sgt_flyer

i guess he's talking about this addon that creates multiple save points when you drop a recoverable stage, so you can switch between saves to control each part http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/72605-105-flight-manager-for-reusable-stages-fmrs-v1001/

@Majorjim well, they are all centered anyway, so the plume doesn't spill on the sides, and the exhaust can get out of the open ended fairing - i built a simpler version without parachutes, and i added 12 Kickbacks onto the initial one although, even like this, those kickbacks are soo lacking in twr that you might need to lower the fuel... with 13 kickbacks the booster alone had something like 2,5 TWR @ sea level...

@Mad Rocket Scientist yeh, you need to make the engines just more than half outside the 'stowed' zone - but that can be hard to do, as it often does not exactly match the shape of the fairing... (i think it's because they are calculated out of spheres) - i managed to do it for my soyuz descent module's separatron retrorockets, but they are placed just nearby the seam between two fairings. (the 'seam' has the same diameter on each because i copied the fairing, then edited them to create each section's shape - but in your case with a custom inside, might not be feasible. possibility you might be able to use the long structural intakes to both create the shape and have something you can surface attach your 24-77 onto

mmh, you should be able to hide a mechanism like this within an interstage fairing (just have a gap between two fuel tanks - besides, it'll prevent the mechanism from making drag) you might only need an additionnal fixed flat piece just above the wing, so it stays level during rotation (for a baikal style wing). - just keep in mind that a docking event will reset the throttle to zero , so you want to do that while you're in the ballistic phase

@Majorjim the 4x fairings weight 2.7 tons. (3.2 tons if you add the empty 1.25m to 2.5 C7 adapter i used at the bottom - though like the topmost nosecone, i use it to support the separatrons - so they aren't 'stowed' within fairings) - so you're looking at around 3.3 / 3.4 tons per booster for the full body work (if not using parachutes)

@Majorjim the current version use 4x 1.25m fairings per booster (might be feasible with 3, but using 2 won't work (one of the two would trigger the stowed status) - of course, if i remove the parachute assembly and only add a 1,25m nosecone (for the separatrons) it would lower drastically the overall part count. (without the chutes, the radiators section (made of 36 radiators) could be replaced by stretching further the topmost fairing. in addition, we could remove all the parachutes (and the parts used to radially attach them) and decouplers, plus the probe core and batteries. i'll try to create a post about it in the open source construction techniques thread

looks a bit like the old Ariane 5 FLS concept (except the core stage had it's own engine) http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/arie5fls.htm

@Temstar This winged ET can go into a flat spin easily at low speeds (especially if you stray a bit too far from the prograde marker (more than 25° / 30°) - could use some dihedral angle for the wings though, i had roughly 25% fuel left, i could recover from the spin by firing the engine. ^^ - other than that, it can survive reentry from a 100km orbit, with an agressive reentry deorbit burn (from above the desert's mountain, 145m/s deorbit burn, the suborbital line drops in the ocean a bit after KSC - so pretty agressive, the nose and the tanks heat up a bit) though, it still needs an AoA of 30 /40° above the horizon to bleed off speed at high altitudes) - still, even without tweaks to the lifting body it seemed to be able to fly a bit better than a winged brick (i have large flat structural wings between the main wings)

i managed to find a way to fire SRB's from within a hull made of stock fairings - so now i can build custom size stock SRB's (can't fire the engine while stowed be damned ^^) here it is custom sized SRB ^^ - around 2m in diameter, with only the skirt extending to 2.5m (also, thanks to the skirt, i could place the kickbacks higher up within the 'hull' - so the SRB's COM is further upwards within the SRB) the winged ET is just something i thrown together fast so i could test if the separation sequence worked correctly ^^) basically, there's multiple sets of fairings that make up the SRB's skin - each one covering less than half of the kickbacks (else the 'stowed in' thing pops up). i combined that with my technique to create open ended fairings at the lower end, so the kickbacks thrust can exit the fairing - yup, all stock 78 parts for each SRB, with all the nose cone assembly + the separatrons which account for a whole lot of parts :p) - those currently house 7 kickbacks each. (though, those kickbacks could reaallly use an increase in thrust :p) one small problem though, is that the custom nose i built out of radiator panels in order to house the parachutes tends to heat a bit during ascent ^^ (besides, while the booster survives intact a 7m/s landing on ground, it despises water and ruds upon splashing down ^^) so if you need to place an order of custom SRB's for your own shuttles, feel free to ask ^^

mmmh - the control surface directions is supposed to be based on the center of mass. activate the center of lift and center of mass display - your lift direction might be pointing downwards instead of upwards. (could be from a symmetry bug - else try giving some angle of attack somewhere to see if it changes while rebuilding the wing) other possibikity, if you have a probe core, is that it's upside down

when your prototype suffers from a rapid unplanned disassembly during staging, and the following rain of debris is enough to destroy half of KSC... (note, 0.90 you can still get it in the thread about this rocket ^^ Chaos Star Thread)

i'm wondering about one thing though - did the key combos idea came straight from IPS ? because for a forum software supposed to be mobile friendly, i don't see how i'll be able to use ctrl + rightclick or alt + rightclick on my phone... and yes, when writing a post on my phone, i sometimes want to be able to manage quotes and hyperlinks. these kinds of usage should have a button to activate the corresponding function on mobiles (even on desktop, while also keeping the key combos) - simply a matter of adding a note when hovering over the button that informs you of the corresponding key combo so people can learn them and put them to use.) BTW, even if VBulletin was not meant for mobiles, i find it was still much more mobile friendly than what we have in IPS.

a russian media wrote about philae, but from a read through google trad it seems it's only sourcing the previous finnish info. as the russian media told, ESA has yet to make an official statement about it. http://www.3dnews.ru/925688 edit : here's a reddit post with someone doing more accurate translations - https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/3xtu76/comet_lander_philae_still_alive_ten_seconds_of/ from what they told, ESA's media relations confirmed Rosetta received telemetry packets on the same frequency used by philae, but seems those packet don't contain useful data - so they are renewing rosetta's listening efforts for now, and are doublechecking if anything else could have used a similar frequency. (they also told that philae would try to send something only if he receives at least one valid packet from rosetta)

it was supposed to launch on an atlas V 401, so they technically could still add SRBs to the atlas to increase delta-V (so they wouldn't have to redesign a payload adapter) - however, they would need to be sure Insight could handle the additionnal vibrations / accelerations of the new booster configuration. suboptimal launch window would also mean an higher velocity at the time the spacecraft would reach mars. (so would the spacecraft have enough dV to make the needed course correction changes ? as insight will rely on the two 6u cubesats it brings with him to act as relays during entry, descent and landing, the cubesats need to be on the correct trajectory for that too recalculating that much mission parameters takes an awful lot of time

very cool if philae managed to wake up searched abit, only things i've found found 3 tweets (and the article) from http://www.tiedetuubi.fi/ talking about it - the rest were retweets talking about this source for now. (guess that's the same media you told aboit Fridaspace

tick tock tick tock

mmmh - given that current wheels don't transfer forces to the objects they are rolling on, one possible stock way would be by using a cage around a 'sphere' of reaction wheels. (with the RW sphere attached to the rolling part of the body) the head would be attached to the cage (with translation so it's outside the ball body), with additionnal counterweights and RWs fixed to the cage to maintain the head upright. though, in this config, you'll need to switch to the ball each time you want to roll in another direction

guess they will thoroughly disassemble it to check the health of the various components . some of the engines might get reused if their health is deemed ok, but not until quite some time

soo different from ESA's launches (where the controllers / spectators only cheer after the mission is completed ^^)

fun here's a BB8 full stock (which actually uses it's ball for moving :p) here's a small gif of it (low quality) : http://imgur.com/rW8Tgyw Operations : engage SAS, then stage once to separate the 'head' from the ball (you'll know on which part you'll be when switching vessel, the 'head' as nothing in staging, while the 'ball' has the decoupler and the fairing in it's list ) switch to the ball if necessary, disable the SAS on the ball, and trim roll to the maximum right (alt+Q by default) switch back to the 'head', and you can adjust it's course as necessary (W / S controls the head's angle around the white part, Q / E allows you to go left / right, A / D allows you to tilt on the side for stopping, switch back to the ball, and kill the trim (alt+X by default), and BB8 will stop roughly 5 m/s of speed on flat surface, and can climb up KSC's slopes at around 4m/s (as an added bonus, the head tend to tilt a bit forward on it's own when it's moving :p) http://www./download/icfzot7bzff8cf9/bb8.craft

yup, it uses roll trimmed 0.625m reaction wheels to keep spinning (5 RWs + 1 flat okto probe core - powered by 2 RTGs - the assembly itself (like the one visible on the last picture) is made of 37 parts. (needed that much RW to overcome the drag those antennas create) the 1,25m animated turbojet i'm building with the same bearing uses only 1 rtg, 2 RWs and 1 okto probe - with no prop blades, it's much easier to roll it at a correct speed

One of my side projects alongside my soyuz Animated turboprops ! (with an appropriate test aircraft ) (i have the animated 1.25m turbojet version too :p) - based on my good old small wheel bearing, this time encased within a structural fuselage, instead of a fairing ! - the engine vibrates a bit, but even high G manoeuvers don't stall those now seems like the key point to have a smoother animation is still balance (center as much as possible the weight between the two sets of wheels) Here's an animated .gif of the engines running : http://i.imgur.com/D3efomY.gifv (note, the props turn faster ingame than what you see in the .gif ^^) note, we reeaally need a new 2.5m crew cabin (inline with MK1 redesigns ^^)

guess that if it's windy enough to topple the booster, it would also exceed wind requirements for a standard launch too, which would scrub the launch (and as there's only a few minutes between launch and RTLS, the weather conditions until a crew can secure tge booster should not evolve that drastically (not without meteorologists predicting such a large change in wind speed for the hour following the launch)

http://www.weather.com/weather/hourbyhour/l/Cape+Canaveral+FL+USFL0066:1:US current weather predictions for sunday at 8PM and 9PM : 8PM : cloudy, 20% chance of rain, wind East 13MPH 9PM : Cloudy, 0% chance of rain, wind East 14MPH. now, who knows how it'll evolve

yes, but even with superconductors, the magnetic field intensity will drops with the distance - you'll need to pump in more power to sustain a larger (and maybe farther away)magnetic field so what i'm wondering is up until which size can those reactors still generate enough power to sustain their own magnetic fields and still output some net energy i doubt the amount of power needed to sustain the field increase linearly with the reactor's power output