Falcon Heavy to Duna

[sevenperforce]

@Ultimate Steve Very nice! I will count everything but Destination since you blew up your wheels, but definitely impressed!

I'm guessing you did staging REALLY low and just switched back and forth between the two boosters rapidly until you got your landings? That's tough. 

[Ultimate Steve]

2 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

@Ultimate Steve Very nice! I will count everything but Destination since you blew up your wheels, but definitely impressed!

I'm guessing you did staging REALLY low and just switched back and forth between the two boosters rapidly until you got your landings? That's tough. 

You did see the video, right? I had a weird edit-storm and the video didn't show up a few times. Either way, I'm completely fine with that not counting.

 

Yup, staging was pretty low due to a number of reasons, the primary one being the position of the barge (not very far out). The side boosters actually had a lot of fuel left which would have been useful for landing the center core (literally landed with no fuel left). But, luckily, the second stage was sufficiently overpowered enough to complete the mission!

 

 

[sevenperforce]

4 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

You did see the video, right? I had a weird edit-storm and the video didn't show up a few times. Either way, I'm completely fine with that not counting.

Yup, staging was pretty low due to a number of reasons, the primary one being the position of the barge (not very far out). The side boosters actually had a lot of fuel left which would have been useful for landing the center core (literally landed with no fuel left). But, luckily, the second stage was sufficiently overpowered enough to complete the mission!

Kerbin is so small that you really have to put your barge WAY out.

I only see one video -- you may want to edit again.

[Ultimate Steve]

2 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

Kerbin is so small that you really have to put your barge WAY out.

I only see one video -- you may want to edit again.

It's supposed to be one video. All is well!

[sevenperforce]

2 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

It's supposed to be one video. All is well!

Oh, the video about "taking it for a spin", haha. Gotcha.

Tempted to go back to my "finally made orbit" save and wait for a Duna window and try to land, using the upper stage for an entry/landing burn.

[Piatzin]

First test flight of the Falcon Heavy didn't go so well lol

Spoiler

Everything was going well, until the side boosters were decoupled...

The boosters clip into the center core, knock out the engines, and promptly blow up. I managed to recover one of the boosters in an alternate save, but as you can see above, one of them was beheaded (the probe core is at the top).

I could have made orbit with the Rhino, but there wasn't really any point to it

So now I have two rovers in the middle of the ocean lol

There are several issues I have to fix: the reusability (I'm still super bad at landing the side cores) and that part clipping with the engines....also, the rovers blow up surprisingly easily when landing

Edited December 27, 2017 by Earthlinger

[sevenperforce]

1 hour ago, Earthlinger said:

First test flight of the Falcon Heavy didn't go so well lol

  Reveal hidden contents

Everything was going well, until the side boosters were decoupled...

The boosters clip into the center core, knock out the engines, and promptly blow up. I managed to recover one of the boosters in an alternate save, but as you can see above, one of them was beheaded (the probe core is at the top).

I could have made orbit with the Rhino, but there wasn't really any point to it

So now I have two rovers in the middle of the ocean lol

There are several issues I have to fix: the reusability (I'm still super bad at landing the side cores) and that part clipping with the engines....also, the rovers blow up surprisingly easily when landing

If I may -- for help with separation, try either inducing a slight roll right before staging (this will produce a centrifugal effect to nudge the boosters away from the core) or simply add a few Sepratrons.

What's your biggest problem with landing the boosters?

[Piatzin]

Just now, sevenperforce said:

If I may -- for help with separation, try either inducing a slight roll right before staging (this will produce a centrifugal effect to nudge the boosters away from the core) or simply add a few Sepratrons.

Yeah, I already added sepratrons The main problem is the part clipping though. The engines kind of bulge out from under the fuel tanks, so I'll need to do some redesigns

3 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

What's your biggest problem with landing the boosters?

Nothing too bad, it's just tricky.

[sevenperforce]

2 minutes ago, Earthlinger said:

Yeah, I already added sepratrons The main problem is the part clipping though. The engines kind of bulge out from under the fuel tanks, so I'll need to do some redesigns

You've got that Proton look going on.

[Piatzin]

2 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

You've got that Proton look going on.

Yeah, except those didn't have extra boosters on the side

I'll do some redesigns later

[LightBender]

On 12/26/2017 at 8:05 AM, sevenperforce said:

Mechjeb for information is fine, but no use of autopilot.

What about landing autopilot or no?

[sevenperforce]

34 minutes ago, LightBender said:

What about landing autopilot or no?

Nope.

[vyznev]

On 12/26/2017 at 3:05 PM, sevenperforce said:

Purely visual mods (reskins, etc.) are fine.

I assume using DCK for texture tweaks doesn't disqualify me from the Purity score, if I don't use any of the parts it adds?  Because I made this thing:

More pictures.

Other than the texture tweaks, it's all stock, but I just felt that it had to be red. 

Alas, it doesn't quite reach 45 m/s on flat terrain with Kerbals on board. Although technically, you didn't say any Kerbals had to be on board for the test drive. Or that it had to be on flat terrain.

[vyznev]

Also, I have a rules question. (Don't you just love these?)

If I build a reusable upper stage with a shuttle-style cargo bay and recover it, does that qualify me for both Hail Mary and Double Trouble? The reason I ask is because that really seems to me like the easiest way, short of using the unrecoverable stock fairings. Or does the fairing have to be recovered separately?

Oh, and speaking of staging... does Hail Mary require me to recover everything but the Tesla, or is it enough to get to LKO with the recoverable stage and then use a non-recoverable transfer stage to get from LKO to Duna?

Edited December 28, 2017 by vyznev
another question

[sevenperforce]

11 hours ago, vyznev said:

I assume using DCK for texture tweaks doesn't disqualify me from the Purity score, if I don't use any of the parts it adds?  Because I made this thing:

More pictures.

Other than the texture tweaks, it's all stock, but I just felt that it had to be red. 

Alas, it doesn't quite reach 45 m/s on flat terrain with Kerbals on board. Although technically, you didn't say any Kerbals had to be on board for the test drive. Or that it had to be on flat terrain.

Looks fantastic! I agree, it just had to be red. Great job; can't wait to see this baby floating through space.

And to your (implied) question: it doesn't have to have Kerbals on board or be on flat terrain, though it does have to be on terrain of some kind (e.g., no launching it off a cliff to get it up to 45 m/s).

8 hours ago, vyznev said:

Also, I have a rules question. (Don't you just love these?)

If I build a reusable upper stage with a shuttle-style cargo bay and recover it, does that qualify me for both Hail Mary and Double Trouble? The reason I ask is because that really seems to me like the easiest way, short of using the unrecoverable stock fairings. Or does the fairing have to be recovered separately?

I actually do love rules questions, because it reminds me how inventive people can be, and how specific I should be for my next challenge.

Double Trouble was intended to be separate from Hail Mary, but if you want to do them together, go for it. I was primarily thinking of something like what Scott Manley did in his video about the SpaceX fairings, where he built two fairings shells out of structural parts, added thrusters and other recovery hardware inside, then wrapped a stock fairing around them for the actual launch.

8 hours ago, vyznev said:

Oh, and speaking of staging... does Hail Mary require me to recover everything but the Tesla, or is it enough to get to LKO with the recoverable stage and then use a non-recoverable transfer stage to get from LKO to Duna?

You must use a single upper stage to get into a Hohmann Transfer to Duna, and this upper stage must come back to land for Hail Mary. However, you can have a non-recoverable braking and/or landing stage "included" with your payload, if you wish. My recommendation would be to complete the transfer burn using the upper stage, decouple the payload, and then turn around and burn retrograde until you have an eccentric Kerbin orbit. You only need about 130 m/s to drop out of a Duna Hohmann transfer into an eccentric Kerbin orbit, which isn't much fuel at all for an otherwise-empty upper stage.

I tried this with mine and got into a Kerbin orbit with plenty of propellant to spare, but I forgot to put a power source on my upper stage so it ran out of battery almost immediately. Not sure if I could have landed it anyway; it had no heat shield and no chutes.

[LightBender]

21 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

Nope.

Ok crap what about a written KOS script for a Suicide burn?

[sevenperforce]

5 minutes ago, LightBender said:

Ok crap what about a written KOS script for a Suicide burn?

If you can write your own script for it, why not just fly it yourself? You get all the quicksaves and quickloads you want, after all.

[CastleKSide]

KOS allows for greater precision on the inputs. Also, you can do things like load in the equations of when to start the suicide burn etc. Just because I know the math doesn't mean I can to do it on the fly and hit the Z at the precise millisecond. Also if you are doing a droneship landing you can put in the coordinates of the barge and have your booster do corrections far outside of visual contact, again with very high precision. Hence why I really like KOS.

 

(Plus there is something very satisfying in the automation for me)

 

[sevenperforce]

5 hours ago, CastleKSide said:

KOS allows for greater precision on the inputs. Also, you can do things like load in the equations of when to start the suicide burn etc. Just because I know the math doesn't mean I can to do it on the fly and hit the Z at the precise millisecond. Also if you are doing a droneship landing you can put in the coordinates of the barge and have your booster do corrections far outside of visual contact, again with very high precision. Hence why I really like KOS.

 

(Plus there is something very satisfying in the automation for me)

 

KOS is okay if for nothing other than the droneship targeting.

[vyznev]

9 hours ago, CastleKSide said:

KOS allows for greater precision on the inputs. Also, you can do things like load in the equations of when to start the suicide burn etc. Just because I know the math doesn't mean I can to do it on the fly and hit the Z at the precise millisecond. Also if you are doing a droneship landing you can put in the coordinates of the barge and have your booster do corrections far outside of visual contact, again with very high precision. Hence why I really like KOS.

(Plus there is something very satisfying in the automation for me)

I agree, it does seem to fit the spirit of the challenge. Of course, you're free to use KOS in any case, it just costs you 30 points. I'm still considering that, although I might be lazy and just go manual with quicksaves.

I guess if sevenperforce wanted to, they could always make a separate KOS-only division for this challenge. Or maybe add a new achievement, something like "Hands Off (30 points, mutually exclusive with Purity): Write a KOS script to automatically land the recovered boosters without any manual control." Heck, that sounds like a pretty cool thing to do even if it's not an official part of the challenge. 

[macktruck6666]

Hmm... based on the title, i must get the entire falcon heavy to duna....

[sevenperforce]

25 minutes ago, macktruck6666 said:

Hmm... based on the title, i must get the entire falcon heavy to duna....

Now THAT might be tricky.

[LightBender]

On 12/28/2017 at 1:14 PM, sevenperforce said:

If you can write your own script for it, why not just fly it yourself? You get all the quicksaves and quickloads you want, after all.

quick saves oh gooooooooooooddddddddd wait can I land one booster then land the other one on separate saves then go back to the main ship?

 

[sevenperforce]

17 hours ago, LightBender said:

quick saves oh gooooooooooooddddddddd wait can I land one booster then land the other one on separate saves then go back to the main ship?

 

Well, I said I would allow it...but as I showed, it IS possible to do it in one go.

Quicksaves and quickloads are great for suicide burns by hand, if you don't mind spending a little time on it. Quicksave, deploy your airbrakes/drogues, then watch carefully until the accelerometer hits 1 gee (which represents terminal velocity). Make a mental note of altitude, then smash Z. If you hit the ground before reaching zero velocity, then quickload, add about 500 meters to the altitude from before, and smash Z , then repeat. If you hit zero velocity at a substantial height above the ground, then subtract THAT height from the altitude from before, and repeat.

[LightBender]

10 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

Well, I said I would allow it...but as I showed, it IS possible to do it in one go.

Quicksaves and quickloads are great for suicide burns by hand, if you don't mind spending a little time on it. Quicksave, deploy your airbrakes/drogues, then watch carefully until the accelerometer hits 1 gee (which represents terminal velocity). Make a mental note of altitude, then smash Z. If you hit the ground before reaching zero velocity, then quickload, add about 500 meters to the altitude from before, and smash Z , then repeat. If you hit zero velocity at a substantial height above the ground, then subtract THAT height from the altitude from before, and repeat.

too hard separate saves it is...wait can I use drogue chutes for the booster?