RoboRay

I was about to ask if you had looked at Real ISRU, then saw that the last reply was yours. I haven't used it, but I believe that would be your only real option.

Yeah, this is one of the things in KSP where Squad got the concept right, but the implementation is not so good. The real Apollo LES had a side-firing nozzle to impart some rotation, but it was a weak, short pulse... just enough to slightly turn the craft, not keeping firing at high power and tumble the capsule end over end. Using Ven's Stock Revamp LES, which dispenses with the side-firing nozzle altogether, I've found that this is completely unnecessary in KSP. There will usually be enough wobble to provide the turn for you, carrying you off-axis from the prograde vector. But you could always stick one of Ven's Snubatron tiny separator SRBs on the side of the LES if you want that side-firing thrust.

I completed the fifth and final "simple" probe landing on the Moon in my RP1 campaign: I took some chances this time, landing among the Highland mountains of lunar far-side. I set down on a 16 degree slope, but the lander footprint was wide enough to handle it. My remaining probe-lander contracts are for rovers and sample-returns to Earth. Those are going to be harder. Back at Earth, the rarely-flown quad-booster variant of my workhorse launch vehicle lofts an Agena-like docking-target spacecraft: And, having done its duty, the upper stage deorbits itself. With the target vehicle up and operational, the manned launch proceeds... The ultimate goal rises over the horizon... It's not time for it yet, but plans are being made along with the tools to implement them. But for now, rendezvous and docking: The crew will fire the Agena engine to transfer into a higher orbit, then again to return to a lower orbit, demonstrating the ability to maneuver docked craft. A few days later, another crew launches into the pre-dawn skies of Florida... Their goal is the same as the last mission's... docking practice with the waiting Agena target vehicle. The crew undocks, maneuvers away, then approaches to dock again three more times, giving both crew members practice with the controls. Three more Gemini spacecraft are under construction, but I have higher hopes for them. A lot higher. We shall see...

I have had little time for KSP, but managed to work around the RO/RP-1 life support issues with the Gemini capsule and return to manned spaceflight: Note the Mission Elapsed Time... this crew set a two-week orbital endurance record. That's long enough for lunar missions with a few days of safety reserve, leaving me to consider a manned lunar flyby and maybe even manned lunar orbital missions if I can get a transfer module with enough ∆v launched and docked. But first, I need to prove I can dock. I've got an Agena-like target vehicle ready to roll out, and another Gemini spacecraft under construction. The prime and backup crews are studying rendezvous theory now. We'll see how that goes in a couple of months. Meanwhile, remote exploration of the moon continues with a landing at the Sea of Crises (which turns out to be a misnomer, in this case). The upgraded launch vehicle and kicker performed so well that I think I could actually dispense with the hypergolic maneuvering stage between the kicker and lander probe. Previously, the kicker was just right on the edge of handling the translunar injection burn... now, it had enough propellant left to capture the spacecraft into orbit around the moon, then deorbit itself! The maneuver stage brought the horizontal motion to a halt a couple of kilometers above the mare, so only little of the lander's fuel was used to perform the vertical descent. I'm tempted to get rid of the maneuver stage, but I only have one mission left for this lander design to fly, and the cost of re configuring and testing the changes would probably eat up the cost savings of leaving that stage out. So, I'll just let it go. There's always the chance that the AJ10 on the kicker will fail to restart for the capture, which is something I don't need to worry much about with hypergolic propellants. The improved launcher and kicker performance is making me think that the robotic lunar surface sample return contract I was just offered may be doable now, though. Let me see what kind of design I can come up with for that...

This kind of stuff? The Historian mod. The banner content and layout is highly customizable.

Now that I've set down a couple of lander probes on the lunar maria, I'm going to send a few into rougher terrain and reserve the safer flat-lands science for the manned missions I hope to be doing in a few years. I added a second TD-339 engine to double my (previously abysmal) TWR, and a little extra propellant to compensate for the added mass. And an extra avionics module to control it. And some more propellant for that mass. Man, realistic spacecraft design really is all about mass. The higher thrust let me fly a much more aggressive descent. It's still a constant-height approach, but limiting my sink rate required a lot less pitch with the extra engine pushing. Kicking up some dust... I landed with 400 m/sec of Δv remaining, where previously I was on vapors at touchdown. Not having to thrust so far off-axis to hold altitude really improved the burn efficiency. This was the last mission for this iteration of the launch vehicle. A lengthened first stage with the S1B variant of the H-1 engines will carry my future planned missions. Other improvements include a lengthened second stage with the LR91-AJ-9, and an AJ10-118E installed on the optional third stage for kicking probes to the moon or satellites up to GSO. There's also some new paint. If you'd like to try out the textures I've been putting together for Procedural Parts, you can download the pack at SpaceDock. There's no original artwork there... I'm just recoloring and mixing elements of the default Procedural Parts textures as well as some from other texture packs that have permissive licenses. Here's what I've got so far...

[Deleted, but the "Delete Post" button was pointlessly removed a couple of years ago and now we can't delete pointless posts.]

It does. WBI gives it two slots for experiments.

Ah... I did not encounter that with the stock Mk1 capsule RO config. This is what I just did as a work-around... made a Service Module IV tank with the same capacity as the command pod storage and clipped it inside the pod. I'm only using WBI for the extra experiments it gives in the command pods... I may just remove it.

I actually removed the red cross symbol and "Kerbal Rescue" text from the pod texture.

February 23rd, 1965: Two men in space. Unfortunately, the food and drinking water supplies that were stowed in the capsule before launch are mysteriously missing, so the mission will be cut to just three orbits to test the spacecraft systems. LOX to breathable O2 conversion - Nominal Fuel cell electrical output - Nominal Rotation thrusters - Nominal Translation thrusters - Nominal Adapter Equipment section jettison - Nominal Deorbit solid-fuel motors - One of two pairs fired RCS section jettison - Nominal Mass offset for lifting reentry - Nominal Post-mission review found that the crew life support supplies were packaged correctly in the capsule, but were nowhere to be found when the craft reached orbit. An engineering investigation has been initiated.* * There appears to be something wrong with the RealFuels portion of the FASA Gemini Realism Overhaul config. The pod contents do not save and reset back to defaults when the craft is reloaded or launched. Hmm...

My first lander probe on the Moon (ever) in RSS/RO/RP-0... The launch vehicle is an improved version of the D-series launcher I've been using for a couple of years (and will probably keep using for satellites and probes for a long time to come). The booster engines have been upgraded to LR79-NA-13s, with more thrust and a bit better specific impulse. Also a much longer rated burn time (4 minutes and 20 seconds), which I'm not yet making use of. The second stage now features an LR91-AJ-5, burning Aerozine50 with dinitrogen tetroxide, for a significant thrust and Isp improvement. The booster and second stage tankage has increased slightly as well, but only within the limits of what I could accomplish without retooling the production line. The AJ10-104 third stage will perform the trans-lunar injection. The hypergolic propulsion module below the lander's support frame will capture the spacecraft into lunar orbit, set up the approach to landing site, and provide about a third of the deceleration needed for powered descent. Passing low over the Ocean of Storms. Reorienting for powered descent to the Sea of Fertility. The lander's starting thrust to weight ratio with the TD-339 engine is only 0.9:1, necessitating use of the constant-height landing technique. Pitch adjustments will maintain a sink rate between 5 and 10 m/sec throughout the deceleration phase. I either miscalculated how much MON10 oxidizer I would need, or some of it boiled off during the flight*... the TD-339 cut out just a few meters above the surface. Velocity was about 1 m/sec at that point, and the RCS thrusters were sufficient to complete the soft-landing. * Note that I did have to let the probe orbit the Moon for a couple of weeks to get daylight on the landing zone, so I'm leaning towards a little boiloff. It's January 2, 1965, so just over a year ahead of the historical accomplishment!

Procedural Parts and its supporting texture packs include a number of interesting textures that are unique in color or styling, or are simply different enough from the others that it can be difficult to use them seamlessly on your craft designs. This texture pack attempts to build sets of related textures around the unique ones, or fill in some gaps in the existing sets. Have you ever wished for more dark red textures to go with the default Mu texture? Or how about the set of assorted black & white blocks and stripes, except in navy blue and white, or soyuz green and white instead? Well, here they are. All textures are derived and edited from default Procedural Parts textures or other texture packages with permissive licenses. Credits for original artwork are as follows: Corestar - MainSailor Skylab - MainSailor Vanguard - MainSailor Charcoal - MainSailor Delphi - MainSailor SoyuzGreen - Chestburster GreySide - Chestburster RedstoneStripes - Chestburster TitanStripes - Chestburster PlainWhite - Chestburster Mu - Dante80 CryogenicOrange - blackheart612 StockEnd - Ancient Gammoner This texture pack is compatible with all versions of KSP that are supported by the Procedural Parts mod. Download from SpaceDock Installation: Merge the included GameData folder with the GameData folder in your KSP folder. These textures require Procedural Parts to function. MainSailor and blackheart612 texture packs are recommended. License: Creative Commons -- Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

Mapping the Moon... poorly. I actually managed to work out a launch window where I could perform a continuous burn from the pad to trans-lunar injection! Just blind luck, really, that the Earth's rotation brought Cape Canaveral into alignment with the lunar plane at just the right moment in the Moon's orbit to put it in the right spot for an intercept. Either way, it's my first moon mission where a parking orbit wasn't needed. Unfortunately, the AJ10 wouldn't relight for my mid-course correction to set up a polar arrival. I had enough hydrazine on the upper stage to accomplish most of that maneuver on RCS, but I had been relying on that engine for the capture burn. I had some RCS on the mapping probe, but I knew it wouldn't provide the 700 or so m/sec I was going to need to get the orbit I wanted. But could I get just an orbit? I could! It's not even close to the right orbit, but it's getting me some data. I should be able to get the equatorial and mid-latitude regions charted in reasonable detail. I'll still have to send another mapping probe to get the polar regions, though. I reserved enough RCS on the upper stage to smash it into the lunar surface, satisfying an Impact the Moon contract, as well. Serves it right, too! So, not a total failure of the mission. Meanwhile, I've completed my Mercury'ish program with a seven-day orbital duration accomplishment. The capsule batteries weren't going to cut it, but I had some new solar panels to play with They weren't sufficient to power the entire spacecraft, but were good enough to reduce the battery drain to a slow trickle. I've also hired a new class of astronauts as a couple of my current ones have announced plans to retire. The veterans that are sticking around and all the new guys are in Gemini school, learning how to operate the new spacecraft that I hope to fly next year. Edit: And I just slapped this test article together for a form-fit check... Yes, I did design the launch vehicle with Gemini's adapter module diameter in mind.

If you have completely mastered stock KSP, the learning curve for RSS/RO/RP-0 is similar to the learning curve that got you from Day 1 of stock KSP to where you are now. It's really a whole new game.

I'm playing in RP-1 on KSP 1.3.1 and haven't had any issue selecting textures for Procedural Fairings, either by picking the desired fairing part from the VAB parts list or by cycling through fairing textures from the part right-click menu once it's attached to the fairing base. However, I'm only using the Procedural Fairings parts for the payload fairing on satellite/probe launches. The manned launches didn't use PF at all. Here is what I'm using for the "production" version: Edit: I do have Procedural Fairings for Everything installed, too, but I don't think it was actually used for any of this. I've only recently started using SSTU, and found that it is indispensable for building low-part-count and good-looking proceduralish rockets in Realism Overhaul (which is also new to me... I've only been using RO for about a month).

I designed LR79 boosters for my Titan'ish rocket from the previous page so I can do contracts for heavy comsats in GSO... I also finalized the core and upper stage designs, tooled everything that's procedural (all the fuel tanks, decouplers and fairings), made it all purty, and put the launch vehicles into serial production. I've got a dozen of these queued up in KCT (minus payload), which will take a little while because I've only got two High Bays in my VAB. I need to upgrade that again, too. My space program has received a couple of contract proposals for Venus and Mars flybys, and I think this rocket can make those happen.

At last, on August 21st, 1962, Raymond Bowman became the first man to orbit the Earth! Not without any mishaps, though... The second stage LR91 failed before completing its burn. The AJ10 service engine had to perform the orbital insertion. And this is where I realized I had made an error. I had built this rocket planning an unmanned reentry test, but the previous lunar flyby on the same launcher went flawlessly so I put a crew in this command pod. But the service module was still the Block 0, intended only for unmanned tests, rather than the Block 1 that went past the moon. The Block 1 is equipped with RCS... The Block 0 isn't. I had to rely on the command pod's integrated RCS, intended only for use during reentry, for spacecraft orientation. It uses relative inefficient High Test Peroxide, and there isn't a lot of propellant in the command pod, so I set a stable attitude and turned off RCS to drift. I stayed up for a full day in orbit, then prepared to come home. And it finally hit me, just what I was facing without the service module RCS quads. The AJ10, though pressure fed, still needs the propellant to be settled into the bottom of the tank, at the fuel pickups, to successfully light the engine. And I had only rotational control from the command pod RCS... no longitudinal thrust for ullage. So I decided to try spinning. That's a good trick! I spun the capsule up, tumbling end over end, at a few RPM, and fired the engine. And it lit! I gimballed the engine to stabilize in a retrograde orientation, and shut it off a few seconds later with perigee in the upper atmosphere. I had no good way to fine tune my Pe with the limited control available, so I just let what will be, be. The recovery crews were waiting for me in the west Atlantic, south of Bermuda. I ended up coming down in Baja California. It looks like I'll be walking to El Rosarito from the landing site. That's fine... I hear Mauricio's has excellent quesadillas frijoleas!

Very nice design for an expanded Mercury! I also designed a somewhat heavier one-man capsule (using the regular old Mk1 pod this campaign), but not as big as that one. I've still been struggling to reach orbital velocity with my Atlas'ish launch vehicle, though, due to the extra mass, and also decided to jump to a Titan'esque launcher. I'm using basically the LR91 upper stage from Titan (with ullage solids rather than hotstaging), but made a leap in rocket engine design and have put twin H-1 motors on the first stage rather than the LR87. Here's the first flight of the launcher, also sending my first lunar flyby on it's way... An AJ10-104 performs the TLI. I had planned to use the first D-series launch vehicle to lob an empty capsule up to orbital velocity for a reentry test, but realized my R&D labs were about to run out of projects to work on. I needed science, and I needed it fast! Pericynthion was just 10 km above the mountain peaks between Mare Tranquillitatis and Mare Crisium. The gravity assist is sending the probe on out into interplanetary space. Interestingly, just after leaving the lunar SOI and shortly before getting out of comm range with mission control, I played around with the remaining propellant and managed to set up an encounter with Earth, in 10 months. A little tweaking, and I even got a second lunar flyby! We'll see if I manage to pass over any biomes my subsequent missions miss on the second go around. Alarm clock set!

Yeah, I'm not a big fan of unguided orbital insertions, either. But it looked like the quickest way for me to get something into orbit. I only used the Baby Sergeants for those two launches (First Satellite, then Polar Satellite and Solar-Powered Satellite in one mission), then had the cash to move on to bigger and better things.

I did say I'm not behind yet. It is December 1960 and I already know I'm not going to get a manned orbital done in 1961. I'm hoping for 1962, if nothing goes wrong. If. Test Flight treated me harshly when I tried doing multiple engines on upper stages. This go 'round, I strove to keep things simpler. My first couple of satellites actually launched atop an A-4! Well, it was upgraded to the A-9 configuration, and I had three Castors kick it off the pad and up to speed. Second stage was an AJ10-27. Third and fourth stages were Baby Sergeants, a triple then a single, in a slow roll for spin stabilization.

I haven't progressed quite as quickly as I had hoped in my RSS/RP1 campaign, but I'm not quite falling behind yet on the historical schedule to reach manned orbital flights. Right now, I'm still launching comm sats and weather sats for cash to upgrade KSC facilities and develop spacecraft hardware. I'm using the satellite launches to flight-test my third generation orbital launch vehicle. Yes, the first stage-and-a-half design does look a lot like Atlas. I'm using LR79 booster engines, though, since I've gotten their reliability up pretty high on the previous flights, along with the LR105 sustainer in the middle. I've done three manned suborbitals in an X-15 cockpit atop the first stage of my older single-engine launcher, and hope to have the reliability on this one maxed out when I've got a capsule that can handle reentry from orbital velocities built and crews trained.

Well, on a different note, I've been playing around with the Historian mod to get automatic documentation for my screenshots... Building a custom overlay or just modifying a default layout appears to be pretty straightforward.

Hmmm... I bet I could move a lot of MJ and KER information panes over to the map screen and declutter my main view, too! Yes! I would say so! I remember seeing this in development years ago and thought it had been abandoned.

I did some experimenting with PEG last night and learned some things... My manual ascents have not been as efficient as they could have been. PEG is getting me to the same orbits with extra fuel left over. For anyone wondering what we're talking about, there is an implementation of NASA's Powered Explicit Guidance algorithms that ran on the space shuttle flight computers for MechJeb's Ascent Guidance module. The details of it are found here: ttps://github.com/lamont-granquist/MechJeb2/wiki PEG is a little tricky to configure, because you have to tune the parameters to your vehicle characteristics and desired orbit. Solutions for some vehicle/situation combinations are simply impossible, so you may have to launch into a parking orbit then maneuver into your desired orbit. It's a really neat tool to play around with in RSS or 10x rescale games if you're interested in how ascents are done in the real world. It's probably not going to work well at stock KSP scale, though...