CatastrophicFailure

As does the status bar at the bottom of the screen...

You're on spring break. You could just stay up all night long for no appreciable reason like everyone else. Just sayin'...

Year 2, Day 279... GENE has now given the objective to put our first Kerbal into orbit! This will be a dangerous assignment, for all we know Triti might go mad up there. Or, more likely, just be mad. Really, really mad. So we thought it wise to take steps to make sure she didn't get blown up before she gets that far, and did some pad abort testing:

Launch still go for tonight but pushed back till 2am EDT/11pm PDT.

Yes, Still penciled in for the 27th.* *Subject to change without notice. Terms and conditions may apply. Past performance does not guarantee future returns. Some assembly required, batteries not included.

And remember to vote early... and often.

Jebediah(?) Kerman.... He's gone to plaid....

Kerbalism does that, it uses its own comm system. You may want to go read up on its thread. It does many things very differently.

Just got the "official" Twitter text. Standing down for tonight, try again next time.

Er, you didn't see that! In fact, no one did! Alternative data! Nothing more to see here! Move along! Move along! huh-boy...

Have a link? I thought I was running the most current version?

Year 2, Day 246... Finally off to Rald. The Gael-class lifter is already reaching its limits trying to lob the 3.5-tonne rover and transfer stage into orbit. We need a bigger rocket. Rald peeks around the corner in mid Gael-clipse as the transfer stage finishes its burn... The stack was boosted into an initial 45 degree orbit, trying desperately to get far enough out of plane to hit Rald's south pole. The stack was far too heavy for another polar transfer, and with its large size and close orbit, Rald's SOI is proving to be difficult to hit right. This is the best we could do on our shoestring budget. There's a glug left in the fuel tank, not nearly enough to slow into a proper orbit. This is going to get... interesting. A few minutes before hitting the atmosphere, the transfer stage burns what fuel it has and then separates. The rover is still coming in at over 3km/s... Well, that can't be good... No, it's ok! The rover spared the worst of the heating by taking crushing g-forces instead. The meter pegs at 15 and just keeps going. Maybe we could send Vlad next... Both chutes deployed, coming down nice and slow in the middle of some kind of dust storm. An odd thing, at the pole... We've done it! We've landed a thing on the surface of another world! That went... surprisingly well.. The rover records gigs and gigs of data for return, but we've missed our target area by over 200km. That, and being out of line-of-sight with Gael leave us reliant on RaldScan for data return and control. It's only above the horizon for an hour or so at a time, this is going to be a long trip. Fortunately, the Bon Voyage autonomous rover software the engineers cooked up means we don't have to sit through it. It probably helps that the rocks here are... well, not very dense: The rover completes the trek in a few days, then gives the engineers something to actually do, driving in circles to complete a series of seismic scans. But with the intermittent, relayed contact, it's barely sent back a fraction of the data. So it's off once more... After another schlep of a few hundred kilometers, our intrepid little rover achieves constant line-of-sight with Gael. It's cold here, but the view is out of this world! Returning all the data still takes several days.

You da man.

@NotAgain hit it. Getting to Rald, at least gracefully, is turning out to be quite the challenge. It's big but it has a relatively small SOI, so there's a narrow margin between unplanned lithobraking and missing entirely. Details coming in tonight's episode.

Finally got around to messing with this, um... Where in the config am I looking? Which config? For reference: @Kopernicus:AFTER[Kopernicus] { useOnDemand = false Body { name = Rald flightGlobalsIndex = 199 Template { name = Laythe removeOcean = true removePQSMods = PQSMod_AltitudeAlpha, PQSMod_VertexHeightNoise, PQSMod_VertexSimplexHeightMap, PQSMod_VertexHeightMap } Properties { radius = 320000 geeASL = 0.33 rotationPeriod = 21549.4251830898 tidallyLocked = True sphereOfInfluence = 812233 description = Primitive Kerbals believed Rald to be the herald of the gods because the other celestial objects moved about the sky while Rald stood still, others believed it was the king of the gods. Kerbals on the other side of the planet didn't believe Rald existed - Many wars were fought. Later its study lead to science and navigation advances. It is believed to have formed at after a giant impact which also made Mun. It has also long been the source of invaders in kerbal science fiction. Its orbits close enough to be protected by Kerbin's magnetic field, allowing it to hold on to its atmosphere better. timewarpAltitudeLimits = 0 30000 30000 60000 120000 240000 480000 600000 ScienceValues { landedDataValue = 2.75 splashedDataValue = 3.0 flyingLowDataValue = 2.0 flyingHighDataValue = 1.75 inSpaceLowDataValue = 1.75 inSpaceHighDataValue = 1.5 recoveryValue = 3 flyingAltitudeThreshold = 7500 spaceAltitudeThreshold = 140000 } biomeMap = Rald/PluginData/BiomesFinal.png Biomes { Biome { name = Polar Caps value = 1.0 color = 1,1,1,1 } Biome { name = Kraken Mare value = 1.0 color = 0.012,0.329,0.576,1 } Biome { name = Kellas Sea value = 1.0 color = 0.020,0.20,1,1 } Biome { name = Lowlands value = 1.0 color = 1,0.788,0.055,1 } Biome { name = Lesser Volcanoes value = 0.5 color = 0.251,0,0,1 } Biome { name = Large Eroded Volcano value = 1.0 color = 1,0.682,0.788,1 } Biome { name = Krakatowa Gulf value = 0.5 color = 0,0.635,0.910,1 } Biome { name = Bay of Rivers value = 0.5 color = 0.639,0.286,0.643,1 } Biome { name = Curiosity Cove value = 0.5 color = 0.600,0.851,0.918,1 } Biome { name = Frigid Fjord value = 0.5 color = 0.784,0.749,0.906,1 } Biome { name = Pyramids value = 0.2 color = 0.349,0.349,0.349,1 } Biome { name = Ancient Settlements value = 0.2 color = 0.667,0.667,0.667,1 } Biome { name = Ancient City value = 0.2 color = 0.498,0.498,0.498,1 } Biome { name = Ancient Airport value = 0.2 color = 0,0,0,1 } Biome { name = Dunes value = 1.0 color = 0.573,0.565,0.012,1 } Biome { name = Karsis Plateau value = 1.0 color = 0.580,0.322,0.012,1 } Biome { name = Great Rift Valley value = 1.0 color = 0.58,0.067,0.012,1 } Biome { name = Kargyre Impact Basin value = 1.0 color = 1,0.576,0.012,1 } Biome { name = Rivers value = 1.0 color = 0.012,0.976,0.012,1 } Biome { name = Volcanoes value = 1.0 color = 1,0.149,0.012,1 } Biome { name = Coasts value = 1.0 color = 1,0.988,0.475,1 } } } Orbit { referenceBody = Kerbin color = 0.56683,0.5996605,0.55563,0.8813723 inclination = 0.0 eccentricity = 0.0 semiMajorAxis = 3435733.51 longitudeOfAscendingNode = 150 argumentOfPeriapsis = 0 meanAnomalyAtEpoch = 1.34000010490417 epoch = 0 } Atmosphere { ambientColor = 0.27451,0.21905,0.14483205,1 lightColor = 0.5797,0.58792,0.559,0.25 enabled = true oxygen = true albedo = 0.2 altitude = 50000.0 staticPressureASL = 55.6625 pressureCurve { key = 0 55.6625 0 -0.0103503 key = 1000 49.2557 -0.00851910 -0.00851910 key = 3000 27.1722 -0.00573779 -0.00573779 key = 6000 14.2599 -0.00311942 -0.00311942 key = 9000 7.31086 -0.00165699 -0.00165699 key = 12000 3.66142 -0.000857698 -0.000857698 key = 15000 1.79476 -0.000432219 -0.000432219 key = 20000 0.528330 -0.000130770 -0.000130770 key = 25000 0.151615 -3.81128E-05 -3.81128E-05 key = 30000 0.0429112 -1.08640E-05 -1.08640E-05 key = 35000 0.0120990 -3.05928E-06 -3.05928E-06 key = 40000 0.00344284 -8.58192E-07 -8.58192E-07 key = 45000 0.00100353 -2.44677E-07 -2.44677E-07 key = 50000 0 0 0 } pressureCurveIsNormalized = false temperatureOcean/seaLevel = 294 temperatureCurve { key = 0 293 0 -0.0004261126 key = 1000 282.8 -0.000573325 -0.000573325 key = 25000 153.7 -0.001877083 -0.001877083 key = 30000 150 0 0 key = 45000 150 0 0 key = 50000 160 0.003746914 0 } temperatureCurveIsNormalized = false temperatureLapseRate = 0.0024 temperatureSunMultCurve = true temperatureSunMultCurve { key = 0 1 0 0 key = 1000 1 0 0 key = 25000 0 0 0 key = 45000 0 0 0 key = 47350 0.4551345 0.0006885778 0.0006885778 key = 50000 1 0 0 } temperatureLatitudeBiasCurve { key = 0 30 0 -0.0957164 key = 50 0 -0.950278 -0.950278 key = 70 -30 -1.955704 -1.955704 key = 90 -50 -0.02418368 0 } temperatureLatitudeSunMultCurve { key = 0 18 0 0.06497125 key = 40 25 0 0 key = 65 20 -0.5202533 -0.5202533 key = 90 5 0 0 } temperatureEccentricityBiasCurve { key = 0 1.5 0 -3 key = 1 -1.5 -3 0 } adiabaticIndex = 1.48 gasMassLapseRate = 2.06477390407027 atmosphereMolarMass = 0.03596822 staticPressureASL = 13.51 } ScaledVersion { Material { texture = Rald/PluginData/RaldScaledSpace.png normals = Rald/PluginData/Normals.dds rimColorRamp = BUILTIN/desert_atmogradient rimPower = 2.06 rimBlend = 0.3 } } PQS { Mods { VertexHeightMap { map = Rald/PluginData/RaldHeight.png offset = -1398.0 deformity = 10500.0 order = 20 enabled = true } VertexColorMap { map = Rald/PluginData/RaldUpClose.png order = 500 enabled = true } VertexHeightNoise { enabled = False } VertexHeightNoiseVertHeight { enabled = False } } } Ocean { maxQuadLengthsPerFrame = 0.03 minLevel = 2 maxLevel = 16 minDetailDistance = 16 oceanColor = 0.00,0.33,0.44,1 Material { colorFromSpace = 0.10,0.33,0.44,1 color = 0.00,0.33,0.44,0.5 } FallbackMaterial { colorFromSpace = 0.10,0.33,0.44,1 color = 0.00,0.33,0.44,0.5 } Mods { AerialPerspectiveMaterial { globalDensity = -0.00001 heightFalloff = 6.75 atmosphereDepth = 150000 DEBUG_SetEveryFrame = true cameraAlt = 0 cameraAtmosAlt = 0 heightDensAtViewer = 0 enabled = true order = 200 } OceanFX { Watermain { waterTex-0 = BUILTIN/sea-water1 waterTex-1 = BUILTIN/sea-water2 waterTex-2 = BUILTIN/sea-water3 waterTex-3 = BUILTIN/sea-water4 waterTex-4 = BUILTIN/sea-water5 waterTex-5 = BUILTIN/sea-water6 waterTex-6 = BUILTIN/sea-water7 waterTex-7 = BUILTIN/sea-water8 } framesPerSecond = 1 spaceAltitude = 1500000 blendA = 0 blendB = 0 texBlend = 0 angle = 0 specColor = 0.05,0.33,0.44,0.5 oceanOpacity = 0.01 spaceSurfaceBlend = 0 enabled = true order = 200 } } Fog { fogColorEnd = 0.45,0.45,0.45,1 fogColorStart = 0.45,0.45,0.45,1 skyColorOpacityBase = 0.5 } } } }

Year 2, day 204... We've been to busy to update lately. GENE has finally given us our first official missions to explore Rald. First, we'll need some basic science collection and a rough map. We begin by launching the slightly-better-named RaldSCAN into a polar orbit... It's not the most efficient way to transfer, but the only way to get into a polar Rald orbit with our limited delta-v budget. After loitering several hours for phasing and a boost from what's left in the upper stage, the probe heads off. Entering Rald's SOI over the north pole. RaldSCAN begins recording gigabytes of data. Right off, the science team guesses it will take hours to return it all. Rald looks very... shiny. Peri...-Rald? -ree? is adjusted to maintain line-of-sight to Gael. It's another hit to efficiency, but the alternative is swinging past the planet on the far side and loosing comms exactly when we need them. Yes, Rald seems very, very... shiny... RaldSCAN makes several low passes to gather data, before maneuvering to its final 1700km mapping orbit. As expected, it will take days to transmit multiple gigabytes of data back. The probe's high orbit should keep it in sunlight and within sight of Gael so the downlink can continue uninterrupted. We now have a proper map of Rald! Why does it remind me of somewhere else...? Rald's tiny south polar cap. But we won't be going anywhere near there, the rover won't have nearly enough delta-v to follow the same path as RaldSCAN. What do you mean, that's exactly where we're going?! Lemme read the... Oh. PЦҬЇЍ. I'm going to read the contract offers better...

Nnnnnnnnnnnnngaaahhhhhhhhhh.....,

This. @kerbiloid IIRC the only time they've done two launches in a day out of Florida was back during the Gemini program. There's all sorts of complications with the differing hardware.

According to that article I posted a little ways back about their newfangled self-destruct system, multiple launches in a single day is definitely on the horizon, but not for "several years" IIRC. But yeah, given that F9 has an actual launch time and Delta doesn't, sounds like SpaceX has more of their stuff in order for the day.

Well, I can't say much, something about a "nondisclosure agreement" and "statute of limitations," but basically:

Tagging on to this thread pending Kopernicus support, and hopefully it'll work with GPP too.

Rocket cat fight. Would pay to see that. might have already...

Dang, boy, especially for an upscaled system you sure get around!

I sense a great disturbance in your framerate... as if millions of pixels suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced.

Launch date listed for SES-10, yay! (3/27) Falcon Heavy delayed till fall, boo! (spaceflightnow.com)