funk

Thx for the batch. I did one test flight mostly for testing the angle between launch site and mun. It was fine and I could have finished the mission, but at one point instead of activating the engine, apollo decided to decouple the service module. For the landing itself it wasn't that hard to get it right. I knew that the time to periapsis at Kerbin has to be less than a multiple of six hours, when setting up the free return trajectory. The second correction was just eyeballing the time between PE and the position of KSC. In fact I overcorrected a little bit and the reentry was almost too short, imho slight overshoots are more forgiving.

This! Just clipped into each other. Sunflares of Maar - UrsaMinor. At least the gamedata folder says so. I copied it from my 1.4.3 install.

Funkyndustries is back in business! RL doesn't give me a lot of time for KSP, so I had to get rid of all unnecessary orbits and play-arounds for STS-5T. Straight to the Mun and back! One question though: Are the test missions ment to be accomplished with the same craft? I'm asking because my Energija already has recoverable boosters and I'd just need to finish my catamaran for STS-6T to bring them back. The STS boosters aren't recoverable by design.

Same here, just lurking from time to time. For Kerbonauts RL is a b...h.

Recommending this as a second title of the challenge... Minmus has as a period of what - 50days or so? You should be fine. But is the additional fuel needed?! The pilot ususally knows best.

Thx for your recommendations. So far I'm done with both cyclers and the taxis. Thx to this I found the trajectory easily. Two things need to be adressed. 1. Don't enter Dunas SOI, it's screwing up everything 2. My test gravity assists at Kerbin are somewhat of inaccurate due to wonky SAS and I guess low TWR Further the dv requirements for the taxis are simply ridiculous. For a Kerbin -> Cycler transfer it's ok with 1500m/s + 100m/s to enter Dunas SOI. But Duna -> Cycler transfers are about 2600m/s. Because I want alternating taxis I need nuclear propulsion, so no aerobraking. Makes 4300m/s dv for the taxis. It's viable and the test results where ok, but the margin of error is small (~200m/s) on one leg. Further there will be refuel missions for the cyclers every two periods with a tanker also alternating between the cyclers. I found several ways in some papers to reduce dv, but it didn't fit the challenge well. E.g.doing two Kerbin grav assists conflicts with the timeframe, adding more cyclers could fix that, but conflicts with mission efficiency. Another way would be repeating small burns along the trajectory, but I don't have the time to code a solver for this in KSP and it's just tedious to perform so many burns. Overall I think my designs and mission plans are 80-90% done and hopefully I can start in a few days... rip spare time.

I haven't launched anything yet, still in design and testing phase.

Great stuff @Death Engineering! May I ask, why the supply module has four Klaws? Just a little update on my plans how to implement the cycler: Due to insane amounts of dv needed for the taxi, I won't be able to fullfill the requirements for "Advanced deep space transit", in spite of that the taxi itself could do it, only the crew needs to shrink from 12 to 6 Kerbals. This slides gave me some inspiration for my planning. Even if there are some realworld attempts to use low-thrust cyclers to reduce dv needed, its barely viable in KSP. That's why I'll take the approach shown in the picture. Still need to do some work on the outpost, stations and launch schedule... hopefully next weekend. Edit: There'll be an inbound cycler implemented as well, it's just the other way around.

Was thinking about the same... Best place would be probably Ike, but your taxis need to be capable to go there. Is there CO2 on Duna? Haven't played with TLS for a long time, that's why I'm wondering. Just figured out, that if you run Sabatier process O2 is self sufficient but needs ~ 1u water/7u food resupply. Does TLS implement more resources to harvest?

I was wondering, too. Let's say I want to rotate the crew on Duna. In this case will I need 2xDAV, 1xEEV and the shuttle? Or can one DAV be enough if it brings the old crew to Duna orbit, like a taxi from Duna to DLO? Then it can either wait in DLO for the next crew or it can go to the surface again and serves as an emergency ascent vehicle (NOT ment as EEV). Fur the Duna-Ike Space Bus the OP says "refueling permitted". Is it allowed to refuel on the surface of Duna/Ike only? Or can it refuel also in orbit?

Understatement...pff! It seems I feel some irony here... Form follows function and laziness equals efficiency - most of the times. I guess you realised that the payloads are just tweaked copies of your work. So I'll give the credit back to you. Anyway, thank you for the badge.

After some more testing, my assumption, that the shown SLV is kinda overkill for 20t, was true. Now I'm able to lift 45t to 100x100km LKO with the same design, just optimizing flight path, no mods etc. 50t might be possible with a script or mod, its just 100m/s short to circularize in LKO. From my plans for the first launches: 2x24t before the first cycler burns for duna is optimal. So 1x48t could be a thing, but I'm not sure which kind of payload would be that heavy (except fuel) and fits into the fairing (I don't like the kinda not streamlined fairings too much - just for the looks). Additionally I still need to design the payloads and plan the flights after year 4. Maybe there will be changes, due to optimization. Further, when I looked through my crafts, I found a 18t payload F9 clone, that also could be used... Edit: Totally forgot to ask @Death Engineeringabout the inflatable airlock, it technically could be counted towards habitation space, but most likely cheety. Will you treat it like the external seat?

The new Skylab crew is celebrating Apollos birthday this week.

Great minds think alike I guess. This mission is the first time in KSP thinking about creating a network for the missions. Stuff I do on my daily basis, only costs and annoying customers are missing . And with your work I could've relaxed yesterday evening. THX alot! It happens, when the landing legs are overstressed. Not sure, but I thought it's fixed in KSP 1.4.4. You'll either need the heavy landing legs or you could use e.g. airbrakes/beams as legs. As far as I see from your picture you're testing on Kerbin. For Duna you might get away with less stress due to gravitiy. "Hack gravity" can be useful for testing. The strength of joints in KSP are based on the mass of the part another part is attached to. So the tubes are very light, every part connected to them will have a weak joint. Autostrutting might help. Or the best way would be to attach the wheels to another heavy part and offset them. For the pressure thing I'm not sure what you mean, but tubes don't occlude parts inside from airflow.

Holy! I'm not into payload building, yet. But this looks massive! Did you launch it in one go? My sunday afternoon was dedicated to a first iteration of a SLV: It's rated for 20t payload only, cause I think it should be enough for what I imagine as my future payloads. But it should be capable of more, when I've found out the best ascent path for it. And a boost back doesn't give any benefit for the challenge compared to a barge or whatever landing along the ballistic curve. Additionally the second stage has 1k m/s dv left before payload decoupling and my attempt to hover slam was on the safe side. I tried a shallower ascent path but the time to maneuver the two stages is really short if you don't leave the atmosphere. Haven't played with physics range extender yet. @Death Engineering Would it be allowed to use? Maybe I'll write a script for the SLV. But it all depends on what is really needed payload wise.