Martian Emigrant

Hi Mikki. You don't need KER. Not once the ship is designed for a specific job anyway. I do say that I used MechJeb on the design phase to figure out the Delta-V and to accelerate things like going to orbit and TLI. My manual game play is definitively influenced by watching it fly. ME

Hey all Kerbal-Lovers. I have finished my Mun Mission. The Mission Report was updated: Doing it Constellation Style The Imgur album, mostly in order if you start from the bottom: http://imgur.com/a/3YW48 OK. There we are. I would like to submit this exercise for my first badge. My score by my own accounting is 95. Thank you, that was hard but I learned a lot. ME

Hey Guys. Final instalment. A week as gone by for our Kerbal heroes. Bill is the last one out there. The Sun is setting. Time to go home. The connection with the Airlock is breached. Waiting for the orbiting Orion to come overhead. The orbit as moved away as the days passed. We will fix that. Departure The secularisation gives an encounter. Let's work on that. (As a coincidence the AP is almost on the ascending node) After a few tweaks. 0.1 km Out of LF. We work with RCS from now on. Reactivating the main engine. Simulations show we will la landing on LAND. We have plenty of fuel to fix that. Goodbye Service Module. Hello home. Well that was fun. Now to read-up on this asteroid thing. ME

Good morning. Back in the saddle. Now that the ship is assembled let's go to the Mun. Separation of the EDS (Earth-Kerbin Departure Stage). Being so close to Kerbin the separation actually moved my Pe at the Mun. Bof. I have the means. RCS quickly fixed it. The challenge want's us to use the descent engine to do the Mun-Insertion-Burn. My research shows that it was indeed the way it was planned. I don't get it. Why descend on the Mun a huge half empty tank? Engineering considerations, engine cycles, TWR, ready made tanks, what not....IDK. Anyway my engineering solution was to have crossfeed enabled everywhere and set the fuel priority in the VAB. (I also had to add an External Fuel Duct to bypass the heatshield) The burn is from the descent stage engine but the fuel is from the Orion Service Module. The priorities were set as OSM, descent, ascent. Crew transfer. All 4 of them. Undocking. Planning suicidal burn. I am not too suicidal myself but it sure is efficient. Snack time over. Jeb stays inside for now he has to command the rover release. Bill is doing the operation. Bill! Careful! That thing cost a pretty root or two. Mandatory flag and picture op. This concludes yesterdays events. Now I need to bring'em home. ME

I ran into a problem the just yesterday that could be relevant. The fuel doesn't flow through a heatshield. For engines anyway. I bypassed the shield with a hose (External Fuel Duct) for my problem. Perhaps a small shield between the ship and fuel cell? ME

Hello Friends, Kerbals and Judges. I have started a mission. That I can safely say is doing well. All stock no automation. The Mission report: Doing it Constellation Style Imgur, mostly in order if you start from the bottom: http://imgur.com/a/3YW48 Enough for today. Till later, ME

Hi once more. Imgur Album: http://imgur.com/a/3YW48 Mostly in order if you start from the bottom. This my take on the Ares I and the Orion Capsule: Capsule is Apollo style with room for 4 kerbals. It comes with a LAS (Launch Abort System). The Ares V has 5 engines the Second stage 1. The Orion a single engine. Sorry bad exposure. Shedding the fairing on the Orion and jettisoning the LAS. Ditching the Second stage, deploying solar panels and Antennas. After the rendez-vous portion, matching speed with the Altair. ME

Hello again. Imgur: http://imgur.com/a/3YW48 It's mostly in order if you start from the bottom. The first launch is for the Ares V with the Altair Lander. The Crew will follow on a separate launch. This my version of the Altair: It comes with a crew compartment, an airlock, a ladder, over 1000 units of EC, fuel cells and a rover. It is inspired by this iteration: The airlock will stay behing on takeoff. During my testing the airlock didn't have to be staged. It just separated cleanly. I presume the original from NASA would have some kind of "Frangible" connection. The Ares V. Five engine on the first stage, 2 SRBs. One engine on the EDS (Earth-Kerbin Departure Stage) (Second stage for you and me). The Altair and the EDS will stay dormant until a crew shows up. Next time the Ares I and the Orion Capsule. ME

Hey all kerbalovers everywhere. I am entering into the: Doing It Constellation Style Though act to play. Imgur Album: http://imgur.com/a/3YW48 Doing it Stock with no automation. All manual. As I write this I have had one failure. Ran out of go-Juice doing the TLI. I blame the ever increasing weight mass of the lander . Current exercise has me with 4 Kerbals on the Mun. The Orion capsule is dormant almost full of MP and in my estimate as enough fuel to make the TKI (Trans-Kerbin-Injection) The lander landed with a smidgen of fuel left in the descent stage. The Ascent stage is full. I didn't borrow from it. So all is well and confidence reign. Here is my mission report. I will start with the SRBs. Boring I know. But the good part will come right after. The challenge want us to save them. Not give them away to Poseidon. So I have parachutes on them. I cannot follow them and my Rocket both as the rocket will cease to exist when it get far enough away. The following are file photos from the development of the said SRBs Starting with the ones from the Ares V. There my SRBs have survived. Now the Single SRB for Ares I. Next time I will show you my take on the Ares I, V with the Orion Capsule and the Altair Lander. ME

Darn. I have to make another one. Here: ME Edit I am working on building/Testing my hardware. I will be submitting for my first patch soon.

Hi Jane. Here is your patches. ME

Thank you. It's a learning process. A few more years and I might actually know what is going on . ME

Hi there. Just completed STS-4, STS-4R Imgur: http://imgur.com/a/qKrgX Mission Report: Shuttle Challenge That was fun. I would like to claim the Badge. Thank you so much, ME

Hello all. Today I finished STS4 and STS-4R So that's what I did. Imgur: http://imgur.com/a/qKrgX Like the telescope the shuttle was turned in the VAB to get our 30° with the equator. The shuttle has on board the Spacelab. They are going up for science. Usual climb and orbit. Orbit finalized at 351x355 km, inclined 28.9° The extra tank was jettisoned, the doors were opened......And that's when they had a problem. The doors are jammed and they can't come back down. Time for a rescue. A new orbiter, Rescue-One, was pulled out of the VAB and then waited for the orbit of the Spacelab to come over the KSC. The Commander is Val. The only veteran not on duty. She is accompanied by rookies. Pretty good. If I say so myself. Matching speed. Transferring fuel prior to ditching the Topside-Tank. Just a little more. Adjusting the fuel prior to the descent. The thrust will be low as the COG if quite offset. Right before departure this conversation happened: The burns have to be spread out on several orbit as the thrust is low. The Mun is used to find the equator. When busy Val would forget the name of the Newbs. So she reverted to the formal Hey, Hey-you and that-guy. Finally Too low. So this conclude my adventures with shuttles. I learned quite a bit about them. I think I know how to build something better now. But that will be for another time. Be well, ME

Man..... I ran out of "Likes"..... Again! There is so much to like on the forum. ME

Is that thing packing lunches? ME

Hello EJ. I will be doing this soon. Must take the shuttle one a bit further first. I had accepted the four Kerbal part of the challenge. Right now you have it has 3 Kerbals = 20 points. Could you had another bonus for doing it with 4? Thanks, ME

Though act to follow. I have just completed STS-3 Mission Report: Shuttle Challenge Coming down from so high was interesting but fun. I would like to claim the next badge: The Thank you, ME

Part 2 of STS 3. The Mun is used again to find the equator. The plane is changed at low thrust due to the offset COG. The altitude was also changed to reduce the speed and heat during re-entry. Telescope final altitude, weight and Inclination. Re-entry. Dove in to kill some speed....A bit early....The challenge says "just off of KSC". I am good. Haw. Who knew? ME

ME

What? I am supposed to mention someone? @katateochi Totally lost here ME

Hello Theddrelle. Thanks. After the tank retrieval the challenge calls for : STS-3: Can You See Me? Your mission here involves some design and orbital construction - you are to launch a Space Telescope into orbit and deploy it. This will require assembly with the 2 MMUs you will design, as the solar panels need to be attached on-orbit with Kerbals. STS Commander - Rank 3 Launch the space telescope to a 550+km circular orbit inclined at 25-30 degrees and assemble it. After deployment, land at either at the KSC, the Island Airfield just off of KSC, or at any Kerbal Konstructs airport. So with no further ado here is my take on it. Being on the equator any launch for the KSC with an inclination can be North or South. But I chose to go South as that looks like flights from Florida or Baikonur (They both are North of the Equator. The first less than the second). The ship was turned in the VAB to save turning after takeoff. Usual take-off and circularisation. Followed with a raise of the altitude to meet the challenge of 550km+ Darn it to Heck. I thought I took a picture of the orbital inclination But can’t find it. I clicked on the Mun to set it as target to give the inclination (The Mun is over the Equator). The inclination is 28°. Because the challenge calls to land at the KSC I will need gobs of fuel. I transferred the fuel from the top tank to the bottom one. To help offset the asymmetric thrust the fuel was put in the foremost tank. And that's where I found a mistake. The telescope was built using 2 fuel tanks. And they were "Supposed" to be empty......They are not. My telescope weigh 12t.... Oh well. I am the king! Jeb got out to take advantage of the day cycle. Followed closely by Bill. Jeb and Bill flying out on their MMUs with the solar panels. The Telescope is free. Jeb goes first Bill is not far behind. He is on the shaded side but his helmet lights are on. Jeb flies back to the Orbiter. Then goes back inside. You're on now alone Bill. Beauty.

Hello. You are a night owl. Recovery. I read the missions ahead of designing. Then I hoped I had made some good design choices. As it turn out I chose well enough so getting mass up wasn't a problem. But loading was a bit like your first EVA or First docking. Re-invent walking. Docking backward with the engines in the way. Heavy ship, sun was low when I got close enough to load. One can see why the Canadarm was a good add-on to the shuttle. I did some test flights before accepting the shuttle as operational but somehow it didn't like the load....Perhaps it had to do with coming from higher up. IDK. ME

Hi. Sometime it just does. I was told it was a bug. Maybe. IDK. Try putting bigger gear on the ship. My feeling is that the gear are bending or jamming the wheels. When I get it adding more and bigger gear helps. Sometime when building we think the gear are parallel and straight down but on closer inspection they aren’t. Other times I found that my ship was too wobbly. Struts or autostruts are your friends. ME

Hello EJ. I thought that one was answered as "Do what you want". On a different note I designed one that was going to be light .... Live and learn. ME