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Y6 D185-232 - Draco Return and Nuclear Reprocessing Module Well, here we are almost halfway through year 6, and things are moving along nicely. We're just about finished with this year's crew rotation, and Draco has arrived at the edge of Kerbin's SOI. Our first Duna mission has gone splendidly, but it is readily apparent from the crew communications that after more than two years in space they are ready to get home. Unfortunately, they aren't there yet. Their current flight path takes them on a close flyby of the Mun, and then they will burn into an elliptical orbit around Kerbin. Then they'll plot a course to rendezvous back with Minmus Station. The crew will leave Draco there and ferry back to Kerbin Station aboard a transport, and then be carried back to Kerbin via spaceplane. So, they still have a way to go before they're feeling grass between their toes again. A couple of days later Draco passes by The Mun, which slightly alters its course. The good news is that Orbital Dynamics calculated this encounter into Draco's trajectory all the way back at their mid-course correction last year, so they're all set, no burn necessary. OD wanted to use this encounter to capture Draco with a gravity assist, but we decided against that. We're not hurting for fuel at this point, Draco is still at almost 35% fuel load, if you can believe it. So we thought that a controlled burn for capture was a much more reliable choice. A couple hours later and Draco is approaching periapsis. All systems are go, the crew is strapped in on the command deck, and they are ready to burn. Over on the night side of Kerbin, Draco burns to capture into Kerbin orbit. Welcome back, Draco! So now Draco is in a highly elliptical orbit around Kerbin. However, OD has just come back with some bad news. They're in a really bad orbit for getting to Minmus. Essentially they're going to have to cruise out to apoapsis, then fall back for a day before they even get to their burn. Then their transfer orbit to Minmus will take fourteen more days after that. Sorry, folks. While we're waiting for Draco to arrive at Minmus Station, let's get them a ride. The orbital transport Capricorn is dispatched from Kerbin Station and burns for Minmus, unkerballed. It will arrive there well before Draco. ---------- About a week later now, and Draco has arrived at its burn for Minmus. And then, the next day, Capricorn arrives at Minmus Station. So now we just have to wait for Draco to whip around Kerbin again and make its way to Minmus. Stay strong, folks. You can do another two weeks in a spin hab on your heads. ---------- So now it is day 213 and Draco has finally arrived at Minmus. She coasts in and burns into a 200-kilometer orbit. A couple of hours and a couple of burns later, she arrives at Minmus Station. Chief Engineer Kirkpatrick shuts Draco's reactor down, and then Captain Kreuger takes the conn and guides her in to dock. Finally, after over two years, the crew of the first Duna mission get to see other faces and talk to other people! But they do have some work to do. They finish securing Draco and rigging the ship to take power from Minmus Station, ensuring that the reactor will be safe. Then they begin transferring their personal gear and the incredibly-valuable Duna samples to the orbital transport Orion (yes, we rotate the orbital transports, so Capricorn will be staying here while Orion carries the crew home). Once these duties are completed, the crews share a celebratory dinner together. Then the Duna crew boards Orion, closes the hatches, and undocks from the station. Then they wave a final farewell to Draco, and burn for Kerbin. While the crew is on their week-long trip back to Kerbin, we can discuss our next major project. Draco's reactor is currently just above 50% of its reactor core life remaining. It could conceivably make another trip to Duna with its current nuclear fuel load, but that would be unwise, since the reactor is its sole source of electrical and propulsive power. While we could just fly a new propulsion module to Minmus, this would get very expensive, very fast. However, we have a solution: The nuclear fuel reprocessing module! This module is a marvel of engineering. It has been a collaborative project between CKAI, Kerbal Atomics, and Kerman Systems Group robotics division for almost two years. The idea is that nuclear propulsion modules can be removed from their respective crafts and docked to the reprocessing module hub. Then the four waldo arms are used by operators to remotely remove the modular fuel elements in the propulsion module reactors. Obviously we require the use of these waldos to remove and insert the fuel elements from the reactors. It's not like uranium is some kind of liquid that you can pump around in tanks or something. LOL. These expended fuel elements are fed into the reprocessor, which then deconstructs them into their component materials. The reprocessor recovers unused enriched uranium and recycles the recovered materials into new nuclear fuel elements, which can then be reinserted into the propulsion reactors. Any high-level waste is accumulated for later disposal. This module is incredibly complex, and breathtakingly expensive. So I am only going to say this once. If any of you screw around and break this thing, THERE WILL BE NO FOOSBALL FOR A MONTH. Do I make myself clear? In any case, before we can send the reprocessing module up to Minmus Station, we need to do some prep work. We will need to increase the crew compliment on Minmus Station from six to twelve to handle the increased work load. And we will need to increase the amount of power and cooling available on the station to support the module itself. Thankfully we already have quite a bit of living space on Minmus Station, but we will need to increase the amount of spin habitat space. For the power and cooling, we will be sending up a new truss with additional solar panels, batteries, and radiators. Robby is doing the heavy lifting for us today, and after an uneventful climb to orbit, we find it rendezvousing with Kerbin Station. Once they're docked, the crew of Kerbin Station gets to work. They guide Orbital Tug 4 over to pick up the spin hab module, and then bring it down to dock with the new expansion truss. Then, once the station comes around to the departure point, they undock Orbital Tug 6 and Mission Control instructs it to burn for Minmus. Then they undock Robby and it flies back to Kerbin. Now we're going to wait a week or so for Orion to come back with the Duna crew. ---------- So, here we are a week later. Orion is a couple of hours out from Kerbin. Tug 4 is about a day out from Minmus. So we're going to launch the additional crew for Minmus Station, and then the Duna crew can ride that spaceplane down. Save us a trip. ArToo is making this run with The Pod in her bay. While they're making their way around to Kerbin Station, Orion burns in to its parking orbit around Kerbin. And then, a couple of hours later, they arrive at Kerbin Station. The crews all exchange more greetings and congratulations. Then they set about moving gear once again, transferring all of the Duna samples into the Pod for the trip down to Kerbin. Then Kerbin Station reaches the departure point for Minmus and Orion departs once again. And then Kerbin Station reaches the departure point for the spaceplace. They close the hatches and undock ArToo. Then the Duna crew finally burns for home. ArToo cruises through reentry. And then sails in to a dramatic nighttime landing at KSC. Finally, after almost three years in space, the crew of the first Duna mission have made it home! Ticker-tape parades and Kongressional addresses next week. Tonight they get a hot meal and a real bed. Congratulations to all of them! The next day, we're prepping the reprocessing module for launch. Gort is doing the honors this time, and it launches the next evening. Am I the only one who gets nervous seeing millions of funds worth of hardware hurtling through the air at Mach 4? Nobody else? Really? Just thought I'd ask. Anyway, while Gort is going through its maneuvers to reach Kerbin Station, Tug 6 arrives at Minmus. It's got half a day before it arrives at the station yet. Meanwhile, Gort arrives at Kerbin Station and docks. The crew gets busy deploying the reprocessing module and docking Tug 5 to it. While Kerbin Station is coming around to its departure point, Tug 6 arrives at Minmus Station. The crew guides it in to dock the expansion truss. Then once that is in place, then bring the tug around and dock the new spin hab outboard of the old one, mounting them in a counter-rotating pair. Then, once the tug is out of the way, the crew deploys the radiators, solar panels, and spin hab. Then they start getting all of the new systems tested and settled before the new crew shows up. Minmus Station is starting to rival Kerbin Station in size and function. Back at Kerbin Station, the crew undocks Tug 5 and Mission Control orders it to burn for Minmus. As Tug 5 brings the reprocessing module out to Minmus, Orion arrives at Minmus with the new crew. A couple of hours later, they arrive at the station. They've got a week or so to get settled until their job shows up. ---------- Eight days later, Tug 5 arrives at Minmus. After the usual maneuvers, it arrives at Minmus Station, and the crew brings it in to dock. Once the tug is clear and the hatches are opened, the new crew gets inside and starts familiarizing themselves. Their first task is to limber the waldos and set them in their resting positions. So far, so good. Next we'll see how they do with a real refueling....

CKAN does this as well.

I wonder if they will do what I ended up settling on for rendezvous in KSP/kOS; orient the target craft either normal or anti normal so its attitude remains constant in orbit, ha ha (without constant adjustments)

Just gonna push this here blinking red light. Whats the worst thing that could happen? petting this: 193004262024

Hey. Just so you guys know for anyone who may have not. They do not have plans to reimplement the current maneuver system once they remove and improve it. Just wanted to let anyone who hadn’t heard know

@Goddchen, looks good. Thanks for the shout out.

Can't they just add fake dry+wet mass, as if the vessel has additional fuel tanks? I can't see how that would make it inaccurate.

Floor 4770: a sign saying: Floor 4770 183204262024 new page

I haven't seen any thread about Blue Archive... So I'm gonna make it! You can post anything about Blue Archive here, and discuss whatever you like.

@TwoCalories Why not buy the CFA-44 DLC? It has two EMLs and ADMM that can make your campaign very easy. Anyway, you should try Project Wingman, a fan game that is made by the Belkans. I'm playing Blue Archive these days. It's really fun and the story is good.

Theres no real way to do that without messing up the sites themselves, but I think in the options for kerbal konstructs in the difficulty settings theres a option for you to view your last used launch site instead of the ksc, you might like that

Stardew valley Again. Slowly cooperating into the end of year two.

Granted. But they got killed by Earth viruses. I wish for a better F-104 in KSP

I'd just like to say that even if dragging the node beyond current dv should be possible, the game should clearly and explicitly inform that THIS MANEUVER EXCEEDS YOUR VESSEL'S DELTA V BUDGET AND PLANNED TRAJECTORY MAY NOT BE ACCURATE.

Wow that's cool Commiting warcrime by killing millions of civilians by using nuke.

Floor 4769: A room with a Combine Gunship undergoing repairs. You go to the next floor before the guards notice you.

ERROR: INVALID WISH SPELLING SWITCHING TO WORLD PEACE MODE Everyone on earth dies. The end. I wish for life on mars.

P 4

So, i have another question. This Alcubierre Drive (heavy) works very well for me together with "IXS Hull Reactor" - no problem at all. But of course, im interrested in building some custom ships - mainly because this IXS hull is technically fine, but not really a beauty (sorry) Regardless which kind of reactor (an combinations) i use, the drive works not a all. Can somebody give me a hint, which combinaton or reactor is should us for success? Maybe like for example, use the "beam core reactor" with generator x and use this "fuel" (antimatter y) and be shhur, you have this and that connected THX in advance

Anyone know the name of the song playing at 2:35 in this video (which is very cool and that you should watch the entirety of)?

2 successes - which I hope for the love of Gawrd someone records and uploads to YT at 4k. (specificity intentional)

I typically try to stay as mod free as possible, I’m not against mods, but I try to keep them to a minimum. It’s such a hassle ensuring a particular mod works with game version X.zz.25 Plus the performance cost of running mods, ensuring things like additional UI’s stay cohesive to the stock UI’s and finally if I do feel like installing a particular mod, ensuring it’s compatible with other mods I may have. While this may be great for you, and that’s awesome! A sandbox game should have endless replay ability. While we do have sandbox modes for such things, I really enjoy a sandbox game with progression. This severely lacks progression replay ability in its current format. There’s really only a single direct path to progress the tech tree and that severely limits ones desire to do it multiple times. Ive ran dozens and dozens of KSP1 campaign runs, there’s many different ways you can approach it and progress. I’m on my 4th full KSP2 run currently and it’s getting old fast.

@CobaltWolf are you planning on making custom IVa's for the X-15 cockpits or are you just sticking with the Mk1? If I recall correctly your one of the modders that hates making IVA's(if I recall correctly all modders hate making IVA's). Anyway I had the Idea of patching in the one IVA from @Well's Blue Steel mod, they go together pretty well i think, just need to figure out how to raise the iva a bit, and having a patch in Bluedog_DB_Extras would be nice for users of both mods if anyone wants it want it. there's even two-seat one for when that part is done. @PART[bluedog_X15_Cockpit] { @INTERNAL { @name = blue_steel_cockpit_s0_interior } } Also can anyone tell me how to reposition the IVA?