biohazard15

Alouette 2 & Explorer 31 (Thor-Agena B, VAFB)

FTV-1602, aka Corona-99, aka WORD SCRAMBLE, aka "Frankensat"

You can also make the following MM patch: @PART:HAS[@MODULE[ModuleDeployableSolarPanel]] { useKopernicusSolarPanels = False } This would completely disable Kopernicus solar panel module. Chances are you don't even need it - it is used to support multiple light sources, so you need it only if you use a planet pack that adds multiple stars.

Finally Hopefully @Invaderchaos would make us some Poppies. The 20-inch one is basically there - it's a Solrad with central cylindrical section (I've tried to make a replica with decoupler and two Solrads, but it looks quite bad due to Solrad being slightly larger than 0.3125m).

Early Bird aka Intelsat 1 - Delta D, CCAFS

BDB Delta III interstage.

Latest stuff. It works fine in 1.8.1.

Saturn I AS-103

From what I can see in the patch and in hydrolox tanks cfgs, it should add 50% to both insulation and reflectivity. This is slightly better than Centaur D, but much worse than, say, Centaur G. Or maybe I'm reading it totally wrong. Maybe, but then there's a problem not only with Gamma, but also with any other proposed hydrolox setups - like Titan variants.

San Marco 1 (Scout X-1)

It looks like that B9 patch should add a boiloff module with some basic insulation to any BDB tank if LH2\OX is selected and the tank has no boiloff module in its part config. It doesn't seem to work properly, however - it does add a boiloff module, but insulation stays at 0%.

One man's kick stage is other man's upper stage Seriously though - I never understood the difference between "upper stage" and "kick stage" and "apogee kick motor" and "perigee kick motor". All are space-only, all are meant to insert payload to a different orbit... so what's the real difference? Why invent a ton of terms for what is literally the same thing? Russians kind of got it right - we call all our upper\kick\push\AKM\PKM\whatever stages "разгонный блок", lit. "acceleration block". This is a stage that accelerates to move payload to a different orbit. Simple. We like simple.

Looks like a kitbash from BDB and Probes Plus.

Nothing historical today. Instead, here's a Mariner 2, launched on a Moon fly-by mission on a Titan II-Gamma rocket:

OGO 1 (Atlas-Vega)

Aww, it's so cute! Especially that tail fairing! Any chance for a full-black, DynaSoar-style paintjob? Also, would be nice to have a black-and-white paintjob for that adapter (what size is it BTW? 1.875?) to go with black-and-white Hermes. Something in style of early US rockets, maybe? Full black on top, then black stripes in the middle, then full white on the bottom. Would feel like you plug th black part into the white part.

You need to install KSC Switcher. Then you can switch KSC's position in tracking station.

Gemstones Part 2: Emeraude, Saphir, Diamant-A Sorry for the delay - as you know, CP2077 happened, and it captured me for almost two weeks. Anyway...

Thor\Delta got a massive update in 1.7. Old parts are still accessible for compatibility purposes, but they'll be deleted in 1.7.2.

Errrmmm... Emeraude\Sapfir\Diamant A used turpentine and nitric acid as LF and Ox. AFAIK, neither of these are cryogenic. Am I missing something, or this is the case of French being, well, French? Well, that was only the "solid" half of Gemstones. There's still the "liquid" half, which I'll post soon (Emeraude, Sapfir, Diamant). Although I must say that these are not so fun to make (being basically the same rocket) as the solid ones.

Some unorthodox Centaur use... Full report - https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/164035-1101-knes-182-time-to-build/&do=findComment&comment=3890391

What the hell is that ton of junk released at launch?

Gemstones Part 1: Agate, Rubis, Topaze

IMP-A aka Explorer 18 (Delta C) and Atlas-Centaur 2 (Atlas LV-3C Centaur-B)(see the spoiler at the end of the 1st spoiler!)

Vela 1A + Vela 1B + ERS-12 (Atlas LV-3B Agena-D)