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

[fulgur]

3 hours ago, BechMeister said:

But it makes sense. I can tell you that neither of my stations are at a 0° inclination to the body they orbit. Also I don't think i've ever managed to get anything into orbit that was at a 0° inclination. I always fight the drag in KSP2. It makes it hard to fly straight, always have to balance the gravity turn, SAS wobble and drag to avoid the rocket doing flips or flying sideways like Starship. So I always have to correct inclination.

How inclined are your station's orbits? A few degrees does not matter, but more than that will be a pain. If you are going to have a lot of traffic from the Kerbin station to the Mun station I suggest adjusting its orbit to match the plane of the Mun (which happens to be 0 degrees). This will make your transfers easier. In the same way, when you get to other planets I suggest your stations match the inclinations of those planets' moons.

Don't worry about your ascents, I've been playing KSP1 for years and usually have a 1-2 degree inclination in orbit. (and that's without any SAS wobble and some very carefully designed aeroplanes).

3 hours ago, BechMeister said:

It feels to me though, that doing inclination changes around The Mun, is far cheaper than doing it around Kerbin? I mean I some times fix my inclination with RCS thrusters if I'm running low on Δv.

I think this should be true; I also feel that I use less dV around lower gravity bodies. The Mun and Minmus have lower gravity than Kerbin, and so the orbits will have lower energy and lower speed, meaning that substantially changing your orbit should require less kinetic energy and so less fuel. But I haven't actually run the maths on this.

3 hours ago, BechMeister said:

I guess that also explains when you say that option 1 uses more Δv than 2 - but I gather you can do option 1 any time, and option 2 you need to time the window with which the body intersects the path.

This is correct. Minmus does not take very long to orbit and you can do option 2 twice per Minmus orbit.

As you are in a low Kerbin orbit, the orbital period of your station is about half an hour, you should be able to visit Minmus every time it passes your ascending or descending node. However, since the Mun takes a lot longer to orbit, you need the Mun and Minmus to both be in the correct place if you want to go from the Mun to Minmus and vice versa. [This can be made faster by the application of what is technically termed moar dV.]

However, you can also apply this logic to interplanetary transfers from the orbit of Kerbin to the (inclined) orbits of the other planets. There, the delays are very much longer but the dV required for your plane change is very much greater, which leads to the concept of "transfer windows" to other planets.

3 hours ago, BechMeister said:

- Thank you for the thorough explanation with illustrations  (having multiple colors were especial nice)

Thanks!

Edited May 16, 2023 by fulgur

[AtomicTech]

On 5/6/2023 at 6:46 AM, BechMeister said:

I guess i picked the 16s because it looked like a HF antenna, were the other looks like a VHF antenna - and out of the two HF seemed to be the better choice. - Full Disclaimer.. I used to be a HF radio operator in the Danish Army - So I have a limited need to know basics of antenna and signal theory. We mostly used an antenna type called "long wire" when doing recon, or the HF vehicle antenna - (Pardon if i say something you already know, I dont want to sound patronizing.) The long wire antenna was the one that required a bit of thinking. . But in reality it was just a long copper wire you hanged up in trees, bushes etc. and then you bounced your HF signals off the stratosphere (as i recall it) - we could cover a 500km radius with that, and we never needed more - so i never got to learn how to aim the antenna and shape it to our signal bandwidth to bounce signals across the globe. Our VHF and UHF radios all needed to have Line of Sight to work... Any way.. bit of a tangent, long story short. I guess this subconsciously informed my choices.

KI5UXW here!

Always neat to meet a fellow radio operator from another service

Edited May 16, 2023 by AtomicTech

[BechMeister]

  

13 hours ago, fulgur said:

How inclined are your station's orbits? A few degrees does not matter, but more than that will be a pain.

I am not sure actually... I think its ~2° It used to be at a 90.5km 90.6km "flat" orbit - but now its 80-125ish km - So I need to get it back to its 95km 95km orbit I i could boost it to a 0° inclination. That being said.. I am not sure how to find the point were i will intersect the 0° point. You can make the planet your target? I think I've only seen Focus.
 

13 hours ago, fulgur said:

Don't worry about your ascents, I've been playing KSP1 for years and usually have a 1-2 degree inclination in orbit. (and that's without any SAS wobble and some very carefully designed aeroplanes).

Well I some times wish I could double click the navball to make the SAS point me in that direction. I feel that could help control it..  But thx

12 hours ago, AtomicTech said:

KI5UXW here!

Always neat to meet a fellow radio operator from another service

Oh Damn, you may even know more about the field than me haha! - I never got to the point were i had to build it myself. (unless plugging a normal copper wire to the radio counts)

I can share a little anecdote though - I was on an military exercise once were we were spending a week observing a piece of terrain and logging traffic. Pretty boring stuff. 

Anyway, we had to report once 24h with a "SMS" send via HF - Now, one evening we just could not get the radio to get a good enough signal. I kept fiddling with the radio, fiddle with the antenna, check the ground conditions under the antenna etc. and i just could not get a good enough signal. So we missed our report window.. I was kind of bummed out, thought it was my fault. It turned out that there had been a solar storm that evening. So there were not enough stratosphere to bounce signals off or something like that x). 

Cosmos is wild. 

 

Edit: wait, its the Ionsphere not the stratosphere you bounce singals of, right?

Edited May 17, 2023 by BechMeister

[Sylvi Fisthaug]

On 5/14/2023 at 8:27 PM, BechMeister said:

This game is so incredibly beautiful. 

[AtomicTech]

5 hours ago, BechMeister said:

Oh Damn, you may even know more about the field than me haha! - I never got to the point were i had to build it myself. (unless plugging a normal copper wire to the radio counts)

Never too late to get your license ticket

[BechMeister]

3 hours ago, AtomicTech said:

Never too late to get your license ticket

Touché - how ever juggling my other hobbies, family and school, im not sure the time is right to introduce new balls to juggle x)

[AtomicTech]

9 hours ago, BechMeister said:

Touché - how ever juggling my other hobbies, family and school, im not sure the time is right to introduce new balls to juggle x)

Well you never know!

I'd start with just opening a licensing manual or taking a practice test to see how'd you do!

Then when you retire you've got something neat to do!

[Sylvi Fisthaug]

Just checking in, and saw you updated the first post to make it more welcomely (is that a word) for new readers! Great stuff! I enjoyed reading through the updated first post as well. 

[BechMeister]

On 5/20/2023 at 1:26 AM, Sylvi Fisthaug said:

Just checking in, and saw you updated the first post to make it more welcomely (is that a word) for new readers! Great stuff! I enjoyed reading through the updated first post as well. 

I know what you mean - Yeah I got the feeling that new readers would start to find it overwhelming to start read it.. call me selfish, but I'd like for as many as possible to read about my journey and shower me with praise xD - Jokes aside... It seemed like the right thing to do to go through it all and add headlines and a table of contents.

 

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

K.G.02 Superstructure fully assembled.

 

Forword:
FYI I probably wont update with the same cadence as before, I am in the middle of a big school assignment that need my full attention. So I only play KSP when my brain is completely fried and cant do proper work any way - then I "relax" with KSP.. I say "relax" because lets be honest.. we the KSP players probably spend quite a bit of brain power on theory crafting, testing, mathing etc. So.. it aint always I have the brain juice to fight KSP2 as well. Any way, this update has been on its way for a while. I decided to wait with an update until a major step had been achieved, and having the basic super structure of K.G.02 done seemed like a good point.

 

Mission Tasks:
 

A. Install second half of the Methalox assembly.
B. Install first half of the docking cones for crewed flight.
C. Install second half of the docking cones for crewed flight.
D. Install the docking tower for refueling crafts.

Lessons Learned; Lessons Identified:

A. 

´Methalox Assembly fully assembled and ready for taking the fuel tanks.

I don't know if this is Kraken striking, or my design for the 2nd stage carrier. Probably a bit of both. But I had some issues with this part and my small drones. They could only just fit within the walls of the cargo hold, and that being said.. maybe their monopropellant tanks clipped a tiny bit into the wall? That, together with the fact that I had a lot of bugs were once undocked, the part would not really undock. Which I usually resolve with a Quick Save/Quick Load. 

How ever, with the closeness of the parts, together with the fact that the save doesn't seem to save the precise speeds and orientation. It meant that every second quick load would result in a total vehicle loss... Or the drone being stuck inside the wall of the cargo hold and flipping about, tearing itself a part. BUT! If i quick saved quickly before the craft would flip itself apart... and then quick loaded the part was free, and could move.

But the drones parts would start shift about, and for every time this happened.. the drone would move a little less predictable. To the point were it got almost impossible to finish the assembly. So once the docking assembly for the methalox tanks were done, I decided to load the two bend out of shape drones to the assembly carrier and crash them all into the surface of the moon... and bring up new un bugged drones up.

The obvious fix to this is to lower the cargohold so it runs flush with the docking ports - meaning no clipping into the walls picking up the parts. How ever - this would mean 3 launches instead of 2 - as you would fly up the struts in two launches and then the cones in 1.

Spoiler section is a detailed walkthrough of the build process:
 

Spoiler

 

2nd half of the Methalox Docking Assembly enroute to the Mun. 

Assembly at K.G.02 ready to be installed.

Assembly being unpacked - It is here a fix to the issue would be to make the cargohold flush with 4 small docking ports.

Fully installed - I really like the look of the 8 ports in a circle - but man its a lot of noodling to get it aligned proper. I am not sure I will do this kind of building again.

And here from the side, "upside down"

B.

The docking cones for docking crewed crafts to K.G.02 - these will hold emergency pods and the M.L.E.O vehicles, as well as other possible future vehicles.

Installation of the docking ports were pretty straight forward. They did not have any monopropellant, which meant the way I ended up navigating them was:

1. drag them 1 axis until center mass-ish lined up with target.
2.  kill all relative speed
3. turn of RCS
4. with SAS turn the port to be pointed to target.
5. Push with RCS and turn it off
6. rotate with SAS and point at target to be sure it will be installed proper and then just wait.
7. If it drifts, turn on RCS do quick adjustments. 

At this point I had returned the Large Tug drone to K.G.01, which meant that every second cone had to be jettisoned and then catch by the drone - this was how ever not an issue.

Spoiler section is a detailed walkthrough of the build process:

Spoiler

For once the station was on the dark side of the Mun, meaning I had a chance to use the lamps of the little drones to see what I was doing.

Even if it was not completely dark - I think the station was at the edge of the shadow - the lamps still helped tremendously with installation.

This is how I finished - now out of the dark side. At this point the docking assembly for refueling future interplanetary crafts and refueling the station was just a long small rod which would have fitted on the bottom cone. how ever - I decided to make a medium size docking port with 5 docking points instead.

C.

Drone chasing the jettisoned docking cone
Just as B. this was also pretty straight forward and K.G.02 got its second drone back with this launch.

Spoiler section is a detailed walkthrough of the build process:
 

Spoiler

Drone aligning the part before connecting it - I decided the top row to be "horizontally" installed and the top to be "vertically" installed.

And here they are all installed - and the button cone has been replaced to make room for the refueling docking tower to be installed.

 

D.

Docking tower for refueling enroute to K.G.02

This part was rather cumbersome to move - I was contemplating using both drones on the side ports to give it more stability when installing.. but I tried navigating it with one drone, using the same technique of pulling, stopping, aligning, pushing as I did with the cones.. and although this demanded a bit more finesse it turned to be a alright solution.

Spoiler section is a detailed walkthrough of the build process:

Spoiler

Tower ready at K.G.02, strategically placed bellow its docking port.

Tower detached from 2nd stage by tug drone - I experienced the same undock bug here, were the piece does not detach.. and for some reason quick save quick load just resulted it all in blowing up. I reverted to a earlier quick load and tried again. This time the tower actually detached when I told it to undock.

All relative speed has been killed, and with RCS off the part is aimed at the docking port.

And finally, the superstructure assembled and in orbit around The Mun.

 

Moving Forward:

So, when flying the big Tug Drone back towards K.G.01 I realized I only had enough Δv to get back to Kerbin orbit. Not enough to do the rendezvous and or fix the inclination issues - So i crashed it into Kerbin instead. Now It will probably have enough Δv to do a tour re-tour if/when I fix both K.G.01 and 02 inclination around their respective bodies - But I'd like to have a bigger margin. So I redesigned the big Tug Drone. The plus side is it now can ferry 4 tanks instead of 2 - meaning refueling K.G.02 a lot easier process... Aaand I wont be having to use K.G.02s precious methalox to get back - meaning it can be reserved for operations around the Mun.

I also had time to fiddle with a possible escape vehicle design. In the beginning i tried to add a detachable break engine for the glider emergency vehicle for K.G.01... but it was big and cumbersome so i ditched that. It looks like this as of now:


Deployed

Undeployed.

It may just become my standard vehicle for going to and from the Mun - it has the Δv for it - it also comes with parachutes and a heat shield.. so it can make for a safe landing on Kerbin as well.

 

Enjoy! And Stay Tuned for More

Edited May 22, 2023 by BechMeister

[Sylvi Fisthaug]

At last, we get a long awaited Mission Update! 

I'm just wondering, the station does not have any big solar panels! How do you get power to it? 
Does it contain batteries, probe cores and reaction wheels?

2 hours ago, BechMeister said:

Assembly being unpacked - It is here a fix to the issue would be to make the cargohold flush with 4 small docking ports.

 

LOL even your launch vehicles look good  I just fit as much of the space station as possible onto a rocket, call it a day and launch it 

 

2 hours ago, BechMeister said:

• rotate with SAS and point at target to be sure it will be installed proper and then just wait.
• If it drifts, turn on RCS do quick adjustments. 

When I suddenly figured out you could do this, just make quick adjustments with IJKL to keep the prograde marker spot on the target marker, life became much easier for me! 

 

2 hours ago, BechMeister said:

Tower detached from 2nd stage by tug drone - I experienced the same undock bug here, were the piece does not detach.. and for some reason quick save quick load just resulted it all in blowing up. I reverted to a earlier quick load and tried again.

A very short time warp up one speed and back down again fixes most physics problems, as this stops the physics simulation entirely! Still a risk for Kraken attacks though, lol

 

2 hours ago, BechMeister said:

Undeployed.

It may just become my standard vehicle for going to and from the Mun - it has the Δv for it - it also comes with parachutes and a heat shield.. so it can make for a safe landing on Kerbin as well.

It looks very good! And it's even perfect for landing Kerbals on the Mun, exploring the Mun arch and so on! 

[BechMeister]

17 minutes ago, Sylvi Fisthaug said:

I'm just wondering, the station does not have any big solar panels! How do you get power to it? 
Does it contain batteries, probe cores and reaction wheels?

You can kind of see the setup here: There are 2 large reaction wheels, 1 large battery  and then it has 8 of those small solar panels on the main body of the methalox assembly - this is a "dumb" module though - the drone part is on the crew compartment  and I think that has a battery too.

It does not provide a lot of power, but it does not make a lot of movement as of now. So it is enough to keep it recharged. That and both the tug drones have solar panels as well. I have not had it run out of battery... but I also find that its not in the dark very often.

2 hours ago, BechMeister said:

A. 

´Methalox Assembly fully assembled and ready for taking the fuel tanks.

Once the big Hydrogen tanks has been installed I'll install the big solar panel screens I teased on the VIP image of the station. - I just didnt want to work in the shade. Now the docking tower for refueling has been installed, which has 4 big projectors that can illuminate the shadow part of the station, I could technically install the big solar panels... but I don't want them to get in the way of the hydrogen tanks ^^

21 minutes ago, Sylvi Fisthaug said:

A very short time warp up one speed and back down again fixes most physics problems, as this stops the physics simulation entirely! Still a risk for Kraken attacks though, lol

I shall try remember this!

Also, thanks for the kind words of the "odd bits" 2nd stage. Although I think I found if I should build this again in the future. I would need to redesign the 2nd stage, so it holds less cargo.. but does not invite the kraken... Or - Jettison the two inner most arms and catch them so the drone doesn't need to clip into the wall.
Any way... its assembled now.. So i guess its a problem for a future.. if I ever go about making a 8 shape docking assembly again. We'll see x)

[BechMeister]

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

Solar panel array ready for launch.

Foreword:

Small mission update - I managed to install the 3 solar panel arrays to the station. I could not find a elegant solution to get them up to K.G.02 that didn't involve shipping one at the time.. So I made my most KSP rocket to date. It felt very wrong to send the arrays into space like this x) - But it worked.
 

Mission Tasks:

A. Get solar panel array into space - Success
B. Get array to K.G.02 and install them.  - Success

Lessons Learned; leasons Identified:

A. 

Here a view from the front.

The rocket obviously had some stability issues,  but managed to get it into orbit by using a very inefficient high ark into the thin atmosphere and then burn sideways.

Image slide show in spoiler section:
 

Spoiler

 

1st stage circulating a suborbital path around Kerbin.

 

 

 

Second Stage finishing the Circulating Burn and travel towards The Mun.

B.

The solar arrays installed and deployed. It is a bit overkill - but I like to think of them as a Sunshade, shielding the fuel cans.

At the Mun it was pretty straight forward. I had fastened the arrays to the second stage with struts and used a decoupler to release it. The small drones fitted snugly between the two giga solar arrays and with a drone connected to both ends there were a good amount of controle. 

Something had gone wrong in the alterations though, From the first sneak peak and to now, there is a larger distance between the 3 struts than originally planned. Where they were pretty close to each other. - I wont bother fix it though

Image slide show in spoiler section:
 

Spoiler

2nd stage arrived at K.G.02 with the solar arrays. - notice the little tug drone traveling towards it down along the superstructure (four red flashing lights) 

small tug drone is doing Hand-over Take-over with 2nd stage.

center solar array being installed on K.G.02

It is hard to see, but notice how the sun is peaking past The Mun - The inclination of K.G.02 allows it to peak right above the Mun to Kerbol atm. 

small tug drone en-route to pick up the second solar array.

all the struts installed and ready for deployment.

solar array mid-process of deploying.

solar arrays pointing to Kerbol

sun-shade effect of the solar arrays - notice how the station is "back-lit" by 4 spotlights on the docking tower bellow.

 

We'll see when i have time for another update - Stay tuned for more!

Edited May 27, 2023 by BechMeister

[Sylvi Fisthaug]

I'm regretting not having fuel lines through my fuel tank structure now, after I already have burned for a Mun intercept 

On 5/27/2023 at 4:27 PM, BechMeister said:

The solar arrays installed and deployed. It is a bit overkill - but I like to think of them as a Sunshade, shielding the fuel cans.

This looks way to good! The shield thing is great, generates power AND hinders heating of your space station! Good for stopping the hydrogen boiling off, lol

On 5/27/2023 at 4:27 PM, BechMeister said:

I could not find a elegant solution to get them up to K.G.02 that didn't involve shipping one at the time.. So I made my most KSP rocket to date. It felt very wrong to send the arrays into space like this x)

Oh yeah I gave up this almost immediately lol

[BechMeister]

On 6/1/2023 at 11:55 AM, Sylvi Fisthaug said:

I'm regretting not having fuel lines through my fuel tank structure now, after I already have burned for a Mun intercept 

yeah... until they make the fuel lines remember where they were supposed to go I would not bother with it.

You can see here in my bug report what it was supposed to look like vs what it looks like xD - also an early version of K.G.01
 

But yeah... Also the fact that there are less parts help on optimization right? xD

I hope to come with an update soon - its going to be a pretty big one... I decided to send up all the hydrogen tanks and half the methalox tanks in one go... So... It involves quite a few steps before its post-able. Any way - by next week im done with my exams which should free up time for KSP2

[Sylvi Fisthaug]

25 minutes ago, BechMeister said:

You can see here in my bug report what it was supposed to look like vs what it looks like xD - also an early version of K.G.01

I have experienced the excact same thing, but with struts! From fiddling in the VAB I have found out that fuel lines and struts are treated the same in the game's code or something 

I'll find time to add to your bug report soon! 

Edited June 14, 2023 by Sylvi Fisthaug

[BechMeister]

//////////MISSION UPDATE\\\\\\\\\\
- Installing Helium Tanks - Developing  Kerbin/Lunar Tug Drone - Installing Methalox Tanks -

K.G.02 with all the Helium Tanks, and half the methalox tanks installed and ready.

 

Foreword

So my exams are all but done - and I have been busy this past week continue the work on going through the goals for getting K.G.02 operational. I have a lot to show... Not only did i end up juggling 9 vehicles in lunar orbit, I also managed to develop, assemble and move methalox fuel tanks from Kerbin to the Mun with a new improved large drone - I also by chance saved K.G.01 that i found had entered a decaying orbit.. dipping down to 51 km - I spend all the Methalox boosting it back into a stable orbit! - But it also means I have to refuel K.G.01 before I can finish K.G.02.  So it felt like as good a time to make an update. So strab in we have a lot to go through:

Mission Tasks:

A. Readjust K.G.01 orbit into a stable orbit. - Success

B. Get the 8 Helium tank to Lunar orbit and dock them to K.G.02 - Success

C.  Develop a new heavy tug drone with more Δv - and a freight assembly for ferrying fuel tanks from K.G.01 to K.G.02 and vice versa - Failure 

Lessons Learned; Lessons Identified:

A.

The first model of Heavy Tug drone here doing its job pushing K.G.01 into a stable orbit.

Yeah - While building K.G.02 - K.G.01 had apparently slowly drifted into a decaying orbit... I dont know if its a bug or i just did some too forceful dockings slowly pushing the station into a decaying orbit. But fortunatly i discovered when it was dipping into the low 50km mark - 51km or so... I dont think it would have been able to take many more tours down before it would have been irrecoverable. The 4 methalox fuel tanks and its own internal tank was just enough to push the station into a almost perfect 100km-100km orbit - vs the 152km -51km orbit it was in.

Bit of a shock, ill make sure in the future to check in on K.G.01 while doing other stuff. Just to be sure the bugs have not moved the station into a decaying orbit.

B.

Large size Helium tank enroute to the mun.

The large helium tanks were flown to K.G.02 empty to make installment and ferrying easier. In the beginning i had planned on moving 4 fuel canisters to K.G.02 on the new tug arrey for the heavy drone - but I found that the 2nd stage had enough fuel to make it to K.G.02 and decided to take a gamle on my skills in managing vehicles around a body. 

After getting two tanks into a rendezvous orbit around the Mun, I decided to send the last 6 in rapid succession:

all the tanks enroute to the Mun or on intercept paths with K.G.02

I was lucky, by chance 5 of the tanks lined up to a perfect transfer window with K.G.02. Within a time span of 2ish h the 5 tanks would arrive at K.G.02 - I decided the way I would do it was to park the 5 tanks next to K.G.02 within a 150m and then have the next tank perform its link up. It was a success, the tightest window was around 4 min. 

I had to make a time table to the maneuver nodes - to make sure I didn't timewarp past a maneuver node. - D: 9 and 13 didnt hit the same path as 16, 27, 31 and 44 - so didn't hit the transfer window and therefor just had to match Inclination. D: 7 was already on a Lunar orbit, and had a rendezvous opportunity. D: 11 was the second fuel tank already in lunar orbit, and matched inclination but did not have a opportunity to rendezvous and needed a few more tours around the mun.    

It was all a success and the 5 tanks were installed - a few more orbits around the Mun ment that the 3 last tanks did manage to get docked before the methalox tanks were arriving at K.G.02 - even though at the time, the Tug Drone with the fuel tanks had entered a lunar orbit and was just waiting for the rendezvous to occur. 

The installation was a success, although I have discovered that K.G.02 has a weakness in its solar sail array - the bug that sometimes makes structure "vibrate" will at times break solar panels off - which caused me to perform the same docking a few times, as I had noticed that a panel had tore off and I had to load a previous save.

Full Walkthrough of the assembly process with pictures will be in the spoiler section bellow:

Spoiler

The 1st and 2nd stage coasting right before dropping the farrings and stage separation - I really love the gradient of the sunrise in the horizon, KSP2 is beautiful.

Second stage kick off and going into lunar insertion orbit.

Here a close up of another tank - deployed in sunlight.

And here - coasting towards the target - I really like the look of the 4 engines on the terrier.

Here are all the tanks in lunar orbit - the outer 4 are the ones that had to be carefully timed.

This shot shows pretty well how tight the margins were - here are 3 tanks just parked around K.G.02 and next in line is only 11km away moving at rapid speed.

Here are all 5 tanks arrived at K.G.02 - ready for installment.

Installment was pretty streight forward - Just move them one at the time to the nearest port and dock them.

View from bellow. - I really would like a way to show how much your angle is off to the thing you try to dock to - i feel that would make it easier to line the ports up.

One of the tanks had spend all its Monopropellant - I was fortunately able to decouple the  tank and catch it with a small drone. Even though the drone only had its 3 small tanks of monopropellant - it still successfully docked to the station with more to spare. 

And here they are all docked. - Since the 2nd stage was connected via decoupler, it meant i could just press space and "jettison" all 4 docked engines and de-orbit them into the moon one by one afterwards. 

Her you can get a good look of the second stage - It is not the best of design. I had 4 struts making sure they wouldnt move to much - but on a few they had snapped, taking batteries with them . On one the entire structure had even bent like a banana - making docking a bit harder.

And here - flying off.

Later the last tanks catched up

and were installed.

View from bellow - space is getting tight.

All helium tanks installed.

 

C.

New Large Tug drone in orbit above Kerbin, with medium tug drone docked and 4 fully fueled methalox tanks on the new  fuel tank mount.

I decided to add an extra fuel tank to the Heavy Tug drone - when i discovered the old one only had enough fuel to get to Lunar orbit, not a tour re-tour. Boosting the fuel ammount also ment the vehicle would be able to move 4 tanks and 32t of fuel in one go. I was a bit worried about how much the 4 arms would bend and stress under acceleration - since its a push design and not a pull I was worried the tanks would snap off or shake enough to bring the vehicle out of course - But as you can see here:



They hardly moved. The vehicle has a very gentle speed - taking almost 2 full minuts to get into a lunar insertion orbit.

I managed to get the vehicle into lunar orbit, rendezvous with K.G.02 and install the 4 fuel tanks - Make a kerbin insertion orbit, but alas here the mission "failed". The vehicle ran out of fuel on a low kerbin orbit unable to fix inclination to K.G.01.

How ever - I do not see any needs to redesign the vehicle to have more Δv - I decided to assemble the vehicle on a mirror orbit of K.G.01 - to have better frame rate to do so. Which meant the vehicle had to do 2 great inclination correction burns - One at the Mun: on 17.2° and another at Kerbin on 10° - I feel if I get both stations to a 0° inclination to the bodies they orbit I will have fuel enough to do a tour-retour with 32t fuel. If not - having it in a LKO means the methalox glider should be able to service it to get the fuel needed to get back to K.G.01 without needing to take from the fuel it delivered to K.G.02


The heavy tug back in a LKO - empty of fuel after a otherwise Mission Success.

And the orbit the tug ended at.

Full Walkthrough of the assembly process with pictures will be in the spoiler section bellow:
 

Spoiler

The docking assembly and drone was send up in 2 passes, both were docked to K.G.01 - were it was also joined by a medium tug drone - and then boosted to a different orbit to make sure the assembly of the assembly would be with a better frame rate. It was at this point I noticed K.G.01 was dangerously low on its orbit.

Here you can see the assembly before assembly.

The medium drone hard at working putting the 4 arms were they belong.

Being on the dark side of Kerbin was not an issue due to the search lights.

Here it is fully assembled and ready to take on the first fuel tank. The proceedure became as such :

- Dock the medium tug drone to the fuel canister 
- then separate them  -
use the 2nd stage to top up the large tug drone after separating from K.G.01 
- undock the 2nd stage and dock the fuel tank.

Then de-orbit the 2nd stage and have it burn up.

second tank installment

4th and last tank arrived.

Installment of the last tank

De-orbit of 2nd stage as well as center docking of the medium tug drone to balance the craft.

here the vehicle is - fully ready to ferry the fuel to K.G.02 The Δv is as follows:

left is pre-lunar insertion orbit - right is post lunar insertion orbit.

Here she is on the day side, right before performing her Lunar insertion orbit.

I am actually really proud of her looks.

And here she is performing the Lunar Insertion burn - pretty long burn actually, almost take her 2 min

we arrive at a Lunar orbit - and perform a inclination correction burn.

Left: Δv after lunar orbit burn - Right: Δv after inclination correction burn.

We end up at this rendezvous orbit to K.G.02

after a few tours around the Mun - we break our speed to match K.G.02 and end up at this  Δv:

The vehicle is parked 60 odd meters from K.G.02 and it is time to see if the small tug drones has enough umpf and monopropellant to maneuver the fuel tanks

The small drone enroute to pick up fuel tank

The small drones proved to be albe to ferry 2 tanks before needing refueling monopropellant on K.G.02

here the little fella is ready to get the tank into position - this top down assembly around the core of the structure needs a steady hand - It looks good - but man its a lot of work.

tank being maneuvered up with the large drone parked in the background.

A view from bellow - showing how tight the space actually is. 2nd tank being installed.

and from above

the little drones actually worked supricingly well, considering its a smaller reaction wheel than the medium sized one - its 1 less thruster and 5 less fuel tanks. Ofcourse it helps the fuel tanks have their own thrusters - balancing out the craft.

and here they all are installed as seen from above - what is the final Δv verdict after losing 32t of fuel?

Left: Δv count after unloading fuel Right: Δv count after Kerbin LKO insertion burn.

and like shown earlier - this is where the mission ended and ran out of fuel - un able to dock with K.G.01 again - but not lost.

 

Moving Forward:

Next step - before I can fly the 4 next Methalox tanks to K.G.02 is going to refueling of K.G.01.

Stay Tuned for More!

Edited June 18, 2023 by BechMeister
corrected error re-cropped Δv screenshots to be same size

[Sylvi Fisthaug]

On 6/18/2023 at 1:24 AM, BechMeister said:

Here are all 5 tanks arrived at K.G.02 - ready for installment.

Oh my this really looks like it could be a brilliant scene from some space movie

 

On 6/18/2023 at 1:24 AM, BechMeister said:

A gif!! also noodles, yees

 

On 6/18/2023 at 1:24 AM, BechMeister said:

The vehicle is parked 60 odd meters from K.G.02 and it is time to see if the small tug drones has enough umpf and monopropellant to maneuver the fuel tanks

I love the look of K.G.02, and also as you said the methalox transit assembly looks really good

[BechMeister]

9 minutes ago, Sylvi Fisthaug said:

A gif!! also noodles, yees

thank you for the tip - it was very easy indeed x)


How ever, I dont have the forum stamina as you to make the post look super designed - this post already took like an hour to get right. with all the images etc xD

[Sylvi Fisthaug]

56 minutes ago, BechMeister said:

How ever, I dont have the forum stamina as you to make the post look super designed - this post already took like an hour to get right. with all the images etc xD

Who said I have stamina super tired of making those posts already! They will probably become shorter, and shorter, and shorter....

[BechMeister]

//////////MISSION UPDATE\\\\\\\\\\
- Refueling K.G.01 - All about Gliders -

Back to basics - launching the refueling gliders to K.G.01

 

Foreword:

This update is mostly for me. Its been a while since I flew my gliders, and I have to be honest, I had forgotten a lot of their quirks and how to fly them. I tried to go back to the section of the update on their development - but it left very little info on how they were operated. So I decided to write it down, so I can look it up in the future.

Mission Task:

Standardize launch procedure for ease of operation

Lessons Learned; Lessons Identified:

There were a few things about the gliders I had forgotten. It took me a lot of launchers were I simply could not get the second stage into orbit, before remembering the quick were I have to transfer fuel from the fuel tank Infront of the cargo fuel tank, to the back one. To make sure this didnt happen again, I connected the two tanks via. fuel lines that I "hid" inside the craft. Crossing fingers they wont break.

Any way - I figured out the Ideal, reproductive way to launch the vehicle:

1. Launch craft.
2. At 2km toggle "burn prograde" - the rocket will gravity turn itself until around 45°
3. Stage seperate at 1.500 Δv to give the first stage enough fuel to return to KSC.
4. Burn into orbit and rendezvous with K.G.01 - unload fuel and spare fuel so you have around 300 Δv remaining.
5. De-orbit burn. Dont worry too much about inclination - past trials show the ability to correct up to 4° error. (mind you though doing corrections vastly shorten glide distance)
6. Glide so you are as close to be above the runway as possible
7. when you hit the lower 1/3 of the atmosphere - allow the glider to drop at a 45° and reach terminal velocity at around 130 m/s to have enough energy to convert to horizontal movement in the thicker atmosphere.
8. "HOLD! HOLD! NOW!" this is the unpleasant part. Hold the angle of descent until 400-500m from the ground - then flair up and put down landing gear last moment 
9. touch down.

Follow this procedure - At least until next patch were a lot of the plane aerodynamics are being fixed.

Moving Forward:

I found out when refueling K.G.01 that past BechMeister had set the docking ports on the methalox fuel tanks to not allow cross fueling on 3/4 tanks. I presume this was done because the first tank installed probably was allowing fuel transfer and was not docked with full tank as some of the fuel was spend getting the tank there. The + side is - K.G.01 can fix decaying orbits with the fuel only in the Tug Drone.

This was a pleasant surprise. instead of having to do 11 tours to fuel the 4 tanks and large drone on K.G.01 I only have to fill 1 and the tug drone so - around 3. I am contemplating fixing the Inclination error K.G.01 has. How ever.. I cant make the game show the point where I cross the 0° Inclination point on Kerbin. I may have found a solution though... If i Park a vehicle on KSC (which I gather is on 0° Inclination) and say "set as target" I may bet the cross point.

Also fun little side note. I had fraps running at one point playing, and it has a FPS counter. I thought i ran the game at 15 fps around K.G.01 - In reality its 5 FPS xD   

Edited June 20, 2023 by BechMeister

[fulgur]

Can you Set the Mun as your Target? The Mun is in a 0 degree inclination orbit of Kerbin.

[BechMeister]

1 hour ago, fulgur said:

Can you Set the Mun as your Target? The Mun is in a 0 degree inclination orbit of Kerbin.

Indeed i could! Good thinking  I have an inclination error of 3.5° I need to fix

Edited June 20, 2023 by BechMeister
Updated answer

[BechMeister]

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

A very revealing image of K.G.01 main problem.

 

Lets Address the elephant in the Room:

Some of you may have noticed that something were wrong with K.G.01, I have alway taken images of the stations good angle.  However. At some early in K.G.01 deployment - one of the main docking arms "warped".

On this image you can kind of see how the docking socket is not sitting correctly on the station. As well as a clear shot of the bugged fuel lines.

This means that the station is curved. It has not really been an issue until now were I wanted to get a precise inclination at 0° But the station cannot hold its course when boosting... So I need to fix it if I want to be able to precise control its path.

2 birds with one stone:

I have decided to swap the docking arms and hydrogen tanks. The Hydrogen tanks are mainly to get rid of the fuel lines which bugs out (at one point I was wondering if it was actually the fuel lines causing the issue - pulling the station) 

Instead I will install these slightly longer arms I designed.

They are less heavy since they dont pack quite as much monopropellant. But its fine because K.G.01 has more mono proppelant than it ever needed. After reading a bit about the ISS manouver system I decided to try give the station its own propulsion system by adding 2 different kinds of arms - one pushing and one pulling. We will see if it will be able to do orbital adjustments with that.

Other changes:

I decided that instead of 10 larged sized 8t tanks I will install 4 xl 20t tanks - the K.G.02 tanks - "vertical", and then have space for 8 methalox tanks rather than 4 "horizontal" - Since I wanna refuel the Tug Drone at K.G.01 it makes sense to have more methalox fuel tanks. I will then just move 1 hydrogen tank at the time, reserving the "4 finger" mount for only the methalox tanks. The tug will then be hauling 20t fuel instead of 32t. - making it easier to go there and back again.

20t tank vs 8t tank.
 

Once that is done its back to refueling - Stay tuned for more!

Edited June 21, 2023 by BechMeister

[Sylvi Fisthaug]

On 6/20/2023 at 12:34 PM, BechMeister said:

Follow this procedure - At least until next patch were a lot of the plane aerodynamics are being fixed.

 

Also GRID FINS (they might not make tomorrows update but oh well, that's gonna be noice)

12 hours ago, BechMeister said:

I adore the look of of these fuel tanks with the small monopropellant tank inside the truss structures! I remember now how you put some monopropellant inside the payloads to have enough for manouvering and docking during contstruction of the station! 

[BechMeister]

6 hours ago, Sylvi Fisthaug said:

Also GRID FINS (they might not make tomorrows update but oh well, that's gonna be noice)

YES! cant wait - im going to replace the wings on my 1st stage with 2 sets of gridfins - a pair at the bottom for launch to counter the drag from the wings of the 2nd stage that will fold up once out of the atmosphere - and a set on the top that will fold out and control descent after stage sereation.

It will be so god not to gave my makeshift horizontal mounted control surfaces replaced.

But they wont come this patch? *sad noices*

6 hours ago, Sylvi Fisthaug said:

I remember now how you put some monopropellant inside the payloads to have enough for manouvering and docking during contstruction of the station! 

Yeah I have gotten so good at manouvering with the RCS that my tugs could probably  do without the internal module fuel... but its nice that they have their own fuel and RCS trusters - so i have thrusters at both ends of the craft x)

I managed to get the two new arms to K.G01 - its going to be interesting what my framerate is going to be like - and if the 8 engines will be able to adjust orbits