Calvin_Maclure

Asteroid Sample Kerbin Return Mission (ASKRM) - Test Flight As part of its mandate to explore the Kerbol system, KASA's Asteroid Sample Kerbin Return Mission, or ASKRM, is designed to fly to near Kerbin asteroids as they journey near our little blue planet, rendez-vous with the asteroid, land on it, collect a sample and return it to Kerbin for analysis. The mission, though a challenging one, is believed to be of upmost scientific importance. Many scientists believe that asetroids hold a unique set of clues to understanding our universe and maybe, just maybe, even clues about our place in that universe. Over the weekend, KASA, in partnership with MacFran Aerospace Industries, were happy to report they had completed the first ever launch of the Hobbes 1 4-1 configuration testing out the return capabilities of the Asteroid Sample Kerbin Return Mission (ASKRM) pod. Both the Hobbes 1 4-1 and the Sample Return Pod (SRP) performed as intended, the Calvin C2 Briz upper booster having already proven itself performed as expected. The sample return pod sits at the center and top portion of the satellite and is the only component intended to return to Kerbin. It contains a core drill which will obtain the sample. Picture: ASKRM Probe (photo courtesy: MacFran Aerospace Industries)

Moho Mariner Near Space Missions - Visitin Moho The Delta-II rocket launched on Dec 9th from KSC carrying with it the first of two planned Mariner Near Space (MNS) probe missions on their historic flybys of Moho. The closest planet to Kerbol has, as of yet, never been visited by any probes. The successful launch of the Delta-II rocket carrying the Moho Mariner Near Space M2 satellite following on the heals of Moho Mariner Near Space M1's launch just a day earlier. MNS M1 is targeting a flyby of the northern hemisphere of Moho whereas MNS M2 is targeting the souther hemisphere. With a slight exception to a few last minute additions of small science instruments to MNS M2, both probes are identical in design. Both launches went off without a single glitch. Go Delta. Go Calvin. Go Mariner. Photo courtesy: KASA, Lockeed Kerbin Aerospace and Defense

Attempting to Reach Dres - Mariner Deep Space Mission Dres Following a fairing separation failure (which caused the loss of the rocket and its cargo) during the launch of a multi-million dollar probe that was slatted for a flyby of Dres, KASA management and MacFran Aerospace Industries both refused to comment until the investigation is further along. ''With another Mariner Deep Space probe already under construction, we should still be in good shape for another attempt soon'', said KASA in the only statement it has released since the incident. Debris was scattered over the Atlantic ocean as most of the debris survived whatever parts of the atmosphere they had to reenter. ''This is precisely why launches occur from where they do'', said Petra Kerbin of the Associated Space Press. Dres is the fifth planet in the Kerbol star system. It is located between Duna and Jool in a somewhat eccentric and inclined orbit. It is considered to be the largest non-planet like object in the Kerbol system. It is similar to Moho and Eeloo in that it has no atmosphere and no natural satellites. To date, no missions have ever reached or been sent (with MDS being the exception) to Dres and KASA scientists were hopping to remedy this with this mission. KASA has, on its Dres agenda, several other missions including another MDS flyby followed by a lander named Galileo, after the famed Galileo Galilee. P.S.: KASA is happy to report that the second launch occurred without any issues and MDS is on its way to Dres

Building a Space Station - Orbital Akademy Space Station How did we manage to get a 100 ton space station up in orbit around Kerbin travelling at 2200m/s? Watch as KASA astronauts and engineers build in 10 launches and several EVAs Kerbin's first Orbital Academy Space Station. Over 200 pictures in 8 awe inspiring albums highlighting the chronological construction of the station from start to finish. About the Station: ----------------------- The station was designed in partnership with one of KASA's most trusted contractors, MacFran Aerospace Industries, and is used to train kerbonauts on how to endure long duration space flights, how to work with great proficiency in space as well as performing a host of scientific and medical experiments in a zero-g environment. The station cost a whopping 98 billion dollars to produce, launch and assemble and uses a combination of solid and inflatable modules. It orbits Kerbin at an altitude of 90km with a 5 degree inclination. The station was designed to serve primarily as a training grounds for future long duration kerballed space exploration missions. It can hold up to 8 kerbonauts at a time. The station is currently the largest kerbal made object in orbit and can be seen with the naked eye at night. Part I - http://imgur.com/gallery/gg0A7 Part II - http://imgur.com/gallery/5d00I Part III - http://imgur.com/gallery/LoQ7E Part IV - http://imgur.com/gallery/52xQp Part V - http://imgur.com/gallery/Am3xb Part VI - http://imgur.com/gallery/OrjF3 Part VII - http://imgur.com/gallery/a3viZ Part VIII - http://imgur.com/gallery/rPHnP Photo courtesy: KASA and MacFran Aerospace Industries

OSCAR - Near Space Communications Network KASA’s Kerbin Sciences division is set to be stripped of funding in favor of the exploration of deep space, with the president-elect Donal T. Kerbin having set a goal during the campaign to explore the entire Kerbol system by the end of the next two decades. This would mean the elimination of KASA’s world-renowned research into climate related phenomena. KASA’s Kerbin Science division’s budget which was set to grow to $2bn next year may see a drastic reduction while, by comparison, space exploration has been scaled up somewhat, with a proposed budget of $2.8bn for the next fiscal year. Bob Kerbin, a senior Trump campaign adviser and retired KASA astronaut, said there was no need for KASA to do what he has previously described as “politically correct environmental monitoring”. “We see KASA in an exploration role, in deep space research", said Bob in an interview with the Kerbin Times. Part of this commitment to deep space exploration will see an overhaul of Kerbin's "near space" communications satellite network. The plan is to launch a series of the latest OSCAR (Orbital Signal Carrier And Receiver) communication satellites, at a cost of 450 million each, produced by Lockeed Kerbin's Aerospace and Defense department, to replace the current near space comm satellites network. The current satellites would be decommissioned and de-orbited once all functions have been transferred to the newer and better OSCAR satellites, if all goes to plan. P.S. ---- The first of the OSCAR communication satellites was successfully launched into a LKO today aboard a Hobbes I 4-2 configuration ushering in a new era in space communication technology. Lockeed Kerbin engineers report that all systems are nominal. Photo courtesy: Lockeed Kerbin Aerospace and Defense

Rescuing Hubble At a cost of 1.4bn dollars, KASA's affectionately called ''Hubble Deep Space Telescope'' wasn't doing too much star gazing as KASA had lost contact with its beloved orbiting observatory now for several months, as KASA administrators and heads of the Kerbinside Observatory were scratching their heads trying to figure out a solution. So KASA engineers did what KASA engineers do best: they mounted up a mission to salvage it. Launching with the best available crew, Space Shuttle Endeavour headed upwards through the night sky high (high for the Orbiter) and made for the stricken space telescope at an altitude of 400km. On the agenda, remove the stricken communications equipment, install the new communications gear and relocate the telescope to a lower orbit, by about 15km, to keep it away from newly launched satellites and, lastly, retrieve some much needed data from its hard drives. Whats more, KASA also got to try out its brand new toy: the Kanadarm courtesy of the Kanadian Space Agency. The robot arm was key to the mission, allowing the crew to snatch the satellite and maneuver it gently into the Shuttle's cargo bay where repairs could be performed. ''The Kanadarm is a great addition to the Shuttle fleet. It performed beautifully and really allowed us to perform a mission that otherwise would have been significantly harder to perform'', said Sigsy Kerman. The mission, lasting several hours and necessitating a pair of EVAs was a complete success. The satellite is at its new orbit and KASA can speak to it anew. The telescope, which some have said, has been arguably the most scientifically important satellite ever to be placed in orbit, and it will now continue to fulfill its mandate to peer deep into the kosmos. Photo courtesy: KASA

Remembering Past Successes - Youppi Today, KASA remembers and celebrates the memory of the Youppi missions, part of the early pioneering space conquest missions it undertook several decades ago. Youppi was the first multi crew missions KASA flew (crews of two were flown) and the first to attempt and succeed rendez-vous as well as demonstrate our ability to sustain long endurance space flights. Only a few missions were ever flown as the Apollo program was in very good shape and on track. Nevertheless, the Youppi program, small of a step as it may have been, was a necessary one in getting kerbins to the Mun.

Paying a Visit to Plock - New Horizons Mission Just in time to ring in the new year, New Horizons was successfully launched for a historic flyby of Plock. It is expected to reach the Kerbol's most distant planet in just about 7 yrs. KASA scientists and engineers were in a mad scrambled to launch the probe asap, as Plock is currently beginning its trip moving farther and farther away from Kerbol due to its highly elliptical orbit. The launch went as planned, and no anomalies were reported. ''Plock has never been visited before and its very, very far away from Kerbin. Its orbit takes it around Kerbol in many, many years'' said Alan S. Kerbal, the head of the New Horizons program. ''Since Plock was headed into the outer part of its orbit taking it even further away from Kerbol, we really werent in our optimal launch window. So we took the biggest rocket we could get our hands on and sent this tiny probe on its way in a hurry.'' New Horizons weighs in at less than 2 tons but was flown out of KSC aboard one of KASA's larger rockets, the Hobbes VI block 3 configuration. ''The flyby will be short because the probe will be moving rather quickly, but it'll be historic and we cant wait to see what secrets Plock is holding out for us''. New Horizons was designed and built by the Aerospace and Astronomy Division at Kaltech University in partnership with the KASA Jet Propulsion Labs

Fancy probes, eh? Challenge, eh? Here are my favorites from my work: Some are designed for flybys, some to get in orbit, others are just landers while some are a combination of orbital probe with a lander attached (a-la Cassini) Full album link: http://imgur.com/gallery/Gi1eS

Haha. Just thought Id chip in my two cents.

Its pretty cool, but it only has emphasis on stars/suns, not any of the planets, which, to be honest, are really deserving of attention as well.

Oh... em... GEE! Dont know how you do it, but you done it good! Duna actually looking like Mars TOTALLY makes me wanna go there now, not that I didnt before but, this... this is much better. DAMNIT! THERE GOES MY SOCIAL LIFE!

Did somebody say '''Mun''? When we went to the Mun, the missions were designed to be short duration ones. We knew we would not stay for extended periods of time. At least, not now. But that was then and Duna is a different beast. One cannot afford to go and leave like we did when going to the Mun. Duna is much farther and takes longer to reach. Missions must be seen as long duration where Kerbals would stay on the surface for several weeks at a time. But KASA is seeing beyond Duna already. ''Our goal in going to Duna is not only to conquer Duna itself'' says Bolden, ''but for Duna to serve as a teaching ground for all of us to perhaps even extend our kerbaled mission scope to beyond Duna and to other nearby bodies''. But why the Mun? Bardous Kermin, a seasonned KASA astronaut with several missions under his belt says ''conquering Duna for extended stays will not be easy. But the Mun has a lot to offer us in terms of training grounds. We can practice setting up bases and living there with only what we brought with us. We can practice using the Mun's available resources as a means to support ourselve during our stay''. And so with this in mind, KASA has designed a Mun mission which it calls ''Mun Return Mission'', or MRM for short. There, kerbonauts would set up a small base, mine for resources and practice living in isolation for extended periods of time on another body. Some say its nothing but a waste of time and resources. Duna Direct advocate, author and scientist R. Zubrin Kerbal made the statement that ''we can send kerbals to Duna within the next 3 years. We have the necessary abilities right now''. People like Zubrin see our return to the Mun nothing more than a sideproject and time waster funded by private enterprise for nothing more than profit. But even critics like Zubrin admit that the Mun does offer an interesting platform off of which to test new tech and ideas. ''The fact of the matter is that we've never done anything like mining a planet's surface to forage for the necessary resources off of which to live or do any other kind of activities like that which is needed for extended stays in areas really far from Kerbin. What we at KASA are trying to accomplish is sending kerbals to planets beyond Duna, if at all possible, and the Mun, because of its proximity to Kerbin, gives us a potentially really good training platform. We can go there easily and test a host of complex tech and ideas before heading out to distant bodies where, if something serious were to happen, the crew would be in serious jeapordy'', said Bardous Kermin, KASA kerbonaut. But critics of the Mun Return Mission program say that whatever needs to be tested can be tested here on Kerbin itself. No need to waste precious funds going to the Mun to do it. ''Private industry is pushing for this because they have a vested interest in seeing this happen. It means more contracts and more government funds going in their deep pockets'', said Zubrin. Whether or not KASA actually does choose to use the Mun for training and research remains to be seen. But plans are underway for the design of the Mun Return Mission. Mission highlights from Eagle VIII Photo courtesy: KASA

Is that Duna?!?!??

MacFran KASA Space Program Thread ================================ What this thread is about: I enjoy writing up mission profiles, playing the game beyond simply building, launching and landing crafts. I enjoy building the story around it all as well. It helps to tie everything together and give the game and the experience greater depth. I also enjoy reading good stories about KSP games, seeing well thought out builds that meet the challenge of complexity vs simplicity and effectiveness head on. I hate over-the-top, unrealistic and frivolous designs. I enjoy sharing my designs and getting criticism or comments on them. If you enjoy these kinds of things, then this thread is for you. It is a mish-mash of missions, some of low profile while others of great significance, with stories unfolding in chronological order, the first being the oldest. Although, since I only not too long ago started doing this sort of thing, I cannot go all the way back to the very start of it all. I do my best to maintain a balance between detail and length for both description and screenshots. There will always be at least one or two ''teaser'' screenshots below each post text followed by the rest of the album in the ''reveal hidden content'' dropdown. Enjoy! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Project Orion - KASA's program with the goal to extend kerbaled exploration to Kerbin's red neighbour When KASA announced its Orion project several years ago, a project with the daunting task of conquering Duna and ultimately seeing footsteps on the surface of the red planet, we new it would usher in a new ear of space flight, just like the Apollo program had when the challenge to set kerbals on the Mun was undertaken. For the first time, kerbals left Kerbin's sphere of influence and set out to another world. First, it was one mission, and then another, and then another, and then another. Not long after the program had started it ended with KASA having successfully flown and landed no fewer than 8 missions to the Mun and no fewer than 16 kerbals had left their mark on its grey powdery surface. Technology had been developed to meet the daunting challenges that lay ahead and with every subsequent flight so our understanding of the challenges, risks and potential rewards involved in space exploration grew ever more. For Orion, new technologies will also have to be developed. Bigger stronger rockets, inflatable habitat, extended life support systems, rovers, safe nuclear power sources are just a glimpse of what the KASA engineers and scientists will have to come up with in order for the conquest of Duna to occur. So far the program has not failed to impress in both its size and costs. Test flights have been performed, tech has been tested out and with it KASA's confidence in its ability to send the first kerbonauts to Duna has grown, as has also the impression left with each subsequent test flight that this is really happening: kerbals are headed to Duna in the not too distant future. The last time Kerbals left Kerbin was on Eagle VIII the last Mun mission where two lucky Kerbonauts left footprints on the Mun's surface for the last time. KASA administrator, Charles Bolden Kerbal has said that "the Orion mission designs are still evolving. Our test flights have confirmed a lot of important design features work as intended, but have also shown that some can be improved, and improve them we will". KASA has been under a lot of pressure from Congress to keep a close eye on mission costs and cost overruns. So far, Orion has been the most expensive single undertaking KASA has ever done. To be fair, it is also the most complex it has ever undertaken. Photo courtesy: KASA

In the options, you can tell it to apply padding on start up. Go to: GameData -> MemGraph -> PluginData -> MemGraph -> Settings -> ''applyPadding = true''

Yes. Get the MemGraph mod.

I just absolutely madly love how Duna looks so much like Mars now! I've always hated how Duna was always way to bright red of a colour. This looks WAY WAY better!

Holy guacamole!! Id been using Outer Planets Mod up to this point, but THIS just takes it up a notch! Damn! I'm assuming that the planet orbits somewhat match what's found in OPM (since both mods are intended to reproduce scaled down sizes of the real thing).

No actually, this is quite alright! This does solve the issue. I just havent upgraded since I was waiting for all of my mods to update. Thanks

Need support, please. KSP version 1.1.2 - mod version 2.3.3 Not sure why this is happening but, Ive got several tube segments connected together Twekscaled down to a diameter of 0.300m. I grab the root part (ctrl + LMB) because I want all parts to be welded as one, but for some reason, it does this: http://imgur.com/a/Bm1yi It seems like the root part's tweaked size, well, breaks? Thanks for any assistance. Let me know if further details are needed.

Hey, how or why is the DIRECT mod needed for this one?

Been reading through the OP and the thread, so Im assuming the answer is no but, is there an album detailing all of the parts from this mod? Cheers,

Correct me if Im wrong but does this mod also change the decreasing returns of available sunlight as you travel farther away from Kerbol? I know that one of the many mods Ive got installed does this, I just cant remember if this is the one or if Im thinking of another one... Cheers

I actually really like this idea.