch from the Mun surface, just like Apollo. I feel kinda bad about it, it is 100% stock, but I had to part clip on the ascent stage to get the fuel tank flush. Ah well, and it can deliver a rover to the surface too, though it's top mounted for now, until we get cargo pods/bays.

as a bonus, here is another screenshot of another component of the spacecraft, the CSM. I even replicated the S-Band antenna array on the real thing. Wish it were smaller. It actually has gotten bigger since the antennas got bigger in .23. Oh well.

[AtomicNinja17]

Epic Job Man keep up the good work

[iamdigitalman]

Epic Job Man keep up the good work

Thanks!

Forgot I made this, it's a screen capture of me launching Kerpollo 11, matched to the real Apollo 11 launch audio. This is a slightly older version of it, my fleet is constantly evolving and improving as I make changes. Action group 1 is still there, but irrelevant, as you can lock gimbals in the VAB, as I did. I also changed the SAS module on the 3rd stage to a remote guidance unit, so I can control it once I extract the LM. also, this has the old antenna array, you can see how much smaller it was with the older antennas.

The craft is so big (500 parts even including the 40 launch clamps), it makes for terrible framerate, but that works in my favor with the launch audio. Now I have a newer computer so it's not as bad.

Make sure to watch in HD!

[John FX]

Not bad. Now you have the function you can work on the look.

Here is an example of how stock can look. (I do have a mod for engine FX though)

1100Dv down, 864dv ascent.

Looking forward to seeing what you do with your Apollo replica.

[iamdigitalman]

Nice, I'm not too good with the part clipping though. In my lander, the fuel tank for the ascent stage is clipped into the lander pod, and that's it.

My Saturn IB launcher is really accurate to the function, and looks the part too. And both my Saturn IB and Saturn V builds share the S-IVB stage.

Right now I am dealing with a bug in .24 with my Saturn launchers, that I built originally a long time ago, where the MET starts counting as soon as the ship is on the pad and the physics are loaded. I made a thread about this in the proper place, but nobody has replied. This screws up with my events, like for example, just launching, the Saturn V started it's engines at T minus 8, and the IB at T minus 3. And the Saturn V, the inboard engine on both the first and second stage were shut off at specific point. I don't really need to do these, but I like being as historically accurate as possible.