Forgot to expand PV panels. Doh!

[bootsam]

Yep, forgot. Now its orbiting Minmus like some derilict husk. Useless. Can an engineer manually extend the panels if I flew a mission to fix it, or should I just use the claw and dock another craft? Ta.

[AHHans]

Ah, yes, been there, done that.

IIRC you don't need an engineer to unfold the solar panels, any Kerbal will do. Get them close enough in EVA and you should be able to unfold them.

Grabbing the craft with a Klaw will also work of course.

[fulgur]

The other thing you should do is to add some surface-mount panels. That way you get an automatic recharge once an orbit, so you are only sometimes a dead hulk.

[bewing]

If you think this is an unfair problem to have, you can also go into the cheat menu, turn on infinite electricity for a second, open a panel, then turn the infinite EC off again.

 

[bootsam]

Thanks all. Whilst i appreciate the option Bewing, a lesson learnt the hard way has always been my way.  Plus it'll be a fun mission. I have a mobile station parked on minmus. I can get a mechanic there in a jiffy. I also have a mission to rescue Job from minmus orbit. So i can easily remedy my stupidity. If only this applied equally to real life eh?  

 

[magnemoe]

 

34 minutes ago, bootsam said:

Thanks all. Whilst i appreciate the option Bewing, a lesson learnt the hard way has always been my way.  Plus it'll be a fun mission. I have a mobile station parked on minmus. I can get a mechanic there in a jiffy. I also have a mission to rescue Job from minmus orbit. So i can easily remedy my stupidity. If only this applied equally to real life eh?  

 

You can combine them. send an unmanned ship, pick up Job, go near the satellite and extend panels then bring him home. 

This reminds me of an rover I sent to Mun for testing. 
as it was an rover it only had solar panels on the upside, it also had an small skycrane with panels on the sides. Problem was that I launched against the full moon with the bottom of rover towards the sun.
So then I arrived at Mun SOI all the panels had been in the shadow and the batteries was flat, it was on an impact trajectory. 

Edited September 13, 2019 by magnemoe

[Curveball Anders]

1 hour ago, fulgur said:

The other thing you should do is to add some surface-mount panels. That way you get an automatic recharge once an orbit, so you are only sometimes a dead hulk.

I have a habit of always add that and some basic antenna(s) just to cover for me being old and forgetful.

 

[AHHans]

2 hours ago, bootsam said:

Plus it'll be a fun mission. I have a mobile station parked on minmus. I can get a mechanic there in a jiffy.

Want to make it more of a challenge? Send only the mechanic, without the station (or any other vessel).
There is more than 500 m/s dV in the jetpacks, so that isn't a problem. The lack of maneuver nodes and other navigation aids is.

 

[bootsam]

Im not brave enough to risk a Kerbal Hans.  Despite rescuing 5 of them yesterday. However, the PV fix went smoothly thanks. I then found another satellite around Kerbal where Id forgotten to do it again after I was asked to realign it. Nuts. So I fixed that too. 

Now to Duna...

[AHHans]

18 minutes ago, bootsam said:

Im not brave enough to risk a Kerbal Hans.

Well, it wasn't that serious a suggestion anyhow.

[AHHans]

To be honest, I hadn't tried that myself until earlier today.

But today I did try that, and it is actually not that hard. You do have the prograde and retrograde markers on the navball, so most of the time you know in which direction you need to burn. And then you need to switch between map view (to see what your orbit looks like) and normal view (to be able to point the Kerbal in the right direction) a lot. (Burn a bit, see if the intercept got better, burn some more, check intercept, etc.)