Frank_G

Complete the word: _ _ _ _ rspace

That lander is pretty impressive. Very light weight for an Eve Ascend Vehicle. Well done!

I wouldnt launch any craft just by estimating neither. Just wait for 1.1. I bet in less than 4 weeks we will be up and away in 64 bit and powered by Unity 5. Time for some decent mission planning and some experimental craft building. Probably to unload by drop-off?

...now sneaking secretly and totally unsuspiciously on board the Hype-Train. Starting to knock on the board toilet door saying occupied... "Conductor, ticket please. Please push your ticket out under the door..."... grabs the ticket and vanishes among the crowd, grinning diabolically. Hype Hype Hype... ]

Curse you! CURSE YOU!

Ticket for me please... hey wait... waaaiit!!! Anybody? Hello?

Welcome to the forums! Nice to see you posting here, Vaos. The latest iteration of your Jupiter Star is truly amazing. Awesome looking craft that are efficient too are not seen often. Well done!

Thank you for everything Miguel! All the best for the future.

Today i continued to work on my micro rover concept and decided to bring it along on my upcoming Duna mission. Besides updating the wheels, i also built a science trailer. A C.L.A.W. trailer will follow. Yes, they are small of size, but still it is a challenge to fit them into one of my constellation landers. One design flay currently is, that i have to undock the trailer, before Kerbals can enter and exit in the field.

Here are my smallest useful SSTOs. 4 Kerbals to LKO: 1 Kerbal and SCIENCE stuff to LKO:

Just clicked a Mk. II SSTO spaceplane together, after having the picture in my head the whole night... i did not expect it to fly well, but actually its performance and stability is remarkable. It reached an 85 km circular Orbit with more than 1.000 m/s of DeltaV left, carrying 4 Kerbals on its maiden flight. During the second testflight, it made it to 85 km orbit with 3.4 tons of extra cargo, besides 4 Kerbals and still had 660 m/s left... As it has a very low TWR of 0.6 it takes a while to get it to speed, but it is very efficient and easy to fly. Skyray Delta I on the runway. All solar arrays and the antenna deployed. Here it can be seen with a 3.4 ton test payload in the cargo bay. 85 km circular orbit, with lots of ooomph to spare... Some minor tweaking here and there and it will be ready for production (craftfile for download coming up soon).

Today i built a gigantonormous crewed rover...

Wow, this mod still lives? I always loved it back in .2x days... Getting it now

My first Mün landing was a tiny probe. It had a Stayputnik probe core, a small antenna, a light, a thermometer and a Gravioli detector. I chose a far to steep descent trajectory and after almost crashing, because of fuel running out, i touched down on a slope... The probe fell over and rolled down the slope without exploding... I was able to run and transmit the experiments after all... So for me, it was a big success, but it sure was ridiculous and close to catastrophy... But still, i landed

I like to design, construct, fly, do EVAs and and... Why should i let the machine play my game? Every orbit a true achievement, each 30 minute transfer burn a nice relaxing tea break. I enjoy every bit of KSP

A few more tips: - When you switch engine cycle, your craft should be faster than 1400 m/s and above 22.000 meters of altitude. - When you switch engine cycle, dont forget to close the air intakes to reduce drag - Meeting the above points will allow your spaceplane to accelerate at much less throttle - in words: below 25 to 10% when switching to closed cycle. This will increase the burntime by a large margin. Besides building an SSTO spaceplane, flying it right is a key factor. Get out of the denser part of the atmosphere fast and build up your speed there to save fuel. I hope this helps. (maybe its time for you to open a thread for further discussions)

I like to know the design tricks, both of functional and aesthetic nature.

You might like to check my craftfile thread (link in the sig). Its out of date, but has some efficient spaceplane designs for download, if you need some examples.

Start small, light and efficient. Use a single R.A.P.I.E.R and try to bring the small one into orbit. Learn and experiment how to fly an SSTO spaceplane. Then improve and enlarge your design, using the skills you earned. Just my opinion

My craft are compact and modular. I like to add as much functionality on small room as possible. Like these base landers, back in the .22 days... However, these craft useed a lot of mods and i plan to redo the mission in stock 1.1.

As no info is provided, i give you some general hints for atmosphere-less planets. Start with a light lander, dont over-engineer. Keep that for later landings. When going back to orbit, leave everything behind, that does not need to get back into orbit. Protect your crew. Use a cabin! Make landers useful. Give them the option to carry equipment, vehicles or other things. The heavy end goes down first. Put the heavy stuff on the lower end of your lander. Add a docking port or probe core on the top, so you can control the vertival movement more easy. Add lights to illuminate the landing area. Craters can be... very dark. Dont forget antennas, ladders and solar panels. When landing, go in from low orbit and use a shallow descend trajectory. That helps saving fuel. I hope i provided something useful. If you have specific questions, feel free to ask.

My mission to Eve was my most dangerous mission. The mission to Jool was much cooler, but the lander failed at Tylo, so the Eve return mission is still my most successful mission. The album is viewed best directly on Imgur...

I found some time to design the aeroshell and transfer stage for my Constellation mission. The aeroshell features a frontal mounted heatshield for Duna re-entry. The transfer stage is powered by three LV-N "Nerv" engines. The main tank is a Mk.3 spaceplane fuselage, as it is one of theonly large tanks, that hold only liquid fuel. The docking ring has 4 RCS tanks built in. They feed the four prograde and retrograde attitude control thrusters, that are used for de-orbiting from low Duna orbit. They are also used to control the descend trajectory. The docking ring is later separated, together with the aeroshell and the heatshield.

Today i worked on a stock vehicle, that will be a) small enough to fit in my Constellation lander, b) be able to grab components out of the lander, c) place them on the ground or dock them to other components and finally d) be compatible with the rover... My first tries are indeed the strangest vehicle-designs i ever did in KSP, but due to the lack of robotic arms or a smaller C.L.A.W. unit, i am forced to consider work-arounds. This one is a very promising design. I bet, some of it will make it into the final construction unit... It is not looking very spectacular, but this one here can drive "prone" or "standing" and is capable of lifting and holding itself in the needed position. Coming up with something really reliable will be not an easy task. I also thought about a reaction wheel with a docking port, that can be docked to other components, allowing them to lift themselves up, before being pushed to the right position by the rover.

Today i started to work on a new Constellation style lander and first parts of the payload. When 1.1 is out, i want to launch a large scale fully stock Duna mission. The Lander with stored test-vehicle. The test-vehicle is a small modular rover, that can operate autonomous or carry 4 Kerbals. I plan to have construction tools mounted to it, to connect Duna ground base parts. Launching away the cover of the ascend vehicle. The engines of the ascend vehicle are also the landing engines for the whole vehicle. The Duna Ascend VEhicle or DAVE launching from the lander chassis. It can carry 4 Kerbals to low Duna orbit.