ninjaweasel

I just did a mission to the moon Ceti (GPP Minmus equivalent) with the following experiments on my craft: - Science Jr 9000 - Mystery Goo - Temp - Pressure - Dust Collector. I came back with over 4000 Science. If I could have stored my EVA report and surface sample if would have been closer to 5000 . It's difficult to say because of the number of experiments happening on at each situation change, but I think the mod is collecting and resetting the one use only experiments. It's the only way I can explain such a massive haul from one mission. I'm am wrong in thinking it's an impossible amount for those experiments?

I'm having the opposite problem. I put a science lab on the mun, and on reload from a quicksave, the vessel floats up off the surface. There is no gravity, and burning engines has no impact on velocity. Reloading subsequent quicksaves causes the issue to occur there as well. For example, If I load the quicksave with the vessels already landed, they float up off the surface. If I then load the quicksave with the vessel in descent, it's stuck in a 294.5m/s fall. This was a well developed persistence file and it had no issues until the use of the in menu save/load buttons.

After reading this, it is clear that my problem is that I don't know the first thing about how to fly the Mk1-2 pod. My procedure has been: 1. Set periapsis 2. Turn on decent mode. Because I'm descending, right? 3. Cross fingers, hope I got step 1 right. Where can the instructions for flying that pod be found?

I'm curious as to what others use for a re-entry procedure from the moon. I've experimented with different aerocapture altitudes and from a free-return trajectory, a 70km aps sends me for 3 orbits before I finally settle into a re-entry orbit, but a 64k aps kills my kerbals from g's on the reentry orbit (second pass). I'm using a mk1-2 pod in decent mode with no extra weight but a chute and a heat shield. Life support waste gets jettisoned with the last stage as does anything else extraneous. I've seen youtube videos with Apollo re-creation missions where people do a reentry in one orbit and I'm wondering how to do that without an over-g death. Sorry if I missed the answer somewhere in this 30 page thread.

Awesome! As Ophiuchus said, The other work was supportive/interim. Anything I find, I'll post for you, although it looks like he got an earlier start than me today and has already fed you a bunch of great data!

I was thinking that calculating area under the curve should be the easiest thing. Since total area under the curve = 100% fuel burnt, I should be able to average one fuel % interval to the next to calculate time. Since the problem has been solved for the booster I was working with, I'll give that a try on the next build I do.

Awesome find! Is there a higher resolution? That one got downsized and I can't really read it. I should be able to extract approximate #'s if that's all there is. I was already thinking about how to convert propellant % to time so that I could tweak numbers more accurately without having to do a test flight just to see when the booster would run out of oomph. I'm not there yet, but with a couple of the right formulas I should have excel doing this for me before too long. Even to eye-ball it, I shouldn't be too far off. I think I understand the rationale here. It ramps up to avoid shock-loading on launch, then pushes max thrust to get supersonic, minimizing drag. Makes sense.

So, First off, discovery: MM Database re-load didn't like me. Post-re-load, the mass of those boosters shot up to 1050t. Not cool for testing purposes! On the EAP-241A thrust curves. My methodology was to use the following goalposts: Metrics for which I lacked data: - A satisfactory TWR at launch. I went for about 1.3 - A Max Q similar to the Delta series rockets (roughly 50 KPa) Data pulled from the user manual: - 1000 m/s @ 80 seconds - 2000 m/s @ 120 seconds - 4.5g Max G loading - Burn Time of 129 seconds - Booster Separation @ 100Km (this just helped define the ascent curve, isolating that variable somewhat) I'm on target for all of these within a reasonable degree of error, with the exception of 2000m/s @ 120 seconds. I blow through that and hit about 2200. But if I turn down the thrust to hit that figure accurately, I blow the burn time figure etc... I don't envy your task if you're going to do this for every SRB out there! I know this is a very different shape from the default curve and I don't know how realistic that is. I know that SRB thrust/time is controlled by the shape of the combustion chamber and the exposed surface area of the propellant, but I don't know how accurately that can be tuned. That being said, it reasonably emulates the real-world flight profile so... if the shoe fits? key = 0 0 key = 0.03 0.69 key = 0.1 0.78 key = 0.16 0.85 key = 0.23 0.91 key = 0.29 0.97 key = 0.35 1 key = 0.42 .98 key = 0.48 0.95 key = 0.55 0.91 key = 0.61 0.87 key = 0.68 0.82 key = 0.74 0.76 key = 0.81 0.71 key = 0.87 0.66 key = 0.94 0.63 key = 1 0.6

If I do a MM database reload, will that force a reload of the .cfg file, or do I have to restart KSP every time I tweak the file?

Thought so, just wanted to be sure!

For all those having issues with other mods, I had to re-install a bunch of folders after the latest update. Procedural Parts and Fairings, and SmartParts all stopped working, possibly others. A simple folder delete and reinstall fixed them. The new thrust curves on the SRBs are awesome! What an ambitious project! I built and test flew an Ariane V (ECA) today (Mass was accurate to within 1% of real world figures). With my standard 1t test satellite as a payload, TWRs were as follows: T +0: 0.95. Amusement followed the launch attempt as this massive rocket walked all over Kourou, since I didn't put launch clamps on it T+15: 1.33. Positive rate of climb established T+60: 3.23. Mach 1.4 at 8000m T+75: 3.87. Mach 2.7 at 16000m. Atmospheric density at about .14 but still under high dynamic pressure. (even got an indication of aerodynamic failure, but couldn't figure out what fell off). T+80: 3.93. peak TWR T+120: 2.80 Gradual TWR fall off during the transition to down range flight (which came late because I feared changing pitch and ripping the rocket apart!) T+157: SRB thrust @ 20Kn, SRBs jettisoned I would say initial thrust could be about 30-35% higher, and the drop off needs to be faster (they're only rated for a 129 second burn). Although the X Axis of the graph is compressed since it shows the whole flight, Figure 3.2.1.a in the users manual is a good reference. I'll play with the EAP-241A for a while (if you'd like me to) if you can confirm for me the function of the two numbers in your thrust curve. I think I get it, but want to be sure before I waste a bunch of time and just screw it up. The Ariane V users manual has Time/Speed, Time/G force, and Time/Altitude curves, so I should be able to put together a pretty good profile. PS: NK, this is where my other thread about getting the GTO burns perfect comes in. Unlike the Delta series upper stages, the upper stage of the Ariane V has no re-ignition capability, so you don't have the same flexibility for GTO and plane change burns. This rocket is going to be HARD to fly!

TeeGee, do you want to post your craft files or are you going to keep that beauty all to yourself? =)

I just got a satellite up to the moon today and for the most part, it looks fantastic. However, I'm getting these tan blobs over-layed on it: They're there on the map view as well. They aren't perfectly fixed; they randomly shift size and shape a little bit, but appear to be concentrated on lower altitudes. Is this RSS or EVE, and any ideas of what I've done wrong? Edit: It appears to have been EVE. I wasn't liking either the clouds or the Lights Overlay (neither seemed to be working/aligned properly) So I deleted the Cluds and Lights .DLLs and this was the result on the Moon. Cheers

Procedural Parts. They make it easiest to measure lengths. So when a website tells me that the Delta IV CBC is xx meters long, I build a procedural tank that long as a measuring stick, then build the actual tank, engine and other parts to match that length. To try to use pre-made tank lengths and get accurate vehicle sizes would be very difficult, and would involve a lot more parts, and probably some wasted mass. Done!

At this point, I don't even care where the satellite ends up, other than over the equator in a circular orbit at 35786km. Figuring out a launch window is a later problem! My priority right now is figuring out how to plan the GTO burn such the Ap ends up at 0 degrees latitude. As far as I've determined, Mr Shifty has then best plan. Since I'll eventually have a few satellites in Geo-Stationary Orbits, I fake it by making one of them the target during the GTO burn. I'm hoping I can convince somebody to build a mod or MechJeb module that handles equatorial AN/DN better, and provides orbital parameter data for orbits post-manoeuvre node.