Shuttle Challenge v5 - The STS thread [Stock and Mod Friendly] - MAJOR CHALLENGE ANNOUNCEMENT! - 30.3.2020

[QF9E]

I completed the STS-4 / STS-4R missions. I flew STS-4 as a rather complex IFT telescope servicing mission, which tied off some loose ends of my telescope (added a probe core and extension arms to the comms antennas so that they could unfurl without clipping the solar panels) and made it ready for its final destination at the Kerbin / Kerbol L4 point. At the end of the mission, Bill Kerman's MMU suffered a malfunction, which hurtled him out into space after damaging the shuttle.

I then launched the STS-4R mission. Its first priority was rescuing Bill, which was successful after just 1 hour and 50 minutes of flying time. It then rendez-voused with the stricken shuttle to rescue the remaining 5 crew member of STS-4. STS-4R then re-entered directly from inclined orbit before landing on the KSC runway.

The boosters from both mission were landed as well: STS-4 booster landed on land, far away from its intended impact point. STS-4R booster then tried to land on the KSC but overshot by some tens of miles and splashed down into the ocean, destroying itself after toppling over.

I then flew a salvage mission to the STS-4 shuttle still in orbit. This mission, STS-4S, rendez-voused with the stricken shuttle and installed a probe core. The damaged STS-4 then re-entered unmanned, and managed to land successfully on the island runway off the coast of the KSC. The Shuttle was flyable, but it was very close to the edge with the damaged tail fin. I did not think I woudld be able to complete the extra turn back to the KSC, which is the reason for the island landing.

Both the STS-4S booster and STS-4S itself were then de-orbited: the booster landed in sight of the KSC, with the help of some newly installed airbrakes, while the shuttle landed on the runway.

And finally, I sent the IFT telescope to its final destination, the L4 Lagrange point. Its final orbit has an eccentricity very close to zero, and an almost perfect period of 1 year minus 4 milliseconds.

Full mission reports here: 

• https://imgur.com/a/DFs1RDj (STS-4), 
• https://imgur.com/a/lzTQPOR (STS-4R), 
• https://imgur.com/a/aeaSXYQ (bonus material - all booster landings, landings of STS-4S and the stricken STS-4, and the IFT transfer to the L4 point).

Some highlights:

Servicing the telescope. An old instrument package is removed in preparation for installing an upgrade with a probe core

Mission complete, Bill takes this panorama shot. Note the nuclear transfer stage attached to the telescope

Rescuing Bill by means of an improvised ambulance consisting of 2 MMUs linked together.

Rendez-vous between the two Shuttles. To the right Romulus, with tail fin missing.

Space Shuttle Pollux safely landed on the KSC runway with both crews on board.

Romulus landing uncrewed after successful salvage mission

And finally, some unapologetic telescope porn. I am really satisfied with how it turned out. Note the displaced shutter: that appears to be due to a bug in KSP: during construction the shutter was in the correct place on top of the central cylinder. I may have to do some digging in the save file to get it fixed. The telescope is shown to the viewer before turning away from the Sun to start its observational life. The orbital parameters are very close to their theoretical values.

Edited December 17, 2019 by QF9E
Added STS-4S landings, IFT final orbit

[Togu]

Hello,

@QF9E I find your reports really great, always with a little story that fits the task. 

I also ventured on a new mission, this time something simple, the STS-1T. 

 

I was able to land the carrier plane without Quicksave or a mod. It didn't crash when I landed the shuttle.

 

[QF9E]

14 hours ago, Togu said:

I find your reports really great, always with a little story that fits the task. 

Thanks! I enjoyed making a coherent story of these flights, glad you like it!

And congrats on your excellent Shuttle landing! Good to see a final approach with the same steep descent rate as the real shuttle. 

I also very much liked to see you land both craft in a single take. Although ... landing on an occupied runway ... :p 

Edited December 18, 2019 by QF9E
Replaced one word that had a rather negative connotation

[QF9E]

Does this satisfy the STS-6T challenge? I modified my booster into a spaceplane in its own right, launched a shuttle with it, landed it on the KSC runway and taxied to the SPH. The booster did not splash down as stipulated in the challenge but in effect does an Abort Once Around (AOA), which was one of the real Shuttle's abort modes. I also did not need to design any recovery vehicles, other than the booster itself.

 

Bonus video: landing the Shuttle itself and parking it next to the booster.

 

Edited December 19, 2019 by QF9E
Added bonus video

[QF9E]

STS-5 end of mission. One quarter of a space station built, Shuttle landed (parked in front of the SPH, at 2:23 it is visible to the left of the screen), booster about to land. It was at that point that I realized I mounted the probe core of the booster upside down... It was a huge relief that I managed to land the bloody thing anyway, and on the first try. Not my best landing ever, but it stayed on the runway and in one piece. 

 

Looking back at my landing, I made a rookie mistake by steering straight towards the runway threshold. I should have steered perpendicular to the runway to find the glideslope instead. I also messed up the trim: during the flip I had to re-trim the pitch, but I accidentally messed up the roll trim instead.

With a lot of shuttles and boosters still to land for this challenge, I think it is time I dusted off my flightsim gear instead of flying with mouse and keyboard.

Edited December 21, 2019 by QF9E

[QF9E]

I completed STS-2T, the dreaded RTLS abort. It turned out to be much easier than anticipated: this was the first time I tried it. I expected staging to be problematic, as I've had a lot of problems with that in orbit. Although with my redesigned booster staging has gone much more smoothly lately, and redesigning the booster attachment point (now a docking port, for reasons to be unveiled later) has helped as well. Long story short, I burnt all the fuel in the booster after turning around at 50 km, then staged and lit the OMS engines. The Shuttle separated from the booster very quickly and without incident.

I overshot the KSC by quite a margin, but some aerobatics and a bit of help from the OMS got me back to the runway, where I landed as normal.

 

Edited December 22, 2019 by QF9E

[Togu]

On 12/17/2019 at 10:04 PM, QF9E said:

I also very much liked to see you land both craft in a single take. Although ... landing on an occupied runway ... :p 

"There was still enough space on the runway," Jeb would say.   The Kerbals are just a little crazier than we are. 

I have just completed the STS-2T mission.
During the test flight of a new variant of the S3 KS-25 "Vector" there was unfortunately a "small" malfunction at the start.

 

 

Merry Christmas to you

Togu

[QF9E]

 

10 hours ago, Togu said:

I have just completed the STS-2T mission.
During the test flight of a new variant of the S3 KS-25 "Vector" there was unfortunately a "small" malfunction at the start.

Very nice! I like how you just calmly flew a circuit around the airfield and landed. Looked very much under control, more so than my jaunt to the mountains west of KSC.

Quote

Merry Christmas to you

Frohe Weihnachten auch fuer dich!

(I can understand German quite well - I'm Dutch - but I find speaking (or writing) German very hard, so I'll leave it at that. I hope I didn't mangle that too badly) 

 

@michal.don: when will you have time to judge our new entries? 

Edited December 23, 2019 by QF9E
forum UI decided it was time to publish a half-finished post

[QF9E]

My space station is complete! I've still got to land my STS-8 Shuttle and Booster, so the challenge is not quite over, but I wanted to share my creation with you all regardless.

Behold the Perfectly Reasonable yet Extremely Complicated tOrUs-Shaped Space Station, or PRECIOUSSS for short. Yesss... We wants it, we needs it. Must have the PRECIOUSSS!

And before you ask, yes, I've tried. My Shuttle is able to fly through it, if I retract the solar panels. However, unfortunately it does not go invisible.

[QF9E]

These 4 videos contain my mission reports for STS-5 to STS-8. Together they document the build process of PRECIOUSSS, my space station.

STS-5 has the distinction of being the first operational mission of my third Shuttle, Skywalker. The KSC held a public poll for the name of the Shuttle, and while the name Skywalker was nowhere near the top of the list, it was chosen as it "fit within the existing convention of naming the Gemini Shuttles after famous twins". KSC detractors maintain to this day that this was done simply to avoid the poll's leading entry, Shuttle McShuttleface.

After the successful test flight of a fully re-usable booster design, KSC decided to also name the boosters. The Pollux booster was named Leda, after the mother of Pollux in Kreek mythology. Likewise, the Romulus booster was christened Ares. This prompted the denizens of  popular internet messaging board 4Khan to start a lobbying campaign to have the Skywalker booster named Lord Vader. Which was avoided by the KSC, who named it Queen Amidala instead.

 

As demonstrated in STS-1b, my Gemini class Shuttle has a payload capacity of about 80 tons to LKO, so doing the required minimum for the challenge would under-utilize my Shuttle's payload capacity quite badly. Therefore I decided to make my station rather bigger then required: I made a ring station out of Mk3 passenger cabins. However, since these do not fit in a Mk3 cargo bay, I attached them as external cargo on top of my booster. There's 24 cabins in total, 6 per flight, 3 per booster stack. PRECIOUSSS will be operated as a space hotel as well as a science outpost.

The spoke and hub of the station, which contain the required service and science modules, were carried inside the cargo bays of my Shuttles. I used the booster to launch the Shuttle + external cargo into LKO, where the Shuttle docked with the external cargo by means of a specially designed towbar connected to the booster attachment point,. The ring segments were then taken under tow to a 350 x 350 km orbit. There I assembled the station.

I landed all Shuttles and all boosters on the KSC runway, except one: the STS-7 booster landed on the island runway as I overshot the KSC. As a bonus, Jeb flew through the ring after the station had been fully assembled.

 

Interestingly, the idea of having an external cargo bay was studied by NASA for the real Shuttle: the real Shuttle, like mine, suffered from the drawback that the actual payload capacity was often underused because payloads were limited by volume rather than by mass. Variants with external cargo on top of the external tank and on the bottom were studied, with the latter (the Aft Cargo Carrier or ACC) being prefered by NASA because it would still allow an RTLS abort.

 

About these videos: these represent my very first attempt at doing more elaborate video editing than simply uploading game footage. The STS-5 video consists of sped-up game footage with some captions. It is longer than I would like, but I hope that, since it documents every detail of the mission, it will still be of interest to people here. The other videos are heavily edited: Since these missions are all very similar, I tried to cut out everything that is a repeat from earlier videos. I hope that with these videos I did not go too far in the other direction, cutting so much that they are no longer clear.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 26, 2019 by QF9E

[QF9E]

I completed STS-5T. With the low Kerbin orbit missions complete I figured that the Munar free return mission would be an excellent stepping stone towards the Shuttle Mun missions, as it provides a Munar challenge without a Shuttle landing there.

I've done free return trajectories before, but never with a Shuttle, and never with the intent of landing in a specific spot on Kerbin afterwards. So this took a few tries to get right. But in hindsight it is not that difficult with the help of MechJeb's landing indicator.

I also recently bought Making History (on sale on Steam), so I tried out the Munar Excursion Module for the first time. And what an awful capsule it is, without a reaction wheel of some sort! I guess it could be OK if the stock SAS did not insist on burning through the monoprop for no apparent reason. By the way: the new, updated Mun and Minmus look amazing!

As a bonus I took a second Apollo stack - callsign Artemis, Apollo's twin in Kreek mythology - with me in the other cargo bay of my Shuttle, that I landed on Minmus. After inserting the Shuttle on its free return trajectory I unloaded Artemis and tweaked its course slightly. It passed the Mun on the opposite side from the shuttle to get a gravity assist towards the mint-green moon. After fighting with the trajectory planner for the longest time (why does the "closest approach marker" jump around like it does?) I guesstimated its course by hand. This turned out quite well: I needed only a single unplanned 20 m/s correction burn to get my encounter.

A couple of notes on the video:

1. Apologies for the watermark. I have been experimenting with different video editing software (I've been using Shotcut before, but it has some quirks that I don't like), and I had no idea that it was going to be there, or as in-your-face as it is, until it was too late. I hope you can still see what's going on. Does anyone here perhaps have a suggestion for good free video editing software?

2. I edited the video so that each major hardware component (booster / shuttle / Apollo / Artemis) of the flight gets its own segment. This means that some events are not in chronological order.

 

EDIT: I've removed the video. See my next post for the updated video without the highly irritating watermark.

 

♬ This is ground control to @michal.don,

I've done so many missions.

And I want to know if I have earned the badges? ♬

 

Edited December 30, 2019 by QF9E
Removed old version of video

[QF9E]

I've made a second version of my STS-5T video, this time without watermark. I also think it is a better cut overall. I've removed the previous video form the thread.

 

[michal.don]

Hey guys, I'm back after the holidays, it's been a while, but I finally have a bit of time to sort through all the entries, sorry for the delay... It's been a busy couple of weeks gor me...

On 12/10/2019 at 10:06 PM, Togu said:

The STS-4/4R mission is already finished.

I think I'll never grow tired of this kind of sight - two shutles dancing around each other in very close proximity. It just feels sort of... Beautiful? Magnificent? I'm not sure of an appropriate word, I just like it  And, of course, brilliantly performed mission on your part, all objectives met, so a new badge for you:

Congratulations!

 

On 12/13/2019 at 5:37 PM, QF9E said:

I finished my STS-3 mission.

This... This is what still amazes me about this game, and this community. Just when I think I've seen it all, somebody comes along and proves me wrong  I don't think I can express how impressed I am, this thing is really beautiful, and insanely complex. Very, very good job on your part! Because of the IR and Dockrotate usage, I have to qualify this mission as "modded", but I hope you don't mind!

Congratulations!

 

On 12/15/2019 at 10:28 PM, Kerbolitto said:

What do you guys think of this ? Its still a work in progress

Genuinely curious where this is going  

 

(Next page of reports soon, will merge the posts afterwards)

[michal.don]

On 12/15/2019 at 11:41 PM, QF9E said:

I completed the STS-4 / STS-4R missions.

I sense that the regular missions are getting too easy for you...  But I love the fact that you create your own goals to fulfill during them, and even add a bit of a story....  As always, I have no reservations about your mission, so I'll go straight to the badge-awarding part...  

Good job!

 

On 12/17/2019 at 9:36 PM, Togu said:

I also ventured on a new mission, this time something simple, the STS-1T. 

And you did a great job as well! A bit on the easy side, but an important one, nice mission, and good job landing the plane too!

 

On 12/18/2019 at 11:30 PM, QF9E said:

Does this satisfy the STS-6T challenge?

Well... Sorry, but in this case, this would be a "no"... I always try to encourage a creative solution, but this is not the intended goal of this particular mission, and I believe that this is the case I mentioned in the rules of the "Test pilot" mission:

"An STS-or-Buran-looking shuttle+LV is strongly reccomended. You might not be able to complete certain missions with a significantly different design!"

I hope you don't mind too much and it won't discourage you from completing the other missions. Sorry.

 

On 12/21/2019 at 11:30 PM, QF9E said:

I completed STS-2T, the dreaded RTLS abort.

Yep, that's quite a bit of an overshoot  But that's where the fuel reserves come in handy, so, no problem  Good job, nice mission, another badge, you know the drill  

 

On 12/23/2019 at 12:07 AM, Togu said:

I have just completed the STS-2T mission.

It looks like the end of december was quite the RTLS season...  An impressive mission as well, it looks like you got quite far downrange, and still had enough boom in the tanks to get back. Also, a very precise landing!

Congratulations!

 

On 12/26/2019 at 6:28 PM, QF9E said:

These 4 videos contain my mission reports for STS-5 to STS-8

I was wondering how you managed to fit the hab segments into the shuttle...  I'm not a big fan of sticking cargo to the exterior of the shuttle, but since this is additional cargo to the payload in the bay, flies up in a fairing, and ends up being towed behind the shuttle in orbit, I don't have an issue with that  Again, the station is a great piece of engineering, and the shuttle flying through the ring is a great ending to this awesome series of missions!

Very good job!

On 12/30/2019 at 12:49 PM, QF9E said:

I've made a second version of my STS-5T video, this time without watermark. I also think it is a better cut overall. I've removed the previous video form the thread.

And of course you modified the mission again to make it more challenging  I'm genuinely getting curious how you'll fare in the later missions at Duna, Jool and Eve...  Good free return trajectory planning, and nice two munar excursions! Very good job!

 

I hope I got them all,

Michal.don

[Goaty1208]

I tried... an explosion destroied the boosters, the fuel tank and a wing... no Kerbals died ( they risked) top height... 100m. Shuttle height was 93m so...

[QF9E]

@michal.don Thanks for the badges, and the compliments for my telescope design! I already suspected that my booster recovery would not satisfy the STS-6T requirements, so that's ok. Also, no problem with giving me modded badges, without dockrotate I don't think I could have built either the telescope or the ring station. I might do unmodded versions of these missions at some point, but I don't think they will be as elaborate as what I've done so far.

 

 

[Kerbolitto]

@michal.don Here is the v4 :

Its now wider (easier to align com / col without taking payload into account), I haven't put RCS on, or decided which engines to use (currently there are 2 wolfhounds and 2 skiffs in the back). It's possible to change fuel tanks under the wings, or even stage them for more dV. The bays aren't aligned to the ground so the height clearance is not extreme. What else mmh .. The central core is an autonomous shuttle, which has one spark to deorbit and 2 Panthers for fun. You can spot a tiny wing below the cockpit, inclined a few degrees to align center of lift

What do you think of this craft ? Decoupling the bays or staging fuel pods means that it's not a shuttle anymore ? It still need some work to be viable, but Im playing a bit less those days

 

[michaelbezos1]

hi guys i stucked at the refill the tank stage it would even more than welcome if you could help building the spacecraft as it is annoying and discouraging. 

 

Much love :> 

Keep the things together. 

[Togu]

7 hours ago, michal.don said:

Hey guys, I'm back after the holidays, it's been a while, but I finally have a bit of time to sort through all the entries, sorry for the delay... It's been a busy couple of weeks gor me...

Welcome back from the holidays.   And thanks for the badges.
I also have a new mission ready, the STS-4T. Are two videos again, have fun with it.

 

 

Almost finished with the planning for the STS-5 to STS-8, but it won't be as spectacular as from @QF9E

[michaelbezos1]

I neglected refilling the tanks due to placing the thrusters but again I faced another challenge as manually i placed 4 thrusters differently from the tuition 

  

Nicework Togu skylab boost 2 i wish to do this mission but i do lots of excuses especially after 22 when i could just open the notebook and start playing game gain but i heard human being need some sleep in the shelter we have 22 -7 =9 hours. 

 

Wow togu the part with the good landing was good i wish to do same, you should be proud of yourself. 

Togu: How can i proceed to the skylab as i checked the training and the scenarios there is not any skylab there I went into the career ??

 

I went to the career there are no fuel tanks to attach looks like i will have to search everything by myself to master this game and like usual be the example for others at everything  

 

People always follow me at most fields thats why world goes forward  

Edited January 6, 2020 by michaelbezos1
adding info

[Togu]

23 hours ago, michaelbezos1 said:

Nicework Togu skylab boost 2 i wish to do this mission but i do lots of excuses especially after 22 when i could just open the notebook and start playing game gain but i heard human being need some sleep in the shelter we have 22 -7 =9 hours.

Wow togu the part with the good landing was good i wish to do same, you should be proud of yourself.

Thank you, I'm glad you like the videos.

23 hours ago, michaelbezos1 said:

Togu: How can i proceed to the skylab as i checked the training and the scenarios there is not any skylab there I went into the career ??

In training and in the scenarios you will not find anything from the missions we fly here. Only a description of what / how should be done can be found here in this forum in the first post of this topic. How you implement it is up to you. @michal.don then decides whether it was right or wrong. He created the challenge.

23 hours ago, michaelbezos1 said:

I went to the career there are no fuel tanks to attach looks like i will have to search everything by myself to master this game and like usual be the example for others at everything

  It is normal that you don't have that much at the beginning of a career, you have to unlock everything there is in terms of parts. There are many videos about it on YouTube.

[michaelbezos1]

I ll make much excuses with developing the game as after 22 00 clock instead of playing the game or making sth constructive ( developing php code or anything connected with the programming which can cause good job) I am going into the routine of 9 hours of sleep.

[Mikenike]

On 1/6/2020 at 4:42 AM, Goaty1208 said:

I tried... an explosion destroied the boosters, the fuel tank and a wing... no Kerbals died ( they risked) top height... 100m. Shuttle height was 93m so...

Used struts!

[cantab]

So I guess this actually qualifies as an STS-1a, since it flew to orbit and landed back on Kerbin. Sure, the orbit might have been around the Sun ... and Dres ... and landed there. But details.

Diablos standing by for launch by cantab314, on Flickr

 

[Togu]

Hello everyone,

I finally did it, the missions STS-5 to STS-8 are done. Are 4 "small" videos.

STS-5 - service module and the Start of STS-6

 

STS-6 - first scientific modules on solar panel

STS-7 - second scientific modules

and the last STS-8 - habitation module and crew

 

Hope everything fits.

Togu