sgt_flyer

SECO and dragon deployement

it's only during daytime i think

Stage landed on the barge ! staying upright ! wow, that rocks the barge a lot

entry burn

boostback of the 1st stage

MECO and second stage ignition

and liftoff !

4:39 PM EDT / 20:39 GMT t-4 mn - strongback retraction 4:41 PM EDT / 20:41 GMT T-2 mn - Falcon 9 on internal power

4:25 PM EDT / 20:25 GMT : initializing Stage 2 LOX load

SpaceX webcast just started

3:59 PM EDT / 19:59 GMT - go for propellant load edit : 4:06 PM EDT / 20:06 GMT readiness poll - all stations are go 4:09PM EDT / 20:09 GMT Terminal count started

Nasa TV coverage just started i'll keep it in background , there's still 1h and 10mn before liftoff anyway ^^ https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html edit : 3:49 PM EDT / airforce weather briefing just aired - 10% chances of weather violation for today's launch

yup

would be quite hilarious if the dragon ejected it's parachutes at liftoff oops, forgot to move parachutes to the correct stage

wow, that thing must be draggy as hell - maybe try to hide your RTGs in a cargo bay or a fairing

can i add onto the Hype ? the new rover wheels can now 'push' other objects (not just only themselves / their own object without creating a 'reaction' onto what they were moving on)

@Rath heh, it's what happens when we have access to plenty of parts and a reasonable physics engine you can go crazy well, it has been quite some time i haven't posted some aesthetic trick here, here's a simple trick i use to get a much nicer look on flaps, with a lower part count when using a single big plane wing (not sure if anyone else use it, but at least it'll be posted somewhere for other to use ) here's the technique : - the FAT-455 aeroplane tail fin has almost the best profile for the 'angled' section of the wing, combined with the fat 455 control surface for the 'straight' section of the wing to form really nice looking flaps - and you can even let a slight space between the two to let your 2.5m engine tail protrude (like if it was acting as a support for the flaps) to turn those into 'functionnal' flaps, i simply adjust the wing so the beginning of the 'flap' gets centered around the COM of the plane - when they deploy, they can even allow the plane to take-off 'flat' with SAS enabled, without any action on the controls, as soon as it has enough speed (so just increased lift at the expense of additionnal drag) here's the .craft file if you want to check the wing / test the plane (1.05 file) https://www.dropbox.com/s/xrm8i99tl2g7xsb/nice%20Flaps.craft?dl=0 actiongroup 1 toggle the landing gear bay (of course, you shouldn't close them while the landing gear is deployed ^^) actiongroup 2 toggle the flaps - you can use them both for takeoff and landing (during landing with engine idle, the extra drag and lift will allow you to slow down for a gentle touchdown) actiongroup 3 thrust reversers toggle (if you need to brake extra hard)

i'm not sure the collider is round most small parts seems to use some sort of cubic boxes (the LV1-R spider use a trapezoidal shape, even over the nozzle, the linear RCS is a square box - maybe for physics calculations simplicity) - however, in 1.1 the LV1-R collision box has increased in size to better match the 3d model. (and lots of other small parts also saw this) - so keeping the same width of roll cage in 1.05 and 1.1 end up jamming everything .

i managed to build a very small mechanical joint around a sphere shaped object (built from linear RCS), to get these degrees of freedom when i decouple the arm, each independant section can use it's torque wheels to change it's attitude - but because one end is 'fixed', instead of rotating around the COM, it rotates around the joint

testing it out, it seems the ant 'nozzle' geometry is the same as the 'body' of the ant engine. could be a bug. i guess it could be worthy of reporting it click the image for the .gif

nah, the vectors have the same stats they are just already op by themselves ^^ yeh, i ended up attaching them 1 by 1. i hope that squad will fix the large landing legs though - it's rotation is buggy

@selfish_meme the great offset move still behaves correctly in 1.1 (in fact, it's a translation, then rotation in the correct position - but as in 1.05, it's tied to the size of the part itself) - basically,if used on fuel tanks : invert the tank through rotation on the node, offset the whole thing (you can use the whole length of the tank) then rotate it back in the correct position. (works with some surface attached parts like I-beams too, as they have and offseted center for the rotation) also, there's an old trick to create any number of symmetry in stock that will change a bit with 1.1. in 1.05 : you surface attached symmetric parts on another part, then picked that part, and symmetry it. then surface attach a 3rd part to the 1st set, which propagates to the other symmetries. when detaching this part, it used a symmetry with the same number as the total amount of copies generated during symmetry propagation. , which can be used to create x5 and x7 symmetries and higher in 1.05, because the symmetry propagation doesn't work correctly in 1.05. in 1.1, symmetry propagation now work corrrectly. however, when creating a symmetry above 8, (like x12) in 1.1, we can now use shift +X to remove x1 symmetry each time we press it, so x11, x10, x9 are feasible from x12. (once it reaches x8 though, it starts behaving normally once again, so no x5 and x7 feasible) as a workaround if you don't use editor extensions for 1.1, i'd recommend creating a subasssembly those x5 and x7 symmetries on it in 1.05 and keep it in 1, then whenever you need those symmetries, attach the subassembly, and hover the new part at least in x2 symmetry over the desired symmetry, to 'catch' the symmetric property

the shift offset is slightly more than normal, but not that much.

the elbow joint is blocked at around 20⁰ - 30⁰ on either side (the ladder 'cover' is the only 'solid' element in it. i'm testing if there's another part i can use to bridge the gap that would allow a much tighter angle @Frank_G yes, stock joint and hinges would be really nice to have in the meantime, i'll play with the game's physics !

those wheels are disabled they are simply here for their shape it's a satellite (hint, it was deployed from Atlantis) for the intermediate joint, it's still an omni linear RCS sandwidched between two parts. (also added two small solar panels attached to the arm with the omni rcs to laterally rigidify the hinge (they slide on both sides of the probe core) - the cage is made by 6 very tight pressmat barometers. it's quite effective for 1DOF, allowed me to skip the usual requirement of two thermometer cages around two opposite nozzles to achieve this kind of stability