WoofMcMoose

Thought this may be of interest (couldn't find a thread already and was somewhat surprised) After 4 years in orbit of Mercury (and 11 years total in space) the MESSENGER will come to an abrupt end in the next few days when the probe will crash into Mercury. Having had two mission extensions (plus an extra 6 weeks) the spacecraft is now out of fuel and in fact made its last orbit correction 'burn' using the Helium that was used to pressurise the fuel tanks. One final OCM (Orbit Correction Manoeuvre) is planned for Friday which, assuming adequate Helium remains, will delay impact until the 30th. Best estimate is that it will leave only some debris and a 16m crater. Details here: http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/the_mission/final.html It's worth a poke at some of the science articles on the web page too- this little probe did a lot. So what do you think are the odds Messenger will still be flying when 1.0 is released!?

Sub-optimal for establishing a nice circular orbit perhaps, but the intent here is to re-enter the atmo- no point in raising the Periapsis more than required to avoid accidental re-entry on the first lap. Aviation and shipping still use it as has a meningful relationship with lat/long 1nm = 1arc minute of latitude. OK precise values vary depending on the spheroid model of the earth you use but for dead reckoning navigation its a very useful relationship.

Forgive me if this has been done before, but I couldn't find anything similar if it has. Playing around with Hullcam VDS/Kerbpro in 0.21 I had an idea that I could effectively produce stereopsis by mounting two cameras facing the same direction but a short distance apart laterally. Then taking screenshots from each, filtering the correct RGB channels than merging the images, voila old-school 3D images for red/blue glasses. Best shot I managed was this: Most of the rest suffered from hyperstereopsis (effectively having your eyes too far apart). I did consider tying to make some 3D movies in this fashion, but my current editing software isn't up to the task. Hope you like, even if just for the old school novelty value!

Stock Aerodynamics. Throttled SRB to 60%, coming in to land after 200 km and pitching up slowly to eek out every last drop of airspeed as lift. And then.... Infinite glide achieved! Though I'm not sure i can wait for a full circumnavigation at 16m/s

Jimbimbibble's challenge sounds good (and along the lines of what I was looking for). I completed the first one without considering what the next should be! So yes, get landing Bass Ackwards and if I come up with something in the meantimes I'll just have to complete whatever the latest challenge is to get it in here.

Ok, you didn't specify a version and since my house is being renovated I'm on my laptop which only has 0.2 installed. Still the building is about the same distance away and roughly the same height, so I reckon its a valid attempt. It wasn't too hard when I gave up on the sepatrons for braking and switched to chutes- far less explodey!! Launch: Landing: The hardest part was getting the Kerbals out quickly, hence the unruly pile!