MaverickSawyer

I'm honestly surprised you can even run the game with that many asteroids!

Dude, you gotta release the files for the bridges when you finish... I'm sure that a lot of people would enjoy having them.

... Okay, that's brilliant.

But, Kerbals DO have space suits, so... If I had a pressure suit with proper support, heck yes I would.

Okay, THAT is glorious and long overdue. Also, want to thank you for the mod... Without KIS, I would have lost three Kerbals on an asteroid redirect mission when their return ship was accidentally staged. KIS allowed me to salvage the situation and bring them home safely.

If it doesn't have a name yet, name it "Bantam".

Looks like the gravioli detector up top, and the accelerometer below.

I'll do a revisit photoshoot as soon as the update hits GitHub.

Turns out, Nertea has it covered if you get Kerbal Atomics. Swtiches it to LH2 only, but I'm sure I could kludge together a modified MM patch that'd allow dual mode...

Shortly after the previous posting, the crew of THAAD undocked their Soyuz from THAAD and swung around the backside with an ASERT unit attached to the orbital module. Readings were successfully gathered, but upon nearing return to THAAD, Stelgun Kerman, the mission specialist, accidentally triggered the entry mode, jettisoning the service and orbital modules and sending the descent module careening into space with Valentina and Stelgun aboard. Val quickly kicked Stelgun on an EVA to hang out near THAAD, then ejected the heat shield and used the retrorockets to arrest her movement and return her to the ship. Maucal Kerman, the flight engineer, used the self-contained docking unit already attached to the docking port atop the Orbital Module to maneuver it to THAAD and docked it to the port the Soyuz had been docked at, creating an impromptu airlock. Val and Stelgun were then able to board and figure out their next moves. Maucal was able to remove one of the docking ports from the hub and manually transfer the orbital module to a hard-mount, and a quick shuffle of docking ports freed the now free-flight grapple to chase after mission-critical parts. Under Va'ls careful control, the grapple managed to retrieve both the descent module AND its heat shield, which Maucal gleefully bolted back onto the DM, where the grapple then latched onto, allowing Maucal to add a docking port atop the DM. The newly whole DM was then docked back at the port the Soyuz had been attached to during the trip out. Following the near-disaster, Val, Maucal, and Stelgun did successfully divert the asteroid, now dubbed Thaadeus, out of a collision course. However, they opted to not press their luck any further and opted to leave the rock to fly back out into deep space. A few last bits of science were collected before the supply ship and the main grapple were discarded on trajectories that would result in their destructive reentries, and the crew prepared for a 7 day coast before braking into a circular, if highly inclined, orbit above Kerbin... At least... that had been the plan. The braking burn went haywire, with THAAD being sent not into a safe orbit, but into a literal crash course. Val aborted the burn and promptly ordered an evacuation of THAAD via the DM. A quick undocking followed, using the grapple as an impromptu service module to pull the DM clear of the now-doomed THAAD. Stelgun performed one final last minute EVA to remove the docking port, leaving the parachutes clear for deployment, then all three ladies prepared for an aggressive ballistic reentry. Following a punishing 9.4 G reentry, THAAD's crew returned home semi-successful, having proven that, yes, asteroids can be redirected, albeit with much care. Capture of an asteroid, though, is a whole 'nother ball of wax, one that the boffins at R&D aren't quite sure how to perform just yet... Especially since the next rock to arrive is a Class E, wheras Thaadeus was a moderate Class C. All in all, though the mission did net an impressive 427 science points. Not the biggest haul to date from a single mission, and certainly not the best cost-to-science mission by any means. But it was informative. Now, I have 26 days to figure out how to catch that Class E...

THAAD has departed! Lighting out at 1.73 Gs. (center engine was shut down partway through the burn to keep acceleration to a manageable level) After 4 days, THAAD arrives at the target asteroid, some 63,000 km above Kerbin. Under the careful guidance of Valentina Kerman, THAAD is guided to 30 meters off the asteroid... At present, due to the orientation of THAAD, high-gain downlink is not possible, so further images were not available. However, THAAD successfully transposed the grapple unit from the transit position to the bow position and has a firm connection on the asteroid. Science is currently underway before diverting the asteroid into a survivable orbit for capture and utilization of the 80+ tonnes of ore it carries.

That's the approach that BDB took, as well. Works just fine, especially if you use KIS to go out and yank the RCS off when you're done.

Yep. There's a few parts still getting updated on US2's end, namely the stock experiments, but they're coming along nicely, if the previews @Daishi keeps posting in the dev thread are anything to go by.

Another day, another launch campaign... Solaris 2 departs Kerbin for Eve. Solaris 2 will perform basic orbital survey work of Eve and Gilly before transitioning to serve as a communications relay for future missions in the system. My first Duna lander in this save is also the first Duna lander I've flown in at least two years. Despite departing several days after the Solaris 1 orbiter which will serve as the communication relay for the lander, the lander will arrive some 10 days earlier than the orbiter. That's not a serious issue, though, as I included solar panels on the loiter and deorbit bus, as well as a short-range antenna that will eventually link into the Solaris orbiter to relay the deorbit commands after mapping of Duna is complete.

That, I don't remember. All I know is that Aerojet donated them a few years before I was a docent and said they were for a Titan IV, but never flew. I do, however, recall that the acoustic baffles in the combustion chambers of the -87 was missing, for reasons unknown.

110 kts (136 mph) taxi run, and initial rotation achieved! https://www.geekwire.com/2019/stratolaunch-gets-worlds-biggest-airplane-ready-takeoff-136-mph-taxi-test/

I've never been able to understand how to time the transfer burn of a satellite so that it will wind up in a stationary orbit above a particular point on the globe. I can do the actual burn, the tuning of the orbit for full stationary, all that... I just can't figure out when to start the burn so that I can park a satellite above, say, the KSC. Does anyone have any good tips or rules of thumb?

Okay, I'll look into what's involved in making such a patch.

I've long avoided clipping landing gear because, iirc, it used to be krakenbait of the first order. Nowadays, it's not so bad, but... I have KRE for my landing gear needs, and I will use either the ITS or the New Shepard gear most of the time... Falcon 9, not so much. It's... finicky to get it to look right.

Heading to Duna atop a Bluedog Design Bureau Delta II upper stage.

Yeesh. That'd be, what, 30+ kerbin days if you punt the ApA out to ~75-80 Mm? LOTS of communications time, with at most half an hour of downtime during the PeA phase. I may have to launch one of those now, just to have it ready for real deep-space missions. EDIT: Field test reveals that at an ApA of ~83 Mm, the orbital period is ~42 days, of which 41.5 is usable even when you have to tuck behind Kerbin at PeA.

Okay, fair point... you'd need two other DSO commsats for full local planetary coverage and at least one long-range relay capable of shunting the signal back to Kerbin for complete control... but I was looking at it from the standpoint of using a local control point either in orbit or on the surface of Duna while I have a crew there.

Ike, however, is a good spot to set up a relay station. It's in a near-stationary orbit over Duna, so set up a probe core, battery, RTG, and a relay antenna, and boom, one third of Duna now has constant communication.

Nah. There's nothing wrong with it as-is... and it's nice to have something left over from the earliest days of the game.

Goddamn car decided to have the engine quit running (and refuse to restart, to boot) at a stoplight during rush hour. The kicker? This is the THIRD time I've had to have this thing towed home due to powertrain failures in a year. Once for a distributor that decided to distribute the rotor contact throughout the housing, once due to a clutch throwout bearing return spring that broke because I'd managed to install it incorrectly while replacing the transmission, and now this... I haven't even begun to try and troubleshoot it, because it was nighttime and raining when I got it home. So, tomorrow is "chase the failure" day.