The "Heart of Gold" Project

[Malakai030]

Hello KSP-Fans!

I've been addicted to this game for about 2 months and finally wanted to show around my last efforts. Every day I play, I love this game more and more

So here's my Creation, the "Heart of Gold", name is based on the "Hitchhiker's Guide through Galaxy" novels which you really should read.

The vessel is concepted to carry smaller ships and probe carriers to other planets and thus part of a bigger project called "The Duna Project" (it took a long time to find so much fitting names for my projects). In this Duna Project I want to precolonize Duna using H.O.M.E. modules, being able to refuel ships on surface and sending Kerbals back to orbit, where the Heart of Gold waits for them. So the idea.

Description

Pic 1: roughly 900 tons of metal and hydrogen being kicked into space by roughly 22.000 kN. It took me 4 (in words: four) realtime days to bring that ship into orbit. The 896 parts might be a challenge for slower pcs. And with the Jool V 3m rockets it was possible to bring her up in one piece!

Pic 2: The Heart of Gold in low Orbit above Kerbal, after trial #181. Deployed sleeping cabins and veggie garden module (not on pic). Kerbals get tired fast on stressful starts. She's equipped with two dock ports. One on the nose, one rear of the ship, so she can push or drag other ships as needed.

Pic 3: The Heart of Gold approaching the Orbital Fuel Station. Great Pic I think.

Pic 4: The Orbital Fuel Station (no name yet) in 400km Orbit above Kerbal, fully deployed stuff. In this shape it can only fuel small vessels since it has no large tanks.

Pic 5: The Vodka Fuel vessel, used to dock at Fuel Station and work as large exchangable tank. This pic was made after a refueling mission for the Heart of Gold in the right lower corner of the pic, there with fully deployed solar panels. The carrier ran out of monoprop as the docking maneuver took to long. We had a perfect approach, but then someone told something about tea and then things got messy. Anyway, Vodka came in time and the Heart could finish her mission to the station.

Pic 6 and 7: Isnt she wonderful?

Some stats:

900 tons starting mass

130 tons in space (fully fueled)

22300 kN max thrust at start

9 Kerbals capacity

Used Mods:

MechJeb

H.O.M.E. 3m Start Kit

Jool V Heavy Launcher

Kosmos Space Station

AmpYear Power Manager (Jazz in space is cool)

Chatterer

This should be it. Please notify me if any mod is missing. I'll add a .craft file as soon as I know how to And of course I'll post new pics as soon as my Duna Project advances. Next step is the probe carrier for both sattelite and Duna Rover. A Duna fuel station is also planned, so there's some to come up. Questions and suggestions are of course welcome

So far

Malakai

[Malakai030]

One thing I love so much: the incredible screenshots.

The three newest vessels stuck together.

In progress: a probe carrier. His mission is

to send three satellites to the Duna system

and the rover (or "Kirby 3-X") to Duna surface (of course).

It's not done yet, suggestions are... yeah, ok, they're welcome

[Malakai030]

Mission (partially) accomplished!!!

On the first attempt the Heart of Gold accomplished the first interplanetary mission and the lander with Kirby, the rover... well, "landed" on Duna!

On the first both pics you can see a successfull lander test on Kerbin and

the final version of the Duna Space Probe Carrier in low Kerbin orbit.

The first version had the docking node on the side, but that didn't work

because I didnt find the center of mass exactly enough.

So me and my scientist guys decided to put the node on the nose (compare last post),

what led to the 3 heavy parachutes. The lander doesnt really need them,

another layout didnt fit.

After we found the best design for the lander, we got this thing in space, where it refueled and awaited

the approach of the Heart of the Duna Project, the Heart of Gold. She arrived as planned, the lander docked and the course to Duna was set. Extremely exciting so far we thought!

The Heart of Gold accomplished her first interplanetary mission and so the first interplanetary mission ever in my space program!

These 5 pics show the transfer to Duna. We left Kerbins influence and got onto sun orbit, then Mr Hohmann brought us near enough to that red rock.

Now the interesting phase begins. The carrier's mission: Bring one sattelite to Ike, and two to Duna, after that land Kirby on the surface of the red planet. Said and done: On the pics you see the carrier transferring to Dunas moon and releasing the first satellite into the orbit.

The last few steps: Get back to Duna, release the two left satellites and get ready to land. Everything worked surprisingly fine.

And now the touchdown: Release trash. Turn into right direction. Brake. Open Parachutes. Hope the best. Now it's only a few...

Do you think that's fair? Is it? How have we deserved such an end for that mission? Me and my science guys were so happy about this really easy mission, and then this. Did you already recognize the broken rover wheels in Duna orbit? We saw that as the lander had already opened his chutes. So now we have a rover with broken wheels and a lander that didnt land on his feet.

BUT WE MADE IT TO DUNA!!!

Now the Duna Project can begin. A complete infrastructure is planned, with a station in orbit and a surface base, which is able to refuel ships and stuff.

So I hope you like the pictures me and my science guys worked so hard for, there will be more in future, as there are still many plans for the Heart of the Project, the Heart of Gold.

[Immashift]

Looks like you got a well designed setup there

Took me months to figure out how to dock without assistance... well, I guess it took maybe a week to do it without screaming by anything I tried to rendezvous with, and longer to make docking feel natural. Took me more than two to just do anything further than Minmus, so you got me beat there easily.

Keep it up, always cool to see different people's takes on the same sort of missions. Gives me more ideas for designing my own stuff too.

Edited May 31, 2013 by Immashift

[Malakai030]

Well, I dock manually only for the last few hundred meters, for the approach I use MechJeb because I never find the right point for matching the speeds of the ships I always miss them by some kilometers

But I dock the ship by hand, its more fun and costs much less monoprop (try to set the camera mode to "chase" if you haven't already, that might help)

The project advances. Here more of it:

One problem was: I made the tank car before I made the fuel station, so the docking nodes didnt fit together. I solved that by adding two struts to the station, which lift it up a few meters. Now "Big Wheels" can dock

Next thing up: Bring both the car and the "Power Bean" to Mars!

Edited June 1, 2013 by Malakai030