XB-70A

Some fresh views of the pad took about an hour ago. And by far my favorite of all: It was already full of spotter today, I can't imagine what it will be tomorrow!

Such an excellent choice of flag! Vincent von Kerman could be proud of it.

I can't believe it... it's exactly the mistake I'm fighting against when somebody and I are speaking about space exploration, and here I shamefully made it . Thanks for signaling it, I'm editing right now.

I (finally) completed my work on a Kerbal style ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter stock copy: Called ExoDuna, duh... Just like the real probe, ExoDuna was launched at night on my totally reworked Neutron-M launcher. Lifting-off under the thrust of its 18 engines, the whole system was easy to handle, following any control input softly, but precisely. (The night screenshots being terribly dark, as usual, their is no reason to share them.) At T+15:00 minutes the third stage was re-ignited to complete the circularization at an altitude of 350 km, and for the price of 250 m/s. 24:00 minutes later the ejection burn was proceeded perfectly, the third stage being separated after its final burn of 542 m/s, while the fourth stage had to keep on accelerating for 49 seconds. Having passed the point of no return, ExoDuna is starting to deploy the panels and the main communication antenna while leaving Kerbin slwoly. One year and 44 days later, the Orbiter has finally met with Duna and started its 2 minutes long braking maneuver. The orbit then was corrected a second time to get a slightly elliptic 1778 x 715. Then, the Entry, Descent and Landing Demonstrator Module was separated, and started its own retro burn from 800 km. Aiming for a landing site in the Dunatian steps. Entering the thin atmosphere of the small planet around 1.1 km/s, the lander did not have to suffer from an intense friction, and only 4 units of the shield were lost at this time. Braking chute deployed at 700 m/s and an altitude of 13 km. Still the fate of the lander was not totally sure at this time, the communications being under the traditionnal blackout. Hopefully everything went well, the braking chute was perfectly cut at a speed of 200 m/s, and the fairing ejected normally. The nine little *Ant* engines taking care of the final braking maneuver. 50 - 40 - 30 - 20 - 10 - ... - 5 - ... Touch down! No radar altimeter failure, the lander worked perfectly, and immediately start to send some scientific data from the surface of the Red Dot to the Orbiter, which then relay the information to the KSC. Mission successful! I never tried a full propulsive landing out of Kerbin before, and I have to admit that even if it was (logically) more stressful, it also was much more fun. Edit: I don't know if anybody could be interested by it, but if it is the case it can be found here.

I used to be totally crazy of it as a kid, building following the plan, then destroying it to conceive my own project (I guess we could classify it as some kind of self-torture passion). Playing with Lego actually made me discover a lot of thing when I was young. I remember having built a large catamaran cruising ship with hundreds of pieces and having ran to the beach to try it... just to see it sinking perpetually when I was placing it on the water. I was so disappointed that I tried to understand why it was not floating, and my dad (who was a long time sailor) simply made me understand the Archimedes' principle. So, I rebuilt it with a long block of air inside the structure, and it floated! If only one of these seasonal hurricane had not taken all my blocks away during a flood... However, I decided to restart again during the last August, after more than 15 years of abstention:

@Rocket In My Pocket Could not agree more with you, this Manleyism addiction is still overly present.

Today Laythe Explorer finally arrived at its destination. After a final burn of 187 m/s to correct a bit the trajectory, the second stage was ejected, and quickly followed by the Laythe Polar Scanner. After a standard burn of almost 2 km/s, the scanner was perfectly placed on its parking polar orbit of about 2500 km. The time being extremely short, I decided to switch back to Explorer before staring the geo studies. Enjoying its awesome TWR of 0.05 (sigh), the multiple retro burns had to be started approximately 2 hours before the encounter. Hopefully, Explorer was more than able to perform its job correctly, and reached an orbit of 552 x 549 after many Kerbal hours of waiting. Then it was the turn of Polar Scanner, the studies were performed normally, for a pretty disappointing result of 16 science points... if I had knew, I would not have given you a free ride to Jool! Back to Explorer, the lander was separated at the same altitude of around 500 km. The retrograde burn took 30 seconds and around 600 m/s only of impulsion, leaving the lander with about 1 km/s remaining on board! It then was the time to say a final farewell to the propulsion block while the lander was passing 220 km. The atmospheric entry was hard, the lander taking around 7 g of deceleration for some seconds, but it hopefully survived the shock. I don't know why, but I just love this screenshot of the lander falling to the surface while the Sun is passing through the Jool's rings. Contact! Having 289 units of electricity remaining the lander should not last more than a week before leaving us forever... Hopefully, its sacrifice is not useless, and bring us a good amount of scientific data. The Explorer still having around 2.2 km/s of fuel available, it will probably be assigned to some orbital surveys of the other moons.

Back when I was a kid... wait, I'm still a kid when I'm thinking about... tall, but still a kid. Also, our islands were illuminating the sky enough to make it nearly impossible to enjoy a satellite, or anything else in space (exception made of some shooting stars)

Made it around 02:00 this morning after having counted way to much sheep... Stayputnik 1! For a long time the idea of making a Sputnik 1 inspired model passed through my head, but I was not paying so many attention to it. At least until this morning when, after seeing a model, I told myself that it was an opportunity to try. I just reused my old Alliance launcher, cut the third and fourth stage, and more important, lower the amount of fuel and the thrust of the 32 engines. The standard, but still so beautiful Kerman Kross. The boosters were jettisoned at 42 km, and at a speed of approx 1300 m/s. Finally giving some light to the ball. Due to the craziness of the climb rate around 1050 m/s were necessary to complete the circularization around 250 km. Something that the main stage had made perfectly, and still having around 900 m/s available on board at the time of the separation. Beep-Beep-Beep-Beep... Stayputnik 1 is now enjoying its resting place at on a 251/248 km orbit at 144 degrees. Totally incorrect, but the satellite itself is even less correct, as it is equipped with two solar panels inside the "ball", and even worst, a reaction wheel.

Fifteen years ago the OV-102 Columbia was lost during re-entry at the end of its 28th flight, taking the life of her seven crew members. I don't know for you, but today it's making me feel strange and extremely sad, nearly to weep. I will never forget this day, just coming back from the school, and turning the TV on, just to see the now famous recording of her, disassembling into the sky. I don't know how many seconds passed, but I was feeling them like minutes, and it announced the end of a dream. More than any others of the family she was my favorite. She got "something" the others did not have (to me), some kind of an aura, maybe due to her age, or maybe to her flights. She will not be forgotten, neither her crew members who perished.

It was a pretty good launch today! Only the wind and the clouds were a bit annoying, but otherwise it was excellent! Also, I don't know if it could be related a less effective com, or if the fact that the booster was not supposed to land back at Cap Canaveral, but the spotting sites were desert today. Where I was, only three others persons were actually taking pictures, and about 50 others were standing on the bleachers. To compare, the place was absolutely full for GEO-4 and ZUMA. Here are some pictures of today's firework: And it was not totally over, as the usual guys from the Army were coming back from their local patrol:

Sorry for all the delay, the day was a bit busy around here... You are right, I should have posted the correct picture (!). Here it is: A 88-88, the poor HG-5, and a more than useless DTS-M1, just for the look. You are teaching me something here! I was not aware of this possibility. The only resources I'm having right now around Eve are a small relay: Nearly the same stuff at the same number than the most recent one (there is a RA-2 in this one). And a probe: With a single HG-55, four HG-5, and still the useless DTS-M1 (plus two Com-16 for the look only). But honestly they never were really powerful. Even for the landed probe the link with the KSC was pretty limited as we can see here: I guess it would be worth the price to try different configurations.

Actually on the site: (Sorry for the pitiful quality of the phone) The sky is pretty clear right now, but there is some nice wind gusts, and a good number of cumulus are coming from the East-South-East. Let’s hope it will not change anything.

Gilly Explorer finally reached its intended target after a 184 days journey! The time to realize a final burn to change the inclination to 0 degrees, and the second stage was finally separated with around 800 m/s still available on board. To evade any waste remaining in orbit, the maneuver was realized on a crash trajectory. A correction being conducted at 102 km over the ball for the impressive amount of 7 m/s... Then it was the time to release the main payload from its carrier. The last one being equipped with three different antennas, it was lowered to a 50x49 km orbit and will stay around Gilly definitely (helping the two others probes orbiting Eve to establish a good connection with Kerbin) After having completed four multiple science experiment in high orbit, the next step was to lower the orbit to 8x7, and with the warp killing occurring below 8000 it was slow... REALLY SLOW! I finally took the decision to leave Gilly and to park the probe in a high orbit around Eve, waiting for its return transfer. I just hope 3 km/s will be enough to ensure a safe trip back to Kerbin, as there is around 5000 science points sleeping under the probe fairing right now... Otherwise I decided to rebuilt some of my oldest launchers, optimizing their appearance as well as their performances: Gamma II 792, with a Opportunity/Spirit inspired rover as the payload. Neutron with a Luna 24-like lander. And my little favorite: A probe destined to performs studies around Laythe (it's useless to name from who the inspiration is coming from). As the main probe is only equipped with a narrow-band scanner, plus its small lander, I decided to put another small unit carrying a survey scanner. Both will be launched under the same fairing of a single Giant IV B.

It actually entertained me pretty well. I tend to be annoyed (or even to hate) found footage style, but the case of Europa Report was a bit different. Now I only looked at it once (2014), so maybe I would not perceive it the same way today.

A long time I haven't saw it. It's the unique Antonov A-40, a crazy project of a gliding T-60 for the Soviet VDV. If I'm not making any mistake, it was supposed to be towed by a Tupolev TB-3...

Strangely, at the time I read your topic title I immediately though about the M-15... The Focke-Wulf F 19 The Gossamer Penguin (well, it's human powered so not really a Kerbalized aircraft) The Peterson 260SE. I just love the fact that Peterson wanted to make a more powerful and short take-off capable 182. How to? Man, just add moar power and canards! Leduc 0.22 which (hopefully) was demobilized by the Mirage III...

This is awesome! Despite the twin lights I can't cease to think about it...

I just finished my final version of Ariadne 5! Finally! A better S.R.B. separation... but much more important: An original stock cover to protect the second satellite! Just like the real one, the top satellite can be released on its orbit, then the cover is separated to allow the second satellite to leave. Final result: At the end the sole problem with this flight was pretty close from the reality: the second stage having to stay in orbit for a long time, a very loooonnnng time...

I just love to build and to rebuild them all the time with some kerbal touch: 40 44LP 44L 5 ECA

Arrg, I had an important meeting at 02 p.m... or should I say I had to have an important meeting. No way to miss it! I'm just wondering at which time it will be the best to go at the spotting sites, as I'm pretty sure that Playalinda beach will be overcrowded early in the morning, as much as the FL-401.

Today was a bit busy. Following the recent flight to Gilly, I decided to launch a new multi-tasks mission, but dedicated to the exploration of Ike: To ensure the best efficiency a small, but powerful relay satellite was loaded with the probe. The last one consists of an "energy" section, providing thrust and electricity, and an experiments section equipped with multiple instrument, and supposed to land back at Kerbin smoothly. This flight was a great occasion to replay with Ariadne 44L which was moldering for some time in her hangar. Alas, I discovered that it would had been way better to select the 42P version; the first one was literally kicking the payload out of the atmosphere. Separation of the P.A.L. at an altitude of about 29 km, and a speed of 1300 m/s. However, because of its size and its very fine upper stages, the launcher began to wave at the same time. Luckily, some gentle controls were able to solve the problem quickly. More than a ton of useless fairing won! Once again, I did not look at the planet position smartly... and Ike Explorer III will have to wait more than a year before leaving Kerbin. So I had to kill time... a good opportunity to fill a few contracts and to test a remodel version of the good old X-35A. Everything was going well at this time, it was nothing else than an umpteenth flight to the Mun... When, suddenly, I saw some kind of an arch at the right of Sergei Pavlovitch! Can't believe it, this is the first egg I found on the Mun! Let's go back home! I just took a screenshot of our geographic position at the time of the sight, and I will come back here for sure. Also, about 10 tourists are desperately waiting for their trip to the Mun and Minmus, so they will easily cover the cost of flight to the Arch.

(For all the adepts of gastroenteritis.)

Indeed, it took around 9 years if my memory is not betraying me once again. The problem was (and still is...) I haven't found any other comet mod available. I'm pretty sure at one time someone posted a nice comet model emitting a green tail (or maybe another color), but I don't know were it ended. Also, if I'm not making any mistake, Angel-125 had made a super nice comet creation mod about a year ago, but as it was modding the stock asteroids it was not possible to orbit them.