TrooperCooper

With their newest spaceship, the United Nations went on a mission to achieve a stable orbit around the Moon. They are also in the process of developing a 4,400 tons monstrosity to land humans on the Luna surface. Click here to see more.

Yep, I got a dedicated test-pilot now for launch escape tests. Poor guy, I'm sure we'll hear of him at some point. ================================================= Episode 9: One step closer to the Moon (click spoiler below pic to open)

With the arrival of the Mars Visitor probe at its target, the UNSA has begun with interplanetary exploration. Click here to see more.

Episode 8: Interplanetary Exploration UNSA launched its first in a series of interplanetary exploration probes: the Mars Visitor The IP Earth Master Link (see Episode 6) began to work with what it was designed and launched for... While Mars Visitor was on its way, production of the Automated Luna Lander (ALL) was finished and it was launched with a RX 7. ALL arriving over its target, still sitting on its travel-stage. When it was put down at the edge of the Lunar Seas, it became the first man-made object to safely land on the Moon (dumped and crashed travel-stage in the background). While they were heavily reaching out into space, the UNSA did not forget about Earth observation... an upgraded ScanSat with a high resolution scanner was brought into a polar orbit. The Venus Visitor pushing out of LEO. Soon followed by the Mercury Visitor probe (in retro-perspective, those two missions could have been combined - but the UNSA was to busy to think about that ). Another ALL landed near the Luna north pole with direct view back home. Mars Visitor arrived at its target and sent fascinating data back to Earth. Venus Visitor was also able to reach its destination, the Earth' closest neighbour planet. Now that the UNSA had peaked into the Solar System, public support was high enough that they could commit to a bold long term operation: landing a man on the Moon and bringing him back safely. The politicians agreed to pay a budget of more than 8 billion $ up front and suggested another 3.5 billion for further studies if the UNSA was successful. With these enormous sums at stake however, failing to achieve the goal till the mid 70ies would most certainly mean the end of the space program. As a first step, the agencies higher ups agreed to invest one billion $ into developmet of a new capsule and the engineers began working on a ship that could reliably bring a crew into Luna orbit and back home. This CSM-like vessel (which is yet to be named) could serve within either a "Luna Orbit Assembly-" concept for the Moon operation, which the UNSA is currently leaning towards,... or it could be adapted to different mission plans like an Earth Orbit Rendezvous type. In its basic configuration, the ship would ride on the newest rocket lifter that is beeing worked on right now: the RX 9 will be certified for 55 ton payloads, possibly up to 60 tons, while weighting more than 2,000 tons and for the first time featuring the new F-1 and J-2 engines. A blueprint of the RX 9 with the Moon ship on top (without fairings). The setup will soon undergo extensive testing of the launch escape system and ascend profiling...

I have to get people down on Mars. I did a manned fly-by on my last career, but I never landed yet. Oh yeah, and bringing them back to Earth would be nice, too... alive preferably.

Thanks. I made screenshots of the vessels with KVV, took their data out of the game and measured their imaged size down to the pixels. Then resized them accordignly with Paintshop.

Ah, good to know. Hmmm... I might just keep that on. I wasnt sattisfied with MJs autopilot capabilities (it couldnt handle my RSS rockets). But this might be usefull. Here is a little chart that I made. Comparing all my standardized lifters thus far and the experimental rockets at the beginning of the career. All real scaled in sizes to each other.

Maybe he put a weight on the keyboard. Honestly, I realized that somehow my RCS engines kept firing if I hit full throtle. I was a little irritated, but decided to not let this opportunity pass. So I didnt touch anything and just let it burn for a long time. Was that MechJeb? I dont know, I dont use that program, its just part of the default RO/RP-0 install I guess. *shrug*

Some UNSA personnal finally had the chance to look back at Earth from the Moon... click here to see more.

Episode 7: Moon Visitors Overall progress during the last years had been slow with the UNSA and higher ups were worried that fundings would be cut short if they didnt achieve something inspiring soon. The Russians stepped in and sped up development of their new spaceship. The Voskhod was ment to surpass the Mercury and certainly did so, however, due to constrains in time and spending, it had its shortcomings as well. Originally it was concepted as a one-man capsule, but the engineers scrapped out unessential instrumentations, propaganda materials and Vodka reserves and then actually were able to cram three Cosmonauts inside it. It was designed as a bowl which did not allow the installation of a launch escape system, a feasible heatshield had to be hobnailed onto its bottom end in a strange way and due to the resulting horrendous aerodynamic profile, the crew had to sit locked in inside payload fairings during the launch. The ships service section offered a range that would allow it a trip arround the Moon and it had life support reserves for ten days for three people on board. In order to lift this thing into space, the new RX 8, certified for up to 20 tons was designed. Lift off from Kourou... On its first testflight into LEO, it was boarded by Zhanna Utyuzhina, Elena Anisimova and Emilia Krasnova from the Soviet Union (someone from PR at the Agency has to figure out why we almost only get female applicants ). Into second stage, burning liquid helium again... The crew calmed down after the thrilling take off when they were breaching into space... Finally, on the RX 8' third stage the fairings were removed and the ugly, yet most advanced spaceship showed its face... After circularization by the lifters top stage, the fatty was let loose... The ship is powered by two XLR81 vacuum engines, which had proven to be very effective in the UNSAs program. Solar panels and com antennas deployed. The Voskhod stayed in LEO for almost a week while the three cosmonauts tested out its systems... On the first re-entry a big piece of debry from its own service module burning up ahead slammed into the descending capsule and reminded mission control that they should decouple sooner. The accident showed however, that while the capsules connection with the heatshield was unfavorable during the ascent, the improvised design guaranteed excellent stability during return as it orientated itself right without a control impulse, despite beeing bumped into a wild spin by the debry at first. A little shocked but safe, the crew landed in the Atlantic again... Now it was time for the UNSA to accept a high profile mission. Sending a crew into space arround the Moon and returning in good shape. The politicans offered a budget of more than six billion $ for the endevour. They probably did not know that the russian engineers had already delivered most of the gear. On its next flight with two russian and one US-american passenger on board, the Voskhod left low Earth orbit. Enroute for a fly-by that would bring the crew back home in less than a week. Bye bye, Earth... Closing in on the target. The Voskhod sent the first crew- and EVA reports from high orbit back to mission control. Shortly before they would transit behind the moon, the crew took a minute to look back at their home planet, contemplating about how far they had come, with the space program... and as the whole human species... They would have loved to stay. But the Voskhods limited capabilities did not allow such an undertaking yet. Thus, after passing around the dark side of the Moon, the first human visitors were on their way back home already... Firing the engines for the last mid course correction... Home, sweet home... Swinging her arround for re-entry, using the tail end control section... This time, the crew decoupled way ahead of re-entry... And while the service section burned up in the distance, the capsule was well protected by its Luna-rated heatshield. After splash down in the Pacific, the crew and the whole UNSA celebrated their recent achievement. The enormous budget payments they received for this mission were well spend into upgrading the spaceport and research and development,... unlocking marvelous new pieces of hardware, including the famous F-1 engine as well as the engine clusters of the soviet N1.

Eh, I guess you are right. I do reffer to it as Agency sometimes, too. Maybe some bureaucrat should fill out and sign the "Name change request request-" form to get the name change request form to change the organisations name at some time... maybe... if he doesnt have something better to do...

The UNSA continued with its spaceprogram,... and was challenged by plenty of little misjudgements. Click here to see more.

Episode 6: Misjudgements To initiate the next round in the manned spaceflight project, a RX 6 lifter brought a hub into low Earth orbit. It was equipped with some science pods, lots of solar panels, a chunk of life support goods and most importantly: a primitive docking port. To practice rendezvousz, docking and prolonged space operations, it was followed by Connie Armstrong with the third modification of the Mercury spaceship. Since this was the first time ever the UNSA tried to have two vessels meet up in space, the maneuver almost failed. The required fuel needs had been miscalculated. Connie matched orbits with the hub and was already down to less than 200 m/s dV. Subsequently mission control locked up her primary fuel tank to reserve what was left for a re-entry burn. They told her that she had to choose now between initiating the rendezvous and docking with her RCS fuel only or aborting the mission. Her reply: "challenge accepted!". She actually achieved to meet up with the hub but misjudged her approach speed, bumped into the installation, fell back... and with the last bit of RCS fuel managed to swing into position and dock up. Now she had some loiter time. Aside from running the hubs science experiments in EVA, she was enjoying the view from 200 km above Earth for nearly a week and set a new record for the longest space mission so far. Shortly after Connie had safely returned back home, the UNSA sent the first in a series of privately sponsored sattelites to the Moon. Meanwhile Research and Development finnished their work on a new long range communication antenna dish. With those put into service, the gate to interplanetary exploration would be open. So engineers concepted a first master uplink satellite for an interplanetary com-network. The satellite would feature five dishes with a range up till Saturn and eight 35° spreader antennas for connections around Earth. This baby would have to be accelerated up to almost escape velocity... in a polar orbit. And that while the construction works at the polar launch base had been delayed. The good old RX 6 was not suited for launching this, so the UNSA was forced to strap it on the heavier and more pricey RX 7. And even for the thus far strongest lifter in the UNSA's fleet, this task was a real burden. The stretched out antenna profile required an aerodynamicly stressing payload fairing. But in the end it did get up there... ...and soon it was accelerating over the south pole... ...and then shot up to an altitude, just a hair wide from the border of the Earth' SOI. The extreme orbit minimizes link downtime to about an hour every 35 days. It was debated whether or not a backup would have to be installed to close this gap. But the mission concept department of the UNSA is willing to accept those chances for the upcoming interplanetary missions. Every 35 days now the IP master link comes down screaming with 10.700 meters per second, zooming low over the south pole to shoot back up again... To help with the UNSA's budget and to further improve the network arround the Earth andMoon, they created a standardized class of satellites for private partnership missions. The first one that went on its way revealed a massive design error, beeing built around a lightweight ballon tank while the engine cluster required heavily pressured fuel supplies. Luckily the mounted RCS thrusters required the exact same fuel type that were stored in the main tanks and could handle the low pressure. So the poor engineer that was responsible for the designs shortcoming was capitvated onto a chair in the missions control room and forced to press the "H-" key for hours, trying to make amends and hoping that the thrusters lower ISP would not ruin his day completly. He was lucky. With the last bit of fuel he managed to get into the proper geostationary orbit. Afterwards the satellites design was improved with a proper engine / tank layout and the next one was sent on its mission to the Moon... ...and the UNSA almost had to fire the next engineer for packing simply not enough fuel (notice the remaining dV and engine burn time at the top left). But some may just call it efficient planning.

Uh, this is looking great! I wish I would have seen this sooner. I might sign up for booster / payload design. But I am not sure if my vocal english is good enough to participate in live sessions. Will the streams be uploaded somewhere to watch them at a convinient time? Also about upgrading the space center: from my own experience investing in production capabilities in VAB (and maybe SPH - but I am not big into planes in RSS/RO yet) is MUCH more important than R&D. If you build faster, you can run contracts more often. Giving you more money which you then can use to upgrade whatever. Though again, an airplane path with regular full recoveries / fast re-builds could could be viable with more R&D focus for the upgrades... Just my 2 $

Ah didnt know about that workarround. Thanks.

Pretty much, yes. Well, not everything, but yeah... a lot.

The UNSA had to re-design most of its equipment. But in the end, it was worth it... Click here to see more.

Episode 5: Redesign The UNSA faced some more technical difficulties. Due to faulty alloys, many of their used engines were grounded. Eventually the engineers were forced to re-design most of the concepts used in the space program. [I uninstalled Real Fuels Stockalike Engine Configs - its was not really playing along nicely with RP-0, to many bugs and imballances - now I have less engine variety but more realism *horray* ] Naturally the RX 5 workhorse had the highest priority to get up and running again. The overhaul however, resultet in what was pretty much a complete new rocket. The general concept of three stages and its payload-capacity of 4.5 tons remained. But the upper two of the three engine sections had to be replaced and their fuel composition with them. And while they were at it, the engineers installed new fins as well. These had no control surfaces anymore and thus just acted as stabilizers since the old fins tended to fight with the engine-gimbal. In the end the new design costed 33% less than the old RX 5 and now was designated as RX 6. Makar Korablyov had the honor of riding it on its maiden flight to become the first human in orbit. Second stage with the new RD-107 8D74PS configuration running... Top stage separation with the ported Mercury setup... The top stage is propelled by a Gamma 8 engine and features powerfull RCS alongside with it for fine adjustments of the payloads orbit. Makars Mercury II setup reached orbit. With its upgraded batteries and a new adapter, it has become a sturdy little spaceship. Makar spent only a few hours in orbit, then returned back to the surface to celebrate his achievement. The next launch of the RX 6, more than half a year later, was unmanned again. It carried GlobeCom 1 into orbit, the prototype of a new commuication satellite generation. These flying antenna arsenals are made for long range communication with the Moon and beyond. GlobeCom 1 went into its assigned orbit and established his com links. Four month later, Sergei Datsishin blasted into space with the next RX 6 / Mercury setup. He became the first spacefarer to go on EVA. GlobeCom 2 followed its predecessor into space. Then it was time for the UNSA to go for the Moon again. The plan was to send an orbiter there with a wide range of scientific equipment plus strong com antennas and enough fuel so that it could become the master-link for a planned orbital network. In order to move such a vessel into orbit, the UNSA had the opportunity to make use of a powerfull new technology: the first early Hydrolox engine had been invented. Based on the LR87-LH2, the engineers designed a new lifter class for 15 ton payloads, the RX 7. Lift off with the Moon Surveyor. The first stage is a cluster of nine good old RD-107 series. Second stage running, burning liquid hydrogen for the first time ever in this program. Top stage and fairings separation... The top stage is very similar to the RX 6, just four meters wide instead of three. Moon Surveyor leaving its lifter behind and beginning to burn for the Moon with an XLR81 engine which historically was used in the Agena vehicles. On the way to the Moon, GlobeCom 1 and 2 keeping the Moon Surveyor linked up. Arrival over the target. Examining the Moon with everything the scientists had to offer...

I'd suggest to uninstall Tweakscale if you want to play RP-0.

Confirming this, just posted Github issue #203 about this.

Yeah I ran into that bug as well, if you are referring to this one: I first thought it was Real Fuels or so, but I agree, its prolly PP. Sorry for bugging you with it, Nathan. I'll take it to PP. The bug is caused by a mod conflict between TweakScale and FAR as far as I know. Also... I'd suggest not to mix Interstellar with RO/RP-0. If you want SciFi tech, the Near Future mods are supposed to work better with RO. Though, prolly not configured for / by RP-0 I guess.

Killed by a bug. Game crashed during a launch abort simulation and somehow KCT didnt grasp it. In the real game he then was in orbit and run dry on supplies. Insta death and impossible to revert. So I had to make something up.

The United Nations Space Administration launched its first manned spaceflight over the Atlantic. Click here to see more.

Episode 4: Manned Spaceflight While the developmet department of the UNSA worked hard on designing a capsule and ship for a first manned flight, several more probes were sent into space. One type of which three were launched, was the "Luna Impactor" class. Their sole purpose was to hit the surface of the Moon... hard. Just as a demonstration to any extraterestrial intelligence that might be watching mankind that we indeed would be able to hit you. If your attacking spaceship is as big as the Moon... and travels on a simple gravitational trajectory... and doesnt have defenses... pffffff... The RX 5 had really become the workhorse of the space program, lifting anything the concept designers decided to strap on top of it. Now it was sent into uncharted waters again... The engineers rightfully trusted into the RX 5's capabilities to deliver a precious payload into a polar orbit around the Earth. The heavy RADAR Sat had been packed with new technology: improved sun-tracking solar panels, RPWS antennas and most importantly its terrain-mapping radar arrays. The satellite mapped the Earth and sent valuable data back to mission control... ...and then moved into a higher polar orbit to serve as a backup com relay. In the meantime, engineers had been developing the equipment to send a man into space. It consisted of the new Mercury capsule with an integrated heatshield, a fully functional launch abort system, parachutes, avionics computers and large batteries. The whole system costed a fortune to create. Naturally, the Agency turned to the RX 5 to lift its first manned spaceship. And the numbers matched up. During the final ground-based testings however, the UNSA suffered its first tragic loss. Pavel Alenin accidently stepped on the controler of the launch abort system when boarding the capsule for a planned excercise. Not belted to his seat yet, he was thrown hundreds of meters into the air at enormous G-forces. Rescue teams were only able to retrieve his dead body after the capsule had landed with its automated parachute... An internal investigation suggested that the launch-abort-controler should be moved away from the floor in front of the entrance. The Russians blamed the loss of one of their finest pilots on inferior american engineering with the Mercury capsule and tensions between the UNSA parties arose. While the higher ups and politicians were battling it out over the press, the space agency finally continued with its program. A few last re-entry tests with dummies were performed... Then the great day had come. Denise Rice had the honor of boarding the Mercury ship for a first sub-orbital spaceflight. Millions of people worldwide were watching as the RX 5 cleared the pad... ...and left the Kourou Space Center behind... At 40,000 meters, the first launch stage was burnt out and dropped... Denise continued to climb over the Atlantic coast... Within minutes she had left the atmosphere and ignited the last lifter stage. The two XLR50 boosters had the capability of sending her into orbit... But for safety reasons, this mission was not planned to reach orbital speed. As the Apoapsis of 230 km was burned out, the engines cut off and Denise used the RCS of the RX 5's last stage to swing her vessel around. At apoapsis... the astronaut is obviously having a great time... But it didnt last long and she had to re-enter the atmosphere. Just below 100 km altitude the capsule seperated from its engine section. Shortly afterwards, Denise' Mercury ship seemed to be engulfed by hot plasma while the upper RX 5 stage blew up in the heat in front of her. The heatshield kept her cold enough. But enormous forces, peaking at nearly 20 Gs began to squash the Astronaut, even though she looked kinda unimpressed... Three minutes later she was much more worried about the opening chute... At last she safely splashed down in the Atlantic and had become mankinds first pioneer in space...

Thanks! Its Scatterer, EVE and RVE. However, RVE is not officially updated for 1.1 yet. So its kind of a hacked together install. In fact, its running the Linux version of it on my Windows system. All the infos with DL links can be found here: