Antnee

Rover design of the year!! Love it!

Mission to expand the orbital station suffered calamity today, resulting in a crash landing in the desert region of Kerbin. A major miss calculation of max payload capacity caused a projected orbital flight to rapidly become suborbital!!!! Ooops!! Final result; complete loss of payload to the orbiting station, and complete write off of vehicle.. Good thing the concept of money doesn't exist yet in KSP 2.. Below is a the latest iteration of a large SSTO docked with an orbital station and the crash site of a heavy lift XL SSTO that failed to reach orbit.

@Mister Spock Thank you so much!! Yeah, so I've been using the " Cargo Noses " of various sizes on my craft. The specific part in this instance is the CN - 375 3.75 m Cargo Nose. I've also provided an exploded view of the front end assembly. The medium nose cone on the front covering the docking port is only in service to the odd behavior of the current thermodynamics. I jettison it before circularization. Not sure if cargo parts or fairings for that matter are taken into consideration for aerodynamic effects and drag... They do overheat and explode at high altitudes as others have mentioned. Thanks again!! Oh! I almost forgot... The little space tug lobster thingy is for show only... The claws do in fact NOT articulate!.... Just a bit of creative modeling with all stock parts..... I haven't found any hinge mods so far..

After completing most of the missions and unlocking all parts, I decided to mess around more with space planes and space stations. Starting small at first and having fun, but the high part count and performance hit can be a bit grueling. Articulated hinges would be a nice feature one day!!

Spam in a can!!! LOL!! Fun fact!! Eeloo yields ridiculous amounts of science, I was able to unlock almost all of tier 4 just by taking various radiation reports with a rover!!! 12 grand worth if i could grab the rover and return to KSC.

As a currently struggling, hopefully temporarily out of work CG Supervisor I feel compelled to comment. Fantastic work!! Pedimental sculpture work is great! Love to see some art injected into space exploration!!

Here is the finished product of an SSTO I've been working on. I attempted to share it on KSP Builds but the ship doesn't cut and paste properly. Could be the struts holding the back end together. Hopefully a patch will solve the issue eventually.

Still fully enveloped in the SSTO obsession, I've progressed to creating a craft now capable of delivering large payloads to orbit in conjunction with returning them. Truth be told It's kind of a pain flying back to KSC, but the satisfaction level is quite high. After a bit of tweaking I'll be ready to share this vessel if anyone is interested. Below is mission A of creating an orbital station built entirely using a space plane. Enjoy!! Vessel Ascent Climb LKO 250 km orbit and payload Central spindle (hub) deployed at 250 km orbit Descent Cruise Landing

With knowledge gleaned from previous SSTO studies I decided to go a bit larger in scale. The mission is nearly identical to the smaller scale unmanned version, build a reusable craft, launch to orbit, retrieve cargo and return to KSC in one piece. This time around I decided to share the uncut journey for those interested. I've posted full length videos of each phase of the mission and I highly recommend SCRUBBING THROUGH THE VIDEOS! I left them full length primarily out of laziness lacking the wherewithal to pick, save and post individual images. Upload all to the intra web and grab a taco instead!. Enjoy!! Phase 1: Phase 2: Phase 3: Phase 4:

Here is an inspired by the challenge mission for a first start. Vehicle is a fairly modest 630 tons of two stage calamity, capable of propulsive landing and second stage cargo deployment to orbit (occasionally) if it works. I've had more success as of late landing horizontally, and chose to modify the conditions of the test seeing how I'm not really following the rules at the start!! I may try a full scale attempt with a more polished, true to form replica in a bit. I've broken up the images into the individual craft stage events of the flight. Hope someone hits the bulls eye!! Land at target automation?? Man, I miss it... Vehicle: Second stage: Ascent Stage Separation Orbit Cargo jettison to orbit Recharge Deorbit burn Prograde Descent Approach Touchdown Deceleration Landed First stage: Stage separation Flip and Backburn Attempting to steer Frantic burn activation or FBA Wrestling K2-D2, fuel critical Off target landing All in all quite a bit of fun peppered with frustration on this one... Hope you enjoyed the flight!!

I'm continuing to study SSTO craft and decided to attempt a small satellite retrieval from orbit and back to KSC. I placed a small hub and fuel depot complete with a satellite in orbit and fashioned a medium sized cargo SSTO drone. Ease of landing/maneuvering was the basis of my initial design, as I'm a middling piolet at best and decided for some large wings for ease of gliding and control when I inevitably botch the landing or run out of fuel... A small docking drone is included in the plane, not used on the current mission. I tend to make models as light as possible (number of parts), but even with zero frills the part count is pretty high. I neglected to screen grab the ascent of the SSTO. It fly's decent for a 60 ton breadstick, not exactly a fighter plane. Orbit achieved with plenty of fuel to raise to the altitude of the hub. Docking to the hub went smooth as well, the docking bay is a great place to add fore/aft RCS thrusters. Fuel balance is critical for success, I tend to balance a little nose heavy. I pinched a small amount of methane from the orbital fuel hub, adding weight to the nose. Docking the satellite. Satellite docking complete. Undocked from the hub and established a lower orbit of around 145 km. I find this to be the sweet spot for this particular craft. Preparing to de-orbit. De-orbit complete, heading prograde. Overshot KSC a bit of course, deployed airbrakes to slow down. My first attempt at changing pitch above mach 3 plummeting through the atmosphere resulted in catastrophic vehicle break up on a previous design. Adding the airbrakes allows the plane to slow down at a high altitude and makes descent less troublesome. (for me at least).. Now that speed has been stripped away I fire up the rapier engines. Dropped down a bit short of course after breaking to compensate for the overshoot... Still have some methane remaining for a bit of a cruise. I nudge the throttle a bit to maintain speed. Lined up to the runway as best I can. The handling at low speed is a bit sluggish, but manageable. Touchdown!! I was able to ease the plane down for a pretty smooth landing. I deployed two drogue chutes to slow down (possibly not needed). Breaking was a bit troublesome, even after cutting the chutes applying the breaks caused a severe starboard pull. I steered back to center before snapping the pic. Luckily all this frantic action occurred under 100 ms. Phew!!!! Success!! SSTO and satellite cargo are safely back at KSC. Balancing the crafts mass/lift ratio on the fly and the efficacy of air brakes are my biggest take away. Hope you enjoyed the flight!!

I've had luck quick saving and reloading once out of warp to realign parts.

I took a stab at the Val level and came to the conclusion that a design different than my mini glider was needed for a distance try. Glider and rover sled. Accelerating down the runway. Was able to reach a speed a little better than mach 1 before detaching from the sled. A beacon is positioned at the end of Runway 1 as guide for distance and decouple point. The sled takes a bath at the end of the run, some parts are recoverable.. Heading up toward the clouds, rapidly loosing speed. Leveling off a bit above 2000 m. Drifting down to the sea, descent slow and steady. Splash down!! Final distance of 29.2 km was achieved. With a bit of practice, luck and patience I bet island airfield is within reach.....

I'll admit, this took a few attempts. No burst arteries or major concussive damage to intrepid Jeb, just kept sliding of the pad.. Enjoy!!!

Attempt number 1 of the glider challenge. Need more speed, drag is the enemy....

Hello, I hope these links below work. So, after reading the space news and catching up on the "Dream Chaser" I decided to study the concept of lifting bodies. I made a " Mini Chaser " out of stock parts and gave her a run. Extremely impressed with how much lift was generated with those stumpy wings. Control of the craft was excellent, a bit too much lift perhaps.. Launched with a conventional rocket. Getting some juice before de-orbit. De-orbit complete with just enough LOX for a short closed cycle burn. Coasting toward KSC. Lots of lift.... too much lift...... need to adjust the weight/lift ratio, but fly's well!! (I'm also a terrible pilot) Managed to wrangle it down, the excessive lift was kind of an issue. I was skipping down the runway for a bit. Initial touchdown speed was less than 50 ms, after a bit of imbalanced break wobble Jeb's home safe!!!!

broken link again..

Hello! Sure, not sure why drop box isn't working. TY!

After checking in on some space news, I discovered the " Dream Chaser " is almost ready. I decided to explore the design principles of the lifting body. I made a " Mini Chaser " out of stock parts and gave her a run. Extremely impressed with how much lift was generated with those stumpy wings. Control of the craft was excellent, a bit too much lift perhaps.. Launched using a conventional rocket. Getting some juice before de-orbit. De-orbit complete. Coasting toward KSC. Landed at KSC. Bit of a wiggle on the brakes, but all in all a great little test. Happy Flying!!!!

I chose a more old school, unstable version of a jet car. Not as fast in the corners, but fun!!!

Again, so much fun with the nature of this particular challenge. I became sort of obsessed with the overall shape and approximate scale of the original Sputnik launch vehicle, and had to use all of my arm chair engineering skills to fashion some sort of boosters from fairings and chicken wire. Came out alright.... What do ya think? The rocket itself actually performed beautifully, cut perfectly on target and booster separation performed as expected. The only issue I had was the part count of the model got a little out of a hand and started to really affect sim performance during ascent. Twenty eight engines is also a bit much, but the boosters and core stage of the rocket did not disappoint in flight.

I had a lot of fun with this one, alternative landing approaches are a blast! I explored the Skycrane concept first on the Mun and then onto Duna after working out some kinks. Chose to present in a sort of an info graphic format with a short bonus video of the Skycrane landing and impact on Duna. Special thanks to all the mod fabricators for making great tools that dramatically improve game play! Enjoy!