jeremymtc

Great ship Jeebs, and with an even awesome-er name. Well done! I've found that with about 4 to 5 FL-T500s worth of fuel, you're pretty much good for whatever successive/recursive Kerbin system jaunts you might want to do. I really like the level of fuel reserve and redundancy you have going with this ship, and especially without having gone completely overboard on the lifter and insertion stages. I would say it's an extra-planetary contender as-is.

Dear Mrs. Kerman, We are happy to report that your son, Sigvey Kerman, has returned safely from his first experimental Kerbol Orbit Mission, and should be safely returned to you within 3-5 business days. Young Sigvey performed his role with admirable stoicism during his largely-unscheduled-1300-day-mission, and expressed a good deal of excitement when told he could return home. Due to his prolonged time in isolation in deep space, he now pretty much expresses a good deal of excitement regardless of stimuli, or the lack thereof. The single-occupant 1m-craft Sigvey piloted functioned well within nominal parameters, we think. We actually forgot to install any sort of scientific or measurement equipment on board, so we can't really tell for sure. Boy, did we have a big laugh about that when we found out, with poor Sigvey half way to the sun and all. Nevertheless, your son has acquitted himself well and would be up for a promotion, if it weren't for the incessant screaming. Congratulations, and regrets, Mrs. Kerman. You should be very proud of, and very worried about your son.

Very nice station, really excellent job. It launches surprising easily with more than enough fuel to get into orbit and beyond, given conservative throttle management. It steers predictably for what it is; which is a rather large space station with no motors or thrusters. Have you considered adding any RCS thrusters to the station and/or the insertion vehicle?

Seconded, good sir. Great tutorial, Pebble Garden. This should be a definitive beginner\'s primer!

Here\'s a link to my 0.15 all-stock lander/rover (with pictures): http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=15193.msg229795#msg229795 My 0.16 version has just landed on Minmus with Jeb at the helm.

You are (and were) 100% spot-on in your observations gyro! I tested several different lifter iterations using your suggestions, and thanks to your help I\'ve got the same basic function with 6 fewer fuel tanks, exactly as you\'ve prescribed. I\'ve currently got it set up with aerospikes on the outboard boosters, with 3 fewer tanks there. Also removed 3 tanks from the main stack and moved the LTV-45s inboard. I tested with 6 tanks removed from the main stacks and it definitely does work, but just as you mention the insertion vehicle is left with a little less fuel reserve after circularizing/stabilizing around Kerbin. I\'ve elected to go the more inefficient route to preserve that extra bit of operational range. There is a noticeable loss of attitude stability with the gimbals inboard, but it\'s nothing major and well within the ability of the SAS to keep in check. I might still have a little asymmetry in the SRB assemblies that may be exaggerating it, still working on overall refinement. Updated .craft file is attached below.

Thanks for the feedback gyro. I like your suggestions and will be giving them a test. I hadn\'t used aerospikes pretty much for the reasons you had mentioned; also was concerned about obsolescence when they get re-done. I really like the suggestion of swapping the LTV-30 and LTV-45 engines on the lifter and will be doing some testing with this. I suspect that I may not be able to reduce fueling on the central stack with the gimballed motors because of their lesser thrust, but I\'ll find out soon! Will upload the newer variant after proving. Thanks!

The ORVL-II is a multi-purpose and multi-stage orbiter, lander, rover and return vehicle, with a design emphasis on systems redundancy and crew survivability. The ORVL-II carries enough fuel for successive transfers to and from Minmus and Mun orbit, with the ability to land, reconfigure for use as a rover vehicle, and configure again to a launch/return vehicle. The main ORVL-II module consists of a MKI command module, MK16 parachute, ASAS, FL-R25 RCS tank, FL-T250 tank, and LV-909 landing engine. Also present are 6x LT-2 landing struts, and 6 small gear bays in a tri-lateral placement for rover use in any orientation. 6x RV-105 RCS blocks are placed tri-laterally on the anterior and posterior - these are mainly used for transition to and from lander and rover configuration, but also come in handy for low altitude translation and general range extension. Three additional FL-T250 drop-tanks are equipped for range extension (these tanks must be dropped prior to craft use as a rover). An additional orbital insertion/range extension vehicle stage consists of single FL-T500 and FL-T250 tanks mated to a LV-T30 engine. This unit will normally take the main module into Munar/Minmus orbit, allow for plenty of orbital correction, and perform the majority of a Munar/Minmus descent before being exhausted. The launch system is the wildly inefficient F30 Lifter equipped with three LV-T30 engines on the central stack (18x tri-coupled FL-T500), and three individual LV-T45 thrust-vectoring boosters (each with 4x FL-T500) for easy atmospheric control. A series of RT-10 SRBs are used to aid initial liftoff. All components of the F30 system are designed for ballistic return to Kerbin after use, leaving no orbital debris. Operation of this system is very stable and forgiving using ASAS. This vehicle is built completely from stock [ver. 0.15.2] components. The .craft file is attached below [updated version 21-ORVL-II-F24 added]. I\'d love to hear your feedback, thoughts and suggestions on how to improve it, particularly in the case of the atmospheric lifter! Some pictures of the lander/rover/lander transition are attached in the spoiler tags. A second vehicle is also shown with the drop-tanks still attached.

To change your orbital inclination, you want to do a burn 90 degrees from your direction of travel, inline with the direction you wish to change the inclination of the orbit. For a plane change to match the orbit of Minmus, I do a correction at Kerbin periapsis. You can do a test burn while in the map screen to make sure that you\'re pointed in the right direction (if not, turn engine off and re-orient 180 degrees). This fella posted a video with a nice'>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MR0jq85nVwg&list=UUxzC4EngIsMrPmbm6Nxvb-A&index=7&feature=plcp']nice illustration here.