An Overengineered Mission to Minmus.

[BechMeister]

An Overengineered Mission to Minmus

The Little Base™ - being tested on the runway at KSC.

Foreword:

After finishing my Mun - Kerbin connection I decided the next logical step was a mission to Minmus (getting Kerbin SOI squared off).

In the beginning I thought it was going to be something pretty insignificant.. How ever.. What started with a rover and a "dropship", has now evolved into an over the top, over engineered base building mission.

The documentation for the whole affair started to outgrow what was feasible to post. So I figured I would just start "blogging" now. 

Hopefully this will be a much shorter endeavour than the K.G.01 and 02 saga.

 Mission Planning:

A. Design the base elements: 

1.  A container housing unit (C.H.U.)
2.  A Generator for powering the base and rovers.
3.  A Command and Control Center (C.C.C.)
4.  A Rover Capable of exploring Minmus in detail.

B. Design a dropship that can land elements of the base:

C. Design a Crew Shuttle for the Kerbalnauts.

D. Design a Vehicle that can "Carry" the mission elements from LKO to Minmus.

A. Designing The Base Elements:

When I designed all the different Base Modules I decided to give them all little rover wheels and "landing legs" - first of all to be able to cushion the drop from the cargo hold of the drop ship. Second to be able to dock the parts with each other, as well as eliminate any terrain differences that would flip them around. They are also all supplied with a little bit of Δv (except the generator which has quite a bit) for being able to "fly up" and catch the docking port in the belly of the dropship again - in case the base has to be moved.

I've spend quite a few hours designing these little modules - I actually think it is very hard to make good looking base modules. But I think I somewhat succeeded... and the ones that are "ugly" are "ugly" in a cool way. (Talking about the CHU unit here)

1. Container Housing Unit:

Spoiler

The C.H.U. is a 2 floor mobile container - It consist of a airlock for EVAs, the bottom floor holds the individually housing for the crew, as well as showers etc. for its complement of 8 Kerbals. The top floor has the cantina and R&R area.

2. Generator Power Unit (G.P.U.):

Spoiler

The G.P.U. is a container with solar panels and Methalox for burning in fuel cells for the loong lunar nights. It will supply the entire base as well as fuel for the rover. Which can run on fuel cells as well in the lunar nights.

The red lit clamp-o-tron is the refueling array. were a Future_Refueling_Vehicle™ will be able to service the generator and top it up.

3. Command and Control Center (C.C.C.)

Spoiler

This building consist of two air locks for EVAs and a command and control center as well as long range comms. It is also this building that connects with the  C.H.U. and G.P.U. - The Mobile Lab Rover can also dock to this section for refueling etc. 

The top floor in the copular is for mission planning and operation control. The lower floors contain the coms section and monitoring. - I dont know what it is - but the MK2 with the angled walls give me Star Wars vibes. 

4. Mobile Lab and Rover:

Spoiler

The rover was actually what started it all - I have been wanting to make a rover out of the TR-3 Bulldog design for a while - but I just thought it was very hard to make a good looking and reasonable compact design.

When I build my LKO station Kerbin Gate 01 (K.G.01) I build a docking module with the 3 part splitter and cylinders that I connected with the small structural panels. Its proven to be very versatile technique for making triangled shapes, square shapes and here flat oval shapes. It looks good with the MK1 Stowaways and they match the profile of the cockpit a lot. I think that has been my biggest issue with the design. There has been too few bodies that looks good with it... I carried the design for the rover over to the Crew Shuttle, albeit its much longer as I wanted it to be able to land and take off from the Mun.

It drives quite well on Kerbin. I am exciting to see how it does on Minmus... With how low the gravity is.. it almost feel like its going to necessary to reverse the thrusters to give it down force so it won't drive off the surface.   

B. Designing a Dropship:

Designing the dropship was actually the first element I went for. I recall seeing and very old KSP video where the player played on the real universe and made a long mission to Titan. He had 4 tubes connected to his space ship that housed the base modules etc. and I thought that was a brilliant way to use the stock cylindrical cargo bays.  - I wish we had XL rounded box cargo bays - mostly because the circle is hard to fit base modules in. 

As you can see it's quite the drop for the rover... If we had parts that could crain them down etc. that would be nice.

As you can see the ship is a tube with a separated cargohold - and two engine compartments that hold the fuel and landing legs. On its front it has a large CC375-D Docking port and on the back it has 4x 48-7s "Spark" engines -giving it 1618 Δv in a vacuum. These engines are meant to do a de-orbit burn. 

I also see a possibility of the carrier to perform the de-orbit burn. unload the dropship and boost back into orbit. Just to help the drop ship preserve Δv. For landing it uses 2x LV-909 "Terrier" giving it 1211 Δv on a full tank.

Its a pretty versatile design. that can also work as a vehicle garage for rovers:

Here is a better view of the interior - with floodlights and all.

Now I'll be able to land all elements with out abrasive lunar dust getting kicked everywhere - and the modules can be shielded on the journey to and from the base destination. 

All elements are autonomous ofcourse - I see this landing by itself and base assembling by itself, and then the crew lands afterwards.

C. Design Crew Shuttle:

As you can see its literally just the rover design, but with legs instead of wheels and more Δv. It holds 3 Kerbals and has enough Δv to land from a 10km Mun Orbit, and get itself back into a 10km Mun Orbit. I know because I tested it with the cheat mo... *cough cough* I tested it in "simulation"

D. Design Modular Interplanetary Spaceship:

Now... I could have done something sensible - and flying the 4 dropships separately to Minmus and land them ahead of sending Kerbals... But this is where I decided to go overboard and over design the mission.

I build a crew ship with a 4 way split, that the dropships can dock to. It can hold the Kerbals as well as mission essential modules. I loaded the craft with 4x MK3 JFT-10000 weighing 50t each to simulate the weight of the 4 fully loaded drop ships. Then I loaded it with 3x Crew Shuttles.

With 2x LV-SW "Swerv" and 50t Hydrogen it gives me 3239 Δv - which if i calculated the Δv map correct - should give me enough and then some, for a tour-retour to Minmus... Yes.. its a ridicules craft for just going to Minmus... The whole vehicle also weighs 387t  

I opted for a "Space Tug" because I think it ISVs in Avatar is the coolest Sci-fi spaceship every put to film... and I think it's so clever exploiting tensile strength vs old boring compression. 

That being said - I dont think KSP gives any advantage to designing pull systems - unless you want something with a lot of drag into space. Its bit of a shame.. as it can be quite difficult to design a tug that looks decent.

The Tug:

I wanted the Tug to be modular. I contemplated building it in 3 pieces:

1. the long center piece with docking tower and tether.,
2. the main fuel tanks with reactors
3. the Main engine section. 

The vehicle would then consist of 2 engine pieces and 2 reactor pieces.

But as I don't think the game likes parts that has 2 or more connecting docking ports - I decided to design it so it looked modular.. but testing the double connecting docking ports... 

To me it feels weird that we dont have to put reactors on the ships when you have nuclear engines on it. I roleplay it - So I decided to put on reactors to the ship. Also now I won't need to put on solar panels - So that's cool.

I kind of whish we could remove the cylindrical gitter around the 10t ball tanks - or if we could get smaller spheres tanks.. because I think the double sphere looks great!

Engines are off set a bit - to not fry the spaceship. (too much)

The Crew Section:

I see the crew section as the first part of a modular interplanetary vehicle. It will be the vehicle section of the future spaceship bringing Kerbals to and from bodies outside the Kerbin SOI.

I already designed a second section for the ship - a Methalox Fuel load - allowing me to refuel the landers when they come back to the ship looking like this:

It is carrying my Standard 9t Methalox Tank - also used on my space stations K.G.01 and K.G.02. - It will not be used on this mission though. As all the vehicles have enough fuel for the mission within them.

For future missions I would like to have two gravity rings attached in front of this - or between this and the methalox section. I tried to make a gravity ring myself using wheels and empty space between sections.. but even if there is empty space between the turning section and the shaft.. it still acts as if they are bolded together. 

So that will have to wait until the Dev Team gives us "things" that allow us to make spinny bits. Or they release that gravity wheel they have been showing burning up in their atmosphere demos.

Another thing I really miss is some easier way to attach things at an angle.. Would you believe me how hard it was to make those ~45° angle bits and have them be "straight" again for the docking port sections. Any way - I got it done.. and center of mass.. is somewhat in the middle. 

 

Moving Forward:

Next step is going to get all this into space!

Stay Tuned for More!

 

P.S. If there are to many images in this blog - please say so, or you will have to expect this level of detail moving forward.

 

Edited April 26 by BechMeister
realized the moon was called Minmus and not Minimus.

[Icegrx]

Okay, I was really bummed with K.G.01-02 coming to a close. I am way more excited about this now! I’ll keep my comments short here, but a few things. 

The stock KSP2 Main & Side missions are pretty lack luster, I’ve played through them a couple of times now on various campaigns, I’m not really looking forward to doing them again. Your K.G.01 missions and now this however really give me the itch to hop back in and keep playing. The detail you put into the blogs, and the ability to follow along in my own gameplay make it something really great. I hope those in charge of the KSP2 missions take note and give us more detailed engineering inspired missions like this. It is a sandbox however, and the game is what you make of it you’ve proved that much! 
 

The Command & Control Center you build is incredible! It looks like it could be a single item designed specifically for that purpose, it does not look like something built out of individual parts if that makes sense. I’ve been waiting on colonies update for parts like this, and you just went and built your own! 
 

Excited to see how that crew section evolves, looks incredibly sleek and sci-fi like. All the payloads I’ve landed and or sent interplanetary so far have been pretty small so looking forward to how you deal with all the mass. 

[BechMeister]

On 2/10/2024 at 11:13 PM, Icegrx said:

The detail you put into the blogs, and the ability to follow along in my own gameplay make it something really great.

I am very happy the effort is appreciated. It is probably no secret that it quickly end up taking a while to write each blog entry x)

On 2/10/2024 at 11:13 PM, Icegrx said:

The Command & Control Center you build is incredible! It looks like it could be a single item designed specifically for that purpose

Thank you! It took quite a few different iterations to get it to "look right" - especially because it had to fit within the XL cargo bay...  I wish it was one single item too - My pc is absolutely struggling with this mission xD But more on that bellow.

MISSION_UPDATE:

Minmus Mission Ship assembled and ready for the next leg of this mission.

Foreword:

This mission is really pushing my PC to the limit. I did not design any vehicle here with performance in mind. I indulged myself a lot in this mission... and my game is pushed to the limit. 

I've experienced more crashes than ever, and the game just starting to glitch out, probably from being unable to computate whats going on. The last part of this Mission Update was docking the two last crew shuttles to the main ship. It took 2 attempts as one of the docking glitched up by me doing time warp, and going out of time warp within the docking margins. The ship bugged out and docked in a "wrong" state and broke the ship.. I had to reload. in the end docking 2 vehicles less than 200m away from the ship took me 2h and 24min at on average 2 fps 

I foresee that the undocking and landing of the dropships on Minmus will cause trouble. I have come to the conclusion that It will probably be best to circular the orbit around Minmus at a planned 10km altitude. Then I'll detach the main engine and park it in a higher orbit. Removing a lot of parts that needs simulating.

Then I hope that the dropships without the base in their cargo hold will give me a less glitchy 3 fps when I have to go back to Kerbin.

We'll see. Without further ado, here are the mission objectives:

 

MISSION TASKS:

 

A.  Get the Nuclear Space Tug into LKO. - Success

B. Get the Crew Ship into LKO and dock with the Space Tug. - Success

C. Get the dropships with Base Modules into LKO and dock with the crew ship - Success

D. Get the 3 Crew Shuttles into a LKO and dock with the Crew Ship - Success

 

Lessons Learned; Lessons Identified:

A.

Space Tug enroute to LKO.

I do in general not like to fly "impossible" rockets into space. But I was afraid that If i build this in 5 pieces (as would be possible) - that the connections would either glitch out - or the added complexity would have been the final nail in the missions coffin.

While I did go into full self-indulgence mode with this mission - I was also aware enough to know that this mission would be tough on my hardware, to launch this in one piece.

Getting the rocket into LKO was not too difficult. The craft is stupidly overpowered when unloaded. that being said, I wanted to save fuel. I strapped 4 huge solid rocket boosters on it and got it into the vacuum no issues. Also the fuel tanks did survive the rapid ascension - I did not have to untoggle heat mechanics on this part of the mission. That came later - when I realized that farings does not shield the cargo from heat (which is annoying to say the least)

See Detailed walkthrough of this leg in the spoiler section bellow:

Spoiler

Booster separation.

Full engine burn - as you can see the engine plume is quite large - but I "simulated" (cheat tool) an extensive burn - and the tugged space craft was not fried. I wonder how much exhaust dirt would accumulate on a tugged vehicle though over time in real life?

And the tug in orbit with its engines still glowing.

B.

The tug doing final maneuvers before docking with the Crew Ship.

Getting the crew ship into space proved to be more complicated than I had anticipated. The Idea was pretty straight forward - I just connected 4 L tanks with L docking ports to the crew ships. 2 with a engine optimized for atmospheric flight, which would be dumped once through the atmosphere. The second two were fitted with engines optimized for vacuum flight and would push the craft into orbit, to then deorbit themselves after stage separation.

Easy enough you may think. How ever I found out that the ship did not have its center of mass and drag running through the center. Even though I did all in my power to get the angle of everything to be perfectly symmetrical - It isn't.. and therefore its not in perfect balance.

It got into LKO with quite the inclination error something like 6° - unfortunately not in the same axis as Minmus - SO.. I have quite the inclination to correct in the future. It would probably have been smarter to get the ship into the correct inclination from the start - where it was less massious - but I did only think of that now. I should have a lot of  Δv though, as I did my calculations fully loaded, and when the ship returns from Minmus, it will be significantly lighter.

See Detailed walkthrough of this leg in the spoiler section bellow:
 

Spoiler

The crew section enroute to space.

1st stage dropped.

As you can see with KSC in the background, we got through the atmosphere at quite the off angle. - I tried to correct the  inclination with the subsequent burn. But I could only do so much.

Vacuum optimized engines pushing the craft into a 90km orbit. Allowing me for a 80km orbit for catch up to the target, and a 100km orbit for the target to catch up the with subsequent missions. It should not interfere with K.G.01 - also at a 100km orbit. since they'll go at the same speeds.  

crew ship in its orbit, and the engines turning retrograde to perform a deorbit burn.

And here they are de-orbiting. - they were not that much in control.. so re-entry was quite random. (watch out for debris - Kerbels are sturdy people) 

Link up with the Tug.

The tug was the craft with the best RCS authority - I did not install a lot of RCS thrusters on the ship carrier - as it will be able to use the RCS thrusters of the docked vehicles. It was however the craft with the most stable roll authority.

It ment that it was the Tug that performed the docking approach. but the crew ship that made sure to roll into the correct orientation. I wish that KSP had more tools to make sure ships are docked in the right orientation. Here i was able to use the lights to align with the 4 large docking ports. as well as "drawing" an imaginary line between the tether and the panelborder in between the windows of the cockatoo cockpit.

Here they are connected with a good look of the engines - angled slightly away from the cockpit.

And the ship in orbit, ready for the mission specific vehicles to be docked. 

C.

The Dropships enroute to the Crew Ship.

When ULA launched their Vulcan rocket - I read that they in the future think about making the engines re-usable by de-orbiting them on a inflatable heatshield that would also work as a float. The tank, which can be of a simple construction, would then burn up in the atmosphere.

I decided I wanted to make a launch vehicle for the dropships and mission modules that copied that aspect. 2 problems makes it more of a hassle than it was worth...

Problem 1: Make it fly straight:

Engines are heavy - so its hard to get it to fly nose down. The 1st stage engine section will survive easily though - it does not reenter at to high a speed. And even if it does not follow the prograde down perfectly, its good enough:

The 1st stage engine section re-entering

As you can see from the screenshot it will re-enter and hold a AoA of ~15° - Its enough to protect the engines on the way down. But the 2nd stage section is a lot harder case. 

Even though it only has 3 engines instead of 6, it re-enters with about 500 Δv in its front tank AND has 6 grid fins instead of 4  - it will still only re-enter at an AoA 90° - It makes it quite hot.. but.. it will survive. I have contemplated to ditch the saving of the 2nd stage... I can't figure how to make it re-enter correct.

Second stage re-entering. Notice that even with 6 grid fins it still tumbles once it reaches the thicker parts of the atmosphere.

Problem 2: decouplers and fuel transfers:

When you place a decoupler - which I have to do to be able to decouple the two parts and have room for the inflatable heatshields between two fuel tanks - they do not transfer fuel. I tried to connect them with fuel lines to bypass the decoupler. But it did not work. - I guess I could try make it work with docking ports? but then I can't figure how to attach the heatshield.

Any way This means that I have to place a fuel tank on the engine section I can transfer fuel to while it flies up. Unfortunately you can't just set it to transfer fuel and it will keep doing it. It only ever transfers the amount of fuel that was missing in the tank when you started the transfer. This means that you need to pick a tank that is big enough that you can do the transfer cycle before it running dry.

For my case it meant that I would be transferring fuel from a S4-25600 to a S4-6400 as seen here:

The fact you have to do this for the novelty of being able to recover the engines vulcan style is NOT worth the extra hassle.. I guess i'm a masochist - because I went through with it - both in the design phase of the rocket. as well as the subsequent 5 launches to get the modules into space. 

In the end the 4 drop ships were successfully docked to the ship.

Glitches:

I do not have any images of it - but while docking the last of the 4 dropships. It would start to act like Anti-matter meeting matter when ever it got close to either of the 3 other docked dropships (notice i said got close, not touch). It would make this weird glitch were the XL cargo holds would just disappear and then the base modules within them would explode. 

I had to dock it at a off angle, So it would dock without getting to close and make the annihilation sequence. I then hoped that it would just snatch it into place... Which it did. It gives me a little worry on what will happen when I have to undock them again...  But we'll see how that goes in the next update.

Disable heat mechanics:

It was also necessary to disable heat mechanics as the faring did not propper shield the dropships coming up - the large docking port would break from the heat getting into space... Annoying, but it is what it is. At least we can disable it on vehicles that uses farings.

See Detailed walkthrough of this leg in the spoiler section bellow:

Spoiler

The rocket in all its glory.

right before the solid booster seperation.

Solid booster separation:

Stage separation - second stage continue the journey.

1st stage engine ditch the fuel tank and prepares for deorbit

Heatshield and grid fins deployed 

re-entry

parachute deployment 

Even with 5 shutes it still hits the water with 27 m/s - so not really a gentle landing.

as evident here.

engine section of the 1st stage ready for pickup - Note that I had to do some timing trickery to make it look like the inflatable heatshield was the float. in reality its just the fuel tank that work as a float.

back to the second stage.

rendezvous with the target. and final burn to kill all relative speed.

stage separation with the dropship - notice that there is a decoupler on a decoupler on the second stage. It is to ditch the faring connecting to the dropship to the decoupler. It's a tiny thing - but I dont like the look of the inflatable heat shield clipping through the faring.

Here 2/4 drop ships docked:

4th and final dropship arrives.

stage separation.

lining up the port. - this was the path that would cause annihilation - let's pretend it docked like this... and not at a 45° angle

And Fully assembled.

Only thing left is to document the de-orbit of 2nd stage engines:

in the upper atmosphere it goes fine - however once it hits the 35km mark it can't hold its course any longer.

 

And will start rotate around its axis, doing its best to point prograde- and subsequently oscillate quite a bit.

It will survive.. but only because the dev team has been very generous with how much heat the tanks can take, as well as their structural integrity. 

The center tank heat meter will end here, where the craft regains stability.

and splashdown - ready for pick up.

D.

The crew shuttles enroute to the ship.

This part went really smooth except for the fact that my frame rate is crawling to a halt when I get near the ship now:

As you can see my PC is absolutely tanking it. - It means it takes quite a while to get anything done.. and you have to be patient.. because interesting things can happen while in time warp. But it mostly went like this:

I would pause the game - get 15 fps which made it possible to pick my camera angles, what part of the ship I wanted to control from - as the easiest way to get the ship to point in a direction was to say "control from here" and "point at target" - manual control at 0-2 fps is not feasible. - then I would unpause, do the RCS thrust maneuvers - rins and repeat.

Moving Forward:

The Spaceship has been assembled, crewed and is ready for the mission to Minmus.

Because the game has a tendency to place blind passengers on ships that was not indented to be there - and I was not always good enough to check if a Kerbel had snug onboard when reverting launches.. the crew of this mission has become quite extensive:

This is the crew that will go on this bold mission and set up permanent presence of Kerbals on Minmus.

 

Any way - Stay tuned for the next leg:
Destination Minmus.

 

 

   

Edited February 20 by BechMeister
realized the moon was called Minmus and not Minimus.

[BechMeister]

MISSION_UPDATE
- DESTINATION MINMUS -

ICV - Explorer performing circulation burn around Minmus.

Foreword:

I have encountered quite a few glitches I need to make the appropriate bug reports for, while doing this mission. It's been truly interesting seeing some of the bizar glitches that comes from the game when it's under this much pressure. I think I spend close to an hour terminating the game and rebooting it - or quick loading a save. trying to get a single inclination correction done.

Getting the ship to Minmus took a lot of time. Once the drop ship separated from the main craft and started their decent, the frame rate improved a lot and the glitches got manageable .

Minmus is a interesting body to land on. The gravity is so weak that I actually thinks in some way it gives a false sense of confidence. It was utterly easy to land things close to each other etc. The question is if I would have been able to do the same precision on a mission to The Mun.. or other atmosphere free bodies around Kerbol. 

Which moon has the strongest gravity in the Kerbol System?

Any way - after countless quick saves and loads - I managed to get the base set up on Minmus.

Enjoy the following rundown:

MISSION TASKS:

A. Get the ICV into a Minmus Orbit at ~20km altitude - Success

B. Undock the dropships and land the base modules at a suitable flat terrain - Success

C. Assemble base - Success

D. Get the Dropships into a MLO (minmus Low Orbit), rendez-vous with ICV - Explorer and dock - Success

E. Land 2/3 Crew shuttles at base and get it operational. - Success

Lessons Learned; Lessons Identified:

A.

ICV - Explorer performing capture burn to Minmus.

First things first - I've named the ship ICV (Inter Celestial Vehicle) Explorer. And then to the lessons learned.

This was the hardest part on my pc. I quickly found out there was a rhythm to how to play to keep the Kraken at bay. For some reason, when I went to map mode to plan the node, the vehicle would start to warp while I didn't look at it and eventually blow up. It took a while to figure what happened, and the only solution was bursts of Time Warp to stop the glitching. I later found out that in general once I loaded in the vehicle, it would start ocellate until the point were it did truly weird things. It meant that I had to start every load in with a 3x time warp to make sure it would remain stable - before doing anything else. 

See spoiler for glitches:

Spoiler

I managed to take screenshots of the glitching this time. Here you can see a sequence of how the parts would ocellate extremely much and break. - Notice that the two lower screenshots are taken within the same second... and how much movement there is.

Besides the glitches the operation went without incident.

For detailed task walkthrough see spoiler section bellow:

Spoiler

First step was to perform a inclination correction burn. Since I did not know the position for a minmus capture - I would need to be in the right inclination to be able to place my maneuver node any where on the orbit around Kerbin, until I found the right spot for capture. Quite an expensive maneuver as something like 21° had to be corrected. 

The correction burn took a few reloads to get right - I was too lazy to do them real time, and used time warp to "speed up" the slow process. Even if the burn was only 1m 20s - it would take a long time with only 1-2 fps. 

I still hate how the change between time warp levels has a long de acceleration.. it made me overburn the maneuver a few times. - at least the nuclear engines looks awesome the way they light up. small plaster on the wound.

Here, the same maneuver, from another angle - over the blue oceans of Kerbin.

Next was the intercept burn. - Nice and close to Minmus. I wanted to hit a ~10-20km altitude, as I have read that 10km is the safe zone. I wanted my dropships to be able to orbit 10km lower than the ICV - Explorer for intercepting it when rendezvousing after base deployment.

Here the ICV in all its glory. Notice the warm orange reflection of on the underside of the craft - created from the warm bounce light from the deserts of Kerbin.  

Intercept burn.

Next up was the circularsation maneuver.

The ICV coasting ever closer to Minmus. now that it is away from Kerbin the reflective light is absent - and the harsh light and intense shadows permeate the ship. I love the industrial look and hard lighting.

ICV performing break burn with Kerbin as the perfect backdrop.

And the ship now in a ~20km orbit around the very irregular body of Minmus.

B.

The four dropships has detached the ICV and are performing their deorbit burn to land at one of the flat ice plains of the tiny moon.

To avoid having to perform inclination burns and wait 1 orbital period pr. launch I tried to de-orbit and land all 4 crafts together. Building K.G.02 I have gotten quite the experience juggling multiple vehicles flying in tandem at the same time.

How ever - I did not anticipate the issue of the game despawning the un active vehicles as they get closer to the ground. I had timing the burns to space them out with about 1km between them in altitude, to give me time to give them seperate landing maneuvers. But once they started to get close to the ground. they would just despawn.

A picture of the spaced de orbit burns of the 4 drop ship - notice that the ICV at this point has yet to enter its circular 20km orbit.

So even if it made a lot of sense (especially with how easy it is not to crash into Minmus) I had to do it the "long way." Meaning individual launches.

Bit of a tangent: 

Because the ICV was so heavy on my system.(or at least I think that the reason) It meant that I had a lot of trouble "leaving" the vehicle. If I pressed escape and loaded into KSC or the Tracking Station I would still have the navball and ICV loaded. Even if I took control of another vehicle I would not lose control of the ICV..

If i tried to load into the VAB the game would crash... And I really wanted to load KSC so I could take advantage of more then 3x speed.

In the end the method to escape the ICV was to load another craft. Like the little rovers Ive placed around KSC as "aiming markers" . Then I could go into the VAB without the gaming crashing... and once in the VAB, The ICV would finaly have losned its tight grip on the controls. 

And finally I could timewarp at 6x or 7x speed and get the craft around the little moon in quick fashion.

Then It was just a matter of undocking, correct inclination and land. Since the vehicles were made to be able to land on The Mun - they had plenty of fuel to do expensive maneuvers around the weak gravity of the tiny moon.

For detailed task rundown - See spoiler section bellow:

Spoiler

Dropships above the flat ice field I had picked for the landing zone.

The shadow of the ICV cast on one of the dropships with the rugged surface of Minmus bellow. love the graphics.

Here a close up of all 4 performing their deorbit burn.

Once the deorbit burn was done, the two terrier engines in the belly of the craft would do the final break to kill any drifting and get a nice decent down.

Touch down.

Here I have abandoned the Idea of dropping all at once - so just pretend they all land in rapid succession.

Third can landing. Kerbin rising in the background

and fourth can coming down. - I can't figure if Minmus is just hardcore easy mode - or if I have really gotten this good at landing the modules.

another angle of the last dropship landing.

And an angle from the ground with all the icy dust kicking up.

C.

Base Camp One being assembled on the a Ice Plane of Minmus.

Okay - I picked the dark icefields because they would provide a really flat terrain, which I think is really nice for the base modules - as they will on leveled ground. But I dont know if its because of the body's low gravity.. or they really do simulate low tracktion of ice.. because getting the base modules into position felt like trying to push an elephant on ice skates into position.

First things first though... I had to kill all reaction control torque. as the first module was about do flips from pure torque. (man the gravity on this moon is weak!) 

After that It was really just a question of Slow is smooth - Smooth is fast. Keep the speeds low and assemble the modules. I decided to assemble them a few 100m from each drop ship to avoid them being sprayed by ice and exhaust gasses on take off. (roleplaying)

This step was pretty straight forward - once I had found that the surface was slippery, and taken the right precautions, it was "smooth sailing."

See detailed task walkthrough bellow:
 

Spoiler

C.H.U. dropped and ready for roll out.

C.C.C. dropped and ready for roll out - this one was the most tricky as it has the least wriggle room to get out - also it is the tallest of the buildings. Fortunately I was right. By putting the springs on max it lifted the dropship enough that it went clear of the roof. (it was not quite strong enough on Kerbin)

G.P.U. dropped and ready for roll out.  Since the solar panels on the roof are angled - this was the most important to get positioned right - facing east to west and with the panels angling south.

As you can see it's all clear and no issues.

And here we see the first dropship take off again, with the base assembled in the background and rover parked. All done autonomously of course.

 D.

Dropship 3/4 re docking with ICV - Explorer after end mission.

The fact I had to do the dropship launches in 4 go's - which meant 4 orbits - meant that Base Camp One was seeing the sun set. Instead of doing night landings I decided it was better to just relaunch the dropships and dock back with the ICV while the base was on the night side of the moon.

It turned out to be a good choice, as I just about managed to dock the last dropship as the second sun dawned on the newly assembled base.

Because the moon had rotated so much, and I burned the dropships 90° east, It meant that the orbit of the ICV and Dropships had 20° to correct. Instead of having the dropships doing it all by themselves. I decided to spend some helium meeting the dropships halfway as seen here:

I think it is super annoying that we cannot find the body we orbit's 0° inclination to the equator.  But this was close enough.

This maneuver also ensured that the dropships would not need to perform too insane inclination corrections to line up with the base again - which is further "south" than at the equator.

Speaking of annoying. I found that I cannot timewarp near the base. If I timewarp the base will simply fall through the ground and be swallowed hole by the tiny moon. - So all maneuvers has to be done real time until I am far enough away from the base, that it is no longer being simulated. 

Once In space and in the right orbit to intercept the ICV I just had to wait.. How ever, when ever I wanted to time warp faster than 5x (if there were no mountains) or faster than 3x(when there were mountains) at 3 fps - I had to do the Tracking Station>Control another vehicle> VAB > Tracking station - look at minmus and then do the time warp maneuver. 

Any way I parked all the dropships as pearls on a necklace in a 10km orbit - catching up to the ICV. Once bellow I burned prograde for a rendezvous and docked. It matched up with each ship docking as the next ship was ready to perform its prograde burn to rendezvous.

The docking went without incident. The fact that they had dropped their load and parts count significantly meant a surprisingly 3 fps and less glitches - compared to the 1 fps and constant glitches. It was a nice change of pace.

The dropships on lower orbit to intercept ICV - Explorer

For detailed task rundown see spoiler bellow: 

Spoiler

Dropship 1 take off

Burning to get back into orbit.

Final dropship leaving the base. This part went suprisingly smooth. Now unloaded of their cargo, they went from having 400-500 Δv to 1000-1200 Δv (depending on the amount spend on landing)

first dropship docking. I had given them just the right amount of Monopropellant to make it back to the ICV. They were all close to dry when docking. meaning that they did not carry to much excess dead weight. (besides the methalox load which could be cut by 1/3 and still have comfortable margins)

ship 3 break burn with Kerbin rising in the background. - absolutely stunning.

here dropship 4 lining up the docking. I really cant describe how much I love the hard light and the dark shadows giving the vehicle form 

steady as she goes - Notice here how "warped" the dropships has become - It does not bode well for the game if vehicles can "break" and unalign parts this much from a simple trip.

Here from another angle - notice how much the engine plates has moved on some of the dropships. 

E.

Crew Shuttle 01  - detaching from the ICV - enroute to Base Camp One.

Landing 2/3 crew shuttles at the base - with the complement of 10 kerbalnauts was an easy task. The vehicles has been designed to be able to land and take off on The Mun from 10km altitude with a ~100Δv to spare. This means that they are ridiculously overpowered for Minmus. 

And since all  weight shaved off now is more Δv for the tour home, I was very sloppy with my maneuvers - I did not save on the Δv - which means I could break off all speed at 8km altitude and just drop and control my decent straight down to the base.

I wanted to land close, but not so close that the kick up of dust would be "damaging." - not that it matter.. but for roleplaying .

The 10 kerbalnauts who will crew this base for the time being, holding a little ceremony at the flagpole In front of the C.C.C. building, I'm sure they had a few bottles of champaign afterwards.

3 crew members stay to crew the ICV - keeping a Comms link up between Base Camp One and KSC - They can pick up situation reports when flying over, and relay to kerbin, when the base is on the far side of the moon. 3 men means an 8h shift each, and enough company that I dont hope they will go nuts together.

The last crew shuttle is their emergency vehicle - in case of accidents - they can evacuate to Minmus

This part of the mission went smooth and without incidents (besides the ones that were already mentioned about timewarp etc.)

For detailed task run down - see spoiler section bellow.

Spoiler

Crew Shuttle one burning radial to correct inclination towards Base Camp One.

Here from another angle.

Touch down at Base Camp One.

And the first Kerbal to set foot on the slippery surface of Minmus.

Second Crew Shuttle 02 makes its landing. - As you can see it was quite easy to control the decent. I didn't even have to "fake it" and do a lot of maneuvering to land beside the Crew Shuttle 01

Touch down.

Flag pole meeting and congratulations given.

Base Camp One - fully operational.

one of three Kerbalnauts getting ready to take the Rover for a spin (literally.. damn its hard to drive straight) - exploring the surface of the tiny body.

 

 

Moving Foreward:

From here on it's just a matter of testing the rover. I noticed when reloading and loading in the moon - that I saw glimpse of ancient statues - or something. I'm going to see if I can find them with my little rover. 

That being said.. even though the moon is little. It still takes quite some time to drive across it.. especially with how slippery the surface is. But a an excursion has to be made, before the ICV turns tack to LKO to finish the last step of the mission - proving I designed the craft so it could also return home after deploying the base.

Base Camp One in all its glory.

 

 

Stay Tuned For More

 

Edited February 20 by BechMeister
realized the moon was called Minmus and not Minimus.

[Jantee]

I have taken a break from my "Mohole-in-one" attempts and started designing a ship in the spirit of the "Eagles" from the show "Space:1999". My first design was able to VTOL and make a mostly controlled ascent to a Kerbin non-orbital 136k AP. Better performance than I expected, but it seems obvious that the ship can never do the things it did in the show. Not enough delta-v for its size. As a Mun specific ship it would be ok.

I think I may abandon that craft and try an "Aliens" style drop ship next. 

Technical Question; If you drop a drone into the Mohole, can you control it from the mothership or does it need a commlink to Kerbin to be controlable?

Thanks,

 

Jantee

 

[BechMeister]

Hello  again Jantee! Apologies, but I am a bit unsure if this post was meant for another topic? It seems a bit off topic in relation to this - note that I am all for small talk.. Just confused me a bit x)

Any way I did not know the Spirit of the Eagle ship. It looks quite awesome, reminds me of some of the Ron Cobb's early designs for Nostromo in Aliens. Looks like an cool build and yeah it looks like it will do best as a low gravity no atmosphere ship. Problem with VTOL is the weight of the extra engines imo. But yeah... that vehicle does not look like it would be able to make it off planet earth x) 

Though getting it to a AP of 136k - you should be able to get to LKO? Where you could refuel it.

I wonder if an alien style dropship would have the Δv enough to get to orbit.. in my experience the rapier engines cant carry a lot. But I guess it could be worth exploring.

I wish I could answer your question. I am flattered you think I have the answer. As of now I've only had tro probes leave Kerbin SOI - and they were both Duna Missions with the propper antennas to reach Kerbin.

One of them was a failed attempt to get a CommNet constellation setup around Duna. I did not have enough Δv to hit my orbit to circularize my smaller satelites.. and crashed the vehicle into Duna insted. I have decided to put my Duna mission on hold until OJT has given me an Okay to do a mission report with my Duna Mastery Challenge progress.

So unfortunatly I cannot give you a certain answer.. I can only say that it is my understanding that Bigger antennas relay to smaller antennas. And that planets dont obscure signals.

So i would say that a big craft with signal stength to reach Kerbin can send a pro down the Mo-Hole

 

Edited March 22 by BechMeister

[BechMeister]

- UPDATE -

 

The Mission Rover Enroute to the Minmus Monument.

Hello! I would just like to give a small update. I am currently a little over half way to - what I presume is the Minmus monument - I dont know if its a glitch.. but I was allowed to infinitely zoom out while on Minmus.. and I noticed green lights in a crater to the North.. So I have been driving there.

I now dread driving rovers in this game.. but more on that for the actual mission update. - I just wanted to proof that I am still slaving on this Mission.

See spoiler section for example of infinite zoom:

Spoiler

 

Edited March 7 by BechMeister
Accidently posted premature because of hotkeys

[BechMeister]

MISSION_UPDATE
- Tour de Minmus -

Johndin and Podcal looking on the ancient relic found in the mysterious crater on Minmus. While Poduki relays their findings to KSC

FOREWORD:

Before we start - I would like to say that this post became a lot longer than I anticipated. I would very much like some honest feedback on weather I should dial it down a notch and be less detailed. Or cut it into more edible pieces. or if its just all good and fun.

Before we start - I would like to thank all who indulge in my increasingly longer forum posts. 

Any way.. Funny story! A mistake was made by my internet provider and I was without internet this weekend! It was an odd experience.. I mean I grew up without internet.. but I realized how much of my home is setup to use internet.. I hear my radio through my Sonos and see TV through my Chromecast. At least when I was a child we had antenna tv and FM radio. It actually made my wife and I talk about getting a low tech FM radio - Just incase the political climate deteriorate even further in Europe.. and we need to be able to get news from the government. But before we go all doom and gloom... let's keep on topic...

Without internet, the only game I could play was KSP - the others required internet in varying degree. So I managed to get the rover the last stretch to the mysterious crater in record time. Before being offgrid for an weekend, I was only driving the rover, half attentive, while listening to Audio Books or Podcasts with my wife. This weekend, the journey was done with plenty of whiskey in the glass and vinyls on the record player.

You may be thinking, why plenty of whiskey? is Rovers that bad? well no... whiskey is a nice drink of course.. but also yes.. let's talk about Rovers.. and how much I dislike the Rover Game Mechanics.

MISSION TASKS:

 

A. Test the Rovers functionality and maneuverability - Success

B. Drive an expedition to explore the North of Minmus - Success

C. Drive the Rover back to Base Camp One  

C. Recover Rover via Dropship and return it to base- Success

D. Return Dropship to ICV Explorer - Success

 

LESSONS LEARNED; LESSONS IDENTIFIED:

 

Section A: 

The Rover has left the Sheet Ice of the frozen lake and drive in the Snowdrifts that cover most of the little moon. 

Let's talk about rovers:

I... HATE the way rovers drive in this game. It is not that I expected it to be Snow Runners, with the game simulating every minute physics detail of sand, snow and mud.. But man It would be nice if rovers at least drove like a car... and not a shopping trolley... It would be so nice if the wheels had just an inch of traction.. Speaking of traction.. What does the traction slider even do?

It seems very backwards. If I turn traction up, the engines cannot turn the wheels, it feels like the engines are terrible underpowered (are they that weak?). But if you keep the tracktion down, you'll be wheel spinning like mad.. but unlike in our world, were the vehicle would dig it self down.. In the solar system of Kerbol the vehicle will gain momentum... a lot of momentum.

I found I could get my rover to ~10 m/s on rough terrain (the only limiting factor being that it's hard to gain speed when the wheels dont have a lot of contact with the ground from all the jumps) and I never reached the limit on the flats of the Sheet Ice lakes.. the rover hit a small bump and tumbled. The science junior on the front broke off. -  It was a bloody miracle the antenna didn't break off or the vehicle exploded.. So Johndin had to pick up sample and take readings by hand after that.

The rest of the journey was done with the antenna folded down... and then only folded up to send situation reports to Kerbin, or the ICV when it passed by.

After realizing this was how it was going to be - the only thing left to do was to strap in hit the speeder and tune the radio in on:

And Start drift.. I mean driving. 

I found that the only reliable way to turn was to create a custom made Action Group for turning the Reaction Wheels ON - do the course correction and then press another custom made Action Group turning OFF all reaction wheels (to avoid the rover doing flips from the torque power when pressing forward). Because of course the "Only online when SAS is on" is bugged.

The rest of the lessons learned Lessons identified I've put in spoiler sections for those interested to keep a bloated post more streamlined:

1. Axle configuration and angle of climb: 

Spoiler

from the initial tests on the Sheet Ice Flats. I found the best configuration was that having the rover turn on 3 out of 4 axles (Axle 1,2 and 4) - Just like the APC I used to drive in the Army.

The rover could turn relatively well at low speeds and sub 10m/s. The 3 axle not being steerable helped keep momentum forward or backwards if trying to turn from a stop. Or when going up steep slopes.

The vehicle is able to traverse a ~30° angle without a run-up - and more if already at speed - depending on the length of the slope etc.

Screenshot below to shows example of the rover trying to climb the steep slope to the north of The Greater Flats. Only able to point the nose ~30° up.

Notice the 3/4 axles keeping the vehicle pointing up the steep hill - while the 3rd axle keeping momentum. Because the vehicle was drifting a lot - it was impossible to get a steeper angle up the hill. I experimented a lot with traction levels on the turning axles and the static axle, but it didn't seem it did a whole lot. - If I turned the tracktion down, the rover would start driving, but not be able to go straight up the hill. And if i Turned the traction up, it would not have the engine power to move.

Fortunately the vehicle was designed with a lot of Δv in reserve for recharging batteries on the long Minmus nights via fuel cells. But night time driving was found to be unfeasible, and the vehicle had enough battery power for the entire tour alone - so the Δv could be used on Thrusters

Speaking of which. 

3. Thrusters:

Spoiler

The rover using its thrusters to defeat the steep slope the rover had trouble traversing in the section about Axle configuration and  angle of climb

The thrusters (placed on the vehicle to be able to load it back into the dropship) turned out to be rather handy on the terrain to come. Although used sparingly - to make sure there were enough Δv for a fuel cell test and loading the vehicle into a dropship again. Also I didn't know what obstacles would present themselves and if I would need them later on the journey - they helped me take a few shortcuts and traverse other unforeseen obstacles. 

Fortunately I had balanced the thrusters around the center of mass - Meaning it was very maneuverable, even if there was only really control from pitch, jaw etc. by the reaction wheels - The thrusters turned out to be quite useful reaching the North, when I drove myself into some really difficult terrain.

Lesson Identified:

In future it would be worth considering putting rear thrusters on the vehicle - Just to make the tour more enjoyable for the crew on the vehicle.

4. Lights:

Spoiler

An example of how little you can see with the lights.

The lights were at all not adequate for night driving. A lot of the navigation was revolving around reading the terrain to come and pathfinding the route with least hills and holes. The fact you can only see a few meters ahead meant that you cannot see if your moving into bad terrain.

That being said - They work well in giving a sense of safety in the hard shadows from the lack of bounce light that an atmosphere produces. See spoiler section in Section B for example

5. Power and Recharging:

Spoiler

Note: The tour to Minmus Monument takes approximately 4 Kerbin days - were 1/5 of the distance covered was driven at night over the sheet ice flats and then a long rest for first daylight, before traversing the harder terrain.

The battery complement of 6750v was more than enough to cover the entire tour. Of course the single OX-STAT-XL solar panel has delayed the discharging of batteries - however its horizontal placement, as well as shadows cast by terrain limits its effect.

When the tour was done the charge was 1681/6750v - recharging the battery costed 44Δv - meaning that long nights on future missions can be sustained easily with the vehicles total Δv pool.

Lesson Identified:

In the future a redesign with a vertical "sail-like" solar panel will be ideal.

Section B:

The rover - stopped in the snowdrifts - to enable Johndin to take samples and readings - While a cresended Kerbin is setting in the horizon.

The Expedition to the Northern parts of Minmus was divided into 5 legs:

Leg 1: Contained the initial testing of the Rover on the Sheet Ice Flats of (what I have Identified to be?) The Greater Flats that Base Camp One was established on. After that it took a sharp turn North East to get to new terrain that was found to be snowdrifts. This was done in the hopes that the reason the rover drove like a elephant on ice skates was because of the sheet ice - and not game mechanics.. Unfortunately I was to be disappointed. 

The rest of the leg consisted of the traversal of the Sheet Ice by night - Heading North West. 

Leg 2 + 3: Would be traversal of the hardest terrain the Rover forced. It was the heavy cratered mountains North of The Greater Flats.

Leg 4:  Would be the traversal of the less demanding rolling hils on the path North West - Dont let the map fool you - it looks way more smooth than it is. I thought it would be quickly traversed at high speeds. But the low gravity and rolling hills meant that as soon as the rover exceeded 10 m/s - it would spend the same time in the air (between jumps) as it did on ground. Making it impossible  to really pick up more momentum. Leg 4 ended shortly before the destination. (My kids wanted to see what was in the crater, and were sleeping at the time)

Leg 5: would be the last short stretch to the edge of the crater with the mysterious lightsource. (My daughter was so impressed by the monument that she had to call my wife so she could see it)

Bellow a Map showing the approximated route with legs marked:

From Right to Left: Leg 1, Leg 2, Leg 3, Leg 4 and Leg 5

Bellow in the spoiler section you can see a detailed walkthrough of the Journey:

Spoiler

Image of the headlights reflecting in the smooth sheet ice flats during the testing of night driving capabilities.

The rover traversing the snowdrifts, first light. (leg 2)

Johndin taking samples - as a result of his little mishap he would frequently be asked by Podcal and Poduki to pick up samples and recite satisfying poems with the theme "road safety" - before being allowed back into the rover.

a good example as to why the headlights were still useful in broad daylight - the Hard shadow and lack of bounce light from the atmosphere made the shadows cast by mountains treacherous in nature.

The rover driving in the shadow cast by the mountain range - surrounding a great cater - there is a serene beauty in the hars divide in the landscape.. Light Dark, Yin Yan.. It gave Johndin great material for his poems and the crew in general to ponder about.

One of the great chasms revealed. I had path found a route between two massive craters - from far it looked like it formed a narrow pathway through the rough terrain. How ever, right before the worst had been defeated - a great chasm showed. Fortunately it was easy by-passed by the use of thrusters. Johndin was not allowed near the controls. 

Leg 2 finished - the ICV Explorer was passing by on its Orbit - relaying the sitrep to Base Camp One.

the last obstacle - a great hill, and the rover was situated in the less demanding highlands. From here on it would be smooth sailing albeit bumpy sailing. - In the background the great craters are visible in all their glory.

Rover slaving on - Kerbin lowering in the horizon.

With Base Camp One and ICV - Explorer out of line of sight - communication with KSC was established to relay the information of their find.. and ancient ruin.

The Minmus Monument:

Here, at the end of the journey I was presented with a choice - Call the mission done and drive home. Or, in the true spirit of the great kerbalnaut Jebidiah, drive down the cliff side and study the monument up close - though with the chance of not being able to get up again... or worse.. crash and burn

The Rover had shown itself to be quite tough - It had survived landings with up to 20m/s - And no way in hell I was going to drive the rover all the way back again. No... going down would be a great excuse for a pick up via Dropshop and be flown back to Base Camp One, Johndin argued. So down the slope it was.

Geronimo! - the rover going down the slope. 

While it is true the rover had survived traversing a chasm with the thrusters - and subsequently bounced in the rolling hills for several km going 20 m/s (it's hard to break when your wheels hardly touch the ground). Going down the cliff side quickly accelerated the rover to 40-50 m/s. and worse still, it was aiming directly for the statue.

While I was positive that I could survive these speeds on uneven terrain as long as I kept the wheels leveled with the ground.. I was sure the suspension would not "tank" slamming into the statue at the center of the monument. In a last ditch maneuver Johndin, (who had pitched the idea of going down), managed to pull hard on the controls, pitch the rover up and break the rover with the thrusters. - a daring move!

Having redeemed himself, he was given the honour of planting the flag.. and take another sample. KSC was still just visible over the ridge.. and the call for a taxi was relayed to ICV Explorer.

While waiting for the dropship to arrive. Johndin, Podcal and Poduki had ample time to study the ancient ruin. Who was it depicting? How was it build? By Whom was it build.. answers I will likely only get once I've exhausted the sandbox experience - and try the campaign.

Section C:

Dropship arriving at The Minmus Monument - ready to pick up the Rover Crew.

I had a feeling that by diverting the remaining fuel from the 3 Dropship to 1 - I would be able to complete the taxi mission. I was correct. It was strange to zoom past the terrain I had just spend the better of 4 evening to cross in meer minutes. Playing with audio on for once, I found that the Minmus Orbit Theme is really awesome - it made the tour back to Base Camp One felt like a final victory lap.

I was to make one important Lesson Identified though: When correcting inclination - eyeball it - maneuver nodes are unreliable, as seen from the example bellow:

The maneuver nodes are weird around extreme inclination burns - If I told the node just to burn Normal it would say that my craft would leave Minmus SOI before reaching the northern hemisphere. I had to adjust by also pulling on the retrograde node for the maneuver to stay in orbit. In the end the maneuver node did not work - and I ended up just burning Normal and eyeballing it. (without leaving the Minmus SOI)

The result was this:

Notice how much much further apart the two vehicles would be before the burn was complete. As well as the wrong fuel bars from image 1 to 2 (which had a quick load between them)

For detailed walkthrough of the pick up  - see spoiler section bellow:

Spoiler

Dropship detached and seperating from the ICV Explorer.

Plotting course and waiting for countdown.

Ignition! - side note.. I really love the hard contrast created by the lighting. The white lined black silhouette of the ICV and the cylinder of the dropship pulling away against the black surface. It's almost art.

from the Dropships angle.

Arriving at the scene.

landing. The dropship and rover next to the monument really gives the sense of scale - I wonder what the crystals were carved from.. and where the resource was taken from? It does not seem to naturally occur on Minmus.

The good thing about landing on the site was that it would be ideal in terms of the dropships limited ground clearance. Johndin was right in the end.

The low gravity meant that it was easy to get the rover into position for docking with the dropship. The torque from the reaction wheels are enough to turn the rover on a dime - Something that was not possible while testing on the Runway on KSC - where a 1000 point parking had to be done.

The remaining 4Δv was more than enough to safely secure the rover within the Dropship.

Safe, sound and ready for lift off. (albeit regulation called for dropships to fly without kerbals on them - an exception was made)

Lift off.

Plotting the course to Base Camp One:

the next leg - getting the rover back to Base Camp One was a simple maneuver that did not require a lot of Δv - since there was no need for a expensive correction inclination burn. And the correct direction could be picked from the start, The maneuver wasn't even required to be orbital and a sub-orbital path was charted:

The rest was just a final victory lap, were the achievement could be marveled at. - a few course correction had to be done as I forgot to take the rotation of Minmus into account.

The last thing to do was to pluck the rover back into base for a refuel - I was a bit nervous about this since the rover tilted the base when I tested this feature on the runway of KSC - the alignment was slightly off. My fix to this was to give all the base elements landing legs - not only because I anticipated it would be nice on uneven terrain, but also because I thought it would fix the tipping issue spoiler alert - it did:

As you can see it worked fine - but for a moment I had real fears that docking the rover to the base would cause it all to do flips in the low gravity.

My fears were unjustified - The rover was refueled. Although not to full, as I didn't want to empty the G.P.U - the G.P.U was dropped only half full because of weight synergy between the base modules and the dropships performance window (around ~10t cargo each) - but I expect that I need to either downgrade the rover fuel levels (which is fine) or upgrade the fuel amount for the generator (which is harder to pull off). there are many things to consider for future base missions.

In the spoiler section below you will find a detailed walkthrough of the tour.

Spoiler

Engine burn complete and now its just the coasting phase and enjoying the awesome soundtrack.

a good example of the terrain covered in Leg 4 - as you can see its mostly smooth with rolling hills, but occasionally you had big chasms that had to be navigated(top left). The further North I got - the more I used the thrusters to cover these obstacles. - the further north - the less of a risk of running dry.

This was the terrain around Leg 2-3 - the toughest terrain, and funnily enough the one that I used the Thrusters the least (excluding leg 1)

The beginning of Leg 2 and end of Leg 1 

And arrival The Greater Flats and Base Camp One

I did not want to spend Δv on fine maneuvering - So the dropoship touchdown around 500m from base.

Then all there was left was the final stretch before the end - Johndin got the honours, finally redeemed himself from his initial error.

Back at base safe and sound.

Section D:

The dropship tacking off after waiting for ICV - Explorer to get into an optimal position for rendezvous.

I thought i was smart and waited for the ICV - Explorer to get around Minmus, so I didn't have to play catch up - I did not wait enough though. After doing the initial sub orbital burn to get the right AP for a intercept orbit set, I realized that I was going to get ahead of the target... New plan had to be made. I had 2 options:

A. Make a inclination correction burn and set an orbit 10km higher than target - wait for it to catch up and perform rendezvous maneuver.

B. extend the AP and to meet target on the other side of the planet - making use of the approx 30° difference in path and correct inclination and make the path orbital at target.

Option A. was the safest - but would use more  Δv - something that was a bit on the low side (in hindsight it would not have been an issue) - option B used less fuel - but would need to perform both circulisation and inclination correction at the same time (this would also not be an issue due to the low orbit speeds around Minmus)

I decided upon B and in the end the relatively speed to target was only 50 m/s opun arrival- an easy correction. 

the dropship safely docked back at ICV - Explorer.

The Δv between the dropships are all but spend now - which means It will be hard to perform another pick up of the rover in the future. Although that being said - the Crew Shuttles have enough Δv to land and take off on the Mun from a 10km orbit. and the two that landed the crew at Base Camp One only spend 1/3 of their Δv - having 921 left - so Δv could be taken from the Crew Shuttle still docked to the ICV - as it only need enough to perform an emergency landing in case of catastrophic event.

Now the only thing left - was to dock the dropship back at the mothership and call it the day.For detailed walkthrough see spoiler section bellow:

Spoiler

Lift off! I am actually really satisfied with the looks of these little buggers - But there are a few things I would like to change for the future. I would like to create something similar for a Duna Base - and they are going to need a lot more "Omph" to do that - also some way to make sure things dont have as long to fall when unloading - If only the space shuttle cargo room was size XL.

Retracting landing gear after initial push up and finding the correct path to intercept ICV - Explorer. - I love how the landing gear folds up between the fuel - and the visibility of the monopropellant tanks. - it gives some noise to look at, and some details to an otherwise plain exterior.

Performing suborbital burn to intercept while also getting a last view at Base Camp One - as the sun sets in the horizon of Minmus.

rendezvous with ICV - Explorer.

getting into docking position.

Steady as she goes.

docked.

 

Moving Forward:

Where as I have done the long stretch from a bit south of the Minmus Equator - to the northern hemisphere. I only came across 2 different biomes. And can I truly call the expedition a success when so many more biomes are left to be explored? So much Science can be done?

The Δv of the Dropships may be spend - I may have done enough Rover Driving on Minmus for 1 life - But.. there are two perfectly well functioning Crew Shuttles at Base Camp One - with ~920 Δv on them each.  Maybe a few further excursions to the other flats - the south pole etc. can be done to gather more science with them?

Am I done with Minmus, or should I explore further before closing down the Minmus Base for now and fly the Kerbals home.

I need to ponder on this.

Stay Tuned for More!

 

 

Edited March 13 by BechMeister

[BechMeister]

- MISSION UPDATE -
4/4 Samples Collected.

Theomore taking a crater sample, in a crater (oh really) south of Base Camp One.

Foreword:

Today is going to be a short update - after spending 6 (ingame) days on Minmus I can feel I am going a bit dead in this mission. (seems the readership is too)  Minmus is just not that exciting x). So I am happy to announce that the only thing left after this update, is the return trip back to K.G.02. and from there Crew rotation back to Kerbin.

Without further ado, here comes the mission update - with all the bugs and problems that came along with it.

Mission Tasks:

 

A. Recover Missing samples via Crew Shuttle. - Success

B. Recover Missing Samples via Rover. - Success

 

Lessons Learned; Lessons Identified:

Section A:

Crew Shuttle 01 on the way south, performing reconnaissance in search of the two missing biomes.

Even though the recon tour south with the Crew Shuttle turned out to be short, and all though I did every maneuver with Δv conservation in mind. ~900Δv is just not a whole lot. - and now I worry that Crew Shuttle 01 won't have the Δv to make it back to ICV Explorer.

A short tour south quickly revealed the two missing biomes. The first Biom after the dark Sheet Ice of the Greater Flats was Arctic Ice (which I thought would be at the poles). I decided that it would be most cost effective to pick up that sample with the Rover instead of spending Δv landing. Thus allowing the Shuttle to continue its coasting phase south, getting most out of its initial burn, which was aiming for a crater. I suspected that it would be there I would find the biome called "Crater"

Surprise surprise -It  turned out to be correct - which was lucky, since the Crew Shuttles would only have enough Δv for one small expedition each. The Crater sample was taken and the shuttle made it back home.

Alternate Timeline - An Attempt at Refueling the Shuttle:

Because the shuttle had spend more Δv than I thought it would, and I was getting worried it wouldn't have enough Δv to get to Orbit, I decided to attempt a docking with the Rover to transfer the Methalox to the shuttle. (After all, once mission was done - there wouldn't be a need for methalox in the rover)

How ever - even if the docking maneuver would succeed.. It proved to be worth nothing more than the training in precise maneuvering with the shuttle - because when ever I docked with the Rover or any other docking port on the Base - it would result in a rapid unscheduled disassembly: See spoiler section.

Spoiler

This is not the timeline you were looking fore.

Normally I go with the flow, and accept my errors... but this felt like the result of a bug rather than my missmanagement. So I reverted to the save back in the Crater. 

Back to current timeline:

According to Loïc Viennois Δv map - It only takes 180 Δv to get into a 10km orbit on Minmus - and if that is true.. then the 279 Δv left after the mission should be enough for take off, rendezvous and docking with ICV - Explorer.

For detailed rundown of the mission section - see spoiler section bellow:

Spoiler

Theomore, Lemdous and Robles Kerman are lifting off from Base Camp One to go south.

Landing legs are folding up as the craft swings around, ready to deploy its main engine.

And au revois Base Camp One.

Shortly after the craft left the dark sections of Sheet Ice, the scans indicated that it passed over an Artic Ice Biome. It was a plesant suprice that I could find Artic Ice so close to base - considering I drove al the way to the Northern hemisphere, and only encountered Snow Drifts. Now it seems rather impressive, considering how close Artic Ice would be to the base.. and a lot closer to the equator than the monument.

Crew Shuttle 01 touching down inside a crater a little further south.

Theomore disembarked to take the missing sample and plan a flag to mark the site.

Lift off - I tried to clear the crater and use as little Δv as possible.

Coasting back towards Base Camp One.

unfolding the landing legs and running the 6 VTOL engines (the craft is so light now that only a few percents are enough to control the decent)

Landing - To save Δv, I was not as precise with the landing position.

Crew disembarking with the data sample.

Section B:

Johndin talking to the crew of Rover01 - describing the site where the Actic Sample was taken.

This part of the mission turned out to be quite difficult because of a nasty bug. As you recall, the last time the rover returned to base. It did so via. Dropship. Apparently there is a small bug that may occur when you return to base driving along the ground. If your curious see here:

Besides that taking a few tries, before yielding a result that didn't catapult the base or landing crafts into the air, this step was straight forward, and done pretty quick.

For detailed walkthrough of this Mission Section see spoiler section bellow:

Spoiler

Johndin, Podcal and Poduki at it again. The Rover departs from Base Camp One.

Rover arrives 8km further south at the Arctic Ice Biome - reported by the Crew Shuttle after returning back to base. 

Johndin getting the last sample.

Rover arrives back at Base Camp One - without it being flipped, or any of the crew ships being flipped.

Podcal and Poduki has disembarked and are telling Johndin to prepare to dock the rover back to the station - I won't risk it being parked in the open, next to the base when I leave it. Lest it be gone when and if I come back.

Podcal guiding Johndin from the front, and Poduki relaying to Podcal how close the rover is to the docking port.

and the 3 Kerbalnauts giving each other a high five after another succesful mission. All looking forward to come home to Kerbin with all the stories they have to tell.

 

Moving Forward:

I have done and seen what I came to do and see - I have tested all vehicles, gotten a lot of experience with bases etc. I can use in future missions.

For instance I realized that the Bulldog Rover has 3 seats. Something I wish they had added in the info on the vehicle (I should probably have noticed this when I tested the vehicle on the Runway... I wish they wrote how many could be seated in the different modules, and not just how many is needed to fly it). Which mean that in the future I won't have to add the two tuna cans, and can use the space behind the vehicle more smart. I have gained experience making bases, which I am sure will come in handy for when I inevitable have to make one on Duna.

Next and Final update (unless the Crew Shuttle 01 wont have enough Δv to get back to the ICV) will be the return of the Kerbals to Kerbin. Where I will attempt something.. that probably will burn my pc down.. viz. to dock the ICV - Explorer to K.G.02... (that is a lot of parts )

Stay Tuned In for More!

 

Edited March 18 by BechMeister

[BechMeister]

MISSION UPDATE
The End Part 1: Goodbye Minmus

ICV - Explorer arriving at Kerbin Gate 02

Foreword:

Hello fellow Kerbalnauts - I have officially completed this mission. How ever it took a lot longer to finish this final leg of the tour than I expected it would.

For some reasons I were running into multiple bugs, vehicles breaking, a little bit of my own dumb mistakes and Real_Life™ (leaving no time for anything but work, eat sleep repeat.)

But! last sunday I managed to end this crazy mission to Minmus, and (sometimes, just by an inch of a hair) get all the Kerbals back to KSC. 

How ever, Because of all the bugs and things that happened, This update was getting increasingly long. I have decided to split it in two: Part 1: The Journey from Minmus to Kerbin Gate 02 and Part 2: then from Kerbin Gate 02 to KSC. (which I'll write some time later this week)

Enjoy the following Journey!

MISSION TASKS:

 

A. Return the Base Camp One crew to ICV Explorer via. Crew Shuttle 01 and 02 - Success

B. Return ICV Explorer to K.G.02 - Success

C. Dock ICV Explorer with K.G.02 and transfer crew. - Failure

C. Dock Crew Shuttle 01, 02 and 03 to K.G.02 - Deorbit ICV Explorer into The Mun. - Success

 

Lessons Learned; Lessons Identified:

Section A. 

All 3 crew shuttles - safely back at ICV - Explorer.

This leg went smooth. I packed up all of the base. Made sure all the lights were off. And for flavour/roleplaying reasons, I also retracted the communication disks to avoid them taking damage from micro meteorites while uncrewed. I then Loaded the crew into the two shuttles, with all the science data and were ready for lift off.

The fact that one of the crew shuttles only had 279 Δv left when launching, was not even close to become an issue. It really does not require a lot of Δv to get a vehicle into a 10km orbit around Minmus. When the vehicle docked the Δv counter was on 99. Meaning I spend exactly 180 Δv getting the craft to the docking port, just like the Δv Map said it should -and that was even with a rendezvous and docking 

I launched the vehicles one at the time (without having the base sink through the floor) - placed them in a 10km lower intercept orbit, like pearls on a string, and just had to wait for them to catch up with the ICV, before burning prograde for interception. By the time the first vehicle was docked, the second was ready "bellow" the ICV to intercept. 

image of the docking procedure.

I have really come to like this rendezvous method.. as its so predictable and universal - I have been told a lot of people are having issues with docking. And I have been wondering If I should do a Docking Tutorial, both as video and as a step by step guide in writing.

For a detailed rundown of this mission section - see spoiler bellow.

Spoiler

Crew Shuttle 01 lifting off Base Camp One - enroute to link up with the ICV.

Crew Shuttle 01 has performed the "turn and burn" maneuver - and is doing a sub orbital burn to an altitude of 10km

Crew Shuttle 02 performing lift off burn - ready to catch up with Crew Shuttle 01

Turn and Burn - Saying Au Revoir to Base Camp One - we will see when or if I ever return to this place.

Crew Shuttle 01 arriving at ICV - Explorer.

Lining up the docking port.

Steady as she goes.

And docked.

Crew Shuttle 02 burning its two main engines to break, and kill all relative speed.

Lining up the port.

Docked and ready for insertion burn into a Mun Orbit.

Section B:

ICV - Explorer Arrives at K.G.02 - after a troublesome journey.

With all the vehicles back at the ICV - Explorer, the FPS counted dropped and the Kraken reared back its ugly head. When ever I was looking away the vehicle would start resonating and if I didn't hit timewarp in a timely fashion for a few seconds. The vehicle would shake it self apart - as seen here in this bug report:

With a majority of the Methalox load spend on maneuvering, and the fact that a lot of tonnage was left on the surface of Minmus (the base™) the Δv counter on the ICV ended on 1220 Δv - not bad, considering there was only 10.3t/50t hydrogen left in the tanks. - The vehicle must have been a lot lighter than when it arrived.

The tour From Minmus to K.G.02 would be done in 5 maneuvers, as seen in the spoiler section bellow:

Spoiler

Maneuver 1:

1st maneuver was just leaving the Minmus SOI - I have come to learn, that it is easiest to leave the SOI and then do the fine tuning of the insertion - when moving through multiple SOIs

 

Maneuver 2:

Maneuver 2 was all about finding a path that would intercept with The Muns orbit.

Maneuver 3:

correct inclination error.

Maneuver 4:

Mun intercept burn - its a really funky orbit... I just love when orbital mechanics produce these results.

Maneuver 5:

K.G.02 rendezvous burn - By chance it lined up perfectly.

The journey back from Minmus took to the Mun 27+ days  - and could probably have benefited from planning for a more optimal transfer window. Because of poor planning it took 3/4s of the Muns orbit around Kerbin to catch it.

The entire journey would spend around ~545Δv - meaning the craft had around 655Δv left when all was said and done. And here I was worried I wouldn't have enough Δv when the mission started.

For a detailed rundown of this mission section - see spoiler bellow.

Spoiler

ICV - Explorer ready and assembled - having a last view of the greater flats - before engine start. It was kind of poetic that It would do its Minmus Escape Burn from a position were Base Camp One would be visible, had it not been so tiny. Base Camp One is positioned to the right of the top center mountain in the shadow part of the flat sheet ice.

ICV Explorer performing the first of 5 maneuver burns

the engines radiating heat, as the vehicle leaves the safe proximity of Minmus.

Well out of the Minmus Sphere of Influence - the ICV could perform its second burn, adjusting the path to intersect with the Muns orbit.

The second burn being performed.

The ICV Explorer arrives at the inclination correction point. Kerbin growing larger view.

Third Maneuver being performed.

Only a short coast later, the ICV would perform the 4th maneuver, putting it into a long orbit around Kerbin before intercepting the Mun - I did not get a screenshot of the 4th burn, as the moment did not feel significantly different to the 3rd burn. How ever I did find it funny that the maneuver node would have the ship pointing to its destination.

The ICV coming under The Muns sphere of influence.

The ICV lining up the maneuver node and...

Ignition! 5th and final maneuver made.

From here on, it was just a simple break burn, matching K.G.02's orbit and prepare for docking.

K.G.02 has been loaded into the scene, and I hit a record low 0-2 fps. From here on it would only get worse.

The ICV Explorer coming in on K.G.02 

And Arrival.

Section C:

The 3 Crew Shuttles transfering the crew of the ICV - Explorer to K.G.02. After docking the two vehicles proved impossible.

As I expected. Having these two massive structures in the near vicinity of each other, would result in weird things happening. The resonance issue was really difficult to keep at bay. While maneuvering the craft into position to join it with the docking tower - It would keep breaking. And playing at 1-2 FPS made it difficult to truly see when it was resonating.

The most interesting of bugs though, were one were the game failed to load up the vehicles. When ever I loaded a save were the two vehicles were on the same "grid" - the ICV would disintegrate into a thousand pieces and be spread, like a bug shot, around the mun.

Since it was impossible to do the final part of the mission in one session at 2 fps. I decided to do this instead:

1.  Load a save were the vehicle was not on grid with K.G.02 yet.
2. perform the rendezvous burn.
3. undock the 3 crew shuttles to K.G.02 with the crew.
4. pretend the ICV burned into a different parking orbit. - take some screenshots
5. delete the vehicle and save.
6. Not having the game break anymore

From here on, as you can see, the mission changed. It was no longer the Idea to dock the vehicle to the station and then transfer the crew. but to just dock the 3 crew shuttles instead.

This step, albeit slow. Went without incidents.

For a detailed rundown of this mission section - see spoiler bellow.

Spoiler

The ICV - Explorer performing an autonomous burn to a different parking orbit around Kerbin *wink wink* - The 3 crew shuttles coasting about in the vicinity. 

The 3 crew shuttles enroute to the docking tower on K.G.02

Here seen from another angle - I really like the visuals of the landers.

Crew Shuttle02 has docked, while 01 is performing its docking maneuver. Shuttle 03 is still maneuvering into position.

02 and 01 docked, 03 performing the final docking maneuver.

All 3 vehicles safe and sound under the protective screen from K.G.02. The crew of the mission could now consider it complete - from now on they would just be passengers under the wings of the Gate Crew on K.G.02 and later 01. 

 

Moving Forward:

The crew now having complete their mission. Would spend the time it takes for the crew vehicle to move from K.G.01 to K.G.02, preparing the science data and samples for the coming work. Back on KSC.

The M.K.L.Os (Mun to Kerbin Low Orbit) would soon fly their virgin tour.. unfortunately their tour would be much like the tour of Titanic.. albeit without the casualties.

Read more about that in Part 2 of the final chapter.

Stay tuned for more!

Edited April 17 by BechMeister

[Icegrx]

Once again Mr. BechMeister you have given me the itch to play KSP2! It seems everytime I get burned out on this game, shorty after you post a mission update and I crave some KSP2 again. 
 

the bugs you encountered are disheartening, I was so excited to see that huge ship docked to one of your stations! Oh well.. 

It was very satisfying coming full circle with you, and seeing your stations come into play with the minimus mission, that was excellent. 
 

I would love to know the part count of your main ship + KG02, it’s probably off the charts. I also think sending your save file to the developers could provide some really useful insight into performance and the engine itself as you are seriously pushing the limits here. 
 

@Dakota @Nerdy_MikeI think you should seriously read over this mission log as well as the Mun Fuel Station Mission. If you haven’t already. 

These two missions are what Kerbal Space Program are all about! Not only when it comes to pure enjoyment and inspiration, but also the performance, bugs and pushing the game to its limits, there’s a lot to be learned here. These are the things that keep me coming back to KSP2 and I don’t think I’m alone. @BechMeister has pulled off colonies before it’s even released. The builds are amazingly creative, the missions are captivating and the roleplay and attention to detail are excellent. 

Edited April 18 by Icegrx

[BechMeister]

Thank you for the kind words Ice! They're the fuel that keeps me push through when it gets rough x)

16 hours ago, Icegrx said:

I would love to know the part count of your main ship + KG02, it’s probably off the charts. I also think sending your save file to the developers could provide some really useful insight into performance and the engine itself as you are seriously pushing the limits here. 

The parts count for the ICV without the moon base modules is 530 and K.G.02 is clockin in at  801 parts  - So compared to what fx ShadowZone is making.. Its not that "high" a number. That being said... My rig is also that much tinier xD

16 hours ago, Icegrx said:

the bugs you encountered are disheartening, I was so excited to see that huge ship docked to one of your stations! Oh well.. 

I agree - I would have loved to see that too.. But in the end It became too much of a pain to see it to come true. It would have required me to keep the game running indefinetly.. and who knows what would happen once docked and I would have to load back to K.G.01 and return. Maybe all could have been lost.. Any way.. I decided to be a bit "lazy" - I have also reached the end of what I can endure.. playing at 1-2 fps is not fun.. 5 fps demands patient. My future project will focus on smaller more simple vehicles... that's for sure x)

16 hours ago, Icegrx said:

@BechMeister has pulled off colonies before it’s even released

At least the precourser to a colony I think.. Its more like a science lab for a shorter stay on the worlds x) - I mean.. I would love to be able to do that 3d printing of domes over structures to shield for radiation... you know like this:

But we will see what the devs comes up with x)

Edited April 18 by BechMeister

[BechMeister]

MISSION UPDATE
The End Part 2 - Coming Home.

The two M.L.K.Os Arriving at K.G.02 - ready to pick up the crew.

Foreword:

This leg was supposed to just have been easy peasy - I mean most of the vehicles had been developed and "tested" in the building of K.G.01 and K.G.02.

How ever, vehicles like the Mun to Low Kerbin Orbit capsules had never been flown beyond getting into orbit and docking with K.G.01 - there was never a need, since the crew on K.G.02 arrived with the emergency vehicles to that station. It proved that the vehicles were not completely bug safe.

The second vehicle that would have a bit of issues was the SSTO Space plane that takes crew from KSC to K.G.01 - It had been developed before heat mechanics were introduced, and just like how my other re-entry glider vehicles, it had to be updated to re-enter proper.

I have decided that the developmental changes to the vehicles will be posted in the blog about K.G.01 and 02 - since I find that is relevant to that mission report, and not this. Keep an eye on this space, I'll post it there when I get around to it:

Without further ado - Here are the Mission Tasks:

  

Mission Tasks:

 

A. Crew rotation 1 from K.G.02 to K.G.01  - Partial Success

B. Crew rotation 2 From K.G.02 to K.G.01 - Failure

C. Crew Rotation 3 From K.G.02 to K.G.01 - Success.

D. Rotate crew from K.G.01 to KSC. - Success

E. Rotate Crew from K.G.01 to KSC - Failure 

 

 

Lessons Learned; Lessons Identified:

Section A:

Medium Tug Drone (M.T.D.) connecting the Mun to Low Kerbin Orbit vehicle(M.L.K.O.) to the Heavy Tug Drone (H.T.D.) before departure from Kerbin Gate 01 (K.G.01)

Getting the MLKOs to K.G.02

I thought this step was going to be easy - The MLKOs were lighter than the 20t hydrogen tanks the H.T.Ds had been designed to fly to K.G.02 - So it should not be so tight in the Δv margins for getting to the mun and back. How ever, bugs would become an issue, as well as my own mistakes. 

But, before we get to that, I read a very interesting forum post the other day about efficient maneuvering. You can find it here:

I decided to try the method - However I just realized I didn't get the proper data to compare. So I cant see if it actually improved the Δv mileage. - I will need some more testing. Any way, here is a screenshot of the attempt.

It makes seems though - by burning a little bit radial in in the beginning, and a little radial out in the end of the burn - you spend overall more time burning prograde. When you set the maneuver node to just burn prograde - you end up burning something like 30° radial out with the H.T.Ds. 

Thought it may save Δv - It is a lot more difficult to get the capture lined up. You see, I usually capture the mun by making a maneuver node that has burned enough prograde to reach the mun. Then I move the node around the vehicles orbit until I hit the Mun SOI.

As soon as you introduce radial in/out movement to the maneuver.. the plan does weird things when you move it around the orbit. So the flight plan has to be adjusted. It may be necessary to have mods to fully make use of this concept. - I'll need to do more testing.

For a detailed rundown of the MLKO vehicles tour to K.G.02 see spoiler section bellow:

Spoiler

K.G.01 in orbit above Kerbin.

The Medium Tug Drone on its way to pick up the MLKO and dock it with the Heavy Tug Drone.

close up of the drone picking up Medium Tug Drone.

The MLKO being connected to the HTD. I had to make sure the RSC thrusters lined up (not that it really mattered, but more on that later)

The two crew vehicles preparing to perform their mun capture burn.

Burning to intercept.

the vehicles reaching K.G.02

Break burn.

Human error and bugs:

Since 3/4 docking ports were taken by the Crew Shuttle 01, 02 and 03 - It meant that one of the two MLKOs had to be parked near K.G.02 while the other could dock and pick up crew. Once the first vehicle had loaded the crew and I was going to dock the second. I had a weird "bug" - The SAS was going crazy and the ship would just be spinning, not responding any of my commands as seen here:

I filed a bug report only to find out that it was not a bug - I had accidently turned on trim on the capsule..  Apparently if you press Alt down + W,A,S or D you'll apply trim to the controls. Which means you will apply 1-100% of that control.  So if you ever find yourself in a situation were a vehicle will seem to turn on its own, and it's not because it is out of COMMNET range - then try check if the trim of your ship.

How ever I was sure the vehicle was bust. So I ended up terminating the spinning vehicle. After that I send the working and now crewed MLKO back to K.G.01. The tour back to K.G.01 went without incidents until I ran into an actual bug.

When I disconnected the MLKO from the HTD and was going to dock it under its own power, (I used the MTD to dock it to the HTD since it was un-crewed and did not have a probe core at the time) half the RCS thrusters did not work. 

See bug report for reference:

It meant that it was impossible to dock the vehicle. I decided that I would redesign the craft in a way that I did not use the 4 split RCS thrusters. - I often find that the 4 split RCS thrusters break, or are hard to get to fire in the right direction. I have always preferred the point thrusters, as you can tweak them to what command to respond to:

Any way - I reconnected the MLKO, transferred crew and de-orbited the vehicle.

1/3 crew rotation from K.G.02 complete.

The crew was successfully rotated - but with total loss of two vehicles. Is that a partial success?

Section B:

MLKOv2 being launched into LKO.

1. Getting the MLKOv2 into Orbit and refueled at K.G.01

With 1 rotation complete and 2 vehicles lost due to human error and bugs I was hoping that it would be smooth sailing from now on - after all I had redesigned the crafts and tested the new vehicle. so I knew the RCS thrusters would work.. Now I also knew to keep my fat thumb away from the Alt key.

First step first - the MLKOs would only have enough fuel and then some to get into LKO. It then need to be refueled at K.G.01 before the journey to The Mun could take place.

This step went without any incidents. - My regular readership will recognize the 1st stage from the Multi Fuel gliders, used to refuel K.G.01 with Methalox or Hydrogen - and just like when I launch the Multifuel gliders - the 1st stage of course returned safely back to KSC after stage separation.

For detailed walkthrough of the launch of the MLKO and the landing of the 1st stage, see spoiler section bellow:

Spoiler

The stage has a lot easier time launching the MLKOs rather than its usual glider - it helps that the majority of the drag is not situated at the tip of the rocket.

Stage separation and burn back of 1st stage.

lining up KSC and waiting for the atmosphere to help steer the craft.

the two big control surfaces makes it really easy to aim the rocket at the correct pad.

3/7 engines reignite.

steady as she goes.

and landed.

back in space the MLKO is performing a loong burn to get into orbit - expending most of its fuel in the process.

burning well into the night

after reaching orbit its just the coasting phase - waiting to catch the K.G.01 - Notice how the vehicle has been extended - I gave it more reaction control wheels as the SAS seemed a bit weak on the MLKO when it was not connected with the HTD.

The MLKOv2 arriving at K.G.01 and docking at the docking tower for refuel.

Rotating crew from K.G.02 to K.G.01:

Refueled and ready - it was time to perform the second burn to The Mun. The tour to K.G.02 and back to K.G.01 went without incidents.... uuuntil I made a slight mistake coming back.

The MKLOv2 got into a orbit with K.G.01 right behind it.. and not in front of it. If I did my regular way of rendezvousing I would need to wait around 3 days before the capsule would have caught up with K.G.01 So instead of making an orbit that were 10km bellow the target orbit (90km) - I decided to take a orbit 10km higher (110km). This would allow K.G.01 to catch up with the MKLOv2, instead of the other way around.

Once K.G.01 was directly bellow the MLKO, I would just have to burn retrograde until I had a fitting rendezvous point:

The astute will notice the error I made in doing it this way - namely that the PE was vastly bellow 70km. Unfortunately I only ever realized my error once I was dipping into the atmosphere

Once bellow 70km and I realized my error, I thought I could still salvage the error. I have coasted through the atmosphere before in the past, and I had plenty with Δv to keep me in orbit..

How ever, the previous times I have dipped into the atmosphere on a rendezvous maneuver was in space planes. The MLKOv2 was not a space plane.. It did not have the lift, and certain parts would make the effort difficult:

The front docking port would heat up over a period - I found that could turn the vehicle 180° and allow the engine to take the heat for a while, while the port cooled down. And I could probably still have survived this by keep turning the vehicle around. But I decided that was cheating.

I find that heat exchange is way to generous in the game - With this thin an atmosphere.. I would not be able to converge the heat away quick enough.. and radiate the heat while in a plasma cloud? forget it. I decided with myself.. that all the bits that was not the safety capsule would probably have melted off (lamps lights etc.)... and that the craft would not "be suitable" for service anymore. So.. Even without wanting it. I got a chance to test the emergency re-entry characteristics of the design and enjoy the pretty colors.

For a detailed walkthrough of the mission. See spoiler section bellow

Spoiler

MLKOv2 detaching from K.G.01 - getting ready to perform the transfer burn:

MLKOv2 performing transfer burn to the mun

Second attempt at the Δv saving method - here using more Δv than the first attempt.

break burn for a mun orbit.

Arriving at K.G.02 

moving into docking position.

docked.

Return flight home getting ready to circularize the orbit - notice MLKOv2 02 is enroute to K.G.02 - to picking up the last 3 crew members of the Minmus mission.

It is here I made the error mentioned above which resulted in the unplanned emergency test of the vehicle re-entry capabilities.

The vehicle took a 90° bank position to make sure the craft would not be hit by debris upon separation. The HTD is a lot heaver than the MLKO - and would just keep pushing it forward.

Separating the crew component with the HTD.

aligning the MLKO to be protected by the heat shield (this some how gave me vibes from the movie Gravity)

The HTD slowly overtook the capsule - before blowing up to the excessive heat - the capsule would coast for a while further.

the final gentle drop.

safely on the ground.

The crew getting a breather after first sunlight. Thinking about the event that had just occurred. And Podcal wasn't even on this flight 

The crew was saved.. but the vehicle was lost.. and never made it to K.G.01 - so that must count as a... failure?

Section C:

MKLOv2 number 2 arriving at K.G.02

Now I was certain that I had suffered all the bugs and human error that would be thrown at me. Alas I was wrong. 

Getting the 3rd Crew Rotation went without incident - right until the point were I had to separate the HTD and MLKO and dock them back at K.G.01.

When I was docking the MLKO at K.G.01, it seemed as if the floating point on the engine plate had turned physical.. I could not dock it: See bug report as reference:

Fortunately it was not an error that persisted - by loading a game shortly before the docking - I managed to get the vehicle docked back at K.G.01. And shortly after docking another, so K.G.01 got 2 MLKOs and 2 HTDs again, ready for the next mission.

Two MLKOv3 docked at K.G.01 ready for future missions.

Section D:

The SSTO Space Plane ready to launch for K.G.01 to bring the Minmus crew safely back to KSC

Last time I flew my crew rotation SSTO Space Plane, was before the heat mechanics were introduced to the game - So I was a bit excited to see how it would be fairing after a few updates were I had not touched it. I brushed up on the flight procedure in the K.G.01 and 02 blog. It was time to test the vehicle.

Getting into orbit:

Getting off the runway and starting the ascending stage at 15° went without flaws - how ever I were starting to sweat a bit when the vehicle started to heat up in the atmosphere. A few heat indicators were starting to show, on v1 of the vehicle I think it was the RCS thrusters or front cones on the engines that heated up. On the later v2 it was the solar panels:

Here on the updated SSTOv2 space plane - the solar panels are getting a bit toasty   

Fortunately it never got higher than this and the plane got out of the atmosphere without trouble. The step by step guide I had written myself were good enough that I could get back into flying the vehicle efficient right from the get go.

The vehicle got into orbit no issues and was soon able to dock with K.G.01

Crew SSTO docked with K.G.01 and performing crew transfer.

Re-entry:

I was quite excited to see if the reentry characteristics had changed a lot from last time I flew it. Readers of my K.G.01 and 02 blog will remember that the Multi Fuel glider went through quite some changes after the v0.2.1 patch. 

Fortunately the vehicle did not have the same ass flipping tendencies as the aforementioned multifuel glider. Buut the vehicle did not have the ability to maintain a 40° AoA on the way down.. let alone a 5° So I imagine the windows to be quite toast.

The lack of ability to pitch the craft also meant that I overshot the runway by a bit. Fortunately the vehicle still had a little bit of Methane left, and could fly back to the runway under its own power.

1st tour had been complete, and it had shown the needs for some tweaks to the design: More RCWs, batteries, Solar panels.. and more importantly - body flaps.

 

 

For detailed walkthrough of this Mission Task, see spoiler section bellow:

Spoiler

Take off from Runway 1 - my favorite launch time now is 0415 - the golden hour is just stunning.

climbing.

Getting a bit toasty.

after the plane has gone from air breathing engines to closed cycle engines it pitches up from 15° to 30° - narrowly shielding the windows from the plasma cloud.

Once the AP reaches the wanted 90km - engines are cut and the coasting phase start.

setting up the rendezvous maneuver. achieving a 90 km orbit to catch K.G.01

and now its just waiting to catch up with K.G.01 - while recharging the batteries. Last time I flew this plane it seemed the internal battery package together with 2 panels lasted a lot longer - have they nerfed the small solar panels? Changes would need to be made...

linking up with K.G.01

lining up the docking port for the crew section of the station.

steady as she goes.

docked.

after the crew transfer it was just a matter of spending the last ~200 Δv and allow gravity and the atmosphere to do it right.

Coasting and enjoying the beautiful shape of this plane.

in the upper atmosphere the plane still had pitch authority - here I am banking 90° to shorten the coasting phase.

from another angle.

unfortunately it would not hold, and I would only regain authority a short while after the coast - around the islands to the east of KSC. 

After bleeding enough speed to regain control - the vehicle is spiraling down towards the west, while getting the last bit of sunlight (KSC just visible in the right corner)

assisted by powered flight the crew returns.

engine cut out, and the vehicle is gliding the last bit back.

touch down on the runway.

and the crew returns to KSC after 53 days in space.

 

Section E.

SSTO SpacePlanev2 docking with K.G.01 

I quickly updated the plane and send it out again. It had gained a bit more mass and I was worried it would mean that the vehicle would be left with to little Δv to get back again. Fortunately my worries was unwarranted.

It made it to K.G.01 without any issues and had enough Δv to deorbit. - Now was the real test - would it be able to reenter perfect?

SSTO Space PlaneV2 re-entering with bodyflaps engaged.

The fix for the multifuel glider worked for the SSTO as well - Now that I had the body flaps I could attack the atmosphere aggressively without being afraid of flipping the ass.

However - I was so busy admiring the planes ability to keep the nose pointed in a 40° AoA that I didn't notice I was extending the glide... a lot... and subsequently massively overshooting the runway.

evidently It became quite obvious that I would not make it to the runway when I was still in the upper atmosphere and could look down on KSC. I figured It was time to try reach the little runway on the eastern island.

How ever - the fact that the runway in question is about 300 m above the ocean proved to be the final nail in the coffin, The SSTO is not a good glider. I would have to attempt a water landing right outside the coast.

By carefully managing airspeed and altitude I managed to get down to the ocean with ~60 m/s (about the point of stall speed) and gently putting it into the water. Right outside the coast of the island.

The crew survived.. but they did not reach KSC - so a failure?

For detailed walkthrough of this mission task - see spoiler section bellow:

Spoiler

lift off.

I really like the look of the new clouds.

reaching space, with a soft glow from the fainting atmosphere drawing the silhouette of the plane.

now in space - with more solar panels and batteries.

arriving at K.G.01

lining up the port.

steady as she goes - 0.2 m/s

docked and crew transfer.

undocked.

Deorbit burn.

reentry

overshooting the runway.

here gliding down, waving at KSC - the plane is not a good glider. even with flaps (the tip of the wings deployed at 15°) it struggles to maintain altitude without powered flight.

by here it is obvious that the plane will not be able to hold pitch and not stall - the runway is to high up in altitude.

I decide to conserve energy and dive for the ocean. here I am pitching up and bleeding speed to avoid the plane being ripped a part on contact.

fortunate for the kerbals - the plane is super buoyant as its devoid of fuel at this stage.

 

Moving Forward:

The vehicles and crew has been landed.. And even if the pod is several 100 km away from KSC it can be recovered.. But by now you must know, that that is not the way we do it here.

Stay tuned for the SAR mission to bring all the kerbalnauts back home to KSC:

A little sneak peak at what is to come.

 

 

Edited April 24 by BechMeister
I accidently published the blog post before I was done writing it

[BechMeister]

Mission Update:
- No Kerbalnaut Left Behind -

 

Foreword:

The mission is at an end.  I think, collectively between this mission and the establishment of K.G.01 and 02 - that I have squish everything I can from Kerbin SOI - It is time to break out into the Kerbol Solar System in earnest.  

It was quite nice change of pace to build and fly Search And Rescue planes to pick up lost kerbals - experiment with how much Δv is needed to fly the distance. It took a few iterations to get the planes right - but the 3rd generation hit the mark I think.

 

Mission Tasks:

 

A. Develop a SAR seaplane - Success

B. SAR mission for the crew of the crash landed SSTO Spaceplane - Success

C. SAR mission for the crew of crash landed MLKO - Failure.

D. Develop SAR land plane - Success

E. SAR mission for the crew of the crash landed SAR sea plane. - Success

Lessons Learned; Lessons Identified:

 

Section A:

SAR plane V1 take off from the boat launch.

I have read that quite a lot of people found it challenging to make a seaplane. Once my SSTO splash landed a few KM off the coast of KSC I thought it was an ideal time to give it a go. I must say that it was a bit finicky to get the plane buoyant enough to float - the SAS strong enough to keep the nose from diving down and the engines air intake big enough to feed the engines. 

All in all the plane went through 3 design stages:

1. Make a plane that could take off from the water, and fly straight.
2. Give it wheels to be able to take off from a runway + extend the range.
3. Update vehicle from Lessons Learned; Lessons Identified on Section C - range extension, as well as giving it a docking port for refuel capabilities.

Model 1. 

The first step was making the plane buoyant enough. To my annoyance I quickly found out that the nose cones does not give any buoyancy what so ever. Only the the fuel tanks gives buoyancy. The prototype 1 were using the MK2 nose cone for the front and the back, angled slightly up. I had to add a empty MK2 JFT-400 on either side of the nose cone to make it buoyant enough. See spoiler for reference:

Spoiler

 

A version with Kanards - I tried to see if the Kanards could give upforce in water - but it seems that there is no effect and they were giving issues when landing.

The plane was now buoyant. It was time to find the right engine.

I started by powering the plane by 2x J404 engines - the lift to weight ratio would have been fine for wheeled flight of a runway - but I quickly found out that you need a good lift to weight ratio to get out of the water.  I replaced the engines with 2x J33. They needed bigger air intakes, so I added 2x Mk1 Diverterless Supersonic Intake + the circular intake and a XM-G50 Radial Air Intake - giving them more than enough air (otherwise I found that one engine would be starved of air before reaching speeds were the air intakes would suck in enough air for both engines to work)

This gave me speed enough - but a new problem arose. The fact that the engines were placed higher than the center of mass, meant that they would work as a leaver, pushing the nose down. I added RCWs until the SAS had the strength to keep the nose up and clear of the water. But the plane kept getting heavier and longer. which meant that it was harder to lift off.

to reduce length I replaced the front Nose Cone + the empty front MK2 JFT-400 for a single empty RF-AD-800. - lastly I angled the wings 4° to help the engines push the plane up and out of the water.

The Result was this:

The plane would now leave the water - but as soon as it was airborn the tilt of the wing would force the plane down - to counter this downward motion I deployed the two center control surface on the wings by 15° and deploy the tail control surfaces at -2°.  See figure in spoiler.

Spoiler

Notice the longer pontoon - this is version 3 of the plane.

The plane now flies straight (to the point were you can auto pilot it) and I completed the first test flight - picking up the stranded Kerbals on the SSTO without issues.

Its stall speed is was around 30-40 m/s - which is also the speed you need to land on the water with to not blow up. I added 2 aero breaks to help slow down for the water landings. 

Model 2:

After a successful mission I had to get it to fly much longer to reach the desert. I figured an easy way to get more range would be to fill the empty tanks with fuel and give it wheels. Taking off from the runway and flying would mean that by the time It had to be boyant again, the tanks would be empty.

After a test - I found that I needed more fuel so I added 2 drop tanks. That gave it a total  Δv count of 57.500 Δv.

See spoiler to see the addition of wheels and tanks.

Spoiler

I was hoping that would be enough for the mission to the desert and back - alas I was short by ~100km. This mission proved that the plane would benefit from having just slightly more Δv - but also a way to refuel.

Which lead to the final model: Model 3:

By extending the pontoons with NCS 200 fuel tanks + some other minor tweaks(I found out I had flown without Methane in the two Mk1 Diverterless Supersonic Intake) , I increased the Δv count to 66.000 enough to theoretically fly 1500+km 140 m/s in ~4000 m altitude.

When configured for water flying - the Δv counter is at 29.100 - and its take off speed is ~49 m/s.

Section B:

The SAR plane arrives at the floundered SSTO.

After the plane had been developed it was a pretty simple to go pick up the lost kerbals. 

See spoiler section for detailed rundown:

Spoiler

The seaplane took off from the boat launch.

set course for the island.

After a short while the plane overflew the SSTO in distress.

after a careful landing, the plane slowly approached so the Kerbals didn't have to swim to far.

Kerbals are lined up for the swim.

Last kerbal to swim across.

Sea plane is taking off again.

This image gives a good impression of how long a "runway" the plane needs before lifting off.

The plane flying back.

Lining up the coast.

slowing down

and landing.

et voila - The Kerbals of the crash-landed SSTO was safely back on the beach of KSC.

Section C:

A map view at the time of dropping the drop tanks - gives quite the impression of the distance that needed to be covered. ~15.013km in total

The next mission would turn out to be a lot more demanding. - The distance that had to be travled back and forth were quite long. several hours long. Unfortunately the vehicle was to heavy to be able to fly on 3x time warp (I could not get it to fly straight, but once the flight had been lightened on the way home, it was possible) - So I actually spend a saturday afternoon flying from KSC to the Pod in the desert.

fortunately the plane was so stable that I could run it at 70% power and have it fly between 3000m and 4000m altitude. I just had to adjust every once and a while - because of the curvature of Kerbin. It gave a lot opportunity to admire the volumetric clouds, lighting etc. around Kerbin.

After 526 km of flight it was time to drop the tanks and see how much the mass savings would improve the Δv counter:

After the drop the Δv counter went from 37,538 to 40,368 - saving 170 Δv. I was starting to worry about the success of the mission. The plane had gone a little shy of a 3^rd of total distance, tour - retour, and spend (if my math serves me right) spend around 33% of its total Δv. Which in theory should mean that I would be fine - however theory and real life seldom lines up - any deviation from an optimal outcome would mean the flight got short of target. And spoiler alert.. The plane would end up about 101 km short from the runway at KSC on its 1412km journey.

Any way after a long journey the plane arrived at the stranded MLKO pod to the cheering of the crew that had spend a day or two in the desert.

Pilot Shepke Kerman gives a safety instruction before boarding the flight.

Landing the sea plane proved to be a delicate matter - the 4° angle of the wing means it can be quite difficult to perfectly line up the wheels to the surface - you see leveled flight means that the fuselage is angled 4° down. And with the snug placement of the wheels, you need to land on quite horizontal to the surfaces, to not blow up a pontoon or lose a wheel. After a few attempts and reloads I figured the approach and optimal speed. (around 30-40 m/s like on water and close to perfectly leveled to the ground)

It made me think that maybe in the future the plane would not be so suited for land operations(not all terrain is as gentle as the desert). But being able to take off from a runway fully loaded to land on water once fuel had depleted the floats - still merited the wheels.

Now began the tour home. - Where the tour west to the desert had meant a slow passing of the day - the tour back would result in catching up with the dark quite quick.

The SAR Seaplane reaching night time - short before flying over the western shore of the continent KSC is located on.

It was here I was starting to debate with myself weather I should press on for KSC or attempt a night landing. I decided to press on until the vehicle had 500 Δv left - as I knew that I might be in need for a powered landing, so fully depleting it would not be advisable..

Fortunately I had anticipated needing lights for landings at nights - so the plane was equipped for night landings. That being said.. not being able to judge if it was a suitable place to land, before a few meters off ground.. still made it a spicey experience.

A crashlanding was completed, only destroying some of the landing gear in the process:

For a detailed walkthrough of this mission leg - see spoiler section bellow:

Spoiler

take off from KSC 

Turn around. - love the orange belly.

and good bye KSC.

after leaving the mountain range secluding KSC - it was just a steady climb until 3500m at 60-70% power. I found that I could maintain around 140 m/s at 70% power at 3500m - as soon as the plane got above 4500m it would lose speed. But it makes sense.. the plane was build for slow take off speeds.. not fast flight.

climbing.

once above 3500m the mission pretty much just went on auto pilot.

We quickly passed over the mountain range carving the continent KSC lies upon in two. (the green plot of land at the horizon would be where the mission ended)

Next would be passing over the ocean separating the two continents.

next land mark was a small stripe of desert, before the plane would fly over open water again.

it was a short and sweet change of landscape.

1h 16 min into the flight it was time to drop the tanks.

shortly thereafter the plane finally reached the actual shore of the desert it would need to fly over to reach the target. - I really like the profile of the plane.

Soon the plane would find itself in open desert as far as the eye could see.

The way the game render the atmosphere - even on low graphics is beautiful.

The plane reaches its target - 5km in front of it, in the flat lands beyond the clouds, the pod was resting.

Shepke Kerman carefully manages his energy and speed when putting down the bird. It is here that I wonder if two specialized SAR planes in reality wouldn't be ideal - one for land, one for ocean missions.

and landed on the desert floor. The chrome gets to reflect the warm colours of the sand, and the cold hues of the sky - spectacular.

the crew leaves the pod and prepares to walk over to the plane. Shepke ready to welcome them aboard.

Shepke carefully picks a line through the dunes that isn't too bumpy and takes off.

goodbye MLKO - thank you for bringing the Kerbals down safe.

The plane turns eastward - ready to go home.

back in the air - leaving the desert behind.

reaching the shores yet again.

flying away and in to the setting sun.

with the growing darkness - my concerns about reaching KSC also grew.

Soon it was obvious I would not have the Δv to make it back - I steered for a green patch - the only thing i could distinguish in the black and hoped for the best. Knowing the land in the area was mountainous.

the 4 searchlights doing wonders in seeing the terrain.

and landed - only with minor damage.

End of mission. - note that the mission time is off. In reality the mission time was 3h 41m and 43s - mostly flown afk over 2 days.

Section D:

Version 1 of the SAR land plane on Runway 1 KSC.

Making a land plane was not difficult compared to the Seaplane - I could remove the 4° angle of the wing, and subsequently the ÷2° of the control surfaces on the tail - meaning it was a lot easier to balance the plane. That being said - the SAS really wants to rock the plane up and down when flying.. to the point were the plane crashes.

I found that if I limit the range of motion of the control surfaces from its maximum of 20° to 10° the plane will fly stable. How ever to land at low speeds the surface needs at least 15° to keep the nose up.

Another thing that were important to me were that the Land and Sea version of the SAR plane could refuel each other. It meant that both planes sported the same front, and subsequently the same cockpit (but it's fine, it gives them synergy). I decided to give the plane a probe core - since the Sea plane was full, and I did not want to fly twice. I figured I could fly it without crew and be fine.

Stats:

Δv and take off speed no drop tanks: 58.450 Δv - 67 m/s

Δv and take off speed drop tanks: 75805 Δv - 84 m/s

Section D:

The last crew of The Minmus Expedition finally safely back at KSC.

after 26 min of flight, and 202 km covered the crew was safely back at KSC - the final Kerbalnauts of The Minmus Expedition was home after 55 days away from the safe confines of KSC.

See spoiler section for detailed walkthrough of this mission leg:

Spoiler

The SAR land plane takes off from the Runway in KSC.

au revois KSC.

the mountain range in the distance is our destination. 

the little green patch off the nose of the plane is were the Sea Plane had touch down. The only landmark I could discern at night.

The plane has landed and the Kerbals are boarding the crewless SAR plane that has come to bring them home. 

The plane takes off and set course for KSC.

the mountains in the background is the mountain range surrounding KSC

safely back at KSC

I took off with ~10.000 Δv - I took no chances. Could have gone with much less 

 

MISSION_ACCOMPLISHED

Thank you all for indulging me in my adventure. I can safely say that I am looking forward to do my Duna Mission ark - were a lot of the scope will be launching very small vehicles and probes. I got my fare share of big elaborate vehicles on this mission.

See you soon!