Kerbin - Mun fuel station mission. Establishing K.G.01 and K.G.02

[Sylvi Fisthaug]

4 hours ago, BechMeister said:

Yeah I have gotten so good at manouvering with the RCS that my tugs could probably  do without the internal module fuel...

My docking skills have clearly increased after I started to build space stations! 

4 hours ago, BechMeister said:

YES! cant wait - im going to replace the wings on my 1st stage with 2 sets of gridfins

I'm really excited to see if they are in the update today!! 

[BechMeister]

Alas @Sylvi Fisthaug - No grid fins with this update... How ever we did get this:



And the timing could not be better.. You see.. K.G.01 "broke" again... The docking tower with the Mun to Kerbin vehicles and escape gliders has warped now.


They are sitting permanent at an off angle now. at least 3 docking ports have shiftet some how:

Here you can see one of the micro docking ports has been pulled out from the socket, and the other one has shiftet inwards a bit.

Also the docking port - with which the part is connected to has also shifted a bit. 

This means that now I do not only need to replace the docking arms for fuel tanks - I need to get a new docking tower up... and liaison with that - I'm going to redesign my gliders with the micro port and the space plane to take the new MK2 clamp-0-tron. I will then design a new docking port taking medium port - and remove the tower all together. 

1 step ahead 2 steps back. - at least K.G.02 is pretty far a long and with no major incidents since the part with the wrong facing docking port. - and as of now K.G.01 has double the frames (but only the 4 monopropellant tanks are installed.)

The goal is within sight - I will not falter now!

Stay tuned in for more

[Sylvi Fisthaug]

7 hours ago, BechMeister said:

And the timing could not be better.. You see.. K.G.01 "broke" again... The docking tower with the Mun to Kerbin vehicles and escape gliders has warped now.

So the warping issue depends on your saves. If you save the game when the station is "bent" due to SAS oscillation, loading that save renders the station permanently "bent". 
This was an issue in KSP1 as well. 

[BechMeister]

/////////////////////MISSION UPDATE\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
- Fixing all the problems v.0.1.3. brought with it -

  

On 6/24/2023 at 1:05 AM, Sylvi Fisthaug said:

So the warping issue depends on your saves. If you save the game when the station is "bent" due to SAS oscillation, loading that save renders the station permanently "bent". 

OMG! - Thats so annoying... I am not a programmer, so I cannot say if this is easy or not. But why does the parts not know their default angle of attachment and just refere to that? (I guess the issue then is you would not be able to put things on at an off angle... Oh well. IT explains a lot.. But - How do I then fix it when the station violently starts vibrating itself a part? - I have always quick saved - quick loaded to make it stop oscillate.

Any way. I have made a new docking port with 3 docking options (albeit 1 is probably only possible for a very small craft - otherwise it will collide with the main structure. It looks like this:

the outmost docking port will be the permanent docking ports for the escape shuttle - the two round ports will be for the M-L.E.O.s and maybe the drone - or other vehicles.

Speaking of the glider - this is the new conversion:

I really like the new medium docking port they made.. but I think they have done an error by putting two cosmetic tanks into it. Its a lot of space I could have put fuel and other stuff into. So I decided to put a MK2 small docking port and throw a Battery It may be a bit silly that it has a docking port within a docking port. But the fact that it pops out means it can be inside the Mk2 small docking port on a cylinder. 

I also decided to remove the extendable solar panels and replace them with 2 small solar panels - Im pretty sure they kan keep it going? But im going on a hunch rather than any math...  Also after flight testing it - I decided to remove the parachutes.. It may be in a sticky situation if it has to land in a mountain or water.. but yeah. Crew will have to deal with that I guess x)

So overall the vehicle kept its dimensions while becoming less parts and less drag.

Edited August 18, 2023 by BechMeister

[BechMeister]

/////////// MISSION ON HALT\\\\\\\\\\

The current build of the game breaks everything.

I was docking my Tug to this port when it just scoped it up and moved it in the second or two it takes for it to register that it has docked - and now its stuck at a permanent off angle. It is the 3rd part that has broken on me since yesterday's launch of the patch. Its the 3rd arm I am putting up...

One of my fuel tanks also just decided to fall a part. 

Fuel tank just disassembling.

And OMG - Look at this? The collision detection is total bonkers - My tug drone can fly right through the station and just throw the bits around as if they were not stuck together... I will definitely have to halt all station building until this has been resolved: Video for reference

 

 

Right now I dont want any more things to break. - so I am taking a break from KSP2. Maybe I'll make a new campaign and just experiment with other things. - Maybe Ill start visit the other bodies... We'll see.
 

Bug Report submittet:

 

Edited June 24, 2023 by BechMeister

[Sylvi Fisthaug]

9 hours ago, BechMeister said:

And OMG - Look at this? The collision detection is total bonkers - My tug drone can fly right through the station and just throw the bits around as if they were not stuck together... I will definitely have to halt all station building until this has been resolved: Video for reference

Do you play without the glorious music?? 

9 hours ago, BechMeister said:

Right now I dont want any more things to break. - so I am taking a break from KSP2. Maybe I'll make a new campaign and just experiment with other things. - Maybe Ill start visit the other bodies... We'll see.

Oh I will definitely keep my hands of my stations into a potential hotfix is released. 

[BechMeister]

7 hours ago, Sylvi Fisthaug said:

Do you play without the glorious music?? 

I usually play without sound actually - Because I will not play very "active" - A lot of the time I will just be having the game running on "idle" while I talk with the kids, do other things etc. waiting between maneuvers. Also there was a point were I was listening to my own playlists while playing... and I just didn't turn it on again since x) 

 

7 hours ago, Sylvi Fisthaug said:

Oh I will definitely keep my hands of my stations into a potential hotfix is released. 

I would advice this yes

[BechMeister]

////////////////////Mission Update\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

New docking arms being installed on K.G.01

Foreword:

So.. I could not, not build on K.G.01 - after a few days the itch was to much. I thought "If i was just really careful with my docking - it would not break things. So far so good... but man I am finding a lot of bugs right now.

Mission Tasks:

A. Undock the broken parts on K.G.01 and de-orbit them

B. Fly up new docking arms to K.G.01

C. De-orbit the broken docking tower.

D. Land the crew so they are out of harms way in terms of bugs.

 

Lessons Learned; Lessons Identified:

A.

K.G.01 says goodbye to the docking arms and hydrogen tanks with the broken hydrogen tank - The Tug drone is saving the 4 monopropellant tanks. still in v.0.1.2

With the docking ports on K.G.01 I only had 8 ports to save parts from - 2 of which would hold the 2 new docking arms. I remembered that it had been quite a hassle to get the monopropellant tanks up, and decided I wanted to save those. The Methalox tanks are very aerodynamic and easy to get up for that reason. + they would all be full if i just flew them up again. So I decided to save those. - this was before v.0.1.3 where you did not have to be super careful not to break things.

B.

New Docking arm arrived at K.G.01

I had a bit of trouble flying up the new docking arms since v0.1.3. - The monopropellant tanks I saved would just start falling a part when undocked. Docking ports would be "scouped up" like a ice spoon making ice balls in the second it takes to dock and then leave the port stuck in that angle. That was the lesser evil though.. as the docking sequence would stop the station just falling a part - as shown in an earlier post.

 

Both of the new docking assembly in place.

C. 

The docking tower - stop-gap  docking tower with old solar panels and COMs towers  and old monopropellant tanks ready to de-orbit.

Since the v.0.1.3. demands high presession when docking for things not to break, I decided to de-orbit the old tanks. They did not have their own RCS thrusters. Which means they are very cumbersome to move around. Since the center of mass is in front of the RCS thrusters... Its like moving a really heavy shopping cart. 

With the new fuel tank combination I wont be needing the stop-gap extra docking array and i figured i could save on the parts counter by de-orbitting it. It will probably even out in the end any way - since the new docking port has more parts 

De-orbit was fairly straight forward. I used the two main engines from the new fully crewed escape shuttles - This gave an opportunity to test de-orbit and landing on terrain that isn't a nice runway, - I decided to de-orbit the MLEOs as well - I want to try make them shorter to make them easier to dock - I like the open converter from large part to medium - but it gives quite a bit of extra length. So I decided to de-orbit those as well.

Detailed Mission Walkthrough in spoiler section

Spoiler

Lining up the stop-gap  docking tower with coms tower to the broken docking tower.

As you can see its a tight fit. But it went smooth even with v.0.1.3.s wobbly local prograde 

The two main engines for the escape shuttles easily de-orbited the tower.

After the warped docking tower and stop-gab docking array had been put on a sub-orbital path it was just a question of undocking the two shuttles and get them into a stable orbit again so I could land one at the time.

This is when I ran into my second disintegrating bug. Apparently if you undock vehicles while on pause - when you unpause the vehicle will just fall a part as seen here:

But besides that - there were no real issues to the procedure.

D.

Escape shuttle 01 doing final maneuvers to find a suitable spot to touch down. - the new cloud shadows looks so good.

The shuttles are very easy to control the decent on - I really enjoy flying them. How ever landing both vehicles made me run into a 3rd vehicle breaking bug. For some reason when I had successfully landed 1 vehicle and I loaded the other, it would look like this:

I decided to investigate - which can be seen here:

After figuring the best way to avoid this issue - which to me turned out to be quick save/quick load after each step.

I tested landing in different terrain:  Desert, meadow/forest, beach and in water!

The water landing is the most tricky. I successfully landed it in water at 40 m/s  - I was just about to re-introduce the parachutes on the new model because a water landing seemed to be impossible without a catastrophic loss of vehicle and crew. I may still put them back... As there is a lot of water around. 

I may also add some landing lamps because a night landing is impossible with instrument only - at least the one time i attempted it the vehicle blew up on contact.. And I dont know why since I could not see the terrain.

Detailed Mission Walkthrough in spoilers:

Spoiler

escape shuttle 01 breaking to find a good landing spot in the desert.

final approach - landing on a nice lane between the dunes.

landing flare right before deploying the gear.  

after a few bounces it was a successful landing. Pretty impressive considering I dont think a plane will land well in lose sand IRL x)

 

Moving forward will be re-installing the fuel tanks and then the docking towers. - possible a coms section too We'll see. 

Stay tuned for more!

Edited July 1, 2023 by BechMeister

[Sylvi Fisthaug]

9 hours ago, BechMeister said:

final approach - landing on a nice lane between the dunes.

landing flare right before deploying the gear.  

after a few bounces it was a successful landing. Pretty impressive considering I dont think a plane will land well in lose sand IRL x)

Holy, I need to explore Kerbin more! 

Glad that you couldn't get that scratch out of your fingers, and started building again! Maybe I should try the same, but after my Apollo style lander refused to dock after rendezvousing with my orbiter I am scared to touch my stations... maybe one day! 

[BechMeister]

/////////////////////MISSION UPDATE\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

K.G.01 in LKO with 4/8 Methalox tanks, 4/4 Hydrogen tanks  and 1/4 monopropellant tanks installed - saying goodbye to heavy prototype lift vehicle.

Mission Tasks:

A. Install Hydrogen tanks. - Success

B. Install Methalox tanks. - Halted.

C. Correct inclination error. - Halted.

 

Lessons Learned; Lessons Identified:

A. 

Heavy Lift Prototype Vehicle arriving at K.G.01 with a 20t Hydrogen tank.

I figured the prototype heavy lift vehicle being able to get the empty hydrogen tanks to K.G02 could maybe get the fuel tanks to K.G.01 in a full state and they could. - Its was funny to see the first stage burning all the fuel in atmosphere, were it normally have 1200 Δv outside the atmosphere... But it got the job done.

It may be time to sit down and tweak this lift vehicle so its better... Its stable enough to get things into LKO and to the Mun - but it always seems something breaks on it because of when it has to separate the cargo. So I need to fix it before I will stop calling it a prototype. I have used it beyond the stop gap measure it was designed to fill... So it is probably time to fix the mistakes - make it better with the RCS thrusters etc. x)

Installment went fine - although the launch vehicle was very sluggish because of the heavy cargo. Also I had to limit the engine to no more than 85% power because it would not hold its course. What can cause a rocket to start flipping around from the power from their engine? - Its the first time I've seen it happen and I wonder if its a bug.

Installing the last fuel tank to K.G.01 with Kerbol as the backdrop.

B. 

The Instalment of the methalox tanks went very well - the tanks and lift vehicle for the tanks is very well developed at this moment. I decided to install the new protected docking port to the cargo tank... completing the look of it more. It fits well with the drone as well:

2nd stage lift vehicle with methalox tank doing hand-over take-over with the medium drone. You can see the docking port not conflicting with the drone.

Here with a side view - I also added a Yellow stribe to the top and button as a aiming marker for installing them.

Here 3/4 current installed tanks are docked to K.G.01.

I installed one more tank before I discovered that my drone had warped too - not much but a little... and the perfectionist in me tried to shrug it off.. but I couldn't - So I halted the mission here because I needed to get a new drone up... but also... I have decided to get a new superstructure to K.G.01 up. The super structure has warped too... Getting a new one up also means I can add a medium port to the button and add a docking tower similar to the one on K.G.02 - Which fit the bigger tanks better.

See spoiler section for warped parts and launch of new super structure:

Spoiler

it's very slight - but the port is slightly off. Its interesting, because I have noticed that one of the drones always had some issues with alignment. I figured its because of the misalignment of the port.

The warped top port on K.G.01 

The warped buttom docking port.

The new super structure just had stage separation with 1st stageand dropped the farings. 

 

 

 

 

 

New superstructure and drone enroute to K.G.01

 A side view of the new superstructure with drone. - It's a bit dark... I'll upload a better picture In next update - For now you will just have to enjoy that gradient from the horizon and the edge light.

 

 

Moving Forward:

So - Yesterday evening I decided to try dock the arms from the old super structure directly to the new one with tanks and all. How ever.. It was too cumbersome to get it aligned propper with the center of mass being off and all. To much for my medium tug drone - probably also to much to ask of it 

So... I decided to undock all the fuel tanks - move the docking arm first for a precise fit and then pick up the floating tanks. Buuut the "everything falls a part" bug struck again. I have a theory... It seems to strike when you have more than 2 vehicles next to each other and you swap between them more than once.

So new plan is to: Move all fuel tanks from one side to the other. Then move the docking arm to the new structure. then Move all tanks to the newly installed arm and so forth. All the wile making sure the bug does not strike. 

which is going to take a while... So it will be in the next update.

Edited July 8, 2023 by BechMeister

[Sylvi Fisthaug]

On 7/8/2023 at 8:16 AM, BechMeister said:

So I need to fix it before I will stop calling it a prototype. I have used it beyond the stop gap measure it was designed to fill... So it is probably time to fix the mistakes - make it better with the RCS thrusters etc. x)

Installment went fine - although the launch vehicle was very sluggish because of the heavy cargo.

Use the methalox RCS thrusters! They are GREAT. 

On 7/8/2023 at 8:16 AM, BechMeister said:

What can cause a rocket to start flipping around from the power from their engine? - Its the first time I've seen it happen and I wonder if its a bug.

sometimes it's a bug, but it could be that you have some error in the horizontal placement of the Center of Mass. Not expecting you to make this error though, lol

On 7/8/2023 at 8:16 AM, BechMeister said:

did you ditch the crew module?

On 7/8/2023 at 8:16 AM, BechMeister said:

I have a theory... It seems to strike when you have more than 2 vehicles next to each other and you swap between them more than once.

Post this in the bug report! Anth made one that collects all the posted report threads into one report. And upvote it lol, so it gets prioritized.

[BechMeister]

11 hours ago, Sylvi Fisthaug said:

Post this in the bug report! Anth made one that collects all the posted report threads into one report. And upvote it lol, so it gets prioritized.

I told a guy called Anth12 who is hunting the bug. He said its not it as he can get the bug to happen with a single craft... So the hunt for the cause continues x)

11 hours ago, Sylvi Fisthaug said:

did you ditch the crew module?

not yet.. Its the next thing. Next time I sit down and play I will:

1. Move all fuel tanks currently on K.G.01 to one side.
2. Move one docking arm from K.G.01 to the new super structure.
3. Move all fuel tanks from K.G.01 to the now empty docking arm on the new superstructure.
4. Move the other docking arm to the new super structure. 
5. de-orbit the old.

It's just very tedious... So I have not looked into getting it done yet xD

11 hours ago, Sylvi Fisthaug said:

Use the methalox RCS thrusters! They are GREAT. 

Hmmm maybe - I dont think I need it though.. I just need to balance the RCS thrusters so they are placed correctly in relation to center of mass

[Sylvi Fisthaug]

4 hours ago, BechMeister said:

I told a guy called Anth12 who is hunting the bug.

Oh Anth12, the bug hunter! He is well known within the Discord  

4 hours ago, BechMeister said:

It's just very tedious... So I have not looked into getting it done yet xD

Ough, I'd never do that lol, don't have the patience for tedious tasks  

4 hours ago, BechMeister said:

Hmmm maybe - I dont think I need it though.. I just need to balance the RCS thrusters so they are placed correctly in relation to center of mass

moooooar thruust! I've had success with placing some thrusters at the end of long payloads too, but... aesthetics  

[BechMeister]

////////////////////MISSION UPDATE\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

K.G.01v2 With the new crew module.

Foreword:

Hello all! Hope you had a wonderful summerbreak - I had.

Fully recharged I was ready to return to KSP2 and finish the repairing of K.G.01. - A very tedious task indeed.

Mission Objectives:

A. Installing  docking arms and fuel tanks to K.G.01v2 superstructure - Success

B.  Deorbit old K.G.01 superstructure - Success.

 

Lessons Learned; Lessons Identified:

A.

Tug drone installing all tanks on one side of K.G.01 freeing up  the other for moving.

This was a rather tedious part. It involved a lot of moving parts back and forth. But I quickly discovered it was impossible to move the arm with all fuel tanks on if there should be some sort of precision on installing them to the new tower with the correct rotation. 

The local prograde in target mode has been very unstable since patch v0.1.3.  And i've had a lot of trouble parking vehicles next to each other with 0 relative speed. I therefor quickly decided to connect the two superstructures while moving fuel tanks from one to the other etc. One of my tug drones also broke, in the sense that the primary docking port didn't work, meaning I could only tug things on the dayside as I had to use the rear port - justifying its placement but also meaning the lights were facing backwards. I used the faulty drone until I found a faulty fuel tank where the docking port also didn't work. I jettisoned both and destroyed them with my "god powers" instead of deorbiting them.  

I wrote about the bug here:

Then I flew up a new drone together with a new fuel tank. I have simplified the drone a bit. Reducing the number of RCS thrusters to just 4 with the 4 directions. After that installation when relative smooth.

 

Detailed Walkthrough can be found in spoiler section bellow:

Spoiler

K.G.01v2 arrived at K.G.01

Docking arm being installed on K.G.01v2

Docking arm installed. The yellow bands really help for precise orientation.

After not being able to keep the two superstructures parked next to each other without drifting. I decided to dock the two superstructures. The tug drones RCS thrusters meant that the craft was pretty well balanced even with the docking arm skewing mass of center.

Here the two stations are now connected. Making it a lot easier to moving Fuel Tanks from K.G.01 to K.G.01v2 - freeing up the second arm to be moved and installed. I imagine Valentina spending the time moving mission critical equipment and notes from one station to the other.

Movement of the fuel tanks.

And K.G.01v2 fully installed and separated from old K.G.01 superstructure.

I am not sure I like solar panel placement.. but I'll have to live with it. I think K.G.01 was more balanced in its look. The bigger docking tower makes the large hydrogen tank look proportionally better. but the methalox tanks looks worse in my opinion. 

B. 

2nd stage de-orbiting old superstructure

This part was pretty straightforward - Disconnect the two stations. I decided to de-orbit the last of the first gen monopropellant tanks  - Which were lacking RCS thrusters, making them difficult to steer with the tug - as the 2nd stage had a medium docking port, and the broken K.G.01 superstructure had small at the top and button. The Fuel tank having a medium and small port made the connection easier. 

So that was it. There are now no parts from the original K.G.01 attached to the station.. what ever is left lies at the button of the ocean.

 

Moving Forward:

Next step will be installing new monopropellant tanks and the last 4 Methalox tanks - making the stations mass distribution better and allowing it to be burned into a 0° inclination to Kerbin and 100km x 100km orbit.

After that its time to fix the refueling glider and getting the Tug drone the last way to K.G.01 to pick up 4 new methalox tanks and finnish the methalox instillation of K.G.02

Edited August 7, 2023 by BechMeister
premature posting.

[Astroneer08]

You should put your SSTO and tug drones on the Spacecraft Exchange, I'm sure people would love them!

[BechMeister]

17 hours ago, Astroneer08 said:

You should put your SSTO and tug drones on the Spacecraft Exchange, I'm sure people would love them!

The tug is in the craft file for the whole station though. I have not used the SSTO since I decided to use a 2 stage system with a falcon-esque 1st stage and a glider second stage.

 

Sadly neither has worked since v0.1.3 because they changed the aerodynamics - and i have not come to the point were i would fix them as I have been busy fighting all the v0.1.3 related bugs and fix K.G.01 xD.

 

But! I could totally make a craft file for all the tugs. They are quite refined by now. I just need to figure out how I export them

Edited August 10, 2023 by BechMeister

[Sylvi Fisthaug]

On 8/10/2023 at 4:59 PM, BechMeister said:

But! I could totally make a craft file for all the tugs. They are quite refined by now. I just need to figure out how I export them

You actually just copy them from the VAB with ctrl+C and paste them into the upload section on https://kspbuilds.com/! 

Then you can link your page to the spacecraft exchange subforums  

[BechMeister]

12 hours ago, Sylvi Fisthaug said:

You actually just copy them from the VAB with ctrl+C and paste them into the upload section on https://kspbuilds.com/! 

Then you can link your page to the spacecraft exchange subforums  

Ah great, I was wondering how you actually upload them as there is not an upload function to the forum  but now i know thx 

[BechMeister]

/////////////////////MISSION UPDATE\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

K.G.01 assembled with all the fuel and burning back to a 100kmx100km orbit.

Mission Tasks:

A. Install the new monopropellant tanks.

B. Install all the methalox tanks 

C. Burn the station into a 0° inclination and back to a stable ~100km x ~100km orbit

Lessons Learned; Lessons Identified:

A. 

The Vehicle system that moved parts to K.G.01 enroute to K.G.01 with a heavy load.

The vehicles I used to build K.G.02 was sufficient to move up 3 fuel tanks to K.G.01 although with a pretty tight Δv margin. Cant blame it though, 3 monopropellant tanks were something like 36t total - so it was fair it was "struggling" a bit. 

I made a brainfart though - K.G.02 is a 3 tank configuration, but K.G.01 is a 4 tank. So I had to figure out when to ship up the last tank - but on the last fuel tank the clamp-o-tron was bugged and I could not dock the tug to it... Which turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I just flew up another load with only 2 tanks, which was a lot more manageable for the delivery vehicle. Now that it only had to move 24t.

See detailed report in Spoiler Section:

Spoiler

The 2nd stage arrive at K.G.01 with the 2 working monopropellant tanks and the faulty one. The two tanks were installed with no incidents and subsequently deorbited and burned up with the faulty tank.

Second launch vehicle with the 24t cargo - it was a lot more unstable since the base had to be connected to the small docking port and not medium allowing more room for the cargo to shift.. Since you, to my knowledge, can't break struts without a decoupler - and I think it was the decoupler that broke the docking port on the last vehicle.

By limiting the engine to 80% the vehicle was reasonable maneuverable.  

Tug doing the hand-over; take-over of the first fuel tank.

The delivery vehicle burning back to be burned up and dumped in the ocean.

 

B.

K.G.01 mid-process of installing the last 2 methalox tanks - You can see the old K.G.01 delivery vehicle making the final adjustments before stopping at K.G.01

This process was pretty straight forward - all the vehicles were thoroughly used and iterated to just make it an easy flight. I even reduced the monopropellant load on the 2nd stage by 60% because I found I didn't need that much monopropellant anymore. Any way, Installing the last tanks were a bliss.

See detailed walkthrough of the process in spoiler section:
 

Spoiler

The K.G.01 launch vehicle 2nd stage waving the 1st stage good bye before getting into orbit. The vehicle could probably have a fuel tank reduced. I may do that as this vehicle right now really only is used to launch the methalox tanks.

Here the tank has rendezvous with K.G.01 and the tug drone is enroute to do the Hand-over; Take-over.

Hand-over; Take-over process as well as the de-orbit process of the 2nd stage delivery vehicle.

Instillation of the tank. Nice and easy.

Just some atmosphere (badum-tsh) pictures of the process.

Here is the pick up of a earlier tank - notice the monopropellant tanks on the side, that has been done away with on the later model. I really love this time of the orbital cycle, its when the planet and atmosphere is the most striking. And the hard light of the empty vacuum is the most striking.

just another shot of the station.

One of the tanks had to be installed during night time.

I appreciate that the fuel tank does not obscure the light.. how ever it is not as realistic x)

And K.G.01 fully fueled and ready to get back into the correct orbit.

C.

Where K.G.01 was left in orbit.

The stations center of mass was not fully balanced. So the engines could only be run at 20% maximum. It meant for rather slow maneuvering.. but offered a lot of control. 

The station spend about half its fuel to get to the right orbit and inclination. Which means its a good point to look at the refueling glider again.

K.G.01 boosting itself into the correct inclination.

K.G.01 burning at night, making it easier to see the engine config.

A close up of the front engines being angled out as to minimize hitting the modules with the exhaust.

Moving Forward:

Next up is  installing the last modules to K.G.01 and then refueling - which means I will have to fix the gliders.

Stay tuned for more!

 

Edited August 12, 2023 by BechMeister

[BechMeister]

/////////////////////MISSION UPDATE\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

K.G.01v2 fully assembled in LKO.

Mission Tasks:

A. Dock the two docking ports for crewed vehicles.

B. Dock the new docking tower for fueling missions.

Lessons Learned; Lessons Identified:

A:

Docking port assembly enroute to K.G.01

It was finally time to get the new docking port system for the crew vehicles and the escape gliders installed.

Now that I had redesigned the whole station, I decided to do away with the old docking tower that were sitting on top the station. Now that I had moved the solar panels to the fuel tank assembly and the coms to the docking tower. I could install a more "modular" system with the new enclosed docking parts. I think it looks great, and takes less space when its not used, and to push the outer docking port far enough out for the gliders to go free from all the fuel tanks, I added a crew compartment.

I suspect that its were they will store all the things related to space flight, like suits etc. Taking the PDD-12 "Sightseer" and putting a docking port on the top window gives a nice look were the crew is able to look out the windows and inspect the vehicle or guide them in

Any way, Installation went without incident - See more in the spoiler section:

Spoiler

The first Module was both a night launch and installing - Here the drone has undocked and is preparing to dock with the module.

 

Here from another angle.

and docked.

The sun was rising as the part was being installed. Here the tug drone has lined the part up and is coasting towards the docking port.

And docked.

The next launch was a day launch and you can see I shortened the rockets 2nd stage. How ever.. reducing the fuel on the 2nd stage meant that the 1st stage now had fuel enough to get to orbit by itself. - I later reduced the 1st stage fuel amount. But i'm still finding the best numbers - were it can reliable push up the 8t methalox tanks and other modules.

stage separation. - because the 1st stage now was capable of getting the rocket into orbit by itself. It actually ment that even though the 2nd stage had halfed its fuel, it had more than double the fuel it usually had by the time it rendezvous with K.G01 - SO i have in the mean time reduced the 1st stage fuel ammount.

Second docking array arriving. at K.G.01

Funny enough the first one was a night launch and a day installment - this was a day launch and a night installment.

And both docking arms installed and all the lights on.

 

B.

Docking tower for refueling drones being launched on the now further reduced K.G.01 launch vehicle.

I actually did this part twice. In the beginning I had docked a docking tower similar to the one on K.G.02 - How ever It was too short. So I decided to make a longer one and to make it look better I decided to inlay a small circular truss into the medium - adding a few things here and there.. It definetly did not reduce the parts count. But then again, I have had a lot better performance around K.G.01 since v.0.1.3 (so some good came of the update still) - The final result looks really cool i think:

Instillation went without insidents - although the rocket had to do a very inefficient insert to orbit, where I flew straight up until I had left the atmosphere, and then did the "gravity" turn (hardly any gravity turn at this point) and burned sideways.

Detailed wall through in the spoiler:

Spoiler

The tower arriving at K.G.01

Discarding the 2nd stage after hand-over; take-over with the drone.

I included 4 spotlights on the docking tower - illuminating the button of the station, I figured that it would make night operations easer with a well lit work area.

Here you can better see the placement of the lights. The truss light together with the drones really does put some light out.

And installed

Here is a shot of the button of the station being illuminated by the lights, while in the shade from the sun rise. Also the tug drone has been parked on one of the side ports - leaving the most botton port for refueling vehicles.

Front view of the station.

Back view

CLose up of the deployed docking tower with all the comms antennas deployed.

Moving Forward:

Next up will be the re-crewing of the station, and installment of the escape gliders. K.G.01 - 02 crew vehicles which now looks like this:

It has been shortened significantly by not using the large to medium converter truss - It also looks a bit more boring if you ask me... but It will get the job done at less space parked.

When its connected to the large tug drone it looks like this:

And when that is done - I will move on to remake the refueling system, which has not been flying propper since v0.1.3.

Stay Tuned for more!

[BechMeister]

////////////////////MISSION UPDATE\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

K.G.01v2 - Now complete in all its glory above Kerbin.

Foreword:

So - I finally got K.G.01 fixed up again. I am actually really satisfied with its look now. The extra bits and things and the longer refueling truss really brings the look together i think. How ever! adding the last 4 crafts - 2 emergency gliders and 2 M.L.K.O. crew crafts - dropped the framerate a ton! I dont have the exact numbers... but For a second installing it all i actually thought I would get a lot better FPS-wise than with the old K.G.01 - Maybe the added complexity of the docking truss for refueling - as well as all the small monopropellant tanks just added the same amount of parts in the end? - In any case, the station looks good!

I am also rather far along with the remaking of the refueling gliders - it turned out to be surprisingly easy to fix them to v.0.1.3. I postponed the posting of this post as i ran into some pretty annoying bugs. 1 I could recreate and I added my findings to an older bug report I did here:

  

The other one I could not recreate. 

Any way - I expect to come with the glider update soon! and without further ado here is the mission tasks:

 

Mission Tasks:

A. Re-crew K.G.01  and dock two emergency gliders 

B. Dock two M.L.K.O v2 vehicles to the station for crew transport to K.G.02

 

Lessons Learned; Lessons Identified:

A. 

Second emergency glider approaching its docking port on K.G.01

This step went rather uneventful. How ever - because of the extreme soupy atmosphere and bendy rockets I had to take a extremely inefficient approach when getting into orbit. I had to fly straight up until at 70km and then turn 90° and burn into orbit. It meant that the gliders actually had no Δv left. - One of the gliders even had to reduce the last 19 m/s relative speed with the RCS, as it ran out of juice just at the rendezvous. 

Besides that, no problems in flight besides that were encountered though, and both escape gliders could be topped up at K.G.01 - So they are now ready for unforeseen emergencies. 

How ever.. there may not be any problems in flight besides that.. but unexpected Kerbals has appeared on K.G.01 - I dont know where they have been hiding to get up there... I'm sure @Sylvi Fisthaug can relate to sneaky Kerbals.

Any way - With 2 escape shuttles there is room for the 4 crew people running K.G.01 - But right now the crew roster looks like this:

With the addition of the M.L.K.O.s there are emergency crafts enough for all Kerbals - but the M.L.K.Os does not have any means to get down from orbit.. as they dont have main engines, those are provided by the big tug drones - however they can survive re-entry. So if a catastrophic event should happen, they will have to hope for a suborbital path... or wait in what ever trajectory they end in. Until a rescue mission can arrive.

But until I have fixed the refueling gliders - and can move on to the crew SSTO space plane - they will have to remain at K.G.01 - enjoy the stay blind passengers.

Detailed walkthrough of this step in spoiler section bellow:

Spoiler

First emergency glider breaking to rendezvous with K.G.01 on the dark side of Kerbin.

Jeb (escape glider) being guided in by Valentina( from the crew docking array). - Notice that the glider has had the parachutes re-introduced within the bigger cargo bay - holding the extendable docking port, batteries, chutes and monopropellant.

Here a view up at Valentina in the sightseeing pod, cheering at Jeb.

same image here again of Bobzon and Edbles on their final approach to their designated docking port.

Lining up the port.

Looking good

And both emergency gliders - as well as staff - docked to the station.

 

B.

First M.L.K.O take off to K.G.01

This part of the mission was particular troublesome - not because of any flying issues. The M.L.K.O. (Mun to Low Kerbin Orbit) vehicles flew like a dream - to the point were I could probably have no inclination errors to correct if i wasn't so sloppy with my flying. 

How ever I had a nasty bug that when I tried to undock the 2nd stage engine to burn it back to Kerbin and have it burn up on the way down... The station would lose cohesion and things would just clip through each other. - The solution to it became to have Valentina spacewalk to the M.L.K.O (which was uncrewed to avoid anymore blind passengers) and then undock the M.L.K.O from the 2nd stage, and have Val dock it to the station.

Fingers crossed that either the bug has been resolved when I need to undock the M.L.K.Os to move crew to and from K.G.02 and future interplanetary space missions - or that it just won't show its ugly face if a fix isn't found before that happens.

Detailed walkthrough in the spoiler section:

Spoiler

Stage separation. - The K.G.01 launch vehicles second stage actually looks pretty alright on the M.L.K.O vehicle.

Here a close up.

Final approach to K.G.01

Lining up - because of the bug I dont have any images of the actual docking.

Here the second M.L.K.O is doing its final approach - I really dig the light reflections in the game. And the red blinking lights within the engine plate looks great. - Also the illumination from the docking truss looks great on K.G.01

The M.L.K.O. using its lights to illuminate the now extended docking port.

Val has spacewalked to the vehicle and the 2nd stage has burned back to a suborbital path. - Here Val is doing the final adjustments before docking.

And both M.L.K.O.s docked and ready - and K.G.01 illuminated by night time in all its glory

 

Moving Forward:

K.G.01 from front and back in all its glory - Finally repaired and replaced 

In the end now original part would survive the bugs that v0.1.3 brought. - I have made a ton of contributions to bug reports since the patch came, and I hope they will help bring swift fixes to the game.

I must applaud the devs for improving the performance of the game.. which is probably why I also got more ambitious with the look of the station - I probably have the same frame rate as before.. but it looks a lot better. 

Soon I will have my first re-fueling with the refueling gliders - and let me just tell you, They have the best re-entry characteristics I've ever made a vehicle to have.. A pure joy to fly! after that I will have to remake the crew SSTO aaaand then I can finally move on with adding the last 4 Methalox tanks to K.G.02 - and start the fueling process of the station.

The end is within sight.

Stay Tuned for more!

 

 

[Sylvi Fisthaug]

10 hours ago, BechMeister said:

I'm sure @Sylvi Fisthaug can relate to sneaky Kerbals.

Ugh. yeah. Bill....... ... . .. 

[BechMeister]

////////////////////MISSION UPDATE\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

Fully certified Multifuel Refueling Glider Vehicle (M.R.G.V.) on the runway in front of the VAB, just returned from LKO and a succesful refueling mission.

Foreword:

K.G.01 was plagued with even more bugs - Probably related to the new inlined docking ports. In any case I decided to revert back to an earlier save where the escape gliders and M.L.K.O.s were not yet docked to the station, since they bugged out quite a bit. Specifically I had a bug where when ever I undocked a craft from K.G.01 - the escape gliders would drift off and clip through everything.. and the M.L.K.O.s were docked but not docked. Read more about that here:

 

I will dock the vehicles to the station once the bug has been ironed out. - The revert means that K.G.01 will suddenly be at a earlier stage during the refueling and certification mission of the glider.

I had a lot of fun building the M.R.G.V.s! So without further ado here are the Mission Tasks:

 

 

A. Develop a new line of glider vehicles.

B. Test re-entry characteristics of prototype 

C. Develop new reusable 1st stage.

D. Certification mission: Refuel K.G.01 and return to KCS.

 

Lessons Learned; Lessons Identified:

 

A.

Glider prototype on runway 1 ready for glide characteristics test.

It was surprisingly easy to develop a new - better balanced - glider vehicle. I managed to make it smaller, less complex etc. The Hydrogen glider and the Methalox glider also has the same dimensions now, thanks to clever use of tubes etc.

I also developed a fully reusable test launcher (the wing dart like bit you see under the glider). Since the glider uses the terrier engines and needs to be tested with its empty weight I had to make something that could push it sufficiently up into the air to figure out how it performs. I had to add breaks to make sure the test launcher didn't bump into the glider prototype after separation (as it glided a lot better and efficient than the protype) I also decided to add parachutes - making it reusable in theory. Practically.. I just reverted to VAB after each test. 

See image below to see what I mean:

Here we see the airbrakes fully deployed on the reusable test launcher, to make sure it did not fly into the lot more draggy 2nd stage. Upon release 2 parachutes would also deploy.

I played a lot around with wing angle and size. I really like the look of the Dream Chaser with its upsweep wings - which apparently should give more lift? I really liked the look of my glider with upswept wings too and imagined it makes sense for when you re-enter the atmosphere? that the bits dont stick too much out from the center of the craft that will be burned off

The craft looked like this with upswept wings:

Early iteration of test flight with upswept wings - I colour coded the different parts to make them easy to find.

It looked cool, How ever it was impossible to steer and control - SO in the end the vehicle would look like this:

Finished test of flight characteristics of glider. - Here the Hydrogen version. 

In the end the craft was really well balanced, and glided at a really good speed too - something like 120 m/s and you could fly it stable without using pitch to keep the nose up. It was time to move on to the re-entry test. 

Past experience had taught me that just because it glides well in sub 500 m/s does not mean it want to behave at 1000-2000 m/s - So I always do a re-entry test now.

B.

Prototype glider in orbit on its re-entry test.

The re-entry test went super well. I was surprised to find out that I could just turn on the SAS and park it at a 40° AoA and it would keep the direction even when breaking. And it could coast a long way on the upper atmosphere bleeding off speed.

I also had a chance to test the placement of RCS thrusters. For some reason the back half of the RCS thrusters didn't work - I think it was because they were placed on the tube... So i moved them further back to the engine plate. - I was wondering if it would make the craft wanting to Jaw when using the thrusters, as they were not placed the same distance in accordance to center of mass. But it was not a problem.

C.

Certification of prototype 1st stage and 2nd stage glider.

I also replaced the wings on the 1st stage with 2 sets of 4 air brakes. The button pair is deployed all the way up to 15.000m to make sure the wings of the glider doesn't flip the rocket.

So far the steps to launch and return the 1st stage is as follows:

Step-by-step launching and reusing 1st stage:

1. as soon as the engines lift off and clear the pad - turn the vehicle ~5-10° degrees East and hit prograde - the vehicle will gravity turn itself nicely.
2. Fold airbrakes up at 15.000m to allow the rocket gain speed. - craft should be at ~90° by now
3. Burn until there is 1600-1700 Δv left. Then seperate - burn the glider into orbit (the 3 terrier is easily steerable)
4. Turn on RCS and flip the 1st stage retrograde - deploy top airbrakes and burn back towards KSC
5. You need around ~700Δv to land the stage. - remember to take Kerbins rotation into account when lining up KSC.

Follow these steps and you should have an easy launch. 

For a detailed walkthrough with images see spoiler section bellow:

Spoiler

1st stage and 2nd stage waving each other good bye as the glider continues into orbit, and the 1st stage return home.

right before separation I"Pre-dived" the rocket helping the 1st stage turning around while there was a lot of mass in the nose - creating a lot of distance between the glider and the 1st stage when it burns back.

When separating your stats will look roughly like this. And after the burn back to KSC that should leave you with around 700Δv - which is enough to comfortably land the stage. 

Here we have lined up the 1st stage, and from here it's just waiting for it to come back down, and control the speed with which it decent. - I think it maxed out at around 900 m/s - I am not sure how fast is too fast when returning - we'll see once heat is introduced.

When returning Try aim roughly this distance of KSC - maybe a bit further in, as I did not land on a flat plane.

How people make precise landings with these is beyond me.. I just dont know how to gauge the rotation of Kerbin, let alone aim the rocket at the small landing pads. I hope the devs gives us some tools to actually aim at them - as of now.. I was thinking about parking a vehicle on the pad to be able to set target xD

here we are - controlling the descent at KSC.

And touch down - as you can see its not on even ground. The stage was tipping its toes for a while.. but after correcting itself 3 times it was swinging to much and in the end it would lie down:

landings can be improved.. I just need to find a way to actually Aim the rocket.

 

D.

Glider docked to K.G.01 - here reverted to a bug free version.

The glider is easy to steer - How ever.. The bug where if you connect the fuel tanks to the engines via fuel line and it wont show the Δv it has available. - I will have to make a new bug report.  as seen here:

Here we can see the glider having a lot of fuel left, but showing 0Δv available.

Any way.. It is not so much an issue - the terriers acceleration is really slow, so it's easy to manually control that the AP does not suddenly climb a lot - nor that you veer a lot of degrees off course. The biggest issue is that you can't make maneuver nodes when you have 0 Δv... Which meant figuring when to make your deorbit burn is hard. How ever.. the craft has so much control that you can correct even HUGE margins of errors. (which you can see in the video I added)

The craft has plenty of Fuel left to both do the orbit burn, rendezvous and once the fuel is unloaded plenty of fuel to do the de-orbit burn. 

I am really proud of the flight characteristics I achieved - So much so that I decided to clip it into a little video:

Small video showing the decent of the glider back to KSC. - If you sat down and saw that - I just want to thank you for indulging me.

For the detailed walkthrough see spoiler section bellow:

Spoiler

 

The glider on its way to K.G.01 with the methalox load. - I did not intent for the decouplers to shroud the 3 terrier engines - but I really dig the look of it.. and so far it happens consistently.

 

Here the glider has rendezvoused with the previous unfortunatly bugged version of K.G.01 - its a shame.. all the bits really makes it looks glorious i think. Unfortunately it won't be so...

Glider lining up to refuel tower of K.G.01 on the previous unbugged build.

I was worried that the forward positioning of the inline docking port would make it difficult to line it up - since its not placed center mass (which I usually do). It turned out not become an issue. A pleasant surpise was to see that they have added monopropellant to the two fuel tanks. So now they are not just there for visuals anymore. Thanks devs.

K.G.01 with all the lights and perfectly centered docking of the glider - After the refuel mission was complete, it was just waiting for KSC to be on the dayside (I think instrument only landings are really hard!) and then land it.

 

 

Moving Forward:

It was a very entertaining and succesful endeavour - I really enjoyed building, and using the craft. Next up is making the crew SSTO with the new parts - and then its all about refueling K.G.01 so K.G.02 can be finished.

Stay Tuned for More!

 

Edited August 16, 2023 by BechMeister
Wrote west instead of east

[BechMeister]

/////////////////////MISSION UPDATE\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

(Right) The newly certified Crew Rotation Vehicle (CRV) next to its predecessor (Left)

 

Foreword:

I have spend a lot of time on this one. Tweeking, fiddling, adding methalox, removing methane. Then removing methalox adding methane and always just being short of the goal. When I got it working, it Flew perfect to orbit, rendezvoused with K.G.01 - only for it not to be able to pitch more than ÷45° and plummet into a fiery death. All in an endeavour to make the design more sleek looking. 

I also found out another docking port on K.G.01 is bugged and broken. To fix that I need a new center tower... and I am contemplating to just leave it broken and figure a work around. Hoping a future bug fix will resolve the issue.

All that and more bellow.

 

Mission Tasks:

A. Update the Crew SSTO spaceplane with v.0.1.3 parts.

B.  Find a reproducible procedure to rendezvous with K.G.01

 

Lessons Learned; Lessons Identified:

A.

First prototype docked at K.G.01

First thing I did was ditch the 4th engine to revert back to the original 3 engine concept i start with. It just looks aesthetic more pleasing i think. I then replaced the micro docking part with the inline docking port and removed the MK.2 monopropellant tank, as the inline MK.2 clamp-o-tron part + the command module has plenty of monopropellant on its own.

The plane flew well. The first pleasant surprise was that it could break past the 350 m/s mark - which pre v.0.1.3. was only just possible with 4 engines because of the drag issues. 

The slightly updated SSTO rendezvoused with K.G.01 with no issues, except for a bugged out docking port. I lined the SSTO up perfect for a dock on the top port on the crew compartment for K.G.01. The placement of the docking port on the center of mass meant that I had superb control of orientation and approach to the port. I actually had the two docking port gently kiss each other at 0.01 m/s - So believe me that I was disappointed to not the docking notification, and learning that K.G.01 was still broken - even though I have worked hard to rectify that..

The prototype - not docked to K.G.01

Above is a Image of what could have been... but is not going to be as of now. I am contemplating weather I'll fly up a new tower.. in case its an irreversible bug.. I think that is a future sulution. Short term I could try find a way to fix two emergency gliders on one side, and leave the other for docking crew vehicles - future tinkering is possible there. In any case I docked at one of the side mounts instead.

Besides that there was no major issues, except the SSTO was all but dry for Δv when it arrived. Only had a measly 44 Δv left. No Issue - K.G.01 is a fuels station after all - So I just topped up the vehicle with enough fuel to deorbit. 

This is where I re-discovered a lesson i thought I had learned previously - Namely that it seems the game calculates the available Δv from the amount of methane is in the tanks, regardless of if it has enough oxidizer to burn the fuel. As such I missed KCS with a whole continent... That being said, It was able to deorbit relatively well. It felt very nose heavy though. At peak drag I wasn't able to get a higher AoA than  the 20 or so ° 

It glided well though, a bit too well tbh - it took for ever to get it to around the 60 m/s mark were it would land without bouncing around. So - after the tests there were a few things I would like to change and address: Namely getting 100-200 Δv more out of the airframe and make it less nose heavy - so it would re-enter better. Also I tried to ditch the front control surfaces for a more sleek look. 

The result from experimenting was this:

By reducing the amount of Methalox and adding 1t more methane to the plane I got the 100-200 more Δv and looked sleeker. How ever - trying to remove the front canards It got even worse re-entry characteristics to the point were it would not pitch up... but just fall to its death. I reduced the length further, added fuel to the wing engines, but now could not get it to have the right mix of methane and methalox. Also it started to have trouble breaking the 350 m/s mark

I flew to orbit only to have to little methane. I would then add methane and then when went into closed cycle I would have the same ammount of methane I added to much - which makes no sense to me...

I made the wings thicker to get more lift, I added control surfaces on the outside of the outer engines, instead of wings, to get more pitch control.. But it helped nothing. I simply could not get it to K.G.01 with enough fuel to get back to KSC again... and landings were notorious difficult. This is when I added the canards again.. and gentlemen this difference:

 

This tiny difference - is 400 more Δv, 1t less methane to get to the mesosphere. It's reaching 1000 m/s at the end of the troposphere instead of at the beginning of the mesospheres - and it has gentle landings. (the the air brake was redundant in the end)

It is odd that two tiny "wings" should have such an effect - I suspect there is something more to it that is hidden in the physics model. Even though I had 1t methane less, I still had 210 kg of methane in surplus when all the oxidizer was burned. And before the canards were added it was perfectly balanced to spend all the methane before going into closed cycle. 

I guess we will learn what's up in the future.

In the end I got a really sleek small craft capable of ferrying crew to and from K.G.01. - The plane is smaller, lighter and although the former spaceplane is more capable now, this smaller sleeker version is just right for the job.

The difference in size between old model (red) and new (white/black)

And here are the stats between the two versions. It is interesting, because the new version feels a lot shorter than just ~3m

B.

CRV enroute to K.G.01

what's most important is that the plane has consistent performance that is easy to achieve - which means its predictable.

If you follow these steps with the vehicle you will rendezvous with a spacecraft in a 100km orbit above Kerbin, and return back to KSC again.

1.  Once airborn angle to 15° using flaps until around 150 m/s - allow the plane to coast: It should hit the 20° mark once it reaches the mesospheres.
2. As soon as it hits closed cycle (I still manually kick the engines into closed cycle) Pitch to 30° and coast - should be at 40° mark once AP of 100km has been reached.
3. Burn until AP is at 100km and cut the engines. 
4. Once at AP burn again for an AP at 150km and a PE on 100km
5. Rendezvous, transfer crew and de-orbit.
6. Land - Vehicle has sufficient performance to glide without fuel left. But you may have extra Δv for a powered flight back.

 

That's it for now - All the v.0.1.3 issues has been resolved, and I can continue with building K.G.02

I am going to organize my vehicle files for the service vehicles, drones, and K.G.01 and upload them for others to get.

See you soon.

 

 

 

 

Edited August 18, 2023 by BechMeister

[Sylvi Fisthaug]

45 minutes ago, BechMeister said:

This looks like the A 12 and the Blackbird lined up against eachother!