Kerbolitto

Personnaly I choosed to put dual canards because the shuttle is stubby and very heavy, even when empty. At first I wanted to avoid that but to keep a clean look but it worked so well that I enjoy a lot more flying this as a plane now . It certainly helped on many re-entries to loose speed, or on Laythe when deorbiting the ground station !

Yeah that's very high indeed :p I focused on dV before everything else and 2 nukes for 120t. max capacity is quite bad ... Did you tried to change inclination using the Mun ? Sometimes it helps ! Maybe your CoM CoL are too close, just a small deviation creates tons of drag with a wingspan this big. Did you moved fuel forward during descent ? Between 30-20k is the best spot to change course because of high speed and thick atmosphere, and it's free ! :p

Very nice mission ! It seems that your shuttle has a high TWR ? (I'm used to >0.5 on my ships, and even that is HUge xD) Also did you tried to incline it (left-right) during Kerbin's re-entry to correct the descent on KSC ? It works quite well when you're going below 1800m/s +/-

Land the first stage inside a floating shuttle.

It's heavier than it seems with 2 RTG 6 engines and lots of structural stuff ! Right I forgot Skylab , maybe later, I need to get out of the SPH for a bit of time =)

Thanks michal I learnt a lot between the 3/4 Cassini-Huygens I designed since the last mission so yeah, I'm more confortable at packing lots of hardware in the bay . The new probe is smaller but Huygens is a lot heavier, also I did not used it's Ant / Oscar because the only way to get com with the tiny DTS-M1 was via the ground station on Laythe. I felt like it was a bit of a cheat since the spirit of this mission was about exploration (without relying on some existing satcom), so that's why I crashed intercept Laythe using Cassini. Cassini : 1.53t. Huygens : 1.934t. Cassini-Huygens prototype : Probe's structure is a fairing with interstage nodes / without truss (I used 2 ladders for the look instead), dockable com-mast, Huygens is also weighted with ore. I would have probably used this one with 5-Hammers but instead I developped the strange idea to pack Thumpers . Last remaining mission is asteroid landing .. Maybe later, when I have the patience .

Thank you ! Check this one 100G

STS 3T Cassini-Huygens (attempt 2) Okay so this time everything should be good, I re-read the rules 15 times and I was able to produce a magnificient contraption. Injector's stage is made of 2 Thumpers and 2 Hammers with thrust scaled down to get an even burn time. Cassini is an asymetrical design with 6 Ants to balance thrust, Huygens is a non-floatable device with a detachable science-box used as a beacon to recover experiments. Part 1 : Launchpad, Deployement Part 2 : Injection, capture Part 3 : Huygens splash down Part 4 : Cassini on its way ! Part 5 : Cassini goes to Pol and Tylo Part 6 : End of Cassini's mission after a heated argument with Jool Part 7 : Oops, the shuttle is still in LKO This should be it It's always nice to navigate around Jool, too bad the stock game doesn't show all encounters or a way to use more precise nodes !

This pleases me.

Depends if the airflow through the cooler has a front and back, or if it works both ways :p

What about the desert airfield or Baikerbanur

Doughnuts fuel tanks with added butter mixture.

Well I read them many times, but when I built the probe 1 week ago I focused on the second part (commander mission) and did not look much at the restrictions above :p It's ok, even if the attempt is rejected I learned new stuff with assymetrical design and cargo packaging, in fact the new version is on the same spirit.

Thanks, glad you like it :) It was a failure because Cassini must have only 1 doughnut fuel tank, and 1 oscar for Huygens. I thought that only the type was important, did not pay attention that only a single tank was allowed.

Here is my rejected attempt at STS 3T Cassini-Huygens around Jool. It was a failed attempt because I put too much doughnuts around the probe. I'd like to show it there and keep this mission alive because it took me a lot of time to figure how to pack all that stuff in a long cargo bay, and as always, because I want to share all the beauty-shots taken during this challenge ! I hope you guys will appreciate this report, even if it's a failure in regard of STS challenge, I'm quite proud of the mission Cassini-Huygens injector stage : It's made of 6 Hammers docked on a structural plate and it has 1919dV. Engines are set at 20% thrust only because the probe is a bit ... asymetrical , burn time is almost exactly 2 minutes. Cassini : The probe's weird shape was dictated to minize torque because of the electrical boom, with an RTG at the top. It features a probe control, Communotron 88-88 (would have love to use the big relay instead ..!), 4 Doughnut tanks, 2 Sparks, lots of batteries and a Science Experiment. Don't know the exact dV, I'd say 800m/s maybe. Huygens : Huygens is a buyoant lander, it has a big heatshield, 2 Science containers for buyoncy, and every experiments that could be fitted under the service module. It is also devoided of engine and was designed to be set on a crash course with Laythe (for fun). Part 1 : Launch Nothing special here, engines were lit up, and at some point it went into space ! I used Nervs to raise orbit at 110x110 before openning the bay. Part 2 : Assembly Valentina goes to the RCS bike after openning the trunk Cassini-Huygens is detached before being repositionned on the shuttle to facilitate assembly Hammer free to go, one after the other 4 .. 5 .. 6 .. Nothing's missing ! The RTG boom is assembled before detaching the probe, then docked on the remaining port Part 3 : Artisan's landing Part 4 : Jool injection, capture, Huygens drop Part 5 : Huygens goes in the water Huygens experimented a harsh re-entry, its trajectory was leading almost to the moon's core ! It is now a happy buoy. Part 6 : Cassini goes everywhere ! Doing flyby around Jool does not require lots of dV, it's just a bit of acrobatic maneuvers to fly from one moon to another ! The probe had lots of fuel so I forced things a bit instead of waiting years for a perfect encounter. Part 7 : End of the mission, using Jool surface

New Cassini-Huygens is ready, obviously it's less """pretty""" but I managed to put a DOCK on it ! Since it's lighter and shorter I think that I can add 1 or 2 Hammers in the cargo bay, and throw it on a high speed transfer.

This is interresting ! Does decoupling empty fuel tanks qualify for ship must survive if the core / superstructure is complete ? When on Laythe, can we undock ore tanks or do we have to purge them ? Super hard mode : Kerbin Laythe Kerbin under 3 years ?

Yeah, I missed that little 1 ... Too bad, I spent hours trying to figure how to pack that bay :D. Sadly this means that with only 1 fuel tank, the next probe will have to be lighter and that I probably won't assembly anything in LKO : /

Hello and Welcome, you can post your reports about missions here : in the mission reports thread ! https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/forum/51-mission-reports/

Okay after boating almost 2h I'm able to present you my successfull attempt at finding the treasure ! Ship thrown at the water's face, because it deserves it ! Being so wet and all ! Ha ! Of course the crew was still sleeping in KSC's dorm and missed the launch. Going south at full speed, almost 26m/s with good wind ! Barbara is observing all that blue stuff around the boat while the sun takes a nap. After boating almost 2 hours the crew is stuck in the night, halfway to its destination. BUT THE GALLEY IS ONLY HALF EMPTY YAAAAR !

Wow that's a load of engines, must be cool to fly, but did you tried a cargo variant with this arrangement?

Welcome around here, cool comic ! Hopefully we all know this is pure science fiction, Kerbals does not need supplies to wait one or two century on a cold planet.

STS 3T Cassini-Huygens I wanted to design something special for one of the last mission of STS Challenge. I went with a heavy probe (almost 5t.) and packed the cargobay to the limit, I even had to add a trunk to the Artisan shuttle to fit a RCS bike .. This challenge took some time, as I had 2 failed Laythe landers due to excrementsty parachutes, so on the 3rd attempt I went all out with wings and a big 'chute. I also tried to use the ship as a real shuttle and not a fairing with wings, this meant quite some time in the SPH trying to figure how to place docks and stuff. I hope you will like this time because the creation process took me some brainpower ! Cassini-Huygens injector stage : It's made of 6 Hammers docked on a structural plate and it has 1919dV. Engines are set at 20% thrust only because the probe is a bit ... asymetrical , burn time is almost exactly 2 minutes. Cassini : The probe's weird shape was dictated to minize torque because of the electrical boom, with an RTG at the top. It features a probe control, Communotron 88-88 (would have love to use the big relay instead ..!), 4 Doughnut tanks, 2 Sparks, lots of batteries and a Science Experiment. Don't know the exact dV, I'd say 800m/s maybe. Huygens : Huygens is a buyoant lander, it has a big heatshield, 2 Science containers for buyoncy, and every experiments that could be fitted under the service module. It is also devoided of engine and was designed to be set on a crash course with Laythe (for fun). Part 1 : Launch Nothing special here, engines were lit up, and at some point it went into space ! I used Nervs to raise orbit at 110x110 before openning the bay. Part 2 : Assembly Valentina goes to the RCS bike after openning the trunk Cassini-Huygens is detached before being repositionned on the shuttle to facilitate assembly Hammer free to go, one after the other 4 .. 5 .. 6 .. Nothing's missing ! The RTG boom is assembled before detaching the probe, then docked on the remaining port Part 3 : Artisan's landing Part 4 : Jool injection, capture, Huygens drop Part 5 : Huygens goes in the water Huygens experimented a harsh re-entry, its trajectory was leading almost to the moon's core ! It is now a happy buoy. Part 6 : Cassini goes everywhere ! Doing flyby around Jool does not require lots of dV, it's just a bit of acrobatic maneuvers to fly from one moon to another ! The probe had lots of fuel so I forced things a bit instead of waiting years for a perfect encounter. Part 7 : End of the mission, using Jool surface That's it for this one ! It was nice to see Jool again, I may restart a career to explore all those beautifull moons..

Bustard, not bad

Glad to see you on the forum ! Just like Jacob, I can also say your missions were a great inspiration for my KSP career I've watched many times The Odyssey of Bill, and your guide about SSTO's which helped me a lot when I started to build this kind of ships :).