Tiny Space Program

[Nazalassa]

Science! Mk7 — The other mission (part 2)

Let's hop to the next biome.

⟶

Have you noticed the rover wheel?
Well, remember I took a contract to "test the rovemax-S1 wheel in orbit of Kerbin"... It's done, now that we've researched the wheel.
 

Where are the Green Stones?
 

Right there.
 

Yay Science!
 

Standing on nothing is apparently great fun
 

There's no more Science! to do. Let's leave, then.

Ah, that's the Science! Farm.
 

Hello Mun
 

And then, as the patched conics looked good, I time-warped.

And...

[Nazalassa]

Science! Mk7 — The other mission (part 3)

...and then I noticed there were new messages. And when I read them...

EXCUSE ME ? ?  I was in Kerbin orbit!

I probably didn't study these patched conics enough.

...

BAH! That's more money and more Science!, not a problem (at all).
 

Anyways, back to the Atmosphere.
 

The parachute pops out...
 

... and NO! It rolls downhill!
 

While the thing was rolling, the Science! Farm got some power problems. There were like ten of these.
 

But fortunately, it stopped.
 

And here we are! Science!
 

It's now time to do smaller rockets, and more Science! farms!

[Nazalassa]

Orbiter Mk1

As the "deployed Science!" solar panels (those that power the Science! Farm) are more effective when deployed by a skilled engineer (lvl 1 or higher), and our only engineer Bill is not yet lvl 1, we have to put him in orbit and back so that he will effectively gain a level.

So, a rocket was specially created for this purpose: putting Kerbals in orbit and back.
 

Goodbye boosters
 

Goodbye main stage... The reaction wheel does not like heat.
 

You seem happy, Bill...
Welcome to Orbit!
 

Welcome back to Kerbin
 

Because yes... I forgot the parachute.
But, remember, if there's no solution, there's no problem.
 

The solution is slowing down with the Jetpack (because for some reason the parachute didn't want to deploy).

 

And it worked!
 

Now, let's build a new Science! Farm.

[Nazalassa]

Science! Farm #3

Let's farm seismometers, so that at every crash near the KSC we get Science!

The litte rover arrived at the future Science! Farm location, between the VAB and the Tracking Station.
 

All was placed in this order: Control Station, Solar panels, Seismometers. But for some reason, the Seismometers panels were not connected to the CS. After picking up the CS and placing it again, the Seismometers were connected... But the Solar panels were not.
 

So I manually replaced all. the Solar panels, and everything worked just fine.
The correct order seems to be: experiments, then the CS, then Solar panels.
 

Here we are: the Science! Farm is complete!

Now all we have to do is to farm Science!

[Nazalassa]

Testing the Science! Farm

Let's test it, by crashing stuff into the ground!

This contraption will crash 32 decouplers into the ground, with some horizontal speed.
 

Whooo! 5.51214e-7 Science! points!
Wait, what?

That's nothing. Why is this not working? Why?

If that's because we're on Kerbin, well... Bah, let's forget this and do something else that Science! Farms!

I have two Kerbals stranded near Minmus, let's go rescue them!

(and do Science! of course)

[Nazalassa]

Science! Mk8 — Part 1

Two Kerbals are stranded near Minmus. Let's rescue them!

The Science! Mk8 is a rather tiny rocket, assuming it will go to Minmus and bring back two Kerbals to Kerbin.
 

It uses an hexagonal asperagus staging. The engines are bare Swivels (not sure of the name).
 

Here we deploy the fairing.
 

The solar panels and antennas deploy
 

Stage separation during the transfer to Minmus
 

Minmus encounter
 

Here we go...
 

And, let's not forget the Science!

[Nazalassa]

Science! Mk8 — Part 2

 

We are now in Minmus orbit!

Spoiler

Do you see the little shroud between the Raft and the lander? (just between the RW and the separator)

Well, it's in fact three "0.625" flags attached to the separator, and slightly offsetted so that there's no gap between them. The flag file is (click on it) <link-removed>  and should be placed in Gamedata/Squad/Flags .

Let's leave the Raft in high orbit
 

And rescue one of the Kerbals stranded in orbit.
 

We approach
 

We're right next to it... Ah, it's a Mk1 cockpit.
 

Here goes the Kerbal
 

Allright, she's on the seat.
It's all dark...
 

Let's rescue Verdo, who is stranded on the surface.

Yes, for some reason the icon for the ship is a rover. Don't ask.

Edited March 7, 2024 by Nazalassa
Link removed

[Nazalassa]

Science! Mk8 — Part 3

 

Going down to the surface of Minmus. Again, in the dark.
 

... and we're landed about 7 km away from the stranded Kerbal. We have to hop.
 

Hopping on Minmus
 

Here we go
 

And the little stranded Kerbal comes to the ship!
Now all we need to do is to bring back alive on Kerbin.
 

Back to orbit
 

Getting near the Raft
 

All nominal. The ship was close to not having any fuel left

 

Edited August 19, 2022 by Nazalassa

[Nazalassa]

Science! Mk8 — Part 4

 

Transfering the crew to the Raft
 

Done!
 

Now we have some time for some contracts before it's time to do any maneuver (let's wait Periapsis)

Let's see...

"Do a simple scan on a baobab tree"

[Nazalassa]

Scanning Rover Mk1

Let's scan a baobab tree.

Introducing the Scanning Rover Mk1. It can perform a simple scan on a baobab tree.
 

Vrooom
 

Where's the baobab?
 

Oh, just here!
 

Analysis done. I then placed a waypoint so that, if I have to go to a baobab tree later, I'll not search for hours.
 

Oh look! A "science data from" contract!
That's the kind of contract I do between missions (or parts of a mission) but don't take screenshots of.
Now you'll see how I proceed.

 

I already have a probe on Minmus which can do Science! (the Science! Mk5)
 

Contract, done! 68,405 for free.

Wait, it's maneuver time for the Raft!

Edited August 19, 2022 by Nazalassa
fixed image

[Nazalassa]

Science! Mk8 — Part 5

Back to the Raft in Kerbin orbit.

As we come back, the Science! Farm shows signs of activity.
 

The small burn sets us in an intercept trajectory with Minmus, followed by a Periapsis around Mun orbit.

Let's wait until the Minmus encounter... What are the contracts in Mission Control?

"Detect three comets with a Sentinel telescope."

[Nazalassa]

Science! Mk6B

To put a playload as heavy as a sentinel infrared telescope on an escape trajectory from Kerbin, I had to modify the Science! Mk6. By modified, I mean...
Moar Boosters!!

(and a fairing)

Let's go!
 

It was surprisingly stable.
 

After the main booster went out of fuel, the side engines (SRB and sparks) activated.
 

And the fairing went off.
 

Everything deployed after the separation from the main engine.
 

Here we go...

Now we just have to wait.
And the risky maneuvers of the Raft will surely take a lot of time.
 

Now, a few words about the Raft:

When I first designed the Science! Mk8, I started by the Minmus lander that would go down and take the Kerbals, then bring them to a "reentry pod". I started with a heat shield, then an Oscar-B fuel tank, two batteries (200 EC), an OKTO-2, two solar panels, a RW, a parachute, and 4 ant engines. Then I added the seats and an antenna.
That's all!

[Nazalassa]

Science! Mk8 — Part 6

Back to the Rast's risky maneuvers.

Using maneuvers we have a pretty good orbit (periapsis of only 75 km!)
 

Hello Kerbin
 

And then I lowered the Periapsis (55 km is a good value for aerobraking, no? Perhaps too high.)
 

The Raft now enters the atmosphere of Kerbin after 141 days in space.
 

... and this happened.
Two seconds later, the two Kerbals exploded due to overheat.

What happened? What's the problem with my design? I mean, it had a heat shield, no?

Well, the problem is that (after some investigation) the heat shield is like two centimeters too small to protect the seats completely, causing a small part of the Kerbals to be exposed to extreme heat (more that they can support) and explode (yes, Kerbals explode). The problem can be solved by slightly offsetting the seats towards the center of the Raft (which was done on the version uploaded on Kerbalx), but the two Kerbals were a Pilot and a Scientist; therefore, I couldn't move the seats before the Raft enters the atmosphere, except if I sent either another vessel or an Engineer, however both were too expensive, time-consuming and (or) slow to be done. We'll have to do with the risky design, and therefore carefully plan our reentry.

Fortunately, there is F9 !

Well, the latest save was two minutes before the deadly reentry. Ah, one problem too: there was no EC in the Raft. Impossible to maintain the vessel in the right orientation! Plus, it was in the shadow of Kerbin.

I need an idea, quick!

[Nazalassa]

Science! Mk8 — Part 7

The idea: in the Tracking Station, when you time-warp, ships are unaffected by any atmosphere, except if they are under a certain limit, which is about 25-30 km for Kerbin, in which case they are simply destroyed. But the Periapsis of the Raft was 55 km, so by time-warping, it was actually possible to make it go through the atmosphere without changing its trajectory nor affecting it with drag, heat, or any king of aerodynamics. That's what I did and, well... It worked!

Now, the only thing to do is to give it EC. That's simple: a Kerbal gets out of his seat and pushes the craft so that it rotates. After that, it was full of EC!

Time to readjust the PE and save, and we'll try another way to aerobreak.

(sorry for the long text, I had no screenshots and needed to explain that)
 

 

(lowering the PE)
Ah, the comet contract is done.
 

Gently...

 

(more text incoming...)

I made about 20 passes with a PE at about 65 to 63 km. Each pass removed about 30 to 40 m/s to the ship. After the 20th (or so) pass began the real reentry, and the Kerbals quickly overheated — and exploded. F9 brought me back to just after the 15th pass or so, and I made two other tries with the same method. More barbecues.

And then I reloaded the 15th pass and waited until the PE was at 63.5 km. Then, I went to AP and thrusted prograde to raise it at about 65 km, giving me two more passes (21 to be exact). It, well, kinda worked... But the Kerbals exploded.

I tried the exact same method another time, and this time... it... it worked!

YAY!

(one of the forty or so passes I've made)
 

The reentry... Do you see how red the Kerbal's helmets are? They nearly died this time...
 

But finally, in the Great Crater (or somewhere near it)...
 

They splashed down. Oops! The Raft, despite its name, does not float. I could recover it before it went down all the way to the sea bed...
 

And there was Science!, Reputation, Funds!
 

And finally... Here's the Minmus lander, still around Minmus.

Well, what an eventful return! The Science! Mk8 was modified to solve the "barbecue problem".

Let's see, any good contracts?

"Do a complex scan on a baobab tree."

 

 

(P.S when I say "full of EC", I mean "full of EC thanks to the little solar panels

 

Edited August 19, 2022 by Nazalassa
weird images

[Nazalassa]

Scanning Rover Mk2

The Scanning Rover Mk2 is exactly like the Scanning Rover Mk1, except that the scanning stuff can perform a complex scan (66.6666...%) instead of a simple scan (33.3333...%).

Of course, the scanning arm is bigger.
 

As I left a waypoint near the baobab the last scanning mission, I just have to activate navigation to this waypoint. I'll find the baobab in no time!
 

(glitched camera)
 

On the map: almost there!
 

Baobab spotted
 

Scanning: contract complete!

Allright! I still have four Kerbals stranded in either Kerbin or Minmus orbit. Let's rescue them!

[Nazalassa]

Science! Mk8 — Second mission (part 1)

Let's rescue two of the Kerbals in Kerbin orbit.

Here we go... This is a Science! Mk8. The seat poblem has been fixed (I hope it'll work)
 

Orbital burn
 

After some maneuvers, we get a close encounter!
 

Target spotted
 

As the ship gets near the pod, we transfer the Kerbal.
 

And done!

[Nazalassa]

Science! Mk8 — Second mission (part 2)

 

Second rescue encounter
 

Target spotted
 

OK Langer, please go out and hit "RCS"!
 

The two Kerbals are in the ship, now let's use the Raft to go down.

Spoiler

Unfortunately, when the Raft decoupled from the other part of the ship, the Kerbals got ejected. I had to put them back in their seats.

Burning retrograde. Note that the antenna is going to be retracted (aero forces).

Spoiler

This time, as the seats were moved towards the center (therefore more protected) I tried a more "direct" reentry. This is try 2. Fortunately, the third try worked well, but that was close! What follows is try three.

The reentry went fairly well and the Raft landed intact, with its crew intact.

That's it! two more Kerbals rescued.

[Nazalassa]

Science! Mk8 — Second mission (part 3)

The "lander" from the mission is still in Kerbin orbit. Can't we use it for something?

Let's use it to group the remaining two stranded Kerbals!
 

Hello pod
 

And we have Tifel!
 

Now, the other one is around Minmus.
 

Here we go
 

Here we are!
 

Both Kerbals are grouped!
 

No let's wait for the next ship to pass here in high orbit. Well done!

[Nazalassa]

Karganien Mk1 — Tests

 

Some new contracts... Comet finding and Science! deploying.

Let's try to make a SSTO!
 

Here are the crew cabins.
 

And here's the finished thing! It doesn't fly well.
 

Exactly what we need!
 

Here's the new crew cabin.
(economy class!)
 

It flies well! However, the intakes we have aren't optimized for supersonic flight, and the craft didn't went faster that 290 m/s. That's not good for a SSTO!
 

It's still cool
 

Now we need that intake. And to get it we need Science!

Let's fly the Science! Mk7 to Minmus to get some and complete some contracts!

[Nazalassa]

Science! Mk7 — Yet another mission (part 1)

The rocker is a slightly modified Science! Mk7, which has a seismometers an three Kerbals (instead of two). Each Kerbal has one of the three components of a deployed Science! cluster (control station, solar panel, experiment) so that one more contract will be completed. They have no Jetpack...

Launch, etc. We're in a "waiting orbit". I actually got some problems with the maneuver node and the patched conics, so I relunched the mission (this is the second launch).
 

A little adjustment to get an encounter...
 

Here we are!
 

After the capture burn, Val tries to aim for that purple waypoint. It was placed during one of the Science Mk8 missions with Kerbnet, as Kerbnet said that "here it's a flats biome", and we haven't done Science! in that biome yet.
 

That's flat.
 

Everyone's looking around in the pod... Hey everyone! Look at the instruments and the controls instead!
 

Science! from Mintmus' Flats after the landing.

I used to go back to the pod with the Jetpack after an EVA with the Science! Mk8, but the Kerbals have no Jetpacks.
 

Fortunately, this works!
 

And the Science! is deployed for the contract.

Good job everyone!

[Nazalassa]

Science! Mk7 — Yet another mission (part 2)

Still on Mintmus.

Hopping to another biome (I hope it won't be Minmus' Lowlands)
 

OK, it was! Back to Kerbin, as I already made Science! in Minmus' Lowlands.
 

Some maneuvers
 

Hello Mun!
 

Here we go, let's aerobrake!
 

Using the remaining fuel
 

That thing's better at reentry than the Raft from Science! mk8!
 

Then it landed in the mountains, and started rolling downhill, and then exploded. F9 !
 

This time I've aimed better: the Ocean is flatter than anything else.
 

Let's not forget the Science!
 

Yay! More Science! for the Karganien Mk1's better intakes!

Let's add those better intakes and see how far it can fly.

[Nazalassa]

Karganien Mk1 (again)

 

Here we go: supersonic intake!
 

Doesn't go fast enough
 

Now with two engines!
 

Here at max speed and altitude. That's better, but still not enough for a SSTO.

BAH!

Let's do something else, we have a Science! Farm, if we wait long enough we'll have enough Science! to get the next node with better engines.
Wait, we still have our two Kerbals waiting in high Minmus orbit... Let's send some rescue!

[Nazalassa]

Science! Mk8 — Yet another mission (part 1)

 

Normal rocket launch, etc.
 

Orbital insertion burn
 

Minmus transfer maneuver
 

Arriving at Minmus (for some reason the game completely messes with the patched conics during time warp)
 

Intersect
 

Target spotted!
 

And I decoupled the Raft before putting Kerbals in it (last time I decoupled it after and the Kerbals were somehow projected away from the Raft)...
I then thrusted Retrograde (relative to target), which was the direction in which the Raft went after being decoupled... Screenshot taken just after the Raft destroyed half the solar panels at 8 m/s... Wow. Imagine peacefully maneuvering when, zoom! something passes just next to you and destroys half your solar panels.
 

Anyways, Tifel and Lanler has been transfered to the new Science! Mk8.

Time to catch the Raft!

[Nazalassa]

Science! Mk8 — Yet another mission (part 2)

*catching the Raft in high Minmus orbit*

Here we go
 

Say goodbye to the little ship!
 

Setting some maneuvers...
 

...wait, what?
AH! That's the Science! Mk6B, remember it? While it was still under control, I put in on an encounter with Duna. It arrives now!
 

So that's Duna... Man, that's so red!
 

Anyways, back to the Raft. This time I had to make 24 passes in high atmosphere. It seems that the Kerbals overheat due to heat transmission between the heat shield and the seats. Then, I quicksaved.
25th pass is the final. In the first and the second try the Kerbals blew up; this is the third:
 

My, this is hot.
 

But finally...

We landed in the mountains!

Well, the mission's finished. Now, we can fly the Science! Mk7 to Mun, for even more Science!

[Nazalassa]

Science! Mk7 — 4th flight (part 1)

Let's go to Mun to get some Science!

Normal launch, etc.
 

Mun maneuver
 

Arriving at Mun: this time, Val decided to do a Suicide burn.
 

...and we're landed. Don't forget we've come here for Science!
 

Bob having fun with a Mun Stone.
 

Look at all the Science!

This mission has not much screenshots, by the way.