Delay

More and more... but not all of them.

First off: Yesterday I put a satellite into an orbit around Duna. It was for a contract. And today, this happened: My first Jool encounter! Laythe also said hello as it passed by Jool. I quickly adjusted my Tylo encounter to capture me... ... and then I got Tylo, Laythe, Jool and Vall all in one picture! What a beautifully timed first visit to the system! This probe doesn't have any scientific equipment on board, unfortunately. So, upon arriving I decided that I want to use this probe to get as many encounters as possible. It has an ion engine; dV won't be a problem. Next stop: Laythe!

123 days away from my very first Jool encounter! And looking at the trajectory I even get a free fly-by at Tylo!

Ha!

φ2*π. How fast is Earth moving through space?

What would happen to mods like Principia, which completely replaces the way gravity is computed in the game?

Yeah, in hindsight I could have just done that... I also realized that the calculation is pointless in another way: One Mainsail weighs 6t, on Vector cluster weighs 36t. So the amount of fuel you could carry before you get to 108 tons is 30 tons less.

I just did some math to figure out whether one Mainsail or a cluster of 9 KS-25s is more efficient, ASL at least. Short answer: The cluster is more efficient. Long answer: At full thrust, one Mainsail can push 108.134t with a TWR of 1.3. Each of the KS-25s needs to run at 16.362% to achieve the same TWR with that mass (once again leading me to think that they're overkill). The Mainsail (at full thrust) consumes 44.407 units of fuel per second. 9 Vectors, each at 16.362% thrust, collectively use 42.903 units of fuel per second (each Vector uses 4.767 units/second). I therefore conclude that the cluster uses 1.504 units/second less and, as such, is 1.035 times as efficient as the Mainsail. Hopefully I didn't make any errors in the calculations... Feel free to correct me if there is something wrong with it.

What?

"Something" is something that isn't clearly defined. What's the square root of 128?

Is that in the summer? Because If not, I hope that it's not as cold as up here in the northern hemisphere! It's currently -2°C at 32km/h winds. Very cold when it easily was 10° just two days prior.

@Ace in Space Are you Danny2462 in disguise or something? That is some serious next-level game breaking!

I like Ike. (And unintentional rhymes) Not only was it the first celestial I sent Kerbals to, other than Mun and Minmus, it also has Mun-like gravity and a smaller equatorial radius with almost no orbital inclination and eccentricity. It's the ideal moon for the first non-Kerbin-SOI landing.

Kerbin, Duna and Eve (in that order), with crewed landings and returns from each respective moon. Planning to send a crew to land on Duna during the next launch window.

Of course it's in Australia. I mean, everything's trying to kill you anyways, so why don't you just kill this everything instead? Just kidding. But that is insane, and not the good kind.

Dunno what your subconscious is trying to tell you there...

Argh, so close! I had a Falcon 9 landing as a present. Oh, and of course: Happy birthday to you, Daniel!

Modified my 2.5m lifter to use 2 Vectors instead of 1 Mainsail. Turns out: The Vectors are overkill. They can lift all 140t of the level 2 VAB with a TWR of 1.49! And they have a higher Isp!

Built a Duna lander today, untested. How far can I get with 2925m/s dv?

One thing you can also do to nail your burn times: If you land at a point you were at previously, like the KSC, you plant a flag there to judge your distance to it by targeting the flag. Generally speaking, targeting allows accurate distance readouts. I also target asteroids to suicide burn there. Otherwise I'd often overshoot because I tend to overestimate TWR.

Had a nice discussion with my spanish teacher today. Apparently, not saying a phrase because I'm afraid I will be laughed at if I don't get it right is "highly arrogant".

Strange, my suicide burns rely on this equation and so far all have worked. The real problem is that without atmosphere, your velocity is constantly rising, so it might be better to add 50 or even 100 m/s to your actual velocity. I already wrote that this method most likely needs a mod that changes the ways the ingame altimeter works. That, or you land in IVA if possible. Also, I don't understand what you mean by "as soon as you move just 100 meters". Do you mean "if you start your burn 100m too late"? In that case, the problem hardly lies in the equation. In theory, using distance instead of time should be even better as you can get the burn start right down to a meter if you do it correctly. Compare that to time, where the distance you overshoot by is a function of velocity and time instead of being absolute: 10 meters is always 10 meters, 1 second can, however, equate to hundreds of meters, perhaps even kilometers if you take the very direct route. Also, consider that this equation assumes constant acceleration. But TWR will increase as the engines drain fuel, so you're going to stop a few meters above the ground. If your horizontal velocity is this great you probably shouldn't do a suicide burn.

I'll do that, then. Generally I like to do suicide burn calculations as distance, rather than time. This might be because you've got an altimeter on screen and my brain thinks "I can use that!", when it actually shows altitude as above SL. Though there are mods (I think at least) that set the altimeter to ground level, so the following is applicable. Anyway, the distance you need to start burning at until the ground is given by this equation: d=v2/2(F/m-g) v is your current velocity (in an atmosphere that would probably be terminal velocity), F is the thrust provided by the engines, m is the current mass of the vehicle and g is the acceleration due to gravity.

This mission doesn't seem to recover the Falcon.

Apparently tomorrow, same time (if you can trust the live stream date plan).