milbournosphere

Touched a Kerbal down onto Duna (or three) for the first time, with an Ike encounter on the way in. Managed to break two of the landing struts on a 12m/s touchdown. Not a big fan of these week .22 struts... I was quite proud, got back to Kerbin with a little fuel to spare. Next up, an Ike landing.

I went to Moho for the first time. Not realizing that Moho has no atmosphere at all, I turned my SCANSat orbiter into a very expensive 5000m/s impactor. I'll be back to try again, eventually.

I've tweeted with Scott Manley before and he was responsive. Good luck with your project!

Excellent little design! I replicated something similar and it flies like a dream. A cool spunky craft.

Right now they either become impactors or act as a beacon, as others stated above. However, I'm eagerly awaiting an addition to SCIENCE that allows probes/rovers to collect samples.

I design my rockets with low part count in mind. Aesthetics come after performance for me. My stuff ain't pretty, but it gets the job done.

^ is that from the new planet mod that I heard about? Regarding what I did. I'm planning for a mission series to Duna. I successfully sent a really simple rover a while ago. Landed a more substantial rover utilizing a basic sky-crane that collected all kinds of SCIENCE as a means to test a new heavy lifter that will eventually carry a two-kerbal pod. I had a "failure" on aerocapture, as I went in too low and could not establish an orbit as planned. Still, I came in with a near equatorial inclination and landed in a nice flat spot. Could have been worse! Next step is another probe that I'll use to practice my aerocapture technique, and test to see how much Delta V I need to get home. After that...a manned mission!

The big three are currently stuck on the Mun in an incredibly experimental lander with some very valuable science on board. I've got a fuel tug setup to head over to them soon. I'm getting too good at these munar rescue missions...sigh.

I went to Jool for the first time today. I had a grand ambition; one central probe with satellite probes. The goal was to send the little guys out to the moons as impactors; the main probe would dip lower and lower into Jool's atmosphere collecting SCIENCE until destruction . It 'kind of' worked. The vessel in question, just after aerocapture, deploying panels and preparing to transmit data: The first thing you'll notice is that I'm one probe short of all five moons. Small design oversight there! I was able to capture into Jool's orbit, but I underestimated the amount of delta-v I'd need to stabilize that orbit. As a result, I'm basically stuck in a lopsided, somewhat-polar, orbit. Aerocapture did its job, so I do have a circular orbit, but unless I plan to scrap the idea to send my little probes off (and I'm not sure they'll be able to get to their destination anyway, given the gravity pull of the planet), I'll likely fall into oblivion, as my periapsis after the aerocapture as around 100km. All this being said, the vessel is outrigged with all the science instruments and I've managed to transmit back quite a bit of data for a not-small amount of SCIENCE, so the mission isn't a complete failure. I'm tempted to let this one fall into the atmosphere and use my 'findings' to send a second vessel with more delta v in the transfer stage and probes with the grand goal of getting an impactor to each of the moons. Any tips are appreciated!

I used the VI and it put my 22ton Jool payload right into an 80x80 parking orbit. Nice, simple design.

I'm going to attempt my first flight to Jool, and I'd like to take with me a probe to impact each of the moons. For science, of course. I'm still in the design/test phase, but I'd like to see how others tackled the problem. Have you ever built a rocket to carry impactors or landers to visit a planet and its moons in one mission?

I for one am eager to unlock the atmospheric science tool. I've still yet to reach planets other than eve and duna, and that's just with impactors. I could always look up how thick the atmosphere of XXX planet is, or the strength of its gravity, but I'd rather derive the thickness and density of a given planets' atmosphere rather than relying on the KSP wiki. I'd prefer to self discover, so for me the probes are valuable. Also, my fiancée has forbidden me from killing Kerbals, so mine is a 0 loss space program.

Mine have gotten heavier. Here's my first .22 interplanetary probe, sent to Duna; and my first visit ever to Duna. It's certainly heavier than some of my .21 designs...I didn't know one could re-use the goo, so there were far too many goo pods on the thing. That being said, it did do good science. I aerobraked with it to see how thin the atmosphere really was. It's incredibly thin! I returned a few good reports before smashing into the surface. How has your probe design changed with the new science pods in .22?

He's stuck on the mun with some goo. Had enough fuel to get him there...just not enough to get him back. He brought a sleeping bag though, so it's okay.

Packet size: How many bytes (or bits) fit into a transport packet. Depending on what you're doing, higher is better. Transmission interval: I *think* they're referring to latency, but I'm not positive. If I'm thinking correctly, lower is better. Throughput: Number of packets handled in a given second. It's related to capacity, but different. (think of it as cars on a freeway...nobody's moving very quickly if the roads are full). Higher is better.

I put down OK. It's certainly a work in progress, but I really like what I see. I'm liking the challenge of doing something with basically nothing, and am eager to see more!

I stumbled across is tutorial after failing to build even a basic Ssto design. Got into a suborbital patten on my first try! Thanks for taking the time to make the video.

I went to Eve for the first time! Got a nice surface map made, choosing a spot to put a lander next.

So since starting my new job, my KSP time has been zilch. Last night, I hopped back in the seat and noticed a lander on the moon. Huh, where'd that come from? Oh cr**, I forgot Dunlan! After putting his ship back in Munar orbit and transferring back to Kerbin, I noticed that his ship was strangely lacking any parachutes. Oops. After some quick calculations (Hmmm, it *should* reach my space station) and a pep talk to a very scared Dunlan, I managed to rendezvous with the KSS and space-walked the little Kerbal that could over to the safety of the station. I then put his sorry little craft into a decaying orbit. Emboldened by the seat-of-the pants mission, Jeb hopped into my latest 1-kerbal lander and flew off to Minmus to poke a flag in its minty green surface. Here he is watching the sun rise:

I've been dabbling in Kethane lately. I've put together a mining lander that will extract and convert the Kethane to liquid fuel, then lift the fuel up to Munar orbit to a fueling station. Today I put the basic fuel 'depot' into Munar parking orbit. Here it is docked with my larger lander: No fuel in it yet, just docked to try out the design. This week I'll get the miner over to the Mun and start work on getting some fuel up to the depot. I'm still pretty new to stations, so I'll probably end up revisiting the design.

My mistake, I guess I sent the Kerbiets up on that mission!

Funny, I ended up doing the same thing. I plan to use the basin that the Armstrong memorial is in as a Mun base, it is pretty flat. Right now I'm working on getting all of the anomalies explored and flagged, and then I'll start working on brushing up modules for a Mun Base. I'm pondering putting a refueling depot into Mun orbit...right now I have to bring the lander home after each landing, which seems like a real waste of time and resources.

I had an encounter with one of my probes while leaving the Munar surface. The lander survived (albiet without one of its parachutes and a solar array), but the orbit of the probe was ruined and it de-orbited by the time my lander returned to Kerbin. I was totally surprised and had quite a laugh!

Thanks for the tip Kraken and Scarecrow. I managed to pull a polar orbit with my MapSat satellite by changing inclination after establishing an equatorial orbit, but you're right, it used a ton of fuel! Right now I'm working on visiting the anomalies that the mapping activity discovered. I managed to land near the Armstrong memorial last night...I'll use this as an objective for my next manned-lander mission now that I've got the basic process down.

I'm relatively new to the game, so I doubt I'm breaking any new ground here. The past few days, I've been motivated by the Kethane. After installing the mod, I sent a probe to the Mun to map the surface, then built a combination probe and rover lander to accomplish two goals with one trip: get a satellite in orbit to map Minmus, then put wheels on the ground with a rover. The goal was to see just how much effort is needed to launch from Minus and to see how the gravity affected rover navigation. It was more successful than I had hoped; I managed to land the satellite, drop off the rover and get it back into a scanning orbit using only RCS thrusters. The rover is stable, providing good readings of the light gravity. I'll drive it around later. Next I installed a small Kethane tank and three drills onto a three-kerbin lander and shipped it off to the Mun. The purpose of the mission was to see get my feet with with the Kethane mining tools. The mission was successful, although they did need to call mom for a ride home (didn't account for how heavy the Kethane tank would be when full!) I left the lander where it was, as I'll be back and will collect the Kethane eventually. Here's a photo of the crew doing their work: I'm still very new to the game, but am learning. My goal is to put up a small Mun base capable of mining and refining Kethane. I've already got a site picked out; just need to figure out how the conversion/refining process works. Is it true that it's more cost-effective to run a Kethane operation on Minmus due to the fact that it's less delta-v to get the refined stuff back into orbit?