Ultimate Steve

That is the dead body of the Deep Space Kraken. Before its demise, all spacefaring kerbals were at the mercy of its relentless tentacles. Many a ship were torn apart in interplanetary space. However, one day, Squad Almighty, carrying the legendary Floating Point Sword, managed to slay this terrible beast once and for all. (It is an easter egg and reference to an old bug called the "Deep Space Kraken" that ripped ships apart)

It doesn't matter what the weather is now unless it endangers the pad crew, it only matters what the weather is at the time of launch and shortly after (at both the launch site and the recovery sites). We won't be able to accurately know that until a few minutes beforehand.

They can also reach more orbits because they can launch from the equator. Not sure how useful this would be, but someone will probably have a use for it.

Do you have KIS, KAS, and BDArmory installed? I believe it requires all three. This mod was also made for version 1.1 of KSP, and a lot has changed since then, both with the game and the mods required for this mod to work. It likely will not work properly, if at all, in the most recent version. I did manage to get this mod working in 1.3.1 a while back, but I have not tried beyond that. I don't think there's another similar mod out there. Unfortunately, you may be out of luck.

Where are those from?

Not really a practical use for a shuttle like return vehicle, but an inspirational one. Return the ISS to Earth and reassemble it at a major museum or something. The Smithsonian comes to mind but that may be too america-centric.

Eventually. My energy to work on this sort of thing comes in bursts. Sometimes I'll be really into this for weeks, and then nothing for months. Apologies for that. However, school is over now, so the next time the energy comes, I should get more done than usual.

It's about time! It's been net next month for several months now.

What happened?

You might be able to find me in South America somewhere!

Has anyone else noticed that the rates are sped up? Like a roll rate of 0.1 degrees per second is obviously more than that.

I mean, at least we didn't fire the superdracos to really speedrun it.

Heyy, I got an 0:46, and I recorded this one! Here you go:

I got a 0:49! Creeping closer to that lucky run. Ah, shoot! Almost got an 0:44, but I was going a hair too fast when I made contact.

Fairly high but I haven't done enough sub 1 minute runs for a good analysis. I'd estimate currently a 25 percent success rate maybe? Many hundreds of billions of dollars worth of station has been destroyed. I'll update the leaderboard in a moment. Additional recent info: Just managed two sub 1:30 runs in a row successfully. My main issue seems to be getting orientation spot on early on. Edit: Third successful run in a row, 0:54. Hmm. I seem to be a lot more consistent now. Edit: And a 0:55 Edit: And a run where I somehow managed to crash into the Russian segment...

Seconds! My route: As the time starts, switch translation into low precision (but not rotation), spam forwards while at the same time rolling to more or less the correct roll angle. Reduce roll rate to 0. Should be going forward a few meters per second at this time. As quickly as possible, alter pitch and yaw to +-0.1 degrees. Now translate left and right to get centered on the docking port while simultaneously correcting roll (it will have gone out of whack) to +-0.1 at 0 rate. Get and keep the port centered, speeding up and slowing down as necessary. Brake at the last moment (I usually am going 4-5m/s a few tens of meters from the station) and when within a few meters travelling less than 0.4-0.5m/s, switch translation to fine controls and keep the docking port centered. Within the last meter or half meter reduce forward speed to just under 0.2m/s. I have not been able to replicate that low of a time, I got really lucky with my rotation corrections. I have gotten under a minute a few times though.

Yes, a stopwatch is good. Unfortunately there is not an internal timer in the simulation.

I'm a time traveller. Here's the speedrun thread:

https://iss-sim.spacex.com/ Earlier today, SpaceX released a simulator for a simplified version of their Crew Dragon docking procedure. This is an offshoot from the SpaceX Discussion Thread where we will keep track of forum user's attempts to dock as fast as possible. Timer starts from your first control input. Settings should be left to default. We'll use the honor system for proof as this is more casual than uber competitive and uploading videos would take a while. Docking Leaderboard: @OrbitalPotato 0:27 @Ultimate Steve 0:46 @RCgothic 1:46 @sevenperforce 3:58 Fly-Around and then Docking Leaderboard: No entries yet. @sevenperforce suggested this category, I would like to ask him how to define a fly-around. Is there a certain waypoint we should pass? Happy dockings!

Roger, will do. Would Science and Spaceflight be the right place, or Off Topic?

We need a speedrun leaderboard lol Starting from the first control input I got a docking in 1:55 ish. AFAIK it's a mobile issue. Switching to desktop solved it for me. Ninja, but I had the same idea without a fly-around. I'll have to attempt both eventually. Edit: Got 1:40 ish for just docking

Alright, after switching from mobile I got it first try!

Chrome on Android.

Right when I get closer and translate right it resets me. Any idea why?

IMHO, SLS still has it's place until Starship demonstrates that it properly works, and even then until it demonstrates that it is safe enough for crew. That may not come for a while, but unless SpaceX goes down or musk dies or something, they are going to keep trying. Alternatively, it has a place until two other expendable American shlvs have proven that they are better, as Congress will want redundancy. Existing and near future heavy launch vehicles, including Starship, can't do what SLS does (launch crew to tli with the ability to return) without orbital refueling or docking a transfer stage, etc which is something that hasn't been proven yet. However, it will likely be proven sometime in the next five years. I would be a lot more enthusiastic about the SLS if it was closer to the expected budget and timeframe. Would it have been better to do a clean sheet design? Probably, but we have the benefit of hindsight. I also think we should have skipped straight to EUS and given Orion a better service module post constellation. Some of the pricing and mistakes are downright insane, namely the engines that cost more than a falcon 9 and the big digit launch pad that leans. However, the fact remains. Despite it's flaws, we are on a workable course that can take us back to the moon, and the SLS is currently crucial to this plan. If it got cancelled now, who knows how long we would have to wait before another moon program becomes politically and technically feasible... likely decades. In that case I will tolerate those flaws, as a flawed and expensive but working moon program is better than no moon program, in my opinion at least. Non space people may think differently. With SLS at the center of that, I will gladly cheer it on, although I will still criticize its flaws. Rockets are cool, big rockets are cool, big rockets doing big cool things is really cool. It could have been done far better, but SLS checks or probably will check all of those boxes. Also we need to bring back the booster stripes paint job. If I remember correctly they dropped it at least for the first mission.