space_otter

I tested out a new shuttle design. it's capabilities could probably be stretched sightly (maybe extra tankage/nuclear engines) to make it SSTO on stock Kerbin. However, this is JNSQ so it launches with four side boosters. First test launch went great, until re-entry started. Unfortunately, the shuttle's tiny rudder couldn't keep it straight and it fell into a flat spin, which led it to land about 90 km from the KSC. https://i.imgur.com/mIf9YwY.jpeg Luckily, control was regained and a landing course avoiding the trees was set up. https://i.imgur.com/6qtkq1r.jpeg Another peculiarity of this craft is that it only really flies well when it is dumped of fuel. However, I neglected to do this so it stalled at 50 m/s and hit the ground rather hard. https://i.imgur.com/wOhOtP8.jpeg Luckily the crew and most of the shuttle survived. Definitely needs a redesign... https://i.imgur.com/CIj9RHD.jpeg

I started off a new career save with a sounding rocket program. Not much, and quite a few launches, so here are a bunch of assorted screenshots: https://i.imgur.com/uHabohj.png https://i.imgur.com/i1mvAtl.jpeg Then it was time to go orbital. This rocket looks quite like an ICBM, which I think is kinda cool. https://i.imgur.com/GFYArKb.png https://i.imgur.com/MsZYrVk.png A second launch attempt to polar orbit failed just after launch. Although most of the rocket survived, it was scrapped and a second attempt was made. https://i.imgur.com/IKavs7Y.jpeg Finally, ORE-1 (orbit return experiment) launched. Unfortunately, i completely forgot to perform the mystery goo experiment. Perhaps it was just as well, because I forgot parachutes and the rocket ended up hitting the ground at 150 m/s. https://i.imgur.com/39hLWx8.jpeg

I'm having an issue with this mod. As far as I'm aware, all dependencies are installed correctly. When I open the game, everything is fine until I go to the VAB/SPH and build a rocket. For some reason, the mod doesn't calculate the build time for my vessel at all. Other features (like tech unlock times) work flawlessly. Also, it doesn't let me add my vessel to the build plans (the button just doesn't do anything). Any help with the issue would be much appreciated. https://i.imgur.com/p0eifag.jpeg

I installed JNSQ and Spectra together! Now I feel ready to start another career save. https://i.imgur.com/kwCNMgo.png

I am experiencing an issue with kerbalism+near future electrics. More specifically, the nuclear reactors don't produce electric charge. There is an option to turn the reactor on, but although heat is produced the reactors don't produce electricity. They don't even show up in the planner. I also have system heat installed, so that may be causing some issues.

The bug occurs on all SRBs, but here are the thoroughbreads on a 5m core. And the module manager log:https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CUARwu6ounEE_DIYJlb07vdT2NU8Sl_M/view?usp=sharing

I installed them but had no change.

Hello, I'm having a slight issue with this mod. Some of the plumes provided by this mod are visible through parts. Everything else seems to be working fine, but this quite annoying. I'm not sure if this is something I should bring up with the main waterfall thread, as this only affects the plumes in this mod.

Quite a few launches were performed, bu most of the action in the last few days occurred in deep space. First KRO-4A and B launched on a Scimitar I. The Scimitar is the workhorse rocket of this save. Once again, it performed flawlessly and placed the two satellites in good orbits. The second Astra mission launches in the early morning. the crew will stay on Station I for a year. The first expansion module to Station I is launched. The original science lab has been deactivated due to it having no radiation shielding. However, with the next generation of launch vehicles (in 3.75m scale) more capable habitats can be launched. Imgur doesn't seem to be working (when I copy the image address it is a weird link starting with blob...), so I don't have any screenshots of the launch. However, i do have a picture of the current station I configuration. Duna-4 successfully landed on Duna and performed research tasks. Ike-1 successfully circularized around Ike. However, Duna-3 was reassigned to Ike. Because Duna-3 has a better antenna, it was Duna-3 that became the first spacecraft to land on Ike.

Astra I becomes the first 3-crew mission. From now on, the Astra program will transport all astronauts to space, until new technologies are researched. The crew test the spacecraft's ability to maneuver in space. They take it from a 100x100 orbit and circularise at 400 km. They then re-enter and test the ability of the heatshield to withstand an aggressive entry. Eve-2 becomes the first spacecraft to 'land' on Eve. Unfortunately, the spacecraft lands in the sea. It can only transmit a limited amount of science points before it is crushed by the extreme pressure. So far, none of my Eve missions have worked out as intended, however Eve-2's failure can be attributed to a launch vehicle anomaly. However, Eve-1 has started transmitting data again, so Eve-3 was reassigned to a Gilly mission. After orbiting the planet, the spacecraft explores all three biomes. Also, Duna-3&4, along with Ike-1, launched for Duna. Luckily, nothing went wrong this time, and all three spacecraft are set to complete nominal missions.

The last ever Sirius mission, Sirius 11 is launched. On board is Maria Ramez and another Kerbal. As an experiment, the service module is retained. The spacecraft loses only the solar arrays and RCS blocks, but nothing else, thus proving that reusable spacecraft may be possible. It is intended to be used as a museum piece. The X-4B is kicked into action. Having once exceeded Mach 3, Mach 4 was bound to be easy. In the last rays of sunlight, Melanie Kohler and Maria Ramez prepare to be the first Kerbals to pass this historic barrier. The plane, fully fuelled, struggles to ascend using the power of the jets alone. The maximum altitude it can achieve is around 10 km. The rocket engine is ignited and the plane accelerates rapidly. The fuel supply is extremely limited, so they cannot afford to waste it by gaining altitude. They pass Mach 4 and beat the contract. The engine is overheating! How far can we push it! Not very. The cockpit melts, the crew not aware that the temperature was too high. Destabilised, the rest of the plane tumbles downward and disintegrates, the debris hitting the ground only seconds later. This is the first fatal accident of the program. Maria Ramez was one of the original four, and a level 2 pilot. The X-4, and all other supersonic programs are immediately shelved, until the tech arrives to unlock better engines, like the whiplash.

Special Report: First Minmus landing in my JNSQ career. The launch was the first and perhaps the only flight of the Sirius DA (direct ascent). The crew of Sirius 10 will be Gudrun Mayer and Mikhail Balakhnov. The vessel is built with clustered tanks. This arrangement is less than ideal so I am looking forward to the more capable 3.75m parts. The power of the four mainsails and one swivel is enough to melt the launch base. After a rather explosive staging, the pod jettisons the escape tower and ignites five poodle engines. TWR is mediocre, mostly because I remove fuel on purpose but accidentally added it back in. However, this comes in handy as the second stage is burned to depletion after TMI. It is just the capsule and its one terrier now. After one aborted landing attempt and the selection of a new landing site, the crew land in the midlands of Minmus and prepare for EVA. The surface activities are very complicated. Both Gudrun and Mikhail perform EVAs. Bringing an engineer was a good idea, as he manages to service the engine which only had five ignitions and a minute of burn left. Mikhail also performs an EVA to collect samples from a different biome, covering a total distance of 14 km. Four surface samples are gathered, however this maxes out the capacity of the pod. The return of the capsule is rather straightforward. Turns out that the vessel was overbuilt, with around 1.5 km/s of Dv left in the lander stage and 400 m/s extra in the final stage, which remained unused. Despite this, the vessel cost 156K, which is about half of the 375K funds which the Sirius Mun lander cost. Clearly, Minmus is a lot easier. And landing in Kerbin's deserts. The crew returned a total of 600 science points, although quite a large amount of that was from contract gains.

MRO-2 and also MiRO-2 (Unfortunately no screenshots of the latter) launched and started their scanning processes. MiRO-2 is equipped with a BEEP, so it will continue to send science data back for a long time. The X-3 fast test plane was tested. Although zoom climbs are possible up to 40 km, the elusive goal of Mach 3 flight remains, well, elusive. Max speed in level flight is mach 2.93. Unfortunately, the contract requires me to go at a speed of 1029 m/s, which is well above mach 3, at least at 15 km in JNSQ. The rather unconventional launch vehicle for Eve-2 disintegrates in the upper atmosphere. Clustering tanks without autostrut is a bad idea. The rocket can't recover from the spin so the second stage is required to bring the apoapsis out of the atmosphere. The transfer stage performs the circularisation. This leaves the spacecraft critically low on propellant and means that the rocket will have to aerocapture. Eve-3 is a re-attempt of the goals of Eve-1. The original spacecraft's antenna was too weak. Although this probe was originally destined for Jool, the rather difficult situation with Eve-2 means that it was safer to get at least 1 science-gathering mission off this launch window. That means that we miss Jool and we have to wait a while to launch there again.

Ok, that makes sense. I probably read the thing wrong. I don't have a lot of science right now, so antennas aren't an option. Does adding extra antennas increase bandwidth (i.e. if I add say an extra three antennas with 60 kb/s of bandwidth the data rate will rise to 180 kb/s ?)

I have an antenna which claims to have 65 kb/s. I think that should be enough.

Hello, I recently launched one of the SENTINEL telescopes into orbit. Everything seems fine in the VAB but when I launch it it says it will take 23,800 years to complete. Worse, this number seems to be increasing instead of decreasing. I would like the 660 science this experiment provides, so a fix would be really helpful.

I decided to try RO/RSS. After messing around in sandbox, I decided to try RP-1. I started a career, built a rocket (This was quite hard - I couldn't really figure out how to make the avionics work.), and stated to build this. However, I couldn't add more than 10 engineers to the launch site for some reason and the rocket would only be finished in 1952. This made me quite angry and I returned to sandbox I managed to do a soft landing on the Moon. Mechjeb ascent guidance failed just before orbital insertion, so my orbit was quite dodgy, however I managed to fly to the moon. During landing, I realised my engine was unthrottleable, so I had to keep shutting the engine down the engine before landing. Luckily, the engine has a huge impact tolerance. I switched back to my JNSQ career. What a relief! I launched a new space telescope to high kerbin orbit. Unfortunately, the kickback booster failed to ignite and the rocket tipped over. Miraculously, the payload survived (mostly) so it could be relaunched, this time nominally. There however seems to be a glitch with the Kerbalism science experiment for this part. It says it will take 25 years to complete in the VAB, but in orbit the completion time is... 23,800 years. What! Even more strangely, the completion time increases instead of decreasing. This is annoying as I really want that 660 science this part provides. Having spent 180 days in orbit on board Station 1, the crew return home.

Duna 2 arrived at Duna first, for some reason... The landing was successful, however there is no commnet so science data wasn't transmitted. Duna 1 has a similar story. Unfortunately, this mission was almost doomed by a second stage ignition failure just after launch. Thus , the spacecraft wasn't able to achieve an optimal orbit and it has no connection as well. An aging Viking capsule was launched. This enabled Gudrun Mayer to advance to level 2. We now have a rather large number of Level 2 pilots, which will be very important for further missions. Then Sirius 9 launched on board a Scimitar I heavy. The crew performed a nominal mission to Minmus and back.

Eve 1 arrived at Eve. Unfortunately, the antennas weren't quite as powerful as I'd hoped, so after transmitting science data for a few days contact was lost. I hope that we will still be able to salvage data from this probe once we have a good relay network. A new crew was sent up to station I. The crew of Sirius 7 will spend 180 days in orbit. They were joined a few days after launch with a resupply module, which carries enough supplies to sustain them for their stay. Sirius 6 (The numbering convention is weird) launches. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to get a screenshot of the first stage, but here is the second stage igniting. Just before touchdown. About 1km up. We landed in a rather deep crater, Roland didn't see much scenery. After launch, we flew by some rather large mountains. Luckily none were in the way. Re-entry was exciting. Now I have 500 science points and I have no idea what to do with them...

The Science experiment package (SEP) launched to Station I. Despite its name it carries reaction wheels, batteries and new antennae along with the experiments. Launch was on board the Icarus I (previously called the sandcastle). docking was performed fine. Sirius 5 launched on board the Scimitar I Heavy launch vehicle. The crew was Roland and a new recruit pilot. The crew on their way to the Mun. Roland performed one of three EVAs to gather science. According to him, the dark side of the moon is 'very dark'. for some reason he didn't use the EVA lights. - A short interlude- having completed thirty days on board Station I, the brave crew of two return to Kerbin. Back to Sirius 5. The crew are on their way back. The transfer stage is left in munar orbit and only the capsule returns. the stage is the largest man-made object to remain permanently in the Mun system. Kerbin looks beautiful once I made the Spectra 64k clouds work with JNSQ. A fiery Re-entry. For some reason, time-warp only cut out at 60 km instead of 80. The service module exploded immediately but the crew were unharmed.

Unfortunately I have the weird infinite loading screen bug. As far as I'm aware my Kopernicus install is working properly. I even tried installing parallax 1.3 and that worked fine, however I saw that there were a few updates to the terrain shader and I would like to use them.

I am getting an error on the loading screen. "Your system does not support compute shaders". I believe I have everything installed as planned. I am running a Mac computer, but I don't have the scatters installed so I hoped it would be fine.

Kerbin Resource Orbiter 3 launches. This will scan the surface, along with high and low res resource surveys. The launch is on a new rocket, the Sandcastle I. This rocket is a medium launch vehicle, designed to loft small payloads of around 2 tonnes to LKO. The first stage is a single SRB nd the upper stage carries two terriers. The performance is quite good. Once I eventually unlock the best tech, I will replace most of my rocket designs with upgraded version. After orbital insertion into a nominal 107x103 orbit, the spacecraft can deploy solar arrays, antennae and orbital scanners. Sirius 4 launches and sends Maria Ramez and Sufen kerman to Station I. Unfortunately, the station has no control wheels, so docking is quite stressful.

Didn't do a lot this week as I was busy. yesterday I finally had a chance to play but then KSP crashed. I did manage to launch a new station in my JNSQ career, Station I. It has space for two crew and will be an important outpost for the next series of explorers. The launch occurred during a CME event, so the orbit is 90x110 rather than a more circular orbit, however the station has its own engine and part of its scientific mission will be to explore different possible altitudes for a new station. https://i.imgur.com/R5ZIgma.jpeg

I had a few launches, yet unfortunately I forgot to take screenshots. Anyway, these are the significant events: Launch of Mun and Minmus polar resource orbiters, which both carry scansat sensors. Launch of Gudrun and a tourist on a quick mission. Launch of the Duna-1 (Orbiter) and Duna-2 (Lander) Missions and their escape burns. Next we are expecting Eve-1 and Station I to launch. I am sorry I didn't have screenshots, I promise to have at least a few next time. I do have a screenshot of the new and quite reliable Scimitar I rocket. Except for the prototypes, performance has been flawless (except for orbital insertion on Duna-1, one of the poodles failed but luckily we had loads of excess DV.