Angelo Kerman

After much trial and error, I finally cut the windows and rigged the lighting on the cockpit: Now I just need to replace the canopy's placeholder texture with the real one, and build the crew hatch...

The part set is pretty much set at this point. I have to finish up the cockpit and make some launchpad parts, then it's done. Still aiming for mid-July but it's looking more like August... Speaking of the cockpit, the canopy's windows are in place at last: The texture is still a placeholder though...

It is a parts pack, minimum KSP is 1.8.1.

I suggest not doing bad landings

Flies just fine for me and others..

Nodes for flight control surfaces screws with symmetry. Try running the probe core’s fuel cell.

That's the earliest version that I tested on. Since it's just a parts pack, but uses stock part variants, you can probably go as far back as when Making History was introduced. But I can't guarantee that it'll work.

I should make some bussard collectors...

Cool video, thanks! I updated the pre-release to make the cockpit canopy not look so preliminary. Later this week I'll be fleshing it out.

Getting a better feel for the cockpit design...

Mk-33 should be easier; it has no dependencies. It will benefit from other mods that are installed... Once the mod is ready for release, it'll be added to CKAN as well.

The mod was developed in 1.9.1, actually. But the minimum version is 1.8.1

I don't see why not, it's just a parts pack...

I fixed some issues with the Mk-33, and built a new shielded docking port for it:

Chapter 27 As the Kerbal Space Center launched a modified Docking Target- their favorite workhorse- into orbit to transfer propellant to the Duna 1B, the vonKermans, launched Drakken Star 1, followed seven days later by Drakken Star 2. The Drakken Star satellites were the first of their new proprietary tracking data relay system network that provided communications for their spacecraft. Each satellite boosted to an orbit between 20,000 km and 30,000 km to provide a wide coverage. A second Docking Target launched and began making its way to the Duna 1B, followed by the first production-level Arrow 3B and Arrow Transfer Vehicle. The Arrow 3B had its new “Vector” main engines, and the ATV sported a relay antenna and docking light in addition to a split fuel tank to support resource transfers. Between the earlier ATV, the production version, and the two Docking Target tankers, the Duna 1B was finally refueled. Seven days later, KSC launched their new SCANSat 4 satellite with upgraded radar mapping and imaging resource management sensors. After attaining a 277 km parking orbit and matching planes with Minmus, SCANSat 4 burned for Kerbin’s furthest moon. It had an 8-day trip to become the first spacecraft to enter Minmus’ sphere of influence. At about the same time, a third Drakken Star launched into high orbit as well. But six and a half days after SCANSat 4 launched, Munflight 2 took to the skies. Bill, Bob, and Jeb climbed aboard the brand-new K-20, named Sojourner (thanks for the suggestions!), that sat atop its Lindor 5 rocket. Sojourner lifted off from Pad B. Instead of heading to Minmus right away, Sojourner entered a 99.1 km by 101.2 km orbit and then headed for the Duna 1B that had been refueled by the ATV and Docking Target vehicles. A day later, SCANSat 4 became the first kerbal spacecraft to enter Minmus’ sphere of influence. It had another 5 hours until it could circularize its orbit, but in that time, Sojourner met up with the Duna 1B, now designated the D1B Minmus Tanker. Taking advantage of the new docking port in Sojourner’s service module, the Tanker docked and topped off Sojourner’s departure stage fuel tanks. Twenty-eight minutes and just over 1,500 m/sec later, Sojourner began its 9-day trip to the Mint Moon. Meanwhile, the vonKermans resumed launches of their tanker craft. A navigation error resulted in a large plane change burn and expending a significant amount of propellant. But with the Kerman States’s Minmus mission already underway, there was no way for them to catch up. They clearly lost the race to Minmus. The mood at Darude was somber. “If all we do is compare ourselves to others, then we’ll always be unhappy as the next supposedly better person comes along,” Oskar said at the televised all-hands meeting. “Should we keep looking to others to define our own worth? Should we give them that power? I say no! Let’s look to ourselves for inspiration and set our own measurements for success. Yes, the Kermans will reach Minmus first, but we haven’t been there to see for ourselves what it’s like. Yes, we lost the race to the Mun, but we haven’t been there and back safely. Enough is enough. Let us create our own firsts! Let us go to Minmus and go back to the Mun. Let us make an outpost there, a town. A city. Let us build a station in space and learn how to stay there for long periods. Let us reach for Eve, for Duna, and land there! But all on our terms and in our own time!” The next mission performed flawlessly. *** Ten days, nine hours and twenty-eight minutes into their mission, Sojourner crossed over to Minmus’ gravitational sphere of influence. The food recycler didn’t work as well as expected, so Bill pulled the reserve snacks from Sparrow, their Munar Excursion Module. That gave them 12 more days of food and drink. Based on their projections, they could spend at most two days on Minmus before they had to head home. At least they had plenty of fresh air. Five hours later, Sojourner entered an 85.5 km by 86.4 km orbit around Minmus. “It sure is green,” Jeb said, looking out the cockpit. “I’m pretty sure its kopper oxide,” Bob answered. “Whatever,” Jeb quipped. “As soon as we loop back around to the day side, we’ll reconfigure for landing ops.” Shortly after looping around to their periapsis, Jeb and Bob transferred over to the Sparrow, powered up its systems, and fired the explosive bolts to separate the MEM from the stack. With practiced efficiency, Jeb moved Sparrow out of the way while Bill backed Sojourner up and docked with the Duna 1B. Then Sojourner rolled over to expose its ventral docking port. Finally, Jeb maneuvered Sparrow and docked to the port. “A lot better than what Val had to deal with,” Bob noted. Jeb ignored him. “Keep an eye out for our LZ, Bob,” Jeb said, “I want my boots on the ground by the next orbit.” In the cockpit, Bill rolled his eyes at Jeb’s icy attitude- he'd been like that since he'd known him- and ignited a SOCS oxium candle to replenish their fresh air reserves. On the third orbit, Jeb ran through the landing checklist, undocked Sparrow from Sojourner, backed away from the K-20, and extended its legs. Bill performed a visual inspection before clearing Sparrow to land. Not long after, they were on their way down. “Descent burn nominal,” Jeb said cooly. “Altitude 14,000,” Bob said a few minutes later. “114 seconds to impact. Speed 259. Delta 1377.” “Starting descent burn,” Jeb said. Several seconds later he’d canceled all forward velocity. “Altitude 2947, delta 1067,” Bob called out. He tried to hide his nervousness but failed. He gulped. Sparrow began to fall downward. “2000… 1000… 500… 100… 50… and… touchdown! Uh, uh, delta, uh, 995.” “Ok, engine shutdown,” Jeb said. He breathed a sigh of relief and smiled. “Uh, we’re in the Highlands,” Bob continued. “No radio contact-“ “Run your science experiments,” Jeb said coldly. By the time Bob finished, they had a link back to KSC. “Highlands Base here, the Sparrow has landed. Let’s go outside while we still have a connection.” “We copy you done, Sparrow, well done,” Gene radioed back from KSC. Kerbals were cheering in the background, but not quite as loudly as the first landing on the Mun. They donned their spacesuits and Jeb took the first steps outside. He leapt off the ground, setting back down again a couple seconds later. “That’s one tall leap for a kerbal, one giant leap for kerbalkin,” Jeb said triumphantly. Bob scooped up a sample of Minmus’ regolith and bagged it just in case they needed to make an emergency ascent. He recognized the substance in the dirt. “Kopper oxide for sure,” he said. Jeb ignored him and set up the flag, then posed. It would make a good publicity photo. “Now that that’s out of the way, grab the lander’s experiment data,” Jeb commanded, “I’m grabbing a munstone.” Bob frowned but did as directed. He’d get a rock for analysis later. Jeb flew a few hundred meters away and found what he wanted. It was a green sandstone, but it was close enough. He hacked away a piece and pocketed it, then headed back to the Sparrow. “Ok scientist, do your science thing.” Bob rolled his eyes and got to work. He didn’t like Jeb much- and Jeb didn’t like the fact that he was married to Valentina. When Jeb wasn’t in front of the camera, he could be a real jerk. But Bob pushed that aside and got to work assembling the ground science station. It was nice to deploy something on another world that he had a hand in developing. Before long, he had the system put together and calibrated. “Uh, no signal…” Bob said, trailing off. “We might need a ground transmitter if we can’t get a CommNet link from SCANSat 4.” “I wish we had a rover,” Jeb mused. “I think Bill is designing one for Munflight 3.” “That’s if we get at Munflight 3,” Jeb quipped. “We have one Lindor left,” Bill radioed from orbit. He’d been monitoring the EVA. “There’s definitely going to be a Munflight 3. The question is, do we get more Munflights. Kongress meets in a couple of weeks to evaluate the program. Hopefully, we’ll get more.” “We have another day of being here, and I’m bored already,” Jeb quipped. “I want to go to the Mun.” A day later, Jeb had eaten through all the snacks and Bob was getting hungry. At sunrise, they prepped Sparrow for its ascent into orbit. Bob took one last look at the science station- it finally had a connection back to KSC- and they launched into a 31.2 km by 37.3 km orbit. Minmus’ lower gravity compared to the Mun left them with plenty of propellant to line up with Sojourner’s orbit. Not wanting to wait 7 hours for the rendezvous burn, Jeb simply pointed Sparrow at the K-20 and burned hard- and surprised Mission Control. Another course correction later, the two spacecraft were within 260 meters of each other. A third and final burn brought Sparrow right alongside Sojourner- in the dark, as is right and proper. Total time: less than an hour and a half. Jeb wasted no time docking Sparrow. He and Bob found Bill hung over after he raided the cockpit’s “secret” stash of vodka. Nonetheless, Bill was able to transfer all the useful resources from Sparrow into the K-20 and Bob grabbed all the science before Jeb unceremoniously discarded the lander’s ascent stage. With a nine-day trip ahead of them and twelve days of food and drink, it was time for Munflight 2 to head home. An hour and 240 m/sec later, Sojourner was on her way.

Interesting use of the Flapjack.

Ok, I updated the pre-release zip with the following: - Fixed Mk-33 Payload Bay refusing to properly shield its contents. Thanks JadeOfMaar! - Fixed docking control orientation of the Mk-33 Krew Module. - Fixed KSP complaints about missing drag cubes in the Mk-33 Mid Tank. - Updated landing gear to support both stand-alone and Restock versions of DepthMask. Thanks JadeOfMaar! - Reduced SAS on Mk-33 Probe Core to level 2 support. - Consolidated RCS thrusters to a single part module. - Mk-33 Cockpit is now based on the forward tank- it was just too far forward. It's still a WIP! Eventually it'll get 6-8 crew capacity. - Added new part: Mk-33 Shielded Docking Port

All the art assets are ARR, but the configs are GPL V3, so no hosting the Mk-33 mod elsewhere- that would create immense confusion. If you want to create a patch that adds joint reinforcement and share that patch somewhere (like, you have a DropBox account), then I'll be happy to credit your work and put a link to your content on the original post if that's something you'd want to do. I've learned with previous mods over the years that someone wants a patch for some mod that I don't use to be included in my mods, then I get stuck maintaining that patch. I want to avoid that going forward.

The mod doesn’t come with B9 support, there must be a MM patch somewhere that is causing that. The docking port is intended. It is designed to dock with the launchpad for in-field service and launch. You will need DockRotate to rotate the strongback to launch position. Those parts aren’t done yet. I am still experimenting with the RCS ports to see what gives the best results for the least waste. Mk-33 is designed to not require any mods or plugins, not even my own, so no LH2Ox out of the box. But if you want to make and test a MM patch for that and post it somewhere, then I can put a link to your content on the OP. The same goes for other mods; I won’t add patches to the mod, but if people want to create something and host the patch somewhere, i will call out your work on the OP.

Just a heads up that the cockpit is still in flux: Basically, it is a version of the forward tank. it fits better there..

I created the development thread for the Mk-33. There's still more work to do but it's definitely flyable. Still aiming for a mid-summer release with all the parts done.

I like the use of fairings to build out the saucer section.

Thanks all! It's not finished yet as of today but there's enough done that it's in a flyable state. Yes, the incomplete cockpit was intended to be included. I make no apologies for incomplete parts as this is still in a development state. Anyway I'm aiming for a mid-July release but realistically all the parts are likely to be done by mid-August. Here are a couple more images: That's the new external airlock (and a modified MOLE Mk 2 docking port that the kerbal is hanging off of) Test flight with the cockpit WIP.

Latest Release (Github) Spacedock Release License: Config files are GPL-V3. All art assets are All Rights Reserved. Scott Kerman watched as the enormous wedge-shaped space plane, known as the Mk-33, began launch preparations. Unlike previous generations of rockets, the Mk-33 needed no lengthy preflight checks. Just perform a quick visual inspection, run diagnostics, load a new payload, roll it out to the pad, rotate it vertical, fuel, and launch. At the end of its mission, land at the launch site runway and repeat. It would change everything. It just needed a name… “Skyranger,” Scott thought aloud… The X-33 was a sub-orbital technology demonstrator for the larger Lockheed Martin VentureStar single-stage-to-orbit reusable launch vehicle. It was created with the goal of significantly reducing the cost of sending payloads to orbit and to approach airline-like turnaround times between launches. Unfortunately, the X-33 was cancelled in 2001, but this specialized parts kit lets you build a similar craft for KSP. Features include: Parts to make your own X-33 inspired (NOT A REPLICA) SSTO or something more kerbal. Optimized for JNSQ, but works fine in stock scale- just empty the forward and aft tanks for stock scale. Custom launchpad parts for immersive game play. REQUIRES NO PLUGINS OR MODS, but it can support DockRotate, KSP-DepthMask, ModuleManager, Servo-Controller, Snacks, Wild Blue Decals, Wild Blue Tools, and more. Special Thanks to: @benjee10, @cineboxandrew, @JadeOfMaar, @Nertea, @Porkjet, and many others for their advice, feedback, inspiration, and tweaks. Pro Tips More images Recommended Mods Reviews Player Addons KR-2200L RealPlume configs by Clamp-O-Tron

That patch is awesome!