Norcalplanner

Kapollo 19 is now complete, including the first use of the LLES craft. KABOOM's score goes up to 132+/- points (some clarification is needed). More info over on my mission report thread. As before, here's a teaser photo.

Kapollo 19 is now complete. Richdock and Wilzie Kerman were the first to land on Minmus. Because rovers don't work well, they took along the first iteration of the LLES craft. The LLES worked well, taking them to the top of a nearby mountain and back to the lander again. With over 900 m/s of delta v on tap, the monopropellant-powered craft is definitely good for getting into Minmus orbit, and should be good for getting into Munar orbit. More information on the photos below. Enjoy. Points update: Fly a mission to Minmus with Apollo/Saturn hardware +30 LLES in Kapollo 19 +7 New Total: 117 (scoring now clarified)

Starlab I has been launched, marking the beginning of the AAP for KABOOM. Total points earned at this point is 80, plus whatever GregroxMun wants to give me for my picture perfect free return trajectory. We're not finished by a long shot - now we're getting to the interesting part. :-) More information, including a detailed breakdown of the points, can be found in my mission report thread. And as always, here's a photo to give you a sneak peek.

While the Kapollo 15 and 16 missions were being flown, KABOOM's engineers were hard at work on the first real space station to go up - Starlab I. The station was lifted in one piece by the INT-21 lifter. However, because Starlab ended up being significantly less massive than a standard Kapollo mission, the extra ability of the lifter wasn't really needed. The station has room for 12 in the habitation modules, and 2 in the science lab. The KTM (Kapollo Telescope Mount) is attached to the side of the science lab, and utilizes the chassis of the LM. A 1.25 meter docking port is found on the end of the science lab, in addition to two more ports on either side of the converted S-IV tank. A 2.5 meter port is found on the large end of the station to accommodate future expansion. With the successful launch of the station, the first long-term Kerbal space habitation is underway. Hopefully the lessons learned with this station will inform the designs of future ground bases and interplanetary craft. More information in the photos - enjoy. - - - Updated - - - With the first AAP mission completed, it's time to tally up the points earned so far. They are: 5-5-1 engine designs for the Saturn V +20 Free return trajectory until in Mun's SOI +10 Lander stored behind a fairing +10 Leave descent stage on Mun +5 Include ALSEP Science package +5 Include Lunar Rover +10 Include lunar subsatellite +5 Launch escape system +5 Use fuel cells only +10 Impressing GregroxMun with my beautiful return trajectory +??? Total: 80+

The Kapollo 15 and 16 missions are complete, with a writeup and photo album over in my mission report thread. Here's a photo to whet your appetite.

Kapollo 15 and 16 are now in the history books. Kapollo 15 was a sparsely documented affair, largely because Jeb, Bill and Bob had somehow cut to the front of the line and flew the mission right after completing Kapollo 9-10-11. That mission takes the award for goofiest, most unrealistic fairing to date, largely due to the poor packaging of Umbra's Packrat rovers from the Exploration Plus mod. Kapollo 16 was much more successful, featuring an all-female crew, two rovers which were more compact, and two ALSEP science packages. While the ALSEP packages deployed flawlessly, and included one with an RTG, the rovers were a disappointment. Let's just say that their compact design and short wheelbase caused some problems. Nevertheless, everyone made it back home safely. More info is in the photo album. Enjoy.

At the risk of being a fanboy, I think the devs should look really hard at what NecroBones is doing in his mods - MRS, SpaceY, and Fuel Tanks Plus. In addition to all the great 5m parts in SpaceY, there are a whole bunch of other great parts: 2.5m SRBs, 3.75m probe cores and reaction wheels, a 1.25m engine between the LVT-30 and the Skipper, a 2.5m engine between the Skipper and the Mainsail, a stackable low power 3.75m engine, and various adapters, both with and without internal fuel tanks. MRS provides the Quad-nuke 2.5m engine, 3/4 length fuel tanks in each size, and lots of great 0.625m SRBs, jet engines, and fuel tanks. Fuel Tanks Plus offers 1.5 length tanks in each size, tanks that are half the height of most existing tanks (my favorite is the 2.25 ton 2.5m tank, perfect for my LEM ascent stage), and fueled nosecones. Seriously, he makes 75 percent of the mod parts I use, with Nertea and Porkjet rounding out the rest.

Benjee10, I love the picture with all of your craft so far. I've never used Kronal, and now I'm inspired to give this a try.

A full report for my combined Kapollo 9-10-11 mission is up on my mission report thread, along with the initial MLV concepts which will enable further space exploration and settlement. Here's a shot of the MLV Block V, the largest rocket created to date in the KABOOM Kapollo program, and good for 265 tons to LKO.

Based on the success of Kapollo 8, and in part to get Jeb to stop asking "Can we go now? Can we go now?", KABOOM mission control decided to combine the Kapollo 9, 10, and 11 missions into a single trip. The big three were in the capsule, with Jeb at the controls. Launch was uneventful. Minor tweaks were made to the S-IV to make it more useful. Mission control had started to wonder why they were throwing away perfectly good stages that were equipped with a probe core. By adding some fuel cells and some docking ports, and it's own circularization burn a few minutes behind the CSM, the S-IV has been repurposed into Mun Depot Alpha. Based on the very slow rate of fuel use by the fuel cells and a half-full tank, the depot should be controllable for at least a few months - long enough to get at least the beginning of an orbital Munar station going. There was a brief kraken sighting - after switching back to the docked CSM/LM from the depot, parts of the craft starting shaking around. Remembering that baby krakens liked to live in the service bays, Bill quickly opened the service bay doors and the shaking stopped. Thankfully the orbital changes caused by the kraken only raised the apoapsis a bit, but it will cause KABOOM engineers to rethink the inclusion of a service bay in future CSMs. The main landing by Jeb and Bob in the LM was simultaneously momentous and uneventful. Lighting was really good for the pictures, however, and Jeb had to climb up on top of the LM and mug a bit for the camera. The ascent still needs a bit of work - on the first attempt to lift off, the whole lander lifted off the surface to a height of 50 m or so. Jeb immediately put the craft back down again, then manually thrust limited the descent engine to zero. With that taken care of, the second attempt proceeded as intended. After rendezvousing with the CSM, the small satellite carried in the service bay was released. Powered only by RCS thrusters, this tiny satellite was raised into a higher orbit to minimize interference with future orbital operations. Having this small unmanned craft attached to the central battery stack in the service bay may have contributed to the kraken sighting. With all crew members transferred back to the CSM, and all extra fuel from the LM used to top off the CSM tank, it was time to set the LM on a collision trajectory with the Munar surface. Periapsis was reduced to less than 1 km, and the remote camera feed generated some thrilling footage before the unmanned LM finally crashed into a ridge. With the LM gone, Jeb shoved the throttles forward and burned for home. As part of the ongoing stress tests of the heat shield system, the CSM burned most of its fuel to hit the atmosphere at interplanetary return speeds, in this case 3,500 m/s. We're still not close to using even half of the heatshield, despite repeated efforts. KABOOM engineers may call this last test good enough. With an uneventful reentry and splashdown, this marks the end of Phase I of the Kapollo Program. More details in the photo album - enjoy. Phase II, using the evolved CSM/LM design with a rover and ALSEP packages on both the Mun and Minmus, is being put on hold temporarily until the kraken issue is resolved. Instead, KABOOM ship architects and engineers are going to move on to Phase III, and start the planning process for orbital stations, surface bases, crew and cargo shuttles, and finally interplanetary craft. In order to determine exactly what the program's options are, it's now time to explore the outer boundaries of the basic Saturn V platform. KABOOM engineers are designing a series of craft with various payload capacities to LKO. Once the capabilities of the lifters are established, detailed planning for a more permanent presence in space can begin. Photos of the preliminary designs are shown below. Enjoy.

I redocked my LM to the CSM on one of my Apollo test flights, drained the remaining fuel from the ascent tank to top off the CSM tank, then lowered periapsis to eject the LM into the atmosphere to avoid Kessler syndrome. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to transfer the LM crew back to the CSM before undocking. Thank goodness the LM carries 40 units of monoprop. RCS combined with the CSM hightailing it to a quick rendezvous managed to save the crew, but it was close.

It is if the OP of the challenge you're entering says it is.

I'm interested too. I've been proceeding assuming that the R5 and M5 lifter engines from SpaceY meet the five engine requirement. Since it'so possible to build essentially the same thing using the provided thrust plates and single engines, I don't see any real difference other than a higher part count. Regarding MechJeb, I would think that any automatically generated maneuver nodes or use of any autopilot functions would incur the points penalty. I'm very interested in using an informational readout in MJ which is right on the cusp - the landing location prediction indicator found within the landing guidance module. While I will fly all flights manually, it would be really nice to know how close a ship's descent trajectory is going to put it in relation to a base or ship already on the surface.

Now the Kapollo 8 mission log is up too. Here's the photo I'm proudest of from that mission - a manually plotted, manually burned, textbook perfect free return trajectory. Enjoy.

The Kapollo 8 mission is now in the history books. For the first time, Kerbals have orbited the Mun and returned alive to tell the tale. Everything went smoothly, and the 9-ton fuel tank used for ballast in place of the LM was left in low Munar orbit. Although "dead", it has a docking port and may prove useful at some point in the future. The big revelation on this mission was just how heavy the fairings are - the one connecting the S-IV stage to the CSM/LM weighed 3 tons, and fairings will therefore will be ejected much earlier on future flights. Here's the photo album. Enjoy.

Kapollo 4 and 7 are complete, and photo albums are up on my mission report thread. Here's a taste:

The Kapollo 7 mission is now complete! Val led an intrepid crew in the first long term test of the Kapollo CSM. Docking with the ballast tank occurred without incident, and the orbit was raised all the way up to 600 km to help the journey pass more quickly. Burning the CSM engines to increase the reentry speed resulted in a minor increase in the stress on the heat shield, but we're still nowhere near the thermal limits. KABOOM scientists are starting to think that the stock shield will be good for an interplanetary reentry, if the program funding holds out that long. More information is in the descriptions for the album. Enjoy.

Kapollo 4 is complete, marking the first full flight of the revised Saturn V design. Everything performed well, especially my favorite part - the center engine cutoffs in the S-IC and S-II, made possible by Necrobones' great quincux engine parts. The only minor glitch was an omitted decoupler between the LM dummy ballast load and the S-IV, meaning that the CM couldn't pull the ballast free after docking. Apart from that one oversight, the mission went off without a hitch. More description is in the album below. Enjoy.

Kapollo 4 and Kapollo 7 are in the rear view mirror. Assuming imgur stops being so persnickety, I should have photos up tonight.

Speeding Mullet and loch.ness, thanks for all the interest and kind words. I too am looking forward to seeing how everyone's programs develop. Billkerbinsky, thanks for the information and link. I think I'll still hold off on fuel ducts for the moment, but will keep this in reserve for any truly huge future payloads.

NecroBones, I just wanted to let you know that I'm featuring your parts in my entry for GregroxMun's Apollo Applications Program challenge. I'll be posting everything on my mission report thread. To give you a taste, here's my Saturn V:

Final (for the moment) designs for my Saturn V and Saturn IB rockets are now posted on my mission report thread. Here's the Saturn V:

And here are the pictures of the new designs and the LES testing. I may come up with some initial concepts for INT-21 and MLVs over the next few days, but I think the main thing to do at this point is start flying missions. Enjoy.

Revised versions of the Saturn V and Saturn IB are largely complete, along with all LES testing. Reducing fuel capacity of all three stages, combined with some discreet use of the offset tool, have resulted in designs which resemble the real craft much more closely. As a byproduct, all lifter engines are now thrust limited at 82 percent or lower, providing an easy upgrade path for future MLV variants. Pictures to be posted later today.

There's a a brief overview of my nascent program over in my mission report thread. Full mission entries will come later, but here's a taste with a short WIP album: