RealKerbal3x

Seemed to be a preburner test.

Road closed (and pad possibly cleared). It may be static fire time (or at least a preburner test)! Edit: Tank farm now venting.

It's only a probe, so I don't plan to take off again (in fact, even if my Tylo lander's engine and fuel tank is destroyed on landing, I'll call it a success, as all I care about is getting a probe core with science and power generation down to the surface) My main probe is quite Cassini-esque - I intend for it to fly by each Joolian moon, detaching a small lander as I do and landing it.

Yeah, fortunately I can still watch stuff like Star Trek as it's so far removed from real science. But if you do get KSP, be prepared to never take movies like Gravity or Interstellar seriously again. You'll constantly be pointing out 'hey that has way too much dV!' and 'that maneuver makes no sense!'

Is it because you know it'll ruin your enjoyment of science fiction? It's a sad side effect

I don't know the exact numbers, but as far as I know my Tylo lander has a TWR above 2 fully fueled. And I have tested landing it from a hyperbolic trajectory - it seems to work, but that's coming from a mostly circular Jool orbit

Pretty much as title. I'm designing a mission to Jool (my first time visiting that particular system despite having played for more than 2 years ) and I'm not exactly sure how much dV I should equip my probe with to be able to fly by each moon. I've consulted a dV map and have gathered that I'll need about 2km/s for the transfer, but it doesn't really tell me what I need for moving around the Jool system itself. Help would be appreciated (also, side question: the dV map tells me that I need ~3.3km/s to land a probe on Tylo from a flyby trajectory. Is this accurate or will I need more?)

DC-3?

SES-2 successful.

Nailed it!

Look at that tracking shot!

Live now.

Haven't watched the whole thing, but I saw a couple of summary videos and the main takeaways appear to be: Timeline has slipped by around a year so no cargo launch to Mars in 2022 (I always thought that was a bit unrealistic). SpaceX is now shooting for the first flight to Mars in 2024. 80-90% chance of Starship/Super Heavy reaching orbit in 2021, but several RUDs are expected testing Starship landings from orbit. Orbital refuelling tests will probably begin in 2022. Prototype of the Lunar Starship may fly in 2023. SpaceX are also working on laser communications between Earth and Mars (including relays for coverage during solar opposition) and construction robots for Martian bases.

A quick comparison between SN4 (RIP) and SN8's engine bays: Seems like there's a lot more plumbing around SN8's engines, probably because they moved the COPVs in to make space for the aft flaps outside (you can see them around the edges). The landing legs look essentially the same, hopefully the bigger landing legs are on their way soon.

I appear to be in a very meme-y mood today, because I made another one...

Wow, that's amazing! HYPE

Big meme dump incoming...

Sadly for tiny probes, solar panels are really the best option. RTGs are too heavy (and expensive to boot) and fuel cells require a supply of LFO. I'm going to have to pack a lot of batteries and deal with the long charging times.

The road has been closed in Boca Chica, we may be seeing a static fire (or at least a wet dress rehearsal) tonight! Edit: WDR appeared to be successful.

Woah, I didn't see this coming! Let's hope things go well... I love how NASA has been actually taking Starship seriously recently. This is awesome

Oh yeah, it's all coming together... Also, that reminds me of this:

I'm not a console player, but I'm happy for you guys!

Thanks for the tip, so will that automatically resume transmission once the craft has sufficient electric charge?

I'm only going to be transmitting the rerunnable science experiments (barometer, thermometer, gravioli detector, seismometer etc) so I hope it'll be fine. The probes that will be landing on moons will have all the time in the world to recharge their batteries after transmitting, but I'm not sure the Jool entry probe will have enough time to transmit all of its science before it gets crushed.