Angelo Kerman

Technically they can work side by side but I don't recommend it. CRP support is provided as-is, I don't have time to maintain the patches.

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Complete K-20 flight log:

Complete K-20 flight log: In my career game, I flew the K-20 a total of 24 times! With the third and final space shuttle test flight concluded, Sojourner is retired: ... But I'm not done with the X-20 Moroz in my save. It's successor, the Kerbal Return Vehicle, my space station's lifeboat, will be flying in the near future...

Chapter 3 SkyBarge aircraft number 05 approached KSC from the west, carrying the SLS External Tank destined for SLS-4. Unlike the first three flights, the fourth’s ET lacked any thermal paint- engineers determined that it was not needed and leaving it off increased the payload to orbit by nearly a metric ton. Seemingly effortlessly, the SkyBarge settled down onto the tarmac and taxied into its cavernous hangar. Once secured, engineers would remove the external tank and tow it over to VAB 2. Meanwhile, the last Edna flight was ready for launch. The venerable launch vehicle was nearly retired several times during its career, but technological advancements kept it flying. However, with the Shuttle Launch System's debut, its time had come. But with the Duna launch window nearly open and Mariner about halfway through her processing for SLS-3, the Edna was the only rocket available to launch KSP’s first interplanetary probe. As the rocket lifted into the sky, critics wondered why KSC needed the Shuttle Launch System to launch payloads that clearly didn’t need a crew. KSP countered by pointing out that the Edna cost about as much as a shuttle launch, but none of the rocket could be recovered. They also mentioned that the shuttle needed crew to land it properly. When critics pointed out that the Pathfinder landed on autopilot, the engineers claimed that the shuttle was much more complex and needed live kerbals to handle the nuances of landing as well as payload handling. The critics weren't entirely convinced, though they did acknowledge the cost savings. The last Edna had no trouble lifting the Duna Surveyor into orbit, and a couple of days later, the probe departed for the Rusty Planet. Thirty days after that, SLS-3 sat on the pad as its "sparklers" ignited in anticipation of igniting unburned propellium as the main engines started. Mariner carried Valentina Kerman and Samny Kerman aboard. A veteran of Project Munflight and Project Skybase, Valentina was nearly as experienced as Jeb. She was instrumental in testing the K-20 KerbalSoar and became the first kerbal to reach space when she flew the Pioneer on a suborbital test flight. After several orbital flights in the K-20 fleet, she also became the first kerbal to reach the Mun and walk on its surface during Munflight 1, and she walked on Minmus during Munflight 6. Also known as the Munflight Drakken Test Project, Munflight 6 was the first time- and thus far only time- that the Kerman States performed a joint space mission with their space race rivals in the vonKerman Republic. Post Project Munflight, Valentina and her Munflight crew stepped in to fly the Skybase 2 when Dudmon got sick. And given that she trained the second and third classes of KSP astronauts and was easy to get along with, it was no surprise that she was appointed Chief of The Astronaut Corps after Skybase 2. By her own rules, she needed periodic missions to maintain her flight status, and SLS-3 fit the bill. By contrast, Samny was a rookie making her first flight. She trained alongside Hensen Kerman on the Kerboarm as part of the SLS-2 backup crew and was tasked with testing the software fixes that KSC hoped would resolve the arm’s control issues. “Have a good flight, dear, uh, Mariner,” Bob Kerman, Valentina’s husband, and the voice of FLIGHTCOM for SLS-3, radioed from Mission Control. “Copy that, FLIGHTCOM,” Valentina said and smiled. "See you in a few days." Someday she hoped that she and her husband could be on the same mission together, but that would take a policy change by KSP. Mariner launched into a 245km by 256km orbit a few minutes later. The ET’s separatrons failed to fire, so Val activated the RCS to put distance between it and Mariner before finalizing their circularization burn. The ET’s deorbit kit prevented the tank from become more orbital debris. After configuring Mariner for orbit, the pilots moved to the aft control station and activated various experiments carried in the shuttle’s payload bay. One of them was a surveillance camera for the Kerman Aerospace Defense Command. While relations between the Kerman States and the vonKermans Republic had improved since the Munflight Drakken Test Project, the two nations kept to themselves and there was still distrust on both sides. Valentina did not like spying on her former country- she and her mom moved to the Kerman States when she was a child- but she also knew that both nations needed independent means to verify treaties. The thought made her wonder what Hanse vonKerman- her counterpart from the MDTP- was up to these days. They had kept in touch for a while after the test project, but they had not spoken much at all recently. The last she knew he was pushing his superiors for more cooperation between the rival space agencies. After running the multi-spectral imaging sensor for a few orbits and setting the surveillance camera on automatic, Samny got to work on testing the Kerboarm and its new fixes. She used a pre-programmed maneuver to deploy the arm, and it worked as expected. Once the various joints reached their targets, they locked into place. She then used the second pre-programmed maneuver to position the arm next to the test payload’s power data grapple fixture. The arm worked perfectly and latched onto the payload. Afterwards, Samny took manual control and moved the payload around, taking snapshots of the arm’s positions to return to later. After taking snapshots at the payload raised position and simulated docking to the shuttle’s airlock port, Samny commanded the arm to return to those positions. Finally, she returned the payload to its docking port, engaged the magnets, and unlatched the arm. The test payload hard docked to its stowage port without incident. Then she used the pre-programmed snapshots to stow the arm. With the arm barely wobbling, she locked the joints without any trouble. The software fixes worked! Six days later, Mariner deorbited and returned to KSC. With limited fuel reserves, Valentina went long and used s-turns and the speed brakes to slow down before she looped the orbiter back towards the space center. She barely needed the jet engines to land. The post-mission debriefing attributed the failure of the external tank’s separatrons to ignite to a software glitch in the staging code. The defect was corrected for subsequent flights. More significantly, the orbiter had limited delta-v for orbital maneuvering. In the case of Skybase 4, Mariner was able to refuel at the space station. But for flights not headed to Skybase, mission planners needed to carefully manage their maneuvering burns. The situation also gave engineers incentive to create an auxiliary fuel tank system; the orbiter already had the plumbing needed to situate one in the payload bay. Unfortunately, that also meant an additional payload penalty. With so few issues to report and the major problems worked out of the system, KSC decided that SLS-3 was the final test flight. As a result, they proudly proclaimed the Shuttle Launch System fully operational. *** To the west, at the Yeager Astrodrome, the Ministry of Space launched their first mission since the end of the Kerman States’ Project Munflight. Their new Arrow 4 launch vehicle took to the skies on a pair of solid rocket boosters that replaced the expensive common cores from the Arrow 3. As the Arrow 4 made its way through its routine, the solid boosters dropped away while the core stage ignited. Right on time, the core first stage was jettisoned, and its upper stage ignited. As the vehicle exited the atmosphere, the Arrow 4 dumped its fairings and continued its climb. Finally, the payload separated from the launch vehicle. As the upper stage deorbited itself, the new Arrow Lab spread its solar wings…

That is also on the plan, just not listed on the OP.

Ideally, you place the pad on a Kerbal Konstructs static, but I'm anticipating that there will be players who don't have that installed.

No, the launchpad is designed for somewhere on KSC grounds. If you don’t have Kerbal Konstructs then you drive the pad off the runway and park it somewhere. If you do have Kerbal Konstructs then you can use a static and turn it into a spawn point for vessels and set the pad there...

No, it will overhang. The launchpad is nearly 110m long. I am also planning on a launch platform similar to the Mobile Launch Platform that was used for the Shuttle and Saturn V. That will fit on the stock pad.

I finished texturing the Mk-33 Strongback and modeled the launchpad. Then I tested driving the Mk-33 up the ramp; you'll need a running start, but it works. And for those that don't use Kerbal Konstructs, you'll be able to add wheels (i'd attach them to decouplers or robotics) and drive the pad to the desired site: Once I get the pad model finalized I can start texturing it...

Launchpad test drive: If you don't have Kerbal Konstructs to put down a custom pad with, then you can attach wheels to decouplers and drive the pad to your desired launch site, then decouple the wheels. I also textured the strongback today...

Re: kerbal heads: They go in the Skins folder and use kerbalHead as the name of the file. Each head has a separate folder. For suits: they go in the Suits folder, each as a sub-folder. whiteSuit_diffuse and kerbalMainGrey are the texture names. I also looked, SM Marine is no longer available for download. Making boat parts is something I can do if needed...

Which mod is it? ? Asking for a friend...

I finished up the cryo engines patches for the Mk-33 (thanks for your help @JadeOfMaar!), got the engine node switcher working at last on the aft fuel tank, and completed the engine coupler parts:

Bonus update! The latest pre-release finally gets the cryo fuels patch sorted out. There are now two files in the Extras folder: Mk33CryoEnginesCRP.txt, and Mk33CryoEnginesClassicStock.txt. If you have @Nertea's CryoTanks mod installed, and you use my Classic Stock Resources mod, then rename the Mk33CryoEnginesClassicStock.txt to use the .cfg extension. Similarly, if you use Community Resource Pack, then rename the Mk33CryoEnginesCRP.txt file to have a .cfg extension. These files let you use cryo fuels (Propellium/Oxidizer in Classic Stock, or LH2/Oxidizer in CRP) with the Mk-33. You'll also find updated craft files in the Ships/SPH folder. One for LiquidFuel/Oxidizer, one for Classic Stock, and one for CRP.

Thanks! It's textured to Restock/Restock+ style. I can't wait for it to be done either, I've been taking nights and weekends since late last year...

Obligatory nukular engines..

New Size 1p5 and Size 2 engine couplers: Also, updated the DockRotate ModuleManager patch so that you rotate the strongback from the strongback part instead of the launchpad. Finally, I combined the half-sized and full-sized aero cones into a single part. At this point the mechanics are all worked out and it's just a matter of texturing the strongback and finishing up the launchpad, platform, tower, and crew access arms. Hopefully this means we're in the home stretch! Anyway, here is the latest update.

Just updated the download again to fix the issue where the aft tank wasn't loading..

I added a couple of engine coupler parts to the Mk-33: Twin and Quad couplers:

Twin and quad engine couplers: New pre-release is available: - Added Mk-33 Twin Engine Coupler - Added Mk-33 Quad Engine Coupler - WIP Added Mk-33 Strongback. This is functional only, NOT DONE YET! - WIP Added MK-33 Launchpad. This is functional only, NOT DONE YET!

@Incarnation of Chaos mentioned awhile ago an adapter piece that would let you mount different engines. Tonight I finally cracked the Making History engine plate's node switcher design, and the aft tank now supports 4 attachment nodes (the default), 3 (giving you some extra space in the back), and 5 (which adds a couple of nodes where that extra space is). Here's one use: Given my success, I can now make an engine coupler shaped more or less like the aerospikes but with cutouts for 1.25m engines. You can fit 2 engines in the half-sized coupler, and up to 4 in the full-sized version. Not sure how a 2.5m adapter would look... Anyway, I can get a TWR of 1.29 off the pad with standard payload, so that's pretty good.

I did some more launchpad part testing...

That would work. There's also my favorite:

Thanks! It’s getting there, I have another functional element to add to the strongback before I am ready to texture it. For cargo handling, that is a trickier issue given the wide variety of different cargo types out there. I foresee the player docking to the strongback and then driving up a player-made crane of some sort to load the various payloads. I don’t want to force players down a particular path any more than necessary. Hence the reason that there will also be a launch platform for those who don’t want in-field reusability, but you will need to build your own ground support vehicles if you use the pad. To get up the ramp, you might notice that the landing gear is both powered and steerable. The Mk-33 can drive itself up the ramp. The idea is that you offload or dump remaining propellant after you land, drive over to the pad and dock with the strongback, load up new payload, rotate vertical, refuel, and launch. The real also X-33 had a retracting hangar for vehicle service and checkout but in KSP it would make it hard to load up new payloads... With no mod requirements, refueling will require a tanker of some sort that the player builds but there will be locations on the pad to let you grab with the claw or dock with a docking port. If you use a mod like Kerbal Konstructs then you have the option of setting up a nearby fuel depot and purchasing propellants.