Jacke

Besides "CHECK YOUR STAGING!", there's also "CHECK YOUR CREW!"

I suspect scatterer was installed incorrectly. However, you should provide screenshots and logs (see the link in my signature) as it's impossible to determine with any greater detail what happened without them.

As you said, they don't detail what actually happened. But because the science and engineering are well known, it's more likely those drop tests mostly succeeded. What they're looking for is details on how well the parts deployed and opened and afterwards the wear and tear on the 'chute by examining it and taking it apart. I also think SpaceX is unlikely to tempt bad news right before a very important launch window.

Steam reports 562 hours. But for years, I've not launched KSP via Steam. I've just downloaded the new versions on Steam, copied them elsewhere, then copied them again to be modded, then wiped the Steam install so the next download will be pristine. Like @jimmymcgoochie and @Superfluous J, I either launch KSP directly or through CKAN. What are my actual hours? Probably over 1000, likely under 3000. Beyond those vague boundaries, I have no idea.

Well, not after the de Havilland Comet painfully gave demonstration back around 1952 that the increases in aircraft speeds and stresses were creating greater strains that could lead in short order to hull failures. Lessons were learned from that and better airframe testing including up to destruction. Windows were made with rounded corners and other design changes improved fatigue lifetime. Inspection schedules caught problems before failure and given a design there was better knowledge when to check and later retire an aircraft. And you can totally make a structure stronger in some cases by changing it including putting the correct holes in it. There are a lot of loads on a structure, including the weight of the structure itself. If in some ways it's more than strong enough, taking out some of the material lightens the load. The simplest case for this is using hollow tubes instead of solid ones, which happens in some bird's bones. Another possibility is using dimples to remove material. More discussion of this here.

I'm thinking all these satellites will eventually lead to Kessler syndrome. And the true likelihood is very low that it will provide significantly faster Internet links at a reasonable cost than those on the ground. And before then, will seriously hurt ground base astronomy in radio, infrared, and visible light.

EDIT: Okay, I didn't realise this upon my first reading, but now I think you mean your problem came about from using this tool. The advice below might help still. I'm not sure the source of the problem, but sounds like the structure of the docked vessels are now a bit screwed up. A screenshot would help. I don't have time to dig through it, but you could share a copy of a savegame to see if someone can suss out what's wrong. Also, you could see if there's a save or an autosave from earlier that doesn't have the problem. There's still the problem of what caused the error in the first place. That's likely to be some mod or mods that interacted with the post-docked vessel. You should follow the link in my signature about getting help for a modded install. You'll need the logs, a savegame, and the screeshot from above.

Year ago, I heard a better version of this. "The customer isn't always right, but they're always a customer." Currently KSP 2 is scheduled to be released in Fall 2021. Star Theory, do take our pushback in the spirit it's intended, to make KSP 2 better. Mull them over. For the UI, the ideas in the very adjustable City of Heroes and SWTOR UIs are fantastic, allowing elements to be repositioned and some colours changed, as well as allowing those customizations to be saved and reloaded from a file. If you can make the UI more customizable in position and colour as well as savable and reloadable, as challenging as that will be, it will be very beneficial in the long run. And do give us more to see and comment on. It will help make KSP 2 better.

All out of likes for the day. The UI is a critical part of a game. I've heard so much about Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic being a fantastic game. The one time I tried to play it, I did not like the UI being so bad. I knew better UIs were being made at the same time. SWKOTOR succeeded despite the UI because of the story and the Star Wars connection. KSP 2 shouldn't be banking on players getting over a poor UI. It's not just the sale of the game at stake. It's DLCs and later Expansions. If they get the base game and don't enjoy it, they're not going to keep playing and buying. And that applies no matter the age of the player. I also don't think that putting the crew info on the top centre of the UI is a good idea. The bottom right is working well now. If there's other elements going there, pick another corner. It's bad to take up so much vertical space in the centre of the screen, as this is going to be played on screens that are wider than high. Even better, make the UI elements moveable, like the current navball. That was an excellent incorporation of a mod into the base KSP game. Continue that trend.

Just provide a good beer. And woe unto you if it's a crappy beer.... It's like not providing booze to your Dwarves in Dwarf Fortress. It's going to end badly. That's a excellent point about the base game needing to be as right as possible. That's one place that KSP is currently lacking. I find several mods to be required for me to enjoy play. KSP 2 should be better. Looking at the image included, I really don't like that mostly monochrome UI. The current KSP one is better with contrasting colours. And as I stated above, that navball is worse than the stock KSP one, which I always replace with a more detailed one. I don't think a petition is going to move the KSP 2 devs any more than commenting on this post. We should be seeing more information on the form of KSP 2 while that can still be changed by reasonable pushback.

There's also a mod that turns the Board key and the Grab ladder key into toggles, allow you to enable them, then just contact the hatch to enter or the ladder to grab on.

But it could become a lacrosse event. Which could lead to an ice hockey event. Which could turn the Kerbals into Little Green Canadians. All nice and friendly until the ball or puck is dropped, then watch out!

Trust the Kerbals to turn a cross-over event into a literal cross-over event.

...leading to the smash cross-over event, Crisis on Infinite Kerbins.

Don't give the devs ideas! I had to steel meself to get through Subnautica's deepest zones to finish the game. You want a KSP 2 with an actual Kraken? And worse? Really should get on to trying out the latest updated Subnautica: Below Zero.

Good point. When expanded, there are likely azimuth angles from the Eastern Range that are dicey for abort, especially crewed abort. Near-polar orbits like Sun Synchronous have fewer issues. A SE launch to the ISS would likely have too many abort landing zones in or too close to many Caribbean islands or the South American continent to be used. Look on a small-scale Mercator map. Draw a line from KSC to Newfoundland; I think that's the rough ground track of the NE launches to the ISS. Now mirror that line at the same angle to the south. The southern track will pass closer to and even over land a lot more, which complicates recovery.

That's Spacedock being literal about the KSP version it was compiled under, 1.8.1. If a modder of the quality of @linuxgurugamer says his mod works under KSP 1.9.x by changing the title of the initial post, I'd say the current version of the mod will work in KSP 1.9.x. You can either manually install it or adjust CKAN to accept KSP 1.8.x mods for KSP 1.9.x. EDIT: If you are doing a manual install, be sure you install the latest versions of the dependencies from the initial post, Click Through Blocker and Toolbar Controller. They are required. If you install by CKAN, it will install those dependencies.

There's this mod.

Would all be 2nd stage and post-SECO coasting. Certainly Central America, probably over Panama, and maybe Ecuador and Peru, but could be west of them, as South America is very much farther east than North America.

I agree, I prefer Time Warp over Time Zoom. Finally! Would have to study that more. That navball definitely needs more lines on it. As long as it's an addition and doesn't exclude a more details Career mode. Which needs a *lot* of attention. Preferably by looking at mods like Probes Before Crew and Unkerballed Start, as well as the Community Tech Tree. I'm happy that the trend appears to be release it right rather than rush it out. There's a lot to glean from how people mod and play KSP to guide KSP 2.

Apparently now with the new Autonomous Flight Termination system at the Eastern Range, the azimuth angles are being broadened, especially for special dogleg launch trajectories. From the Wikipedia article's source: https://www.floridatoday.com/story/tech/science/space/2017/12/31/southbound-cape-rockets-may-fly-new-path-toward-poles/975027001/ this includes up to polar launches that pass just east of Miami with potential first stage impact just north of Cuba. That's not been used since 1960 and has yet to be used, but remains a possibility.

Glad you pointed these out, @Starwaster. As far as I know, the Apollo SM fuel cells could only be started on the pad prelaunch and even if fundamentally unharmed, shutdown of even one prior to Trans Lunar Injection would lead to a mission scrub and abort reentry and after to some variant of mission abort. It's why there's a mission controller (traditionally RETRO) who's job it is to know all planned abort procedures and how they change in flight. And real-life launch vehicles are very much actively guided by machine while under thrust. For Apollo, loss of both IU and CM guidance would quickly lead at low altitude to sufficient angle-of-attack to cause vehicle departure and breakup and a launch escape abort, while at high altitude almost certainly require a CSM separation abort. These issues are still current for all space missions, including everything SpaceX flies. To get a feel of how close things came in Apollo 12 and how the crises were salvaged, the section in the Wikipedia article has lots of details. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_12#Launch_and_transfer

I don't know whether the launch trajectory or the mission's destination orbit has been revealed, but there's a lot of possibilities for an uncrewed low-mass launch, especially considering the plane change is relatively small, could be done early in the ascent, or could be done on-orbit with multiple burns. Up to direct-east launch into the minimum 29° inclination orbit that can be highly elliptical for the plane change at high altitude for lower delta-V. Plan out a few options and pick one that looks good. If the first stage is recovered, from what's been revealed of the cost it could compete at around $50 million.

For efficiency, the launch azimuth has to be close to the plane of the ISS as KSC rotates into the current plane of the ISS. The Eastern Range can only handle launch azimuths between 37° and 114°. The ISS's orbit is inclined 51.64°. Launching towards the northeast still needs a bit of a dogleg ascent to get coplanar (about 1.36°), but a southeast launch would need around a 27.64° dogleg in the ascent. That's a lot more delta-V as it can only be done when downrange and high enough to be safe. Also would need to be planned and couldn't be done on the same day a northeast launch is planned or even close to the same day as downrange abort support would need to reposition a lot. And may even be outside of the delta-V performance of the launch vehicle.

I'm no SpaceX fanboy but I wouldn't call this a big fail. Launches to the ISS have very short launch windows to be close to coplanar with the ISS orbit plane. Without that, makes the launch more complex and require more delta-V and thus more risk and cost. And quickly get to the limit of the delta-V of the launch vehicle. Weather go/no-go policies and decisions are based upon a lot of launch experience. Sure a rocket can survive excessive high-altitude winds and even lightning strikes. But those can also cause total vehicle loss and even failure of launch escape and thus crew loss. Together this made certain weather too close to the pad require a launch delay that couldn't be taken within the launch window. Thus the scrub to the next launch opportunity, Saturday. That's not a big fail. That's reasonable prudence.