TrooperCooper

The KSA continued to develop and deploy new tools of space travel, science and resource exploitation. See the details in my career diary by clicking here (warning: picture-heavy).

The KSA continued to develop and deploy new tools of space travel, science and resource exploitation. See the details by clicking on the spoiler below the picture. After completion of its orbital spaceport, the KSA developed a reusable passenger ship: the Kerbin-Taxi, loosly based on the older Longbow-design, will bring Kerbals to any location in the Kerbin system except for the homeplanets surface. Its first task was a set of rescue missions arround Mun and Minmus. The stranded Kerbals were returned to the KSS Alpha in LKO. From here on, disposable capsules took over and brought the passengers back down to the surface. During one of the rescue missions, the KSA suffered its first fatal loss, as Rary Kerman forgot to switch on the life support systems of the Kerbin-Taxi after boarding it. Rary Kerman will be always remembered as the Kerbal with the shortest service-time in the history of the KSA, dieing within minutes after joining the agency. Several new spaceplanes were developed. One of them, the automated Twin-Star, was designed with a single type of mission in mind: transporting station-science experiments to the KSS Alpha in LKO. Here it is arriving at the station. Docking up... Inside its small cargohold, it can ferry a single experiment canister, which is then used by the scientists in the labs. Re-entry over the KSC... The SkyDragon, successor of the Titan, is still in development. It is featuring an even longer cargohold and improved flight characteristics. Here it is taking off on a test-flight... The KSA tried to adapt the plane into a role of a commoditie-hauler for the KSS, while the craft was originally ment to be a lifter for bulky payloads. So it brought a load of liquid fuel to the station. The plane was never ment to dock itself to anything, and it sure wasnt easy to link up two such huge objects with 1.25m docking ports. Even worse: after contact was made and the fuel transfer was underway, the connection became unstable and even just tiny motions of either object resulted in enormous forces pulling on the docking ports and pylons. Seeing the majestic KSS Alpha with its current crew of four Kerbals as well as a 1.5 million-spaceplane on the brink of beeing ripped apart, the KSA aborted the test at once. The Skydragon undocked and pulled back immediately. The stations SAS was able to stabilize the movement before any real damage was caused. But it became clear that this plane would never become a resupply hauler for the LKO spaceport. Nonetheless, a reliable SSTO had to be developed in order to routinely bring commodities to the orbital station. The old Phoenix simply had a to to high part-count to operate arround the KSS. So the Mammoth was created. It is a very sturdy design, compared to the Skydragon. Within its 5 meter wide tanks it can transport at least 120 tons of goods. Its main feature however, is the 3.75 meters wide docking port at its backend, slightly sticking out between the two engines. With this tool, and combined with its compact design, the Mammoth can easily dock at the stations largest docking ports and the connection remains safe. Now the KSA began to figure out an inexpensive way to aquire fuel in space. It turned to Minmus, which would allow easy lifting of large quantities due to its low gravity. And so an orbital survey scanner was sent to the small moon, which mapped the resource hotspots from high above. It was soon followed by an automated scanner lander... ...which found the exact location for upcoming mining operations. While the development department began to design and simulate various types of harvesters and refineries, mission control finally catched a launch window to send the Mariner 10 probe to do its fly-by mission of Eve... ...and Moho, visiting the latter for the first time ever and completing the historic mission-contract. Continuing with its Minmus-project, the KSA launched a Griffon Century based lifter... It brought a set of mobile refinery rovers into space. Once in orbit, the pair was seperated with one staying as backup just in case. If unnecessary, it might come to use later on another celestial... Since the rover systems had no RCS and thus were unable to dock themself to the KSS Alpha, a 180 tons-lifter was prepared with the new Andromeda class tanker to refuel the mining equipment in LKO for its trip to Minmus. Take off... Coming in to dock... After it had been refueled, the carrier-system set course for Kerbins 2nd moon. After arrival at its destination... ...it deployed the rover-based Harfinery in the vicinity of the ore seeker probe that was landed earlier. And now the rover is waiting for the arrival of its crew, since the KSA did not dare to send a Kerbal on board of this system which was untested and somewhat difficult to handle.

Aside from visiting places, it probably was creating a nice MKS mining colony on the mun: For some screens of the construction process, follow these links: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/29533-What-did-you-do-in-KSP-today?p=1678333#post1678333 http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/29533-What-did-you-do-in-KSP-today?p=1689163#post1689163 http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/29533-What-did-you-do-in-KSP-today?p=1691238#post1691238 http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/29533-What-did-you-do-in-KSP-today?p=1696490#post1696490 http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/29533-What-did-you-do-in-KSP-today?p=1700702#post1700702 http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/29533-What-did-you-do-in-KSP-today?p=1724574#post1724574

Thank you! The KSA had to step back from lifting their space station modules with SSTOs since a successor for the Titan (that has its control-issues fixed) was still in development. Instead, the remaining sections for the KSS Alpha were launched with traditional rocket lifters. See spoiler below for details. An 82 ton lifter on launch from the KSC: It lifted a large tank which had been converted into a massive storage for life support goods. Soon it was docked to the KSS Alpha... Next up a 36 ton lifter boosted the stations industrial core into orbit: It consists of two ISRU converters and a nuclear reactor and was docked to the station as well... Using a 20 ton lifter... another station science lab was delivered to the KSS. For the next launch, a new 70 ton lifter was used. It revealed some issues as the ignition was soon followed by a big explosion near its bottom. However, it became clear that nothing essential was damaged and thus the vessel continued with its launch. Upon release of the empty boosters, the ground crew noticed that one sepratron was either not firing or not existent. The rest of this flight continued normal and a liquid fuel and Kibbal storage was brought to the KSS Alpha. Then it was time to lift the last and biggest section for the new space station. A 100-ton-lifter pushed this long and heavy payload off the launchpad: Booster drop with ullage motors at 10k... Ignition of the top-stage... As it entered space, the payloads fairings were taken off and revealed two station science Cyclotrons with a Spectrometron in between. Rendezvous with the KSS was made... And the futuristic section docked at the stations center... ...and the KSS Alpha was complete. Bobster, the current stations engineer, used the last remaining sunlight before night to take off all travel modules during an EVA run. As it turned dark, the new modules went online... And when the sun came up again, the stations crew began to install the main solar panels. Now the station is fully operational and soon will become a bustling hub in low Kerbin orbit...

In a series of heavy launches, the KSA completed construction of the KSS Alpha. Click here to see details.

Nah, not really... it is similar in terms of beeing an unmanned cargo SSTO. But the design is slightly different...

I think someone needs to install the Real Solar System mod.

This is how I returned a stranded Kerbal with no RCS fuel left back in 23.5 or so in my early days. It worked suprisingly well. Yes, way to much monoprop, but I was newb. Though I was able to bring him down to the surface of Minmus where he could board a return-ship. Not sure how he would do on atmospheric re-entry while hanging on the claw.

The KSA did two orbital construction missions to the KSS Alpha with the new Titan SSTO. Click here for details.

The KSA did two orbital construction missions to the KSS Alpha with the new Titan SSTO. Details below. The Titan cargo SSTO took off from the KSC for its first flight. The payload was bulky but light. So the plane rapidly ascended... Gaining speed at higher altitude and going supersonic... Soon it breached into space... Just as the target passed overhead... One hour later, the SSTO arrived at the station... And released its first cargo section: a station science lab... Which then moved over to the station by itself... It docked up at the center of the KSS Alpha... As night-time came up, mission control resisted to do the 2nd cargo transfer in the dark... Instead, the stations engineer went on EVA and strapped the travel modules off the new laboratory... When the sun came up again, the Titan SSTO closed back in on the station... To release the next piece of its payload: an OKS/MKS Training Academy... Which docked up next to the lab... Then the Titan had done its job and left the station behind... Heading back home... First re-entry west of the KSC... The plane still had plenty of fuel left over. And so handling was good. Seven hours after take off, the Titan landed safely at the KSC again. Confidence in the KSAs newest tool was growing so that just one week later, the SSTO went on its 2nd mission to the KSS Alpha... This time it delivered a massive OKS/MKS logistics hub... This piece of equipment can rapidly reallocate resources arround Kerbin with its logistics drones if needed... It docked up at the bottom level of the station... The Titan went into a higher orbit to release its 2nd payload... Mariner 10 is a lightweight ion craft that is supposed to make a fly-by on both, Eve and Moho. It was lifted piggyback by the Titan since the other station sections are so big that only one of em fits into the cargo-bay at a time. The SSTO returned to the space center, this time with much less leftover fuel due to the higher probe-deployment orbit. So mission control was somewhat expecting to experience control issues that were already occuring in the simulator when the plane was very light... The landing ended quite oddly. The mission control team almost suffered a heartattack as the tail end of the 1.2-million-Kredit-plane tipped on the runway. But Bill looked all excited. Mumbling something about poor flight behaviour at low weight and fuel-shifting and ran off to the simulator. The plane was later recovered intact by having 257 volunteer Kerbals climb onto its nose...

It doesnt take off from the launchpad. Upon engine ignition, it pushes the planet away. Great stuff!

I cant stop my bad habit of overengineering in terms of dV. Plane SSTOs final ascent during development aside, I cant even remember anymore the last time that I really ran out of fuel. Usually at the end of each mission I can say to myself "welp, you could have had that outcome with much lower costs if you wouldnt try to stay on the safety side so much..."

Yeah I dislike that game mechanic as well. If we want to launch anything bigger than sattelites, we basically have to either build pyramids or use struts,... which always gives an odd look to the rockets imo. Just recently I found the joint reinforcement mod and tried it out for the first time. And voila... all of a sudden you can build real rockets that dont behave like underpressurized bananas thrown into the air... Give it a try. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/55657-1-0-2-Kerbal-Joint-Reinforcement-v3-1-3-4-27-15

The KSA in my career keeps working on its new space station. Oh yeah... and... planes. Click here for details.

The KSA is continuing to lay the foundations for future space exploration. A 30 ton lifter taking off from the KSC: On board: the first habitation section for the KSS Alpha. Setting up the rendezvous with the station for one hour after the launch, exactly above the KSC... Arrival at the target. The payload is released. KSC visible at the bottom right corner. The payload docked up with the command tower. A few days later, the second habitation section is delivered in the same procedure. Then the top level of the KSS Alpha was complete. And the station was now waiting for the arrival of its first crew. To get on board, six Kerbals manned the new Scorpion passenger SSTO, developed by Bill and Valentina. Vertical ascent... Leveling out and going supersonic... Whats cooking? Once in orbit, the SSTO began to chase the new station... Arrival at the KSS Alpha... Once moved into a parking location next to the station, Bill went on EVA... To remove the probe core module that was still tied to the habitates docking port from when this section was delivered... Then it was time for the Scorpion to dock up. Four Kerbals formed the first regular station crew. Two scientists, one pilot and one engineer. Together with Bill, they cleaned up the place, turned on the life support systems and removed some more unnecessary travel modules from the habitation sections. Then Val and Bill went back on board of the SSTO and undocked again, leaving the long-term crew at the station. The Scorpion setting course to return home. Bill to Val: "Say, did we ever run a re-entry simulation for this thing?" - Val: "Nope, you said you need the simulator for something big the other day.." Bill: "Hmmm... all right..." I was certainly a bit worried upon re-entry... But the ship held together and Val and Bill landed safely... So then Bill had to show off what the simulator was occupied with... The age of unmanned cargo lifter SSTOs is coming up for the KSA. The first one is the Phoenix. It is able to lift about 70 tons into LKO. Despite its fragile look, its actually a quite stable platform and easy to fly. The Phoenix will probably become the mainstay for orbital logistics when it comes to hauling goods (life support, fuel, resources, whatever). The second cargo SSTO is the even more astonishing Titan. Featuring a 7.5 meters cargo bay, it is designed to transport even the bulkiest modules and equipment into space. Even the large industrial MKS/OKS items can fit inside. The actual maximum cargo mass has not been defined yet. But theoretically it should be somewhere north of 150 tons. The downside of the plane: when its coming home empty, it can become a ..... to fly and would even make Jeb puke. Combined with the fact that it costs more than 1.2 million Kredits to produce (production time of about two month), it has the potential to accidently cut a hole into the space programs budget. So it will probably only come to service during the construction of the space station and for other high priority tasks... Neither of these planes has actually flown yet. Only in the KCT-Simulator. But they soon will be put to the test...

The KSA has decided on a new goal and is beginning extensive preparations. Read more about it here.

Thank you. I'm glad if I could inspire you. Lately the politicians have given their green light for a project aiming to reach out to Duna with manned missions. Considering the distance and technical requirements, it will mean a great effort. And so the agency has decided to further improve the logistical abilities of the space program, including the construction of a real orbital station that can act as a hub for all operations as well as fuel resource gathering at either Minmus or Mun. Below: the last crew arriving at the SkyLab. After the crew had completed its experiments and before returning home, the outdated micro station is beeing pushed into a higher parking orbit. While intense development work on a station concept was under way, the agency sent out two interplanetary probe missions that were approved of and prepared a year ago already. Mariner 4 was sent to Duna to make a close fly-by. Even though it did not enter a stable orbit, it executed several scientific experiments and mapped parts of the surface. The Eve Splasher arrived at its destination as well... And made it through the thick atmosphere... It was designed to land in one of the oceans of the planet, hoping to find liquid water. Unfortunately it turned out to be a slightly less healthy substance... Next up it was time to launch the first segment of the KSS Alpha, its command tower. Aided by four oversized Thor II boosters, the lifter propelled the module off the launchpad. Booster seperation, shortly before the apoapsis has been burned out: Optimizing the orbit at 80 X 80 km... Lifter seperation: And destruction to avoid Kesslars revenge... The space needle was now ready for further extensions. Then it was time for the KSA to launch its biggest object till this day... The central fuel depot module for the KSS Alpha, consisting mainly of a super heavy loaded 5 meters tank. Despite the constructions shape, Bill insisted on this object still beeing able to launch through a regular gravity turn as KCT-simulations would have proven,... and so it did... One hour after launch, the depot was beeing docked to the command tower in orbit. As soon as the 3.5 meters docking clamps locked in, remaining fuel was transferred and the lifter began to pull back... A few minutes later, this lifter was blown up in a safe distance from the station as well. Meanwhile Bill had developed an engine that could serve as both, airbreather or rocket. Together with him and Val the SPH crew is now beginning to figure out a new kind of access into space...

The KSA is doing lots of groundwork and making its first step beyond Kerbins SOI. For details, click here.

Its been more than four (earth-) years since the Kerbals visited Minmus for the first time. Four years during which the KSA could not claim any such bold new achievements. Interplanetary expeditions seemed out of reach. However, the agency worked hard on laying the foundations for further progress... Several new lifter systems for various payloads were designed, simulated and tested, including some standardized LKO crew launchers. Some more exploration probes were launched to the Mun... and Minmus. For the first time ever, two vesseles docked in space arround Kerbin when Jebediah and his gang practiced this important technique with the unmanned Agena probe ship. With the Apollo Program (historical missions from MCE), the Kerbals improved their abilities to regularly travel to the Mun and Minmus with bigger and bigger rockets, using the new 5 meter parts they had developed... As the Apollo project ended, the KSA began to study the effects of long term missions in a zero G environment on Kerbonauts, using the first tiny space station in LKO: the SkyLab. Experiences were also made in the area of EVA based orbital construction and repairing. Finally the first interplanetary probe was sent out... Mariner 2 made a close fly-by on Eve, investigating Kerbins closest neighbor in the solar system. In preparation of creating a logistical backbone, a resource survey orbiter was sent out to the Mun. The Space Center is almost fully upgraded. Just the administrators are still sitting in a trailer... Bill is already making plans for future space station modules... All in all things are going well at the KSC. The little green men are optimistic that their hard work will pay out eventually and they get the permission to start working on something big again. Rumors exist about the Apollo Program beeing extended to Duna...

The KSA made its way to Minmus. More details here.

Year 4, Day 173 of the space program, the Longbow is taking off from the KSC with the exploration crew on board: The heavy boosters almost overheat... Jetting empty boosters with Ullage motors is always fun Looking good... The Longbow beeing pushed into a Minmus transfer orbit... 3 days later, shortly before the Minmus encounter,... Bob looking back at Kerbin and Mun. Soon he was pretty busy again once an orbit was established... Eventually it was time to disembark the latest high tech ship of the KSP... ...and bring it down to the surface. Leaving a mark. The Longbow and its crew continued to explore Minmus. Several biomes were visited. And in total seven landings were made before the ship began to head back to Kerbin... After a 5 days long journey, the ship began its last maneuver... And the A-Team returned home... With lots of goodies. A couple years were spent on upgrading the KSC a little more and developing fascinating new technologies... The tech-tree is now almost complete...

That and an expanded cargo bay, that allows to load bulky stuff like B9 has... like this.

The KSA finally made it to the Mun surface. Details about it here.

Thank you! Jebediah taking off with the Luna Lander: In orbit, seperation from the lifter... In transit towards the Mun... Jeb running a few experiments at the science bay... Arrival over the Mun... Beginning the descent burn... Travel stage left behind... Searching for a better landing spot... Mission accomplished... More science... Heading back home... Mun SOI eject initiated... Arrival at Kerbin, return-stage activated... Woooooosh! Not bad for the first quick landing... With the science gained, the KSA was finally able to develop a real exploration ship, able to transport a full crew and loads of scientific instruments/experiments. Take off from the KSC: Launch-boosters dropping - Sepratrons FTW! Auxiliary lifter engines kicked away as well when their tanks emptied out. Main engine kept running. At this stage the ship becomes extremly wobbly as expected. But since the turn is mostly done, she is just laying flat in the stream for the most part anyway... After the ship had been pushed into a high orbit, the travel stage is taking over... Bob could not wait to get his hands on some real SCIENCE... Hanging between two worlds... In Mun orbit, Bob continued with his work... Coming down to the surface... Great! We can still receive TV. Outdoor party... The return trip has become a routine... Except for the lander stage almost falling on my head during re-entry... But it missed, and the A-Team returned safely... Having a real scientist on board clearly makes a difference. Loads of science gains... ...resulted in the space program beeing busy for half a year doing research... The current tech-tree: And currently on the drawing board is the Longbow, a nuclear-propelled long-range exploration vehicle to do multiple landings on Minmus...

A contract combination popped up that looked promissing. Scientific data from space arround the Mun, return from Mun orbit to Kerbin and a Mun orbit rescue mission. Dotrey had been stranded up there, probably rushing to beat Jebediah becoming the first Kerbal to walk on the Mun surface. So I put together a vessel that would have enough dV to burn whatever maneuevers I'd have to to catch this guy. The contract combination was promissing a net profit of about 500k Kredits. But things wouldnt work out as planned... Taking of from the launchpad... Just a few thousand meters up, the launch boosters were dropped. Unfortunately, they scratched into the rocket, rapidly disintegrating the lifter stage. Obviously, the mission had to be aborted. Thankfully, the craft was unmanned with the only seat reserved for Dotrey... Trying to minimize the financial loss, the upper stage was landed into the ocean near the KSC... I ran a few more simulations and it showed that by putting the craft into a radial spin during the drop, the SRBs should eject freely, beeing dragged away by the rotational motion. So one month later, the production of the same vessel type had been finnished and a 2nd attempt was due... And this time, with the right technique learned in the simulator, the launch went flawless... Seperation of the rescue craft in LKO... Preparing the transfer... Arrival over the mun, a few minutes before the insertion burn... Planning the rendezvous in a high Mun orbit... Looks like somebody desperately needs a snack... Dotrey hopping over to the rescue craft... Planning the return... Bye bye Mun... we'll be back... Return stage with Dotrey entering Kerbins atmoshphere... Chute open, shield and probe core jetted to lighten the weight on the single chute... We have a new scientist in the KSP. The Programs bank account now was fat enough to upgrade some installations at the KSC. The launchpad is now maxed out and the Tech center was improved to level 2. Along with that, the production and research capabilities (in KCT) saw a big upgrade as well. Current tech tree: And whats on the drawing board right now. The Luna Lander. Since I dont have Mainsails yet and want to avoid seperation problems that I ran into before, it turns out a bit bigger than normal. But hey, safety first.