Scarecrow

Crashed and burned.

Right. STS-1b was completed yesterday evening, STS-2a has now been completed first thing this morning. This is becoming addictive. 3 Comsat satellites deployed to geostationary orbits with a 1 day orbital period, and spaced equidistant. Vehicle on the pad showing payload. Yes they are only small, but they work. Coasting up to initial Apo. With such a big orbit required for geostationary deployment, might as well use all the fuel available from the external tank before jettisoning it. 2nd satellite being deployed. Once clear of the shuttle, the satellite has enough dV to establish it's own orbit. Final satellite deployed, solar panels and aerials extended, and ready to burn for orbit circularisation. All orbits finalised and positioning looking good. The dangerous bit - about to re-enter the atmosphere. Coming in the right way up to extend the glide, as Jeb overdid the re-entry burn a bit. Adjusting to line up for runway 09. Nailed it. Going to have to make a few additions before attempting the next challenge to fit RCS capability to allow for docking. Should be fun.

@michal.don Thanks for that. I did indeed enjoy it once I worked out the engine angles and vertical placement of the ET. I have now completed STS-1b, which took a while. The inclusion of the fuel pod shifted the CoG to the point where as the fuel was burning down the craft was becoming unstable. To counter the effect I had to remove an engine from the ET, angle one of the others slightly differently, and adjusting the level of thrust on one engine turned out to be the safest way to do a gravity turn without going in to a tumble. So, quite challenging. On the pad with the payload installed. It's a tight fit. On our way, being really gentle with the turns. Release orbit established at 145km x 145km Cargo released Solar panels deployed Resource panel showing we managed to deploy without losing a drop. We did use a bit of monoprop fine tuning the orbit though. Final orbit tweaked to 145,150m x 145,152m. I think our clients will be happy with that. Boys are feeling toasty after a job well done. Well, that's part of the reason. Almost there The boys are back in town.

Took me a while to jump on the Shuttle band wagon, but I have just completed the STS-1A challenge, with a safe return to KSC. All stock. On the pad ready to go Solid boosters jettisoned Main tank jettisoned 144km x 136km orbit established No cargo this time, but here's hoping for future flights Fireworks display for the guys back at KSC Should be able to get it back OK from here OK Jeb, don't screw it up at this late stage. And we're back

Mine is only based on a Blackbird, and not intended to be a true replica. I think it bears a passing resemblance though, and it does fly nicely, so I'm happy with it. And it's all stock. Picture and download link can be found in a thread I started on the Exchange forum, along with a couple of other craft that I built to the same Ethos :

Once you understand the mechanics of the whole docking process, then I agree that it is indeed a piece of cake, but it can take a few attempts for a lot of people to fully understand what is going on, and what is required to be successful.

Reducing speed wasn’t the problem. Ever since whichever patch it was where they messed with the landing gear I’ve consistently struggled to assign settings to the gear that allows craft to track straight when taking off and avoid excessive bouncing when landing.

Rules amended to restrict entries to stock.

I tend to test various components of a craft before putting it all together. I also tend to build things that look as if they should fly or may actually exist in real life, apart from a couple of complete experimentals.

I've tweaked my X-Wing since posting, so it's not as difficult to land now.

@XLjedi Thanks for the feedback. The badge was knocked up really quickly after a previous suggestion, so perhaps I can re-think that one. As for allowing modded craft, the difficulty of this challenge comes from having to use stock and I didn't want people to feel that they had to install a particular mod to be able to succeed.

Interesting that I see RCS thrusters on your craft, as I am pretty sure I tried those and found they didn't work underwater. Or it may have been the 4-way thrusters. Name added to the Roll of Honour. Well done

To be honest the only part that really needs skill is the rendezvous and docking. If you've already landed on Mun, this is no more difficult apart from the docking bit.

My entry for the latest challenge. 4 Kerbals are enjoying their rotation on Minmus Base, but looking forward to the day they return to Kerbin. The craft chosen to perform this rotation of staff is of uncertain origin, but it seems to work I think they can walk from there I can almost see my house from here "Wow, I'd forgotten what fresh air smells like." "Actually, I think that's kow poop you can smell!"

The biggest part of the challenge I found was to be able to control the craft at low enough speeds underwater to actually dock. I chose to put my docking port underneath my craft, which required control in both horizontal axis, whilst the vertical axis remained fairly neutral. If you put a port on the nose of your craft, I suppose it would be possible to perform a 'dart lawn' style dock, but I still think control would need to be more precise than you find on your average submersible.

Given how much ore you need to carry to make a vessel sink, I can't imagine what such a craft that was also capable of SSTO would look like.

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I've designed a badge that successful submariners can make use of, it's shown in the original post. As for a hard mode, whilst I don't doubt that it is probably achievable, I found the challenge as presented threw up some interesting problems that took me a while to overcome. I was hoping to offer something a little bit different to what you normally see in the Challenge section, which I thought would be enough to pique people's interest.

Each of these craft bears a passing resemblance to something out there in the real world, IMHO. Each of them is easy to fly, with steady flying characteristics. In fact they are so easy to fly, each of them will take off on their own, once you have turned on SAS, activated the engines and throttled up. What could be easier? Hope you like them. F16 (I think this may have been a stock craft, but I've made a couple of tweaks) https://www.dropbox.com/s/ocewr5hjq0n13g5/F16ish.craft?dl=0 Blackbird https://www.dropbox.com/s/nk4sy1srrdduapu/Blackbird.craft?dl=0 Venom/Vixen Hybrid https://www.dropbox.com/s/179xiozk6tkz04a/Voodoo.craft?dl=0 YB-49 https://www.dropbox.com/s/vz6z5g4uzwcobwo/YB-49.craft?dl=0

Difficult to come up with a scoring system - what criteria would you base it on? I was trying to keep it relatively simple, you either succeed or you don't, with success getting a place on the Roll of Honour board. Compared to a lot of challenges, I actually found it quite difficult putting a craft together that would allow enough control while trying to dock without either sinking too quickly or floating away, especially once the thrust engines were turned off. Most submersible vehicles rely on forward motion to enable the dive planes to work, which then allow you to control your depth. Once you kill your forward motion, which you need to do when docking, control becomes very difficult, which is where the crux of this challenge comes from - building a craft that can be controlled underwater when it has no forward motion. Thanks for the feedback though.

I've lost count of how many Saturn V type rockets that have been shared on KSP, but I figured there is always room for more. Some have been faithful replicas, complete with ullage motors, others have only had a passing resemblance, either in looks or how they operated. I'd like to think that this version is somewhere in between. The recent introduction of 5m tanks mean that it is now possible to build a Saturn V using the 3 man capsule that looks about right, without having to resort to stacking fuel tanks to bulk out the lower stages, or mess around with flat panels to build a Lunar Module adapter. This version is stock, but does use some parts from the Making History DLC. Flight Notes : Turn on SAS, throttle up and stage to launch Keep the gravity turn gentle. 1st stage is good up to around 22000m, at which time you should be around 45 degrees. 2nd stage should push your Apo up to around 80km before flaming out. At this point the escape tower can be jettisoned using Action group key 9 Igniting the 3rd stage about 15 secs before reaching Apo should give you a reasonably circular orbit, with plenty of fuel left for the Munar injection burn During transition the adapter can be staged in preparation for extracting the excursion module Action group key 6 detaches the CSM, allowing you to turn through 180 degrees to make the extraction. Whilst detached, stage to activate the CSM engine Reattaching screws up the staging, which is why it's important to stage the CSM engine while the craft are separated. Once reconnected, stage to jettison the 3rd stage. Circularising for a Mun orbit should leave plenty of fuel for the return trip. The excursion crew can be transferred between vehicles once in orbit. Action group key 6 once again separates the two vehicles. The descent stage has plenty of fuel for a landing. Once down, action group key 4 will extend the ladder. Preparing to leave, use action group key 8 to shut down the lander engine, and then throttle up ready for departure. At the appropriate time, staging will fire the ascent engine and separate the ascent module. The ascent module has enough fuel to make a 30km orbital rendezvous, but not an abundance of surplus fuel if your ascent and rendezvous is inefficient. Be careful. Having ditched the ascent module (AG key 6) and made the return burn, there should be enough fuel left to make a parking orbit. Not very Apollo, but helps with picking a landing spot. Well we could have been closer, but at least we'll be home in time for tea. Action group keys : 4: Toggle lander ladder 6: Undock Munar module 9: Jettison escape tower 0: Pop chutes after an Abort Abort: Activate escape tower in the event of a catastrophe Craft can be downloaded from KerbalX : https://kerbalx.com/Scarecrow88/Saturn-V

I have made another option that includes a docking port and RCS thrusters which is capable of reaching a station in a 150km orbit, so at least that one has some purpose. If the station has refuelling capabilities, it can then go on to reach the Mun or Minmus.

Strangely I started building it just to post an image in another thread about bi-plane spaceplanes. However, I then wondered how difficult it would be to get it to fly and if possible, get it to orbit. So yes, I had a lot of fun along the way, and am quite happy at how it eventually turned out.

Moving wings would be nice but I like to keep my mods to a minimum, using those that provide extra information for the most part. It would also restrict the craft to players who also have the Infernal Robotics mod. As it is, this craft requires the Making History DLC to be present, as it uses a couple of parts that come with that.

I guess most people just aren't into aquatic challenges, or maybe it's the effort of having to build a base before actually trying the challenge that's putting people off. Be interested to hear from anyone who isn't going to try this challenge the reason they decided not to. Would help me to possibly amend it to make it more appealing.

Thank you. It was fun to build despite serving no particular purpose. I might try and update it with a docking port to see if I can reach one of my LKO stations. At least then I can use it for crew transfer, even if it's 1 crew member at a time.