MaxL_1023

How much delta-v do you have left once you get to Kerbin's PE? You might be able to capture into a highly eccentric orbit then aerobrake down (PE near 55km). It will take a fair bit to get into a resonant orbit - even with the oberth effect likely several hundred m/s.

I think he wants to encounter Kerbin once at solar PE (with AP at Jool from the ejection burn), slow down due to a reverse gravity assist, then encounter Kerbin again on the next solar PE. It looks like you need to capture into a resonant orbit - you want either 2 Kerbin orbits for one of yours, or 3 Kerbin orbits for 2 of yours (depends on how long you are willing to wait). Either one would have a lower entry velocity than a direct transfer from Jool. For a 2:1 resonance, you need an AP of about 1.5 times Kerbin's.

There was some motion involved - my lander can was spinning at 100 rpm somehow and when I came out of time warp I briefly saw a crew G limit notification from the deadly re-entry mod. I did transition SOI from Kerbol to Duna - could that cause it?

I had SAS on I believe. I don't have a picture, but I am pretty sure it wasn't the craft - literally every part separated. I had science instruments floating in space, even my parachute came off. It was not a single-spot breakage.

Hello, I seem to have trouble with my ships randomly coming apart when leaving a high time warp factor (100,000). I have KJR installed - is there anything else I can do to make this less likely? I am using quite a few mods (not RSS or RO though) - is there any one in particular known to cause this? Thanks, Max

I turn off the decline penalty and use the contract configuration mod. Why? Because I am asked to follow up my Minmus lander by completing contracts such as "test a Skipper on an escape trajectory over Minmus." Who in their right mind would haul a 3 ton rocket engine to Minmus, then activate it through the staging sequence while on an escape trajectory. Come on Squad!

Hello, I am trying to put a lander on Europa in a RP-0 install. The contract came up after I sent a probe to the Jovian system - I entered an eccentric Jupiter orbit and got some nice flybys of all 4 satellites. However, I got to this orbit by doing a capture burn at 2000km PE and closing an AP at 2,500,000 km, outside of Callisto's orbit. An orbit close to Europa seems very expensive fuel-wise, - I would need to capture at Europa's PE and keep an AP somewhere inside Ganymede to prevent moon encounters from messing up my intercept orbit. Right now, I can see 3 options: 1. Capture at 2000km from Jupiter, just close an orbit, raise PE at AP to Europa's orbit, try to get a PE encounter. 2. Capture at Europa's PE, close an orbit to a PE inside of Ganymede, encounter at PE. 3. Encounter Europa directly, ideally when it is moving in the same direction as my Jupiter encounter. Not sure how to plan this besides trial an error on approach. I have build a rocket with 35k delta-v on the pad, but I am not sure if KSP can handle that kind of launch. Any ideas to cut down what I need to land? Can I do it for less than 25k delta-V? Thanks, Max

I want to do the mission from "The Martian Way" using a 2km diameter ore-rich ice-ball and a bunch of NERVAs attached to claws.

I have no problem with the tracking station or mission control upgrades - you easily get enough to upgrade this by launching trashcans straight up. However, I do think the capabilities of the tier 1 buildings should be increased slightly. Tier 1 Mission Control : 3 Contracts instead of 2 Tier 1 R&D: Surface samples from Kerbin only (same as tier 1 EVA), 160 science cap (lets you get up to exactly that tech level) instead of 100 (weirdly between nodes). Tier 1 VAB: 63 parts instead of 30. Tier 1 Pad: 25 Tons It makes things slightly easier, but not trivial. Additionally, the capabilities of tier 1 and 2 buildings could scale with difficulty. Easy = the above, Normal = the old settings and Hard = slightly more arduous ones.

Mechjeb has a fairly reliable aerobraking prediction system, although it did not seem to work for Mars. I know it works in stock KSP however. It is very difficult to do an Aerocapture simply because the margin of error is so slight. If you are losing 1000+ m/s during the maneuver, a PE change of 1 KM could add or subtract a hundred m/s or even more. A craft orientation change could have a similar effect. I would usually set the PE a good bit higher than the Aerocapture altitude (but still inside atmosphere) and burn at PE until I close an orbit. Then, you can bleed energy over multiple high passes where the margin of error is higher. For Kerbin this altitude would be around 55km, for Earth near 100km. I am not sure about Jool.

You will almost always need rocket assist for a Mars landing. I would recommend putting a heatshield the next size up beneath your craft (2.5m on a 1.25m, or 4m on a 2m probe) and remove all but ~10 ablator. This gives you a quite light but large drag surface which will slow you down more. You can then ditch the heatshield after opening your drogue chute. You could also put airbrakes along the edge of the heatshield to make the diameter even larger. You can't easily do it for Earth/Venus entry (too much heat) but for a LMO reentry you can get away with a lot, as you are going only ~4 km/s as opposed to ~7.8.

Made a manned moon landing, and turned a Mars orbiter with 3k delta-v left into a mars lander (unmanned). Going to do some outer-planet probes and a Venus lander next, then try a Manned mars mission. RP-0 has more nodes filled out now - a ot of 500-100 science nodes have materials especially with the near-future mods. I just unlocked the SSME at a 1000 science node (I think, maybe 600).

You need the bronze-colored heatshield with a max temp of 3600 degrees - the silver/grey ones are LEO only (2600 degrees). It also makes a big difference what pod you are using and how much extra mass you have attached - in general the heavier your ship the tougher a safe re-entry is. I would recommend trying to save 1000m/s of delta-V, and burn slightly above retrograde just before atmospheric entry. If you angle it right, you can take 90% of that delta-v off your entry velocity while maintaining the same Perigee. An entry at 10 km/s is a lot easier than 11 km/s - heat scales with the cube of velocity AFAIK.

Depending on the TWR you want, you can keep the 2.5m tank under your lab and run fuel lines to the radial terriers. If your radial connections are on the lab itself, you can decouple the tank when it runs out, and still have your radial tanks full. It would be useful for a transfer burn to the Mun and Mun orbit insertion where TWR is not as important as takeoff/landing.

I usually like to have enough delta-V to do random things which can come up, or to do a power-assisted descent. I rarely launch anything with less than 5k delta-v, but that is more a function of the cost-capability curve than anything. It costs almost nothing more for a couple solids and tanks compared to he liquid engines.

Do the mission from "The Martian Way" in RSS. Launch from Mars, fly to Saturn with a bunch of small ships, put a Class E asteroid in the rings (assuming a mod can spawn one there for you). Mine the asteroid for fuel to bring it back to a Mars Landing using the small ships as engines, with ore left in the rock to supply much needed water to the Martian colony.

I would use the thrust limiter on the SRBs to get your liftoff TWR to about 1.5, with enough fuel on your center stack to have about 1.25 when your SRBs burn out. If you have the OKTO core (not sure) then forget the Mk I pod - just stick one on top of the Kerbcan to save weight. If you need the Mk I pod, try this (from the top down) Mk 16 Parachute Mk I Cockpit (attach a couple batteries to the back of it) Kerbcan 1.25m Heatshield with 100/200 Ablator (should be more than enough) TR-18A FTL-400 FTL-400 (If TWR is > 1 with it, otherwise use an FTL-200) LV-909 Terrier TR-18A FTL-400 FTL 400 FTL-400 Swivel (Add FTL-400s until your TWR is at about 1 on liftoff) Add 4 Hammer SRBs to the sides using radial decouplers. Set the thrust limiter to have a liftoff TWR of 1.25 (since solids increase quickly you set it a bit low). Add/remove fuel to your center stack until it shows a 1.25 TWR when your solids burn out. This 1.25 would be halfway between vacuum and sea level, as you are pretty high up by this point. Stick some fins on the solids facing radially outwards. If your center stack is more than 4 FTL-400s put the fins on the center stack between the boosters. Launch, start a gravity turn at 75 m/s, correct to 45 degrees at 350m/s, then burn prograde. Correct to about 15-20 degrees. When your AP reaches ~55km, burn straight horizontal. Even if you hit AP, you are high enough to escape re-entry heating and can just circularize at your AP of ~80km for a pittance. It is actually easier to control a rocket with lower TWR in the lower atmosphere, as you climb slower and don't go transonic until the air pressure is ~25% of sea level. Once you make it to about 25km you can control almost anything with thrust vectoring alone - the air is too thin to flip you under most conditions.

For really large rockets you want your TWR to be closer to 1.25 at launch and 1 above 30km - air drag becomes a real issue if you are building radially. I have launched probes in this size range by mounting the transfer stage serially below the probe (usually using chemical engines - the weight and low thrust of LV-Ns requires a very high fuel fraction to take advantage of the ISP with absolutely terrible TWR), then using girders to attach 4 copies of a heavy-lift rocket forming a square. You have tons of control authority by the displaced thrust locations and can use cross-struts to reinforce the design. Usually, I would use something like: 36 ton payload Transfer stage using a Rhino/Mainsail/Skipper depending on size required Second stage using 4 Rhinos in 4 radial stacks (If your Transfer stage is large enough to need a Rhino, you might want to do 6 stacks instead of 4 in a hexagon configuration). TWR ~ 1.1 First Stage using 4 (or 6) Mammoths in sustainer configuration with radial SRBs (Liftoff TWR near 0.9, 1.5 including solids, sustainer TWR is ~1.1 when solids burn out.) This type of configuration can get almost anything anywhere.

I am interested in this as well. I know they help aerodynamically, but I am not sure about structurally. I think they might, as usually structural-type parts (like adapters, struts and empty fuselages) are stronger than fuel tanks. Mathematically, you should get an advantage by allowing most of the structural load to be transferred to the 2.5m side of the adapter (assuming the load is coming from the 1.25m side). Basically, your load appears on a 2.5m x 2.5m connection with a fractional load (related to force moment arms and other lovely stuff) on the 1.25m x 2.5m side. I recommend Kerbal Joint Reinforcement though - most KSP rockets are wet noodles compared to what you would expect and need for larger launchers.

Squad CEO: "Release the Kraken!"

I would like to see part replacement missions. Basically, you should be able to use an engineer Kerbal to take a part off your ship in orbit, push it over to another vehicle and install it somewhere. Maybe a Mk I pod lost a parachute due to a micrometeor impact, so you need to bring up a new mk 16, detach it and install it. Refueling missions would also make sense, as long as the target has a docking port. Basically, rescue missions more sensible than somehow finding a derelict cupola module on a retrograde solar orbit.

130km is about the minimum altitude for an object to manage to complete an orbit before re-entering. Below this, air drag brings them down essentially immediately.

I've sent a probe to orbit Neptune (did a direct launch into a solar escape trajectory with a PE burn just above Neptune's atmosphere to enter orbit) - plan to start a new career in 1.05 and try for some crewed missions to mars and perhaps some moons.

I wouldn't count that myself, as technically they are never one vessel (no docking ports). However, it is a hilarious plan for bypassing the KSP rules. I wonder - could you somehow EVE jeb on the pad before liftoff, and use the EVA pack to reach orbit from a high suborbital launch with Jeb riding the ladder?

There are no rules!