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An Overengineered Mission to Minmus The Little Base™ - being tested on the runway at KSC. Foreword: After finishing my Mun - Kerbin connection I decided the next logical step was a mission to Minmus (getting Kerbin SOI squared off). In the beginning I thought it was going to be something pretty insignificant.. How ever.. What started with a rover and a "dropship", has now evolved into an over the top, over engineered base building mission. The documentation for the whole affair started to outgrow what was feasible to post. So I figured I would just start "blogging" now. Hopefully this will be a much shorter endeavour than the K.G.01 and 02 saga. Mission Planning: A. Design the base elements: A container housing unit (C.H.U.) A Generator for powering the base and rovers. A Command and Control Center (C.C.C.) A Rover Capable of exploring Minmus in detail. B. Design a dropship that can land elements of the base: C. Design a Crew Shuttle for the Kerbalnauts. D. Design a Vehicle that can "Carry" the mission elements from LKO to Minmus. A. Designing The Base Elements: When I designed all the different Base Modules I decided to give them all little rover wheels and "landing legs" - first of all to be able to cushion the drop from the cargo hold of the drop ship. Second to be able to dock the parts with each other, as well as eliminate any terrain differences that would flip them around. They are also all supplied with a little bit of Δv (except the generator which has quite a bit) for being able to "fly up" and catch the docking port in the belly of the dropship again - in case the base has to be moved. I've spend quite a few hours designing these little modules - I actually think it is very hard to make good looking base modules. But I think I somewhat succeeded... and the ones that are "ugly" are "ugly" in a cool way. (Talking about the CHU unit here) 1. Container Housing Unit: 2. Generator Power Unit (G.P.U.): 3. Command and Control Center (C.C.C.) 4. Mobile Lab and Rover: B. Designing a Dropship: Designing the dropship was actually the first element I went for. I recall seeing and very old KSP video where the player played on the real universe and made a long mission to Titan. He had 4 tubes connected to his space ship that housed the base modules etc. and I thought that was a brilliant way to use the stock cylindrical cargo bays. - I wish we had XL rounded box cargo bays - mostly because the circle is hard to fit base modules in. As you can see it's quite the drop for the rover... If we had parts that could crain them down etc. that would be nice. As you can see the ship is a tube with a separated cargohold - and two engine compartments that hold the fuel and landing legs. On its front it has a large CC375-D Docking port and on the back it has 4x 48-7s "Spark" engines -giving it 1618 Δv in a vacuum. These engines are meant to do a de-orbit burn. I also see a possibility of the carrier to perform the de-orbit burn. unload the dropship and boost back into orbit. Just to help the drop ship preserve Δv. For landing it uses 2x LV-909 "Terrier" giving it 1211 Δv on a full tank. Its a pretty versatile design. that can also work as a vehicle garage for rovers: Here is a better view of the interior - with floodlights and all. Now I'll be able to land all elements with out abrasive lunar dust getting kicked everywhere - and the modules can be shielded on the journey to and from the base destination. All elements are autonomous ofcourse - I see this landing by itself and base assembling by itself, and then the crew lands afterwards. C. Design Crew Shuttle: As you can see its literally just the rover design, but with legs instead of wheels and more Δv. It holds 3 Kerbals and has enough Δv to land from a 10km Mun Orbit, and get itself back into a 10km Mun Orbit. I know because I tested it with the cheat mo... *cough cough* I tested it in "simulation" D. Design Modular Interplanetary Spaceship: Now... I could have done something sensible - and flying the 4 dropships separately to Minmus and land them ahead of sending Kerbals... But this is where I decided to go overboard and over design the mission. I build a crew ship with a 4 way split, that the dropships can dock to. It can hold the Kerbals as well as mission essential modules. I loaded the craft with 4x MK3 JFT-10000 weighing 50t each to simulate the weight of the 4 fully loaded drop ships. Then I loaded it with 3x Crew Shuttles. With 2x LV-SW "Swerv" and 50t Hydrogen it gives me 3239 Δv - which if i calculated the Δv map correct - should give me enough and then some, for a tour-retour to Minmus... Yes.. its a ridicules craft for just going to Minmus... The whole vehicle also weighs 387t I opted for a "Space Tug" because I think it ISVs in Avatar is the coolest Sci-fi spaceship every put to film... and I think it's so clever exploiting tensile strength vs old boring compression. That being said - I dont think KSP gives any advantage to designing pull systems - unless you want something with a lot of drag into space. Its bit of a shame.. as it can be quite difficult to design a tug that looks decent. The Tug: I wanted the Tug to be modular. I contemplated building it in 3 pieces: the long center piece with docking tower and tether., the main fuel tanks with reactors the Main engine section. The vehicle would then consist of 2 engine pieces and 2 reactor pieces. But as I don't think the game likes parts that has 2 or more connecting docking ports - I decided to design it so it looked modular.. but testing the double connecting docking ports... To me it feels weird that we dont have to put reactors on the ships when you have nuclear engines on it. I roleplay it - So I decided to put on reactors to the ship. Also now I won't need to put on solar panels - So that's cool. I kind of whish we could remove the cylindrical gitter around the 10t ball tanks - or if we could get smaller spheres tanks.. because I think the double sphere looks great! Engines are off set a bit - to not fry the spaceship. (too much) The Crew Section: I see the crew section as the first part of a modular interplanetary vehicle. It will be the vehicle section of the future spaceship bringing Kerbals to and from bodies outside the Kerbin SOI. I already designed a second section for the ship - a Methalox Fuel load - allowing me to refuel the landers when they come back to the ship looking like this: It is carrying my Standard 9t Methalox Tank - also used on my space stations K.G.01 and K.G.02. - It will not be used on this mission though. As all the vehicles have enough fuel for the mission within them. For future missions I would like to have two gravity rings attached in front of this - or between this and the methalox section. I tried to make a gravity ring myself using wheels and empty space between sections.. but even if there is empty space between the turning section and the shaft.. it still acts as if they are bolded together. So that will have to wait until the Dev Team gives us "things" that allow us to make spinny bits. Or they release that gravity wheel they have been showing burning up in their atmosphere demos. Another thing I really miss is some easier way to attach things at an angle.. Would you believe me how hard it was to make those ~45° angle bits and have them be "straight" again for the docking port sections. Any way - I got it done.. and center of mass.. is somewhat in the middle. Moving Forward: Next step is going to get all this into space! Stay Tuned for More! P.S. If there are to many images in this blog - please say so, or you will have to expect this level of detail moving forward.

Current Mission State: MISSION ACOMPLISHED Edits: 1. Added Authors notes 2. Made Authors notes into a foreword and added a table of contents. 3. Went through older posts and added topic headlines in bigger font size to make it easier to find the topics in the table of contents. Forword: When I first started this "blog" it was because I was so happy that I succeeded at creating the first iteration of what I've dubbed Kerbin Gate One - or K.G.01 for short. I then expanded upon the project, and have decided to re-name the post to reflect the fact that it will now entail the complete setup of K.G.01 around Kerbin and K.G.02 around the Mun, as well as all the vehicles needed to support the two fueling stations and communications network.(The CommNet was later dropped because it cant really be implemented in the current KSP2 build) I have decided to add a little table of contents as to what can be found in the different tabs of this journey - to help new readers not get overwhelmed by the number of tabs growing out of this thread. Bellow you will see the journey unfold. Table of contents: Tab 1: K.G.01 first iteration complete Developing a KSC - LKO refueling SSTO Developing a KSC - LKO crew rotation SSTO Developing crew and cargo rotation system for K.G01 and K.G.02 Developing Emergency Reentry Shuttle Tab 2: Revising KSC - LKO refueling vehicles - developing 2 stage reusable craft. Fixing flight characteristics of 2nd stage refueling Methalox Glider Updating K.G.01 to have synergy with K.G.02 fuel amount. Developing Hydrogen and Satellite Carrier Glider. Going down a CommNet rabbits hole, due to misunderstanding that losing CommNet was not a bug. Tab 3: Testing if different antenna's are like in KSP1 and what antenna does what and the limits of CommNet. Building K.G.02 super structure. A conversation about inclination and going to minimus Tab 4: - Installing Helium Tanks - Developing Kerbin/Lunar Tug Drone - Installing Methalox Tanks - - Refueling K.G.01 - All About Gliders - as part of the refueling: Fixing K.G.01 and ranting about v0.1.3.0 and the bugs that followed it. Tab 5: Rant continued. fixing all the problems v.0.1.3. brought with it. Tab 6: Grid Fins! Fueling K.G.02 with Hydrogen. Replacing all INLINE/SHIELDED Clamp-o-Trons on K.G.01 Designing Heavy Tanker Vehicle. K.G.02 Fueled up and Ready Re-Re-Re-Designing Multi-fuel Glider Tab 7: MISSION ACOMPLISHED. Updating the MLKO and Crew SSTO. //////////MISSION UPDATE\\\\\\\\\\ - K.G.01 First iteration complete: Hello all! I am a new KSP player. currently only clock 80-ish hours in KSP 2 - I read somewhere that after you managed to land on the Mun and get back again, it's a good idea to learn how to rendezvous. I may have taken this to the extreme for a new player - i decided to make a Low Kerbin Orbit fuel station. To combat the soupy Kerbin atmosphere. I want to make a station around the Mun too, and use that as a fueling point to and from the rest of the solar system.. Point being i can ship up fuel in a smaller more nimble craft, and then launch crafts from the Kerbin Gate One to Kerbin Gate Two, which will be surrounding the Mun. Any way! here it is in all its glory! It was 20 succesful launches - and about 4-5 that failed because of silly oversights, or bad planning. It contains Hydrogen fuel for future interplanetary vehicles, Methalox tanks for trips between Kerbin and the Mun (plus orbital maneuvers of course) and enough Monopropellant for years of tug drone services. (i probably overdid the monopropellant.. I didnt even empty one tank filling up the drones constructing the station) Speaking of which! It would be wrong to celebrate the station without mentioning the little minions putting it all together: The Kerbin to Low Kerbin Orbit Vehicle: Here doing a hand over - take over of a large Hydrogen tank to a small tug drone. The small tug drones were the real heroes' and one of the ideas i am most proud of! I knew i would need something to ship the fuel tanks around.. especially when i'll be ferrying the fuel between Kerbin Gate one and Two for further expeditions. I may have to scrap that idea though.. since my pc absolutely tanks when i get near the station.. and my framerate drops to loooooooooooow... But i can pretend the drones do the work, when i just dock the craft to the station and do the fuel transfer. Here the Tug drone is installing a Methalox Tank for fueling the tug boats too and from Kerbin Gate One and Kerbin Gate Two. I got the feeling of those deep sea submarines with the little lamps on them. Enjoyed navigating things a lot with them.. they are surprisingly nimble since they dont have the unnecessary weight of an engine. And a day picture. Here of two sharing the monopropellant tanks between them - I made the wrong assumption that these would be the easiest to get up.. stacking two of them. Then i realized that it was something like 18t of fuel being put to space. The rest of the fuel tanks sits at around 9-10t. So they were rather cumbersome to move. Lessons learned Lessons identified.. size can trick you.. density/mass is king Now i just need to figure whats next step... - A reusable "space shuttle" that can ferry crew and fuel to Kerbin Gate One from Kerbin? - Kerbin Gate Two around the Mun? - The CommNet the game kept complaining i didn't have? I imagined that the station around the Mun had to be bigger... but unless they make a potatomode for the graphics I dont think that will be possible. So maybe i should wait with that... I guess i need to setup a CommNet next? I Kept losing connection to my drones when i decoupled or undocked. I could regain connection by quicksaving and quick loading (I dont know if the bug is that i could regain control.. or that they lost control) - But i dont know how do you establish a CommNet... how do you? Is it just putting up a GPS like satelite network with antennas? or is there a bigger trick to it? I guess ill make the shuttle. Any way - I know it may not seem like a lot... but to me it was quite the challenge. I got a really good grasp of navigating with RCS thrusters and i cut the fuel consumption on rendezvous in half.. Feels good to keep removing fuel stacks because you get better. Stay tuned here for further Milestones in the setup for further space travels.

I got 3 missions to Eve (one for Evelike Sun orbit) for which I used basically the same ship with a few tweaks for their requirements (Scaner or telescope). It was a Mansail SSTO with a nuclear engine orbiter it had about 2500 excess delta V , but since it was only my second attempt at interplanetary travel, I wanted to play it safe, the first 2 missions went well, despite the Eve satellite taking about 1k more delta v than it should have, but then I had to maneuver a satellite to Gilly Kolniya orbit, and it was a disastrous piloting display xd. After capturing around Eve at about the right budget, I wasn't being able to find an encounter with Gilly, then, I saw one, but it was absurd, it meant making a huge burn to invert my orbit, I knew it was not the right thing to do, but seeing no other alternatives I decided to give it a shot. However now that I was going against the orbit, I would be forced to cancel all of my relative speed, costing me most of my remaining delta V. But it was only now that I found myself in the most ridiculous situation of the mission (which you cam see in the photo, my inclination was almost opposite to the required one, being used to making crazy maneuvers by this point though, I did a grand normal burn followed by retrograde, and somehow managed to complete the contract with "only" 100 delta V remaining. Photo of crazy orbit change I certainly need to improve my piloting, but nuclear engines really saved the day, even though I absolutely shouldn't have succeeded.