Making Life Difficult (a heavily modded colonisation playthrough)

[RedDwarfIV]

The orbital assembly of the IPTV Vanguard began with the command and habitation section.  I have a lot of trouble with Engine Plates failing mid-flight, so this launch required a lot of structural additions to get it up to orbit. The CHM has a rotating habitat, storm cellar for radiation (essential for its mission to Jool), a lab and a pair of garden modules (one for Agroponics, the other Life Support.)

 

Next came the Service/Power Module, with a gigantic solar array and a Garnet nuclear reactor capable of putting out up to 400ec/s. It also held the storage for Supplies and Fertiliser. Vanguard has six crew, and the mission to Jool will be long. I may decide to send a freighter along, carrying extra Fertiliser.

 

And finally, the Propulsion/Propellant Module.

Like the Basilisk, this vessel uses a Verne pulsed fission drive, but it has three times the fuel load. At the front of the PPM is a large reserve of LFO, for use by the landers that the IPTV will carry.  It also serves as a radiation shield.

Also helping with the radiation is the long truss structure. I'm going to need to move those docking ports so they aren't blocked by the solar array. I plan to use them to carry a spaceplane and a rover lander. The spaceplane for Laythe, the rover for Tylo.

I still need to bring up the science instruments package and a heavy lander capable of making a descent to and ascent from Tylo.

 

A MaterialKits shipment allows the habitat to deploy. With all habitation running, the vessel can support a 17 year journey.

 

[RedDwarfIV]

It's been a while. I've been waiting for all the parts of my new PC to arrive... and now they have!

KSP and most of the mods are installed. Unfortunately, several vessels were lost in transition: Wyvern, Centaur, Aurora and the Workshop.

I'm also wrangling with visual mods, trying to get EVE'S volumetric clouds working. At least Duna stopped being purple.

There's a few more things I have to do (such as build a new PC cabinet) but then I can continue this series, which I've enjoyed making and hope to continue soon.

Thanks for bearing with me.

[RedDwarfIV]

The PC cabinet took way longer to build than it should have, but it's done now. So I was finally able to continue assembling the Vanguard 1 mission to Jool.

First up, the Knight SSTO. A two-man spaceplane capable of making orbit at Kerbin, so it should have no trouble on Laythe.  Its science capabilities are fairly basic, so future missions to Laythe will have something to do. It has no nuclear engines, so flight time is limited. That may pose less of an issue as infrastructure develops, but that's not within the scope of Vanguard's own mission.

 

Next we have the Lemming Tylo lander. It's a single man SSTS-ARTO (Single-Stage To Surface And Return To Orbit) vehicle. Tylo is a demanding moon, so despite its large size, it's capabilities are also quite limited. Most of the science equipment will be on the rover instead.

 

I seem to have forgotten to take screenshots of the Honey Badger Tylo rover, or the Shrew lander. They're visible already docked to the Vanguard as I brought in the Orbital Science Package.

The OSP contains a large number of experiments which can only be used in orbit. It also includes a communications array, which I somehow neglected to put on either the command, engine or support sections of the vessel. Oops.

Shrew landers have a full suite of surface science instruments, and cargo space for a set of deployable experiments. With around 2,300 m/s of delta-V, they can easily handle Jool's less difficult moons.

As for the Honey Badger, it's carried by a single-use skycrane. Only thinking to test it after having already launched the thing, I found it quite unstable on the ground at Kerbin, where the gravity is simila to Tylo's. Unforgiving terrain means that I can't afford to send a rover that can't drive well. So, after some redesigns and testing, I found that I could fix the instability in only four parts - two M-Beams and a pair of T7 tracks. This would give it a wide base, so it would become impossible to roll. Added mass was negligible. And hey, the end result looked rater fetching, I thought.

 

Also  heading out this Jool window, is Jool Surveyor X.  I couldn't remember how many I'd already sent, so I decided to name it something with a sense of finality. This probe has a small nuclear reactor on board to ensure it always has enough power for its ion drive, and the drive itself exchanges some efficiency for an extra newton of thrust. Doesn't sound like much? It's 50% more.

As it turns out, KSP's native alarm clock is wrong. The Jool window is at least a month away, not 5 days. It should be 90 degrees ahead of Kerbin, but it's more like 70.

 

Last but not least, I took the liberty of checking out a probe in a strange orbit. It was Jool Surveyor 3 , which had a maneuver node set up in a year's time to intercept Jool. Considering I just mentioned I'd launched Jool Surveyor X, which would arrive at Jool at least a year before Jool Surveyor 3 would, I felt this situation was a waste of a scansat. So I renamed the probe Sarnus Surveyor 1, and changed the maneuver node to raise its periapsis until it crossed Sarnus orbit. As luck would have it, the planet would be in almost exactly the right position!

It will take 19 years to arrive. 

[Kerbalsaurus]

That's honestly the coolest SSTO I've ever seen.

[RedDwarfIV]

42 minutes ago, Kerbalsaurus said:

That's honestly the coolest SSTO I've ever seen.

Aw, thanks! The OPT Mk2 cockpit looks way better than the stock version.

Also, before I go to bed:

Vanguard is on its way to Jool. 12,000 m/s delta-V, so no concerns about getting stranded out there like Odyssey was at Dres. The ship handles fairly well at 3x physics warp, even with the mass of the Knight pulling it to one side a bit. Acceleration is about on par with the NERVA NTR, so I made two burns at periapsis. There will be another maneuver in about 200 days to adjust inclination.

 

I intend to launch one more vessel, a fuel tanker which will also carry a mining vessel. Not all of Vanguard's landers were fully fuelled as of departure, and that was an intentional decision. I wanted to reduce structural instability at the docking ports. But it does mean that if I failed to send extra LFO along, at least one moon landing would become impossible. Most likely I would cancel the Tylo descent. It's the most risky part of this entire mission.

[RedDwarfIV]

Seems there was another casualty during the Great PC Migration, the IPTV Endeavour. While the crew mysteriously reappeared at KSC, the ship itself is lost with all data on board.

Another mission will have to be sent. This time, I'll be sure to send a more capable lander.

[Kerbalsaurus]

1 hour ago, RedDwarfIV said:

Seems there was another casualty during the Great PC Migration, the IPTV Endeavour. While the crew mysteriously reappeared at KSC, the ship itself is lost with all data on board.

 

[RedDwarfIV]

As planned, construction of an interplanetary fuel tanker began.  The first section into orbit; the Power/Propulsion Module.

 

Second to orbit, the Primary Cargo Module. 

 

Third, the Ore Processing Module, which includes ore, monopropellant and LFO tanks along with a large converter. This section can be detatched at the destination to be used as an orbital fuel depot, freeing up the tanker to move from moon to moon.

 

Fourth, the Meerkat mining lander. This vessel has its own nuclear reactor, since solar is far too weak out at Jool. This arrangement does mean the OPM has no power unless the Meerkat is docked with it, but that shouldn't prove a major obstacle. It just means fuel production will take longer in-game. It saves the extra mass of a second reactor, not to mention the cost.

Fifth, fuel and propellant loading. The nuclear pellet transport is a one-off design, so has no name. The LFO tanker is called the Calypso.

 

And finally, I sent up an engineer along with a few extra parts that needed installing - a pair of 600kw radiators and a long range comms dish. The radiators would serve the vessel's own reactor, on a separate loop to the main drive. The two loops would operate at different temperatures, keeping the reactor from being overheated under thrust. As for the dish, it wouldn't do to lose control of a ship I spent an entire day putting together because I forgot a single component.

 

And so, the Inter-Planetary Cargo Vessel Andromeda was completed and ready for its voyage to Jool. Unless I build a nuclear smelter facility out there, this will be a one-way trip, as the vessel carries only a third the fuel pellets that the Vanguard does.

Off it goes. Inclination burn in about a month. Just over half the fuel pellets are gone. If I can manage a Tylo gravity assist, most of that should be available for moon-hopping after arrival. The Andromeda carries enough LFO, even disregarding the Meerkat/OPM, to keep Vanguard's landers operational for a number of landings per moon.

 

On a separate note, I managed to get the Tarantula rover to Eve's Shallows biome, where it scanned a Basalt Formation, completing one contract's requirements. It required the use of the InfiniteElectricity cheat, but only because the Support version of the triangular truss is glitched.

 

The next mission will be capturing another asteroid. Harpy survived the Great Migration, so I will be using that again. With luck, the rock will be the right size to fulfill another contract.

[RedDwarfIV]

Today I mostly dealt with things within Kerbin's sphere of influence. The one exception being Vanguard's inclination change, lowering the Jool periapsis.

 

Afterwards, I moved on to Harpy's intercept of what turned out to be a Class A asteroid.

 

While Harpy returned to Kerbin with the rock in tow, I began launching sections of a new Minmus base. Sparrow Base would serve as an ore refinery, fuel storage facility and transit depot for Rare Metals and Exotic Minerals. Below is the Habitat section. The other two sections were Logistics (which included ore storage and converter) and the Fuel Tower.

 

A crew composed of one Quartermaster and one Engineer were sent in a new landing/return vehicle. A small hab and supplies ensured they would make it to their destination in comfort.

 

The Harpy entered Kerbin orbit at 500km. Another contract was complete.

 

The Logistics module's descent. I chose to land the base on the same site as one of my previous bases, marked by a Manticore LFO tanker. Not due to any specific resource in the area, but because it was on the largest of the Flats, where spaceplanes can easily perform their horizontal takeoffs.

 

The purpose of this base is to serve as a destination for Milk Run missions. One of my Paladins came in to land, had the cargo and LF transferred to it through Local Logistics, then headed back to Kerbin. It reached LKO, and remained there while I spent some time deorbiting reusable launchers, recovering them as close to KSC and as intact as I could manage. 

 

There were a couple of issues with the base which required extra missions to correct - the upper 2m docking port was replaced with a cargo container for Rare Metals and Exotic Minerals, which a viewing cupola was placed on top of. I also had to send a radiator to ensure the converter wouldn't overheat. All changes were made by landing the components nearby and having the base's engineer install them.

The transfer window for returning from Dres is coming up, which means Valkyrie will soon be heading home.

I have also learned that three members of  the Endeavour crew may actually be aboard the Matador DAV, still in orbit of Duna. If this is the case, and not simply the life support panel lying to me, then it is possible the data is still present on board that craft. Certainly worth investigating. But alas, bedtime.

[RedDwarfIV]

Today I completed Milk Run 4. Rather than using a Warlock, I decided this time to send up a second Paladin. It's a significantly more expensive vessel, but easier to fly, and as it turned out, easier to land as well. Expense also doesn't matter so much if you can recover it,

Having proven that a Paladin could land with a half-load of Commodities, I found that I had just reduced the number of SSTO launches needed for a Milk Run mission from three to two, saving me time and effort.

...I guess I just made the Warlock SSTO redundant.

Oops. Little runway overrun there. The brakes are set to 75%, which is too low to be effective. I need to fix that.

Gained 8 mil from Milk Run 4. I'll be using that to finance the redevelopment of Mirage Station - adding a new Orbital Workshop module so it can return to operation. Tarasque Station out at Minmus is busy working on the replacement for Wyvern, and Leviathan is still out at Ike, so I need another orbital shipyard, even if I have to bring MaterialKits and SpecialisedParts up to it from Kerbin instead of manufactured from mined resources. I will also be launching a pair of fragment-drive freighters to carry large quantities of Commodities and construction materials from Minmus to Kerbin. The Commodities freighter will handle future Milk Run missions, having a much larger payload capacity than the Paladin, which will be relegated to bringing that payload from orbit to surface. However, it will likely not fill that role for long. It's overkill delta-V-wise, and landing it full laden involves walking a fine line between stalling and hitting the runway above safe speeds. Something lighter, with more wing area, could fill the role more effectively.

 

When I went to investigate the mysterious presence of crew members on the Matador DAV, I received a pleasant surprise.

Endeavour was not lost after all! Merely hidden, as for some reason the Matador was classed as a Station instead of a Lander, causing the vessel name to default to the lander's when they docked. The ship, its crew, and the data, are all perfectly safe.

In fact, I discovered that enough fuel had been transferred to the lander that, with parachute assistance, it could make a second descent to Duna (though only at a single landing site, this time.) The engineer repacked the chutes, while the scientist and pilot boarded the DAV.

I remembered to use the aerobrakes this time, though I'm not entirely sure how effective they are in Duna's thin atmosphere.

The pilot went for a walk while the scientist took soil samples. He then planted a flag, and they prepared to return to orbit. This is very much a flags-and-footprints mission.

Successful return! Though I did mess up the ascent a bit by leaving Ground Tether on and the airbrakes deployed at liftoff. Even so, the DAV had around 150 m/s delta-V in LDO. 

After rendezvous with Endeavour and the transfer of crew and data, I sent the Matador to Phoenix Station. Keeping the number of separate vessels flying about to a minimum seemed prudent to me.

 

 

On a separate note, I have been quite pleased with the performance of my new PC. Where my old desktop would sometimes have lag spikes lasting several seconds when disassembling parts, the new one reduces it to a few frames. Where my old desktop could take ten seconds to load a base on Minmus, the new one does it in two. The only difficulty I have encountered is occasional crashes to desktop, which I have been troubleshooting. Since it also loads KSP faster, crashes aren't as much of an issue as they would otherwise be. We'll see if I can eliminate them. Overall, I can feel the improvement.

[RedDwarfIV]

Valkyrie began its voyage home. Only after performing this burn did I realise I hadn't sent it to investigate Dres' three captured asteroid moons. Oh well. It's hardly an essential part of the mission, and I could certainly send Valkyrie back to Dres with a new crew after it gets home.  There are a couple of science instruments I could add to the ship, as well.

 

The renovation of Mirage Station required two primary missions, and three secondaries. The first primary lifted a new orbital workshop for turning Kits into vessels. The second was a kit containing the new Mirage Core station section.  This included extra habitation, hydroponics, solar power generation, power storage, an Orbital Assembly Space for producing kits,  propellant depot for LFO, monoprop, fission pellets and fission fragments.

Two of the secondary missions carried MaterialKit resupplies. The other brought up four engineers.

The end result is mostly to my liking, but there were a couple of issues.  The solar panels could potentially collide with kits coming out of the assembly space, and the original station parts are all very wobbly even after autostrutting. I'm going to have to figure out where I can move the reactor to that won't put it too close to the crew spaces. I'm not running any radiation mods but it seems like a good thing to consider anyways. Since I plan to expand the fuel farm with some LH2 tanks, I might be able to move it below that.

As for the solar panels, we'll see. I kinda like them where they are, and I don't want to move the OAS either.  As the station develops, better places might arise.

 

With Mirage's construction capability returned, and resource storage for everything that might need to be transferred, I launched another kit.

 

As mentioned in my last post, I wanted to replace the Paladin's Minmus flights with a dedicated freighter. The result was this: the Asgard IPCV. Oh yes, an Inter-Planetary Cargo Vessel. While the first of its class will be shuttling between Minmus and Kerbin, it has the delta-V, comms and power generation to go between worlds. Even fully laden with commodities, it could reach Jool... and return.  I'll likely send one alongside the Basilisk in the next Duna window, carrying all the MaterialKits, SpecialisedParts and Machinery the Leviathan could ever want.

Twin afterburning fragment drives provide excellent thrust for their efficiency, and without the capacitor faff of more advanced engines.

 

Of course, with Mirage still missing LH2 storage, the liquid hydrogen propellant needed to be shipped up from Kerbin in an expendable refuelling vehicle.

 

Now fully operational, Asgard 1 heads for Minmus. In what must have been a moment of sheer terror for the crew of Mirage, the freighter and station almost collided at a relative velocity of several hundred meters per second. No damage was done to either vessel except several spacesuits sent to laundry.

 

Since the freighter can't land on Minmus (something I may refit it to do at a later date) it needs a cargo lander to lift Commodities from the surface. For this, we have the Arachne CCV. I think it's a rather handsome looking craft.

 

Arrival at Minmus.

 

Descent.

 

Landed! Had to wait a while for Sparrow Base to make enough Liquid Fuel to replenish the lander before it could take off. 

 

Fully laden, the Arachne makes its first rendezvous with Asgard.

 

The lander docks and begins transferring the Rare Metals and Exotic Minerals across. Looks like it will take six to eight trips to fill the freighter's cargo bays. Yeah, that refit is looking increasingly attractive. Question is, what engines should I use for the job?

I'm actually considering VASIMR, or some variant of electric lithium propulsion, anyway. Asgard already has electric RCS because 2000 isp sounded nice to me. And the on-board nuclear reactor is only a backup for the solar panels at the moment, spending most of its time disabled. I'll have to test the concept out before I actually install any hardware on my brand new investment. Wouldn't wanna scratch the paint with an unscheduled lithobrake.

 

Edited February 6 by RedDwarfIV

[RedDwarfIV]

I had to launch a second Arachne configured for carrying Refined Exotics, since the Asgard's forward cargo bays are set to hold that resource. When the CCV (Arachne 1) had finished its job, the RCV (Arachne 2) took its turn. Three visits to the surface later, and Asgard was fully loaded.

 

Asgard returned to Kerbin, completing Milk Run 5. It took several burns at periapsis to reach a circular orbit in LKO. While the vessel's thrust is pretty good for its efficiency, the mass of the payload dramatically lowered the TWR. However, in the grand scheme of things, the extra faff of a couple extra burns is a bargain compared to the time I'd be spending flying individual Paladins out to Minmus to pick up the same amount of resources.

 

Now I had to get all those precious resources down from orbit, and as I said previously, I wanted a lighter, more responsive SSTO for the role that would be less likely to splatter itself across the runway. Thus began development of the Gladiator spaceplane.

OPT parts are lifting bodies, so I ignored the option of a stock spaceplane entirely. I knew from the off that I wanted to use a pair of Project Eeeloo engines, which can fly in atmosphere indefinitely. Any other engines would be dead weight either in flight or in orbit, so no nuclear lightbulbs or 2m jet engines. This would ensure that the only extra weight being carried at landing would be the payload.

The first iteration was a fairly small affair, short and sweet.

I really liked the looks of this little spaceplane. Unfortunately, its performance after acquiring payload made it unviable - despite the rear mounted engines, it was too nose-heavy and consistently hit the ground at high velocity in testing. Technically I could fix this, but only by ruining the craft's looks.

In the end, I actually lost a significant amount of the precious resources because I F5'd just before descent, not while the craft was still near Asgard. That wasn't a mistake I would repeat.

 

Attempt 2. Lengthened, and with a whole different wing layout. Kinda reminds me of the F-14 Tomcat from behind.

Results? Not much better, this time because the craft was too tail-heavy, causing it to stall and flat-spin until crashing into the ground. Reducing the payload by half allowed it to land safely, but that would double the number of trips required, which obviously wasn't acceptable. 

 

Attempt 3. I liked the previous design, and it was easier to adjust the CoG and CoL without massively changing the craft's appearance. I lengthened it once again, adding an OPT 2m docking port module, and rearranged the order of the fuselage sections so the cargo bay would be at the centre of lift. That way, payload would not affect flight characteristics. Or at least, that was the idea. Didn't quite work out. One of these actually made a water landing while flat spinning at 70m/s. It was damaged, but the engines and cargo actually survived, so I was able to recover the payload and most of the cost of the spacecraft.

 

Attempt 4. A bit more jiggery-pokery with the wings and fuel distribution. Also added a pair of carnards on the tail. At first I thought it was a bit weird to give the craft two tailplanes, but I think it works.

By this point in the previous flights, the spaceplane would have lost control already. This approach looks good.

 

Airbrakes deployed, slowing down for approach. It's very easy to overshoot the KSC.

 

I had activated the engines, throttled down to about 20% power, just to ensure it wouldn't hit stall speed. As it turns out, I needn't have worried. This version flies like an absolute dream. It came in to land, touching down easily.

 

After touchdown, I put the brakes on. However, it veered off the right side of the runway, and in my attempt to counter that, it then went back over the runway and off to the left, where it spun around on the grass until coming to rest. Despite the tumultuous stop, the spaceplane was totally intact. So was the payload.

 

4 million. Same as what a single Paladin could carry, but it's smaller, cheaper, and handles better. I think we're on to a winner, here! I just have to figure out how to steer it properly...

 

 

Edited February 7 by RedDwarfIV

[Kerbalsaurus]

I do notice that a lot of your SSTOs have a very Vaos-esque style to them. Was he inspiration to your builds?

[RedDwarfIV]

46 minutes ago, Kerbalsaurus said:

I do notice that a lot of your SSTOs have a very Vaos-esque style to them. Was he inspiration to your builds?

Nope. If I've watched any of their videos, it was a long time ago. Googling their spaceplanes, I can kinda see what you mean, but if anything my own spaceplanes are inspired by IRL craft and concepts like the SR-71 and the Reaction Engines Skylon.

I used to put carnards on the nose of my spaceplanes, but I've come to see that as the lazy option for getting a spaceplane to work in KSP. Having a proper tailplane is harder, and therefore more rewarding when it works.

The high wings are so I can mount larger landing gear without having the plane looking like it's on stilts.

And I just like engine nacelles.

[RedDwarfIV]

The final Gladiator SSTO of Milk Run 5 offloaded the last of the Refined Exotics, and returned to KSC.

I now have more money than sense. Hooray!

 

More upgrades for Mirage, specifically the LH2 storage tanks.

 

Storage tanks completed and attached. Moved the solar arrays so they'd be less likely to interfere with the Orbital Assembly Space. I'll likely move them again when I get round to replacing the current reactor setup with something less silly. Another kit was brought up for orbital construction.

 

Ran out of MaterialsKits halfway through, so I decided to install a much larger storage facility. It contained nothing on launch, so won't solve the stalled construction by itself. I needed further resupply missions for that.

 

Construction complete! Based on the Asgard but heavily modified, the Antelope IPFV is an interplanetary-capable propellant carrier. Its first mission will be heading out to Minmus, fillimng the tanks there, then returning to Mirage to fill the station's storage tanks. After that, I will likely send it to Duna alongside Basilisk at the next Duna transfer window. Then Leviathan won't have any resourcing concerns whatsoever.

 

Big fuel tanks means a lot of fuel. I realised that the Manticore FTV was simply too small, and I needed to launch a higher capacity replacement. That vehicle, even mostly empty, ended up weighing 100 tons. I had to design a whole new booster to lift it.

I learned from this landing that these landing legs are actually far better than the SpaceX-derived ones I usually use. Those would have no doubt exploded on landing, but these handle the heavy booster with no issues whatsoever.

 

I've actually forgotten what I named this. I'd have to reopen KSP to find out. It has four Wolfhound engines, about the most efficient LFO orbital engines I could have used while retaining decent thrust. Despite its size, this vessel is actually quite easy to fly, even when full.

It can fully fuel the Antelope in around four trips from Minmus' surface. I found that Sparrow's fuel storage wasn't quite sufficient. I will probably send another LFO tank. to increase the base's capacity.

 

In other news, Wayfarer 4 reached the periapsis of its 200 day orbit of Jool, coming close enough to gather science in Near Jool space. I tried to lower the periapsis enough to scrape the atmosphere, but the instruments failed to function. I then found that I was having terrible lag after dropping below 200,000m, which continued even after the probe started rising again. According to Task Manager, the CPU core running KSP was going 100% at each of these lag spikes, so I'm not sure what exactly was going on. It's possible that the Volumetric Clouds mod was requiring a lot more processing power at Jool than it does anywhere else, due to the sheer size of the planet. Even Eve wasn't causing this kind of issue.

[RedDwarfIV]

I had several contracts that needed fulfilling, and since there was nothing on the alarms coming up before the next transfer window several months away, I decided now was a good time for it.

Starting with Skua Base, a fuel refinery for the Mun. It needed habitation for eleven Kerbals, which is wildly overkill for a refinery (which at best needs a single Engineer or Miner on board, unless it has to pull Ore from Planetary Logistics, in which case a Pilot or Quartermaster is required), so I may consider expanding the facility later if I ever figure out what the Mun is useful for.

I only discovered after this that the base needed radiators to disappate heat from the drills and converter. I sent an extra mission with radiators, a life support recycler, and storage for Supplies and Fertiliser.

 

The next contract required a station for Minmus for ten Kerbals, with a viewing cupola and 1,000 units of monoprop on board. I figured this could serve as the habitat for a later station or interplanetary craft, even if it's not very important right now.

At the same time, I sent a second fuel tank out to Sparrow Base, to expand the fuel farm.

Oh yeah, the new FTV is called the Olympus. I thought that was fitting, given its size.

[RedDwarfIV]

Final shuttle run of the Olympus FTV, all tanks on the Antelope now full. The LFO tanker then burns for Kerbin.

 

In LKO, Antelope proceeds to dock with Mirage. The station lost its solar arrays in a Kraken incident, and strangely hasn't tried to shake itself to bits since. As they were only ever a backup to the on-board reactor, and there are still a couple of small panels for emergency life support, I see no urgent need to replace them. This also means nothing is blocking the orbital assembly space anymore.

Mirage's LFO tanks were filled. Antelope still contained a considerable amount of propellant. I will definitely be sending the vessel to Duna at the upcoming transfer window.

 

Something else that needs to go to Duna is Phoenix Station. I have a contract to send a station with IRSU capability, supporting 13 Kerbals, with three scientists on board. All to be fully assembled at launch. The contract awarded 334k VF on accepting, and 866k VF on completion.

...this thing cost more than that.

I elected to use a Nuclear Salt-Water Rocket for the interplanetary propulsion. It was the most lightweight option, which I needed in order to fit everything onto a single masive booster. The station is equipped with a gravity hab, logistics module, science lab, and a fuel tank for LFO. That tank was empty at launch. I intend to fill it in Duna orbit using either the Antelope or the Manticore FTV currently docked with Leviathan.

It will then be able to use the Matador DAV to continue the Duna exploration program.

On a side note, technically there already is a Phoenix Station around Duna. It consists of a single hydroponics module, intended for keeping smaller exploration ships stocked while waiting for the return window. The space program has reached the point where this is no longer neccesary, as all exploration craft carry their own hydroponic gardens and plentiful supplies.

 

While the three scientists were actually aboard Phoenix Station during launch, I had a few extra crew members to send up separately. One Quartermaster to man logistics, and three tourists, all with contracts to either fly by, orbit, or land on Duna.

[RedDwarfIV]

In an effort to recover some funds and make the whole endeavour profitable, a mission was launched to attach a control probe and parachute packs to the Phoenix's lifter, which I'd forgotten to do in the VAB.

It all looked so promising. Alas, t'was not to be.

Without airbrakes to slow the massive booster, nor enough spare fuel in the tanks, the stage was never able to slow to a safe velocity for even the drogue parachutes to deploy. The lifter hit the ocean at high velocity, destroying pretty much everything of value.

This was rather pretty, though.

 

Another contract involved getting crew reports from a pair of locations on Gilly. This mission was an absolute breeze, the only risk being if I accidentally timewarped into terrain.

 

Yet another contract asks for a scan of a Duna Meteorite. While I could probably survey every Duna biome with the Matador, the lander has no scanning arm, and having to repeatedly land and take off from Duna in a craft with its low margins would be both time consuming and risky. As such, I designed a rover to do the job. At launch, its only science instrument was a Surface Scanner. Having realised I forgot the Scanner Arm, the thing that inspired this project in the first place, I sent up a mission to add one... except I got distracted and used that flight to carry deployable science experiments instead. I only realised after reaching orbit. So I sent another mission up, which finally installed the device. Let's hope it survives entry into Duna's atmosphere.

I have updated the Krakatoa Ultra-Heavy Lifter (50 tons to LKO, reusable) with proper landing legs that don't explode.

This is the Leopard Rover. The on-board habitat, cupola, recycler and hydroponics farm allow the vehicle to operate for around 200 days with a crew of four. It has a pair of advanced RTGs, solar panels, and an LFO fuel cell for power generation, to ensure that its hungry life support systems are always powered. Over 8,000 units of EC battery storage ensures that the 0.75 scale monster wheels can keep on trucking for a very long time. It also has a Bon Voyage controller, so I should be able to just set destinations and let it go while I handle other missions.

The Matador's scientific instruments will be transferred to the Leopard, as a cheaper alternative to adding them prior to launch.

On a final note, I find it odd that the original Bison command pod is more aesthetically pleasing to me than the Bison 2's.

I tried to dock it with the 2m port but the wheels got in the way.

Antelope will carry Leopard to Duna at the next window. It has plenty of delta-V to spare - 16,000 m/s. I considered increasing the size of the sustainer stage so Leopard could make the transit to Duna by itself, but rejected it on the basis that part of my philosophy for this entire series was that I didn't want to send whole armadas of vessels out at the same transfer window, because making sure they all arrive safely is a pain. That's also exactly how I ended up with the Ronin flying off into deep space. Better to have only two craft transit to Duna, even if it will split up on arrival.

 

Next up, Eve contracts. I've got a tourist who wants a flyby, and a World Firsts requiring that I send something to Eve and land it back on Kerbin. That can be a command pod. I'm thinking I'll design a dedicated interplanetary crew transport, and have it bring whatever command pod carries the tourist up dock with it (has to to transfer tourists anyway) and bring it with for the whole mission.

Edited February 14 by RedDwarfIV

[RedDwarfIV]

For the Eve mission, I knew most of the science that was easily collected has already been done so by Valiant, so there was no need for any scientific instruments to be brought along besides a single scanner arm, to carry out a scan of a Gilly Ridgeline. Therefore, the transport vessel could be a fairly lightweight affair, with enough habitation and life support to carry a number of Kerbals interplanetary, and nothing else. It would be lifted in two sections, Command and Propulsion.

Put together, we have the IPTV Comet.

Crew were launched separately, along with the MaterialKits for the hab ring inflation, and the scanner arm.

 

By the time the craft was ready to go, only twelve days remained to the Eve transfer window. I took the opportunity to let Tarasque do a bit more work on Wyvern II, then sent Comet on its way..

 

The Eve > Kerbin window opens in about 40 days. Kerbin to Duna in 160.

 

[RedDwarfIV]

After the kerfuffle with the Ronin SSTO flinging itself away from Eve and me sending it off to Jool instead, I realised there was an opportunity to send a replacement in the current Eve transfer window.

Equipped with twin Project Eeloo nuclear jets, and a powerful nuclear aerospike, this new spaceplane ought to have the oomph to break free of Eve's cloying atmosphere. I had been quite concerned that the Ronin would be unable to do this, but hadn't found a way to incorporate a third engine.

I call this new vessel the Samurai.

 

I was able to get the spaceplane to orbit using only the Eeloo engines - in fact, when I tried lighting off the aerospike in one attempt, I lost parts to overheating as a result of atmospheric friction. I could have avoided that by throttling down, but the main reason not to use the aeropike was so I wouldn't have to send up two different tankers. The Eeloo engines use Liquid Fuel, while the aerospike requires Liquid Hydrogen.

One hastily assembled tanker flight later, and the Samurai was ready for its interplanetary burn.

Off it goes!

Due to the limited life support, it was launched uncrewed. The Comet can dock with it after arrival. It will need another refuel after Eve capture, so I'm going to have to launch another tanker after it. Nothing super fancy like the Antelope, since there's no time to build anything that size, and the spaceplane should only need enough fuel for one descent into Eve's atmosphere. The Eeloo engines mean it can fly indefinitely. There is no reason to return it to orbit until the end of the mission, unless Supplies or Habitation run out.

Edited February 15 by RedDwarfIV

[Kerbalsaurus]

There is no kill like overkill.

[RedDwarfIV]

This is the tanker design I came up with for refuelling the Samurai at Eve. The Harrier FTV carries enough Liquid Fuel and LH2 for a single Eve descent/ascent. The nuclear lightbulb engine means it can reach Eve without having to dig into the payload. 50k VF would be expensive for a single-use engine, if I weren't swimming in funds.

 

Tarasque Station is running low on Specialised Parts, which it needs to continue work on Wyvern 2. I could have sent several carriers to Minmus, but instead chose to have Mirage construct a freighter that could shift huge amounts of the resources about, and when Wyvern 2 comes online, it can ferry MaterialKits and Specialised Parts from there to wherever in the Kerbol system they might be needed. 

 

The Eve to Kerbin transfer window is coming up, so Valiant departed Gilly for a circular orbit high over Eve. It'll be another week or two before it heads home. The stock alarm clock lied to me again.

[RedDwarfIV]

In an effort to avoid the faff of deorbiting reusable boosters, while recovering more of the cost of the launch vehicle, I began working on a new cargo spaceplane for carrying MaterialKits up to Mirage Station. This resulted in two variants of a viable design, the Berserker and Marauder.

Anticipating that I would need a lot of thrust to reach orbit with such a heavy payload, I fitted the Berserker with four Project Eeloo engines, two OPT Turbo-Ramjets and a pair of nuclear aerospikes. That was reduced to a single aerospike when I found that two of them could run through the LH2 supply in the time it took the spaceplane to reach the end of the runway.

So far, so good. It was perfectly capable of reaching orbit, but the weight of the craft meant it needed to use the Eeloo drives in closed-cycle mode until reaching 300 m/s, This was not exactly optimal.

Perfect landing! Though I did have a couple of failed attempts, until I realised that autostrutting the nose gear was a bad idea.

Next up, Marauder. I figured the nuclear aerospike and the turbo-ramjets were actually unneccesary, and in fact were only required because of the weight of the fuel they were using. So I removed them, leaving just the four Project Eeloo engines. I'm starting to wonder if the Samurai would have been better served without the aerospike, too.

I think this might be the best screenshot I have ever taken.

 

Overran the runway, no damage. I tweaked the landing gear in the SPH afterwards to ensure that it would have enough braking power to stop, next time.

 

Evaluating these designs, I think the Berserker might have some promise as an Eve cargo SSTO, but It's far too expensive to justify using it in anything but niche roles - 700,000 VF, vs 330,000 VF. It's even possible the Marauder could be an Eve SSTO as well, in which case it would have no use whatsoever. I like the name too much, though, so I might reuse it for a different design.

In general, the Marauder is a highly effective design, and one I anticipate I'll be using a lot. When Mirage completes the Asgard 2, I'll be using it to hault up MaterialKits and SpecialisedParts for transport to Tarasque Station.

Edited February 16 by RedDwarfIV

[RedDwarfIV]

Asgard 2 has been launched. I forgot to take any screenshots of it, but it basically looks like Asgard 1 with larger forward cargo bays and half the fission particle capacity.

Lifting MaterialKits was easy enough that I nearly filled Mirage's storage.

 

Not all the flights went to plan, but that was entirely my fault. This particular Marauder was damaged by 8x physics warp.

The landing was not a conspicious success, but it did land, despite having lost an engine, a vertical stabiliser and a tail canard.

 

SpecialisedParts are a different matter. They're heavier than MaterialKits, making takeoff more difficult, and reducing delta-V after reaching LKO. To remedy this, I tried sticking a 2m turbofan on the tail.

It worked well enough.

I'll have to send up quite a few of these missions to completely fill Asgard 2.

[RedDwarfIV]

Today was a busy day!

 

Call me a flip-flopper, but I decided maybe SSTOs weren't the best option for bulk transport after all. Oh, I fully plan to keep using them to stock Mirage,  but the Asgard 2 was thirsty for resources in a way only a 300 ton-to-LKO launcher could satisfy. This is the Polecat MK/SPCV, atop the new Blizzard booster stack. I launched it twice, filling the freighter's SP cargo bays to... 2/3rds full. Yeah.

 

My first time making use of the inflateable heatshield, and having it work properly. All my previous experience of it usually resulted in the spacecraft flipping around.  I know it's standard practice to put one at either end, but that always looks silly to me,

(EDIT: Just remembered I used it for the Tarantula rover. Though in that instance it was a much smaller payload, with an aeroshell to make it look like one of NASA's rover capsules.)

 

The booster followed it down. It has many, many parachutes. Some more neccesary than others.

 

As stocked as I could be bothered, I sent Asgard 2 off to Minmus. Heavy as it is, and with limited TWR, several burns were needed.

 

As the Eve to Kerbin transfer window opened, Valiant headed home.  I'd considered leaving the ship's engineer behind at Gilly, but only thought of that when it was too late. Heaven knows how I'm going to scan those Gilly ridgelines.

 

Asgard 2 arrived at Minmus and rendezvoused with Tarasque Station. Even after bringing up an empty Ferret MKCV from the surface, there still wasn't enough storage on Tarasque for all the MaterialKits the freighter was carrying. To avoid any Kraken-y mishaps, I sent Asgard 2 away after the transfer was complete. Ferrets can shuttle between them later if neccessary.

 

The return window at Duna also opened up, and Endeavour made its own burn for Kerbin.

 

Annoyingly, Tarasque Station's reactor overheated and melted down during timewarp, despite having adequate cooling in all other situations. I was forced to send a replacement, which I fitted much more effective cooling arrays to.

 

Sarnus Surveyor made its first burn, bringing its apoapsis out to Jool orbit. It will make another burn in a few months to intercept Sarnus.

 

The Duna transfer window arrived. Three craft orbiting Kerbin made their escape burns. Only the first, Phoenix Station, was able to do so on a single pass, with its nuclear saltwater rocket.

That's a spicy meatball!

Basilisk went next.

 

And last, but certainly not least, Antelope.

 

Coming up, the arrival of the Comet and Samurai at Eve.

Edited February 18 by RedDwarfIV