mellojoe

Do you have a single tailfin vertically? Sometimes the tailfin is counted as a wing so it creates sideways-lift. You can counterract this by using pairs of tailfins. The symmetry means their sideways lift is exactly opposite of each other, keeping you straight. Also, sometimes you can slightly tilt the wings up or down. This adds slight sideways lift in equal amounts, left and right. Sort of like having slight toe-in on an automobile. The slight offset gives better straight-line stability.

Control From Here just means it sets the nav-ball alignment to be as if looking from that perspective. If you have two controlling modules (two command pods, lets say) facing back-to-back, it lets you pick the one that is facing forward as your refernce point. So you don't have all the controls backward.

MAXIMUM AWESOMENESS CHALLENGE! *runs off laughing maniacally

When I finally figured out how to spot the area the Space Center is from space ... so that my landings can now be somewhat reasonably close to home.

Marking this, because I have some ideas. This looks fun.

I absolutely love the black and white imaging. Lends a unique and authentic vibe to the whole project. bravo

Great write up! love the character you added to the images, too. Great mission. :-) also, good job nut just hitting "end flight".

I went back and played with my mother-plane, and I've not got her to where she can land as well. I hadn't really paid attention to that side of the operation, but now we are FULLY OPERATIONAL! Essentially, we just needed a few struts. The original design had both halves of the mother-plane connected only by an octo-strut. Some additional regular struts welded the two halves together.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/723chvrgwd4621p/eMFlZwtPa3 Dropbox Link for full album I made this yesterday. I have not yet tested the mother-plane to see if she can land under power. I was so focused on the concept and getting the ship into space. Mine can go fully orbital. I have a version that does not use air-hogging of intakes, but the version that does use clipping is so much easier to fly. It is my favorite plane to date. I did not make this with the challenge in mind. Heck, I didn't even know this challenge existed. Someone pointed me here from my show-off thread, and I thought I'd take a look around. ((edit)) Let me see if I can add up my points: +430 for 500x500 orbit +20 for docking with a refuelling vessel. +5 for glide landing. +30 for landing perfectly on runway. -10 part clipping -6 since I have 4 intakes per engine, or should it be (6x4) -24 points. TOTAL = 451 I went back and played with my mother-plane, and I've not got her to where she can land as well. I hadn't really paid attention to that side of the operation, but now we are FULLY OPERATIONAL! Essentially, we just needed a few struts. The original design had both halves of the mother-plane connected only by an octo-strut. Some additional regular struts welded the two halves together.

That's awesome. I was looking at WhiteKnite 1. Yours is a much closer replica than mine. I started out thinking I was going to make a replica, but then I just sort of did my own thing. The concept actually works extremely well. I've never really been able to make SSTO planes to work. My most recent attempt works, but runs completely out of fuel and requires 1/3 of my onboard RCS to hit orbit. This, however, is a much easier plane to fly, much easier ship to get into orbit. You drop so much weight and drag when you switch to rocket power. I'm thinking of trying another option that uses an even larger spaceship simply because the concept works so well.

Send a rocket up with two ships already docked. Take 5 minutes to undock, move around, and redock. I was in your shoes not too long ago. And now, it is 2nd nature. I love docking. There's a real thrill to it.

I saw the vid earlier. Brilliant job. I really like the simplicity of it, and yet it is super complex at the same time. Very nice

This took several versions. The final version uses part clipping simply to stack intakes. It works and is orbital without it, but it makes it much easier. I don't have the patience to wait around, so I just zerg-stack some intakes and it simplifies everything. All else is completely stock. Follows normal SSTO plane liftoff profile: Take off as a regular plane, climb to 10k, level off some, increase velocity to beyond 1700m/s while increasing altitude beyond 23km, drop the space-ship, use rocket to climb to space. Unlike the real White Knight, mine can actually make orbit and stay there. The real one is only sub-orbital. It can then de-orbit and land as a conventional plane. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/723chvrgwd4621p/eMFlZwtPa3 Dropbox Link for full album for reference, here is the actual White Knight 2

made a ship heavily influenced by Virgin Galactic's White Knight 2. Except mine is fully orbital. Takes off as a plane, separates from mother plane, rockets into space, lands as a conventional plane. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/723chvrgwd4621p/eMFlZwtPa3 teaser: Rest of the photos can be found in my Dropbox. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/723chvrgwd4621p/eMFlZwtPa3

My plane won't take off until end of runway: You can angle the entire plane backward by having the rear gear shorter than the front gear. You can slightly angle the rear ones outward, which reduces their overall height. Or you can put them on the wings instead of fusealage. You do have to be wary of scraping your buttocks, but as long as you aren't, the angle of attack on the runway will give you much faster liftoff. My plane veers left or right on runway: Sometimes having the landing gear attached to the control pod can do this. Try putting your gear on fuselage or wings, not on the command pod. My plane veers left or right in flight: Sometimes having a single tail fin can be treated as having a single wing, inducing a left / right lift. Try using two (symmetry) tailfins to offset the potential for the sideways lift.

I frequently use multiple ASAS units on my crafts. The old non-automatic SAS was redesigned as a "reactionary control wheel". I wil often have a combination of both ASAS and reaction wheels. On my tiny SSTO spaceplane I just made, I included both an ASAS and a reaction wheel. Definitely helped stability. On my heavy lifter rocket, I have 5 ASAS units. 3 on the core and 2 on two drop tanks. Keeps it stable while it is insanely heavy, and then keeps it manueverable when it is insanely long and skinny.

Another thing you can do. Put the apoapsis exactly on the point you want the satellite to be. Then, when you reach that Ap, do a burn to circularize. You can do this from a lower orbit or a higher orbit (using the Pe). Scott Manly did a video where he set his orbit to be a 4-hour period with the AP at Kerbin Geostationary Orbit. With Kerbit rotation at a 6 hour period, each time he hit AP it was 2 hours different from the time before. This allowed him to drop 3 satellites exactly 2 hours apart, each in Geostationary orbit. It was a clever trick that required a mod to display orbital period. But the concept can easily be done without being as precise as he was.

I finally made a working SSTO plane! It works! barely. I mean I have to literally finish off my circularization burn with RCS, but it works. Can make it into an 80x80 orbit. And then I have a re-fuel tanker in orbit to rendezvous. Used part clipping to get 4 intakes per engine.

For the longest time, I couldn't dock. I let MechJeb handle it all. Finally (release of .21) I reinstalled the game, and did NOT install MechJeb. Best decision I've made in a long time. It forced me to do things that I had just observed. I was also inspired by the Apollo anniversary, and doing my readings saw the Titan craft and the Gemini missions. I ended up doing a re-creation of sorts. This taught me how to dock manually. I love it now. I can't believe I was so scared of it previously. Now, sure it is still difficult, but I can do it.

Go out to orbital view. Hit the little "i" in the right hand side of the screen.

I dig it. An interesting concept. And it seems like it should be so simple, yes? But NO! NOT SIMPLE! DEATH TO KERBALS..... or something like that. Fun stuff.

The way I understand the challenge: Just the spaceport on Kerbin is shut down. Craft in orbit or previously launched can still operate freely after the 200 day deadline. Just assume your final launch deadline at 200 days. You won't be able to wait on Kerbin for transfer windows, but if you stock your craft with enough supplies you might be able to remain in orbit for transfer windows as long as you are off planet. At least that's my understanding. And if it is the case, we've all been able to land craft on other planets, so the challenge is 100% feasible. It just becomes a logistics challenge of how to juggle it all. How fast can you get a craft built and launched? How many Kerbals onboard? Did you pack enough fuel to reach your destination? Its the Battlestar Galactica challenge. Once your homeplanet is gone, you just have a fleet of ships to manuever to New Earth.

Do you have "Deadly Reentry" mod installed? If so, you might be going too fast in thick atmosphere causing it to burn up.

Crew Manifest. It is a great mod for moving people around. You don't have to EVA anything. And if you build your station to include walkways and hallways (structural fuselages, in my case) then you don't break the 4th wall at all by doing so. And it doesn't require a part on your craft. just install the mod and it works on everything, including your current space station without breaking it.

Lag comes with large part counts. The physics engine isn't super optimized at this point so every machine has trouble currently. My station is sitting at over 400 parts and it lags like a mother---... you get the idea. Its bad.