maro

Your solar rover was the workhorse of my latest rescue mission. It enabeled me to discover 5 square kilometer of Minmus high ground to find the right landing spot for my rescue ship. http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=31351&stc=1&d=1345139414 A Link to a pdf with the whole story you will find here: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/showthread.php/17224-Jeb-Bob-and-Bill-rescued-from-Minmus-%21%21?p=238493#post238493 All togheter i now have covered 150~200km with your rovers. I learned a lot about there behavior and i suggest some minor changes. This changes will result in adding some weight and centralising masses. This leads to a better cog and controllability in weak gravity. The rover has less tendency to leave ground. i put up the mass of wheels to 0.9 and i halfed the masses of panels (from 10 to 5kg seems to be still realistic), camera, antennas ( a 10kg antenna(???) and cam/there isnt a big optic and the mast is like a tripod - 1kg for the omni and 5kg for the parabol should be ok as also 5kg(still to much i think) for the cam - the radio itself is in the body/wheel-part).

More then two years after there landing mishap on Minmus Jeb, Bob and Bill where finaly rescued during the latest KSP Mission to Minmus. read the whole story: <a href="http://speedy.sh/rAeGu/20120816-kerbnews1.pdf">KerbNEWS....Download at SpeedyShare</a> http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=31350&stc=1&d=1345139067

To preserve the fun and curiosity factor of the game KSP players who have found that sites shall keep there exact coordinates secret from new users. Its ok to show of pictures but you should hide informations about there positions.

http://www.360cities.net/image/curiosity-rover-martian-solar-day-2#37.89,3.95,105.5

Dont know exactly why, but in combination of mechjeb and RemoteTech i can use now the mechjeb Landing Autopilot with the rover as some type of surface navigation tool. You can select a target for your rover journey on the map and the Landing Autopilot will give you your permanent position and your relative position and distance to your target. The funny thing is - there is no mechjeb on the rover - that part is left in the landing stage (now) 40km away.....but hell....it works....

Why has this ion engine no propellant ? They usualy should use gas i think.

If you think about updates i would like to see a more stabile rover. Have now landed six of it and traveled about 50-60km all togheter i lost two because of somersaults as i moved over small hills and they rest now wheels up. The lack of suspension together with weak gravity makes it some times very difficult to drive with. A "kerbalized" rover design could handle this i being enhanced to enable exploring rugged terrain that we have on mun and minus and those what will come in future - propably able to drive top or bottom up.

Success !! The Solar Rover and a largely modified descent stage canceled the retro rockets and added - landing struts - additional tanks from the MMI set - 3 solar panels (lost one ???) - 3 satcom dishes an a omnidirectional antenna for the relay network - remote control for the relay network - mechjeb the rover got - a omindirectional antenna for the relay network and - 3 additional cameras thank you for this nice rover !!

Hello First i want to say that i like this plugin very much Its another step for a more realistic KSP system. I would like to make some suggestions to it. A real ComSat is a very heavy and bulky part - for example the ARTRA 1M weights more then 5 metric tonnes. With your parts right now one can make fare more lighter as also much more powerful Comsats right now. Today i put up a Monster with 9 dishes powered with an ion-engine from the Mechanical Mouse Industries Satellite Pack - and its total weight for that much com power is....negligible. I would suggest there should be one processor core for supporting each antenna on the craft weighting at least 1t each (lighter for the omni-antenna and much lighter for the RC), because the antenna for its one is no radio system. And the second suggestion is - i would like to see a less bulky omnidirectional antenna. The Probodobodyne right now looks ugly on each craft. A extendable type of antenna would be nice if possible to integrate.

Some usefull things i would like to see - Separating ship type names and mission names As for now you have a list of ships in the VAB and if you launch fife identical - lets say comsats - then you have fife time the same name in orbit - or you rename the ship, then you have fife time the same ship with the same configuration in the VAB. Therefore between selecting a ship and starting it there should be a "Mission naming". - Better sorting of parts in VAB Even there are six classes of parts in the structure - inside everything is totaly unsorted - A clock at the Space Center would be fine - never know if its day or night when i go to the pad. - A launch window screen - best start times for mun, minmus or orbital objects/stations - whatever. Know this is hard because rocket performance can be different - but lets calculate with a standard trajectory and speed - and let the player adapt to that.

First - shoot into a stabile low orbit - something like 100x100km - when Mun comes over the horizont its time to fire your engines up to a point where Muns grav catches your ship.

Hello KSP players The recent landing of Curiosity often mentioned in “Gale Crater†has reminded me that many geological structures not only on Earth but also on other celestial bodies were given names. That's why I want to ask what you think if we give names to the structures on the Mun and Minmus and all those other planets and moons who will be in future? My suggestion would be that we name visible structures after deceased astronauts and cosmonauts. Each proposal should be postet in form of a Poll, running for at least two weeks (14 days) and should contain the name of the astronaut and his achievements as well as a clear indication of position on a celestial body (image and coordinates).

Do you know ? http://eyes.nasa.gov/ Try it and have fun...the solar system and all of the spaceprobes - everything in 3D and live....to move around....i like it very much. Propably one can answer this .... would it be possible to extract the 3D models of the probes (probably also Planets/Moons) out of this and be used for KSP (if NASA allows this?) ? This would be a fine plugin... :-) Earth and a lot of probes Messenger over Mercury Voyager 2

Hello Olson Like Earth is Kerbin rotating around its axis. A polar orbit will take use of it as you are orbiting ever the same circle (there is no change in this orbit, it will go from pole to pole all the time). But below you Kerbin turns also and the axis of your circle and the axis of Kerbin are 90° apart - they are crossed. So as you orbit the surface below you is moving to the left all the time. As Kerbal turns 360° in 6h (= one Kerbal day) and your orbit time is much shorter - something like 33m in. at 100.000m you get every orbit a new part of Kerbins surface. Because after 33min. Kerbins rotated about 30° and as your orbit stays the same your mapper will cover the surface ~30° west of the last orbit, ever and ever again. If you orbit over the equator your axis is ident with kerbin axis and you only get equator surface. A very spacial orbit you maybe heard about is a geostationary orbit. Thats wat your Sat-TV is using permanently. The Sat antenna is standing still - but Earth itself not - its turning around its axis in 24h. So to enable a Sat antenna to stand still the Sat itself has also to turn around the earth in 24h. There is only one spot, one height and one speed where this is possible - the geostationary orbit - exactly over the equator with an orbit time of 24h the Sat itself will stay forever above the same spot on earth enable your sat antenna to stand still and targeting him.

After mapping Kerbin, Mun and Minmus i used the rest of the fuel of an upper stage to put my PowerSat/Mapsat combination in to a a Kerbol (sun) orbit. Was a funny shot - back from Minmus i used Mun for a slingshot .... and it worked.... i got something above 8.000m/s out of that manoever. Its now in an 12.5x14.6 Bn km 108 day orbit around Kerbol star....and...surprise, surprise.....this is the result: Uploaded with ImageShack.us

The Apollo capsule had not....the whole ship had. The Apollo Spaceship was a two part system. a) The capsule to land and the CSM (Command Service Module) about three times the size of the capsule where all the fuel, batts and lifesupport where in for up to 14 days. Without the CSM the Apollo capsules the where not able to keep them alive much longer then required for reentry and landing.

Works But Orbit must be less 80km to make sense - had good results with a 20x80km, 60° orbit: Uploaded with ImageShack.us Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Something i found im my VAB.... Looks like some sort of advanced Mk1 Pod. Uploaded with ImageShack.us

First it happens to me when the ship reached max. preassure. I dealed away with this using struts. Second problem came up during max. acceleration whilst G going up above the green scale. I handle that with rev down the engine to not go above 4Gs.

things i want to see not necessary in 0.17 but in any type of full version - failure rates to any part.... To have failures in parts is usual in space flights. Think on all those early rocket test that...BOOOM....al those early space probes that missed.... If it works the possible rate of failures of a part will decrease a lot, if it fails your increase of experiance is only up to what worked, only partly increase of experiance at those part that failed, and no increase on those parts that came not to use, - IVA? Whats this? Only a cockpit view ? I would like to see capsule systems (some sort of zogygene) but with real weight, volume and time limitations like in reality - not like zogygene now - put up some batts and panels and live forever.... You cant go with Mk1 capsule to moon because its to small to support your crew that long time. Even the three crewman capsule is to small if you dont add a CSM (Command Service Mudule) where all the support stuff is in. Therfore - computer requirements (for all systems attached...a larger rocket more PC power is required. - electrical power requirements for all systems - and batts, solar panels, fuel cells and radioisotope thermoelectric generators to handle it. - oxygene requirements per crew/per hour. - not only planets and moons but things at and on it to measure and spaceprobes for those tasks. You want to go to other planets (whoever and whenever they show up)...its not easy to reach it. Not in reality and shouldnt in KSP.

Holy shit. How did you get it so... complete? The map i mean. Polar or near polar orbits....and then wait.

How to make an unmanned Mapsat.... Combinined an PowerTech Comsat with the MapSat Antenna .... and it worked ! Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Agree partly Kerbals seems to be a lot smaler species then the Humans from Earth. So lets downsize theyr requirements. But lets think about the long run of relistic requirements. You want to build a space station, a mun station, fly to other planets sometime....maybe. Lets put up some solar panels an some batts and here we go seems much to easy. Now you can orbit for weeks (setting time to 10.000x) until minmus grav catches you.....hmmm Running a space and mun station and you not have to resuply it from time to time.....hmmm I think there are allready a lot of easying factors in there....crews need no foodstuf, they are not weakened because of lack of gravity, long time radiation do not hurt them, they have no communication delay over to mission control over long distances, they dont sleep..... So why not constructing a wonder spaceplane using endless antimater instead of fuel and can fly to and from everywhere as fast as Star Treks Voyager and crews get there foodstuff from replicators....do you like that ? I would like as much realism as possible and then having fun to search and test solution for those problems and also take a look into the forum to be amazed about ideas others have developed and ways they have found to handle those natural shortages.

I like that plugin very much, because it adds more realism. One question. Are there any numbers for how much power is produced by the pannels, how much power is stored in the batts ans how much is used to produce Zoxygene i a given timeframe? Because i think Zoxygene system weights and balances of production and usage are unbalanced compared to realistic numbers. - oxygene can not be produced by solar panels - there should be tanks - and the end is the end.... - and for powering the systems for one human would require at least 20m of solar pannels running at 100%. If you have 50% shadow time during orbiting would therefore require 40m to also equaly charge the batts during sun light. For example some measurements here: solar panels: I read about the Ranger - spaceprobes series - very early examples of space probes - and they had two solar panels with a span of 5,2m (~9000cells) poroducing about 200W. A batt weighting about 11,5kg stored about 1.000Wh. And in Ranger 6 there where two 1200Wh batts for running two 60W TV-channels trough a high gain dish antenna for 9 hours. the omnidirectional transponder for the commands used only 3W fuel cells: Three fuel cells in the Apollo CM produced each 1.400Wh (1,4kWh) - each weighting 111kg, 1,1m long by 0,56m in diameter - all together feeded by two 0,8m spherical tanks with 13kg liquid hydrogen each and two 0,66m spherical tanks with 148kg liquid oxygene each. About 60% was power output for the electrical systems. The whole system was sufficent for max. 14days of operation. Therfore each astronaut used 3kg liquid oxygene for breathing per day and has a power consumption of 840Wh for running all systems requiring ~200g of propelants per h. Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators: Earlier versions producing about 5W per kg (whole system including propelant) and lifetime can be rounded to 10years if you not calculate that they loose power over lifetime (20 % less after 14 years in case of MMRTG )

@Olson For some reasosn the Zoxygene recharge panels - PowerTech edition - dont working at the moment. Had same problems for myself today - using standard panels solved the problems for the moment.