Post Your Satellite Designs

[Wcmille]

I'd love to see what people are up to with satellites. I have small, ultra-lite probes and massive comsats. What standard satellites are you making and deploying?

[Rune]

Tiny, tiny stuff. The latest I'm happy with barely has a propulsion system!

 

Rune. I find them cute.

[Wcmille]

Here's my "Northern Lights" payload from 1.0.5. This design is made for Eeloo.

The center driver rocket positions into polar orbit and scans the planet. Then the space probes are released into polar orbit at even intervals. Landing probes release to make surface contacts at various promising biomes.

[iSilver]

Well, most of my "satellites" are quite huge. Here's my interplanetary quad relay:

Mun biome scanner:
 
Kerbin biome scanner:

[U.S.S]

I felt like putting one into a low Munar orbit. 

[AFF]

[LAk87]

These satellites, successfully put in LKO :

These two sats, put in orbit with a single launcher, one relay, one "regular" : 

Spoiler

 

This one, the tinest satellite I've done so far,

 

Spoiler

With its launcher, which is a capsule, I was looking a SpaceX Dragon pictures, when I made this one, LOL.

Spoiler

 

[Spartwo]

[SchwinnTropius]

On 12/28/2016 at 5:07 AM, Rune said:

Rune. I find them cute.

I second that. Very cute.

[Abpilot]

Does any one know a cheaper way to launch midget satellites cuz making a whole midget booster is really irritating 

[Spartwo]

Launch a bunch at once?

[GDJ]

MSAT1. Basically a simple relay satellite.

[Matuchkin]

On 15/10/2017 at 5:02 PM, AFF said:

*le snip de la metaphorical scissors of le internet*

How did you get Duna to look so gnarly?

[tekkitdk]

On 30/12/2016 at 7:36 AM, Wcmille said:

Here's my "Northern Lights" payload from 1.0.5. This design is made for Eeloo.

The center driver rocket positions into polar orbit and scans the planet. Then the space probes are released into polar orbit at even intervals. Landing probes release to make surface contacts at various promising biomes.

can i get the craft file?

 

[MDZPNMD]

Nice designs especially GDJ &  Spartwo.

Only for practicality reason to setup com networks:

[tekkitdk]

On 17/10/2017 at 1:47 AM, Spartwo said:

Launch a bunch at once?

Can du send the craft file? i like your design

[Rocket In My Pocket]

I don't tend to take a lot of screenies of satellites since they are so mundane but this is a good excuse to take some! Lol.

Here's one I've really grown to love; It's what I call a; "RecoveryReconSat" and it's basic job is to rendezvous with mission critical debris and identify it/make a visual inspection of it for later retrieval by another craft. (I often find that the measurements given in the contract description aren't enough to go on when recovering modules.) It then remains in the area of the module until actual retrieval where it provides a light source if needed. This little thing has been a workhorse, I originally designed it to be small and "throw-away" planning on just sending another up when it ran out of fuel. However it's been part of more than half a dozen LKO retrievals and still has about 1,000m/s Dv left, in 9 years KSP time I've never had to send a replacement yet. The on board lights have saved me much frustration over the length of my Career save when I forgot to include them on the rescuing craft, and knowing exactly what part I have to bring down has proven indispensable when designing. I may even shed a tear someday when it comes time to replace this little guy.

It's searchlights and recognizable silhouette have been a heart-warming sight in my career for a long time now, and will be for a long time to come, I hope!

Here's a slightly larger, more complicated sat; this was actually two separate pieces ("Castor" and "Pollux") that met up in Minmus orbit, before heading off for deep space together. As you can see; I'm a fan of the "bristling with stuff" spaceship look.

Just a basic early game relay sat; part of my "Generation1" network. (I think I'm on Gen3 now..?) Kind of an interesting design.

Lastly, here's my "FarSeer1" sat, looking conspicuously like a flower. This sits way, way out at 70k km and acts as a sort of deep space relay. I turned off the ground stations in my latest career save so this helps extend my signal range some-what. I'm planning on putting more up at some point, but I mostly do crewed missions so it hasn't been a huge issue. (I've built my own ground station relays as well, but they aren't "sats" so, that's for another thread I guess.)

Edited November 16, 2017 by Rocket In My Pocket

[septemberWaves]

Here's a couple of my latest ones:

This first one is a fairly simple orbiter. It just has a gravioli detector on board for a contract. Not the most useful satellite, but it looks nice.

 

This one's more complicated. It may look like a simple orbiter at first...

But it actually has two parts.

I'm particularly pleased with the lander portion, it worked quite well for its simple purpose.

[KerBlitz Kerman]

On 11/15/2017 at 10:12 AM, Rocket In My Pocket said:

("Castor" and "Pollux") that met up in Minmus orbit, before heading off for deep space together. As you can see; I'm a fan of the "bristling with stuff" spaceship look.

What happened to Helen?

[darthvader15001]

On 10/16/2017 at 7:31 PM, Abpilot said:

Does any one know a cheaper way to launch midget satellites cuz making a whole midget booster is really irritating 

What’s a midget booster? @Abpilot

[Mazlem]

Here's a few from my current save:

[SpacestationDog]

3 hours ago, Mazlem said:

Here's a few from my current save:

Wow, your satellites looked so cool! I think they will look like starships if you scale them up. (:-D

[GDJ]

11 hours ago, SpacestationDog said:

Wow, your satellites looked so cool! I think they will look like starships if you scale them up. (:-D

 

It's been some time since I've posted and I have to admit I'm impressed with the current entries.

[darthvader15001]

@GDJ @SpacestationDog @Mazlem I’m glad I restarted the thread! (Kind of not complete restart ofc) 

[TheFlyingKerman]

Big satellite

Small satellite

Inter-planetary micro probes