What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Nintendo]

I went back to the Mun (With a probe, for now) for the first time in a while.

The final landing stage was all RCS, and was enough to land, take off, and then land back on Kerbin without parachutes.

[Rakaydos]

Heavy spaceplane releases ayload in orbit, and lands where it can.

Mostly intact.

[soulsource]

Not exactly today, but I've done my first landing on Minmus in the current save since I last posted here. Since there was plenty of fuel, I landed the ship in 2 different biomes before returning safely to Kerbin. I've also been to the Mün again, since for the previous missions I didn't have the gravioli detector yet. What I really like about hard mode is, that although I've been to the Mun several times, and also paid Minmus a visit, I'm still far away from finishing the tech tree and while (thanks to stage recovery) I'm not really low on funds, I still have to keep an eye on them, so setting up my interplanetary comms network will be (slightly) more of a challenge, given that I don't have ion or nuclear propulsion yet.

Btw: The latest changes in DRE, that burn your chutes if you open them into too hot air/plasma, make direct reentry on return quite challenging, so for all my return missions I'm now planning enough fuel to get into LKO again before reentry.

[bitbucket]

I haven't been real big on KSP lately but I'm trying to get back into it since my favorite mods are up to date and it doesn't look like a .25.1 that will break them again is imminent.

So. Things I did lately.

Kicked off the first leg of an interplanetary communication network. (I like RemoteTech. ) By the time interplanetary transfer windows open, this ship and its twin will be well on their way to the Kerbin-Kerbol L4/L5 points.

Sent off an unmanned probe to swing by Eve for a gravity assist on the way to Moho.

I nonetheless remain optimistic that its ion engines are up to the task of establishing an orbit when it gets there.

A class A asteroid randomly appeared in Kerbin's SOI on a collision course. The boys in orange went to investigate the matter.

The threat was mitigated.

I expanded my RemoteTech communications network to the Mun in advanced of a manned mission.

Science happened.

Currently the need for more science to happen is in question as the tech tree is done and there were over 12,000 science points left over at the conclusion of this mission. Perhaps the sale of patents is warranted.

Currently, plans within plans are being set into motion. As interplanetary transfer windows are still many days away, the intervening time will be spent expanding the comm network to Minmus, sciencing all the science out of Minmus with a followup mission, and building a permanent Munbase.

[Cirocco]

Didn't have too much time for KSP yesterday since I went to go do sporty things. Started design on my second-generation sience/money milker sattelites. I wanted to kep the design light and efficient so I started with a simple ion probe. Because I wanted to be efficient, I added a shroud to allow aerobraking. (I don't use FAR or DRE, but I really don't like aerobraking without at least some form of shielding. Call it roleplay puposes)

But that meant I couldn't use the main ion engine until after aerobraking (since it and its powering solar panels would be hidden in the shroud).

Adding another ion engine would severly limit the TWR, so I added a fuel tank and a small LFO engine as transfer stage.

But those aren't very efficient ... it was just before I was about to add a nuclear engine that I realised that things had kinda snowballed away from the whole "light and efficient" idea...

I'm starting to think it might be best just to not aerobrake, not use a shroud to keep the probe light and just expend that extra delta-V on the ion engines. Those things are super efficient anyways.

[Skylab]

I landed on Minmus for the first time

[Starman4308]

Btw: The latest changes in DRE, that burn your chutes if you open them into too hot air/plasma, make direct reentry on return quite challenging, so for all my return missions I'm now planning enough fuel to get into LKO again before reentry.

Stop popping your parachutes so early. Wait until speed is below 250 m/s if deploying manually, about 5-6 km altitude if autodeploying, to pre-deploy into drogue mode. If you absolutely can't slow down enough simply on capsule drag by then, you are almost certainly using FAR/NEAR*. In this case: either you are taking a ridiculously steep reentry with insufficient braking time, or you are trying to land a monster with a low drag/mass ratio. If the second: you could either increase the size of your heatshield (increasing drag), or use a bunch of Sepratrons to brake your craft enough to deploy drogues.

You can also just aerobrake first and take off a bit of your orbital velocity before going in for final reentry.

*If you're using the stock drag model, anything will naturally come to ~100 m/s with a comfortable amount of time left to deploy parachutes, unless you're doing something crazy like reentering straight down (in which case DRE will burn up your ship anyways).

[michaelsteele3]

Made a bad replica of the International Space Station. I'll post pictures later

[capi3101]

Yesterday I built a couple of booster designs. Then I decided to fulfill a couple of FinePrint aerial survey contracts that I'd been putting off for a while - so I designed the mighty Peacock 7 and launched it on it's maiden voyage of global exploration; I figured I'd make the design spaceworthy in case I wanted the extra speed, so I used R.A.P.I.E.R. engines. Design had a atmospheric flight ceiling of a little over 29,000 meters and, as I discovered a couple of times, it was still controllable with the starboard engine flamed out (two inline stabilizer and two reaction wheels in a cargo bay up by the cockpit).

The nav points took me over Kerbin's south pole...

...and once those were taken care off I did a set that was pretty much completely on the otherside of Kerbin from KSC - NavUtilities was telling me to steer 278 to get to KSC; I firmly headed 090 and eventually it started agreeing with me. On the way back to KSC, I caught a partial solar eclipse.

Landed at KSC successfully with 153 units of LF still in the tank - a 9.87% fuel reserve. The landing itself was a tad ugly - on the runway though well left of the center of the strip - but nothing broke. Did finally dump all the oxidizer when it became clear I wasn't going to need any more of it.

Edited October 29, 2014 by capi3101

[Trentendegreth]

Finished the contract portion of Mun Base 006, next is the carbonite refinery and tanks, then a science collection vehical i call a "skeeter"

[CatastrophicFailure]

Btw: The latest changes in DRE, that burn your chutes if you open them into too hot air/plasma, make direct reentry on return quite challenging, so for all my return missions I'm now planning enough fuel to get into LKO again before reentry.

Why are you popping your chutes so early in the first place? I keep hearing bits like this and I don't understand it. I never pop chutes above like 5000m, by which I'm well below heating speeds. Even if you reenter going straight down, you will always slow down to around 100m/s before hitting the ground, with plenty of time to spare (DRE effects notwithstanding). With FAR you can see higher speeds but you have to really try to do so.

Duna is a different story however.

[Frank_G]

I landed on Minmus for the first time

http://i.imgur.com/5JInxCw.jpg

Congratulations on that great achievement. Wait until you land on Duna... i found that even more breathtaking

[Jank]

I built, launched, and docked an RCS refueler with escape pod to my Orbital Refueling Station, in honor of the lost Orbital Sciences ISS cargo launch from yesterday.

[ximrm]

Successful eve mission. Used my super expensive custom high-pressure testtank.

[Slam_Jones]

Accidentaly murdered Bob Kerman (and two other random Kerbals) when their station core failed to make orbit.

Sorry Bob

[drake000666]

A few pics from my current career today

http://imgur.com/a/MsTeX

[LABHOUSE]

Made a new version of my stock soyuz it is now 1.875 m diameter exactly.

Math to prove it:

2.5 x pi / 8 x 6 / pi

Orange tank is 2.5 and 8 of the 1x1 panels is equal to the circumference and 6 1x1 panels is what I used.

[xub313]

Dres Probe 30 seconds before impacting the surface at 100 m/s

So I landed the communications satellite instead.

The satellite then lifted off back into high Dres orbit to complete a fine print contract. Now I can fund my asteroid retrieval project.

[drake000666]

A few pics from my career today, using MOD's to make a historic story career.

http://imgur.com/a/MsTeX

[Jouni]

I completed my first interplanetary mission with the 6.4x Kerbol System by going to Duna.

The lander was quite heavy, so its natural place was between the transfer stage and the command module. To fit it there, I had to use some adapters.

I've had some strange balance issues with the Mk1-2 command pod and/or triple symmetry ever since installing RSS. Because of that, the lander was prone to flipping around during reentry, with catastrophic results. Only my third landing attempt was successful (kind of).

Things looked better after Bob repaired the landing struts.

The lander had way too much fuel. It had around 1500 m/s of delta-v left after returning to orbit.

The same can't be said of the transfer stage, which didn't have enough fuel for a direct transfer to Kerbin. The ship was on a slightly eccentric orbit, so I waited until a prograde burn at the periapsis made the ship escape Duna's sphere of influence retrograde, lowering the Sun periapsis to the same level as Kerbin's orbit.

After the escape burn, I had around 64 m/s of delta-v left, as well as around 25 units of monopropellant in the command module. I iterated 10-15 times the burns I had to do at the apoapsis and the periapsis in order to have a close encounter with Kerbin after six orbits. The transfer stage ran out of fuel during the periapsis burn, so I had to drop it earlier than planned and complete the burn with the command module.

I returned to Kerbin with 3.60 units of monopropellant left. The reentry wasn't too deadly, even though I entered the atmosphere at 9 km/s.

Note the balance issues with the command pod and/or triple symmetry again.

[Francois424]

I finally managed to create my "flying Lab" to get biomes on Kerbin and on other atmosphere planets when they get implemented... Took a while to tweak the Firespitter engine and balance it, but now I am satisfaied with the result.

This baby can push 160 m/s (576 km/h which is quite decent for a prop-plane, not as powerfull as the P51D Mustang, but very nice) and works on electricity and atmosphere (not oxygen). Until we get stock electric propellers, this will have to do.

It only has enough electric production for 80% engine on Kerbin but without solar panels, with a few solar panels on the wings, might be able to be OK on Laythe...

The goal is to have it be able to push 60-75% power on Blutonium isotopes alone, and manage the rest with panels. Still working that part out.

Edited October 30, 2014 by Francois424

[Aragosnat]

I finally managed to create my "flying Lab" to get biomes on Kerbin and on other atmosphere planets when they get implemented... Took a while to tweak the Firespitter engine and balance it, but now I am satisfaied with the result.

This baby can push 160 m/s (576 km/h which is quite decent for a prop-plane, not as powerfull as the P51D Mustang, but very nice) and works on electricity and atmosphere (not oxygen). Until we get stock electric propellers, this will have to do.

It only has enough electric production for 80% engine on Kerbin but without solar panels, with a few solar panels on the wings, might be able to be OK on Laythe...

http://i.imgur.com/xkCDF8g.png

Or even Eve return ship maybe too.

[drake000666]

Duna Landing in my newest Lander

[rodion]

just spent 3 hours or so fixing an insidious problem separating strap-on boosters on medium lifter - after numerous tweaks and redesigns realized that the sep. motors were causing the mainsail to overheat and explode, but only if it was at 80%+ throttle. Tried tweaking the thrust limiters and moving both the motors and then the strap-on boosters away from the engine as far as possible but couldn't get it so that the boosters separated cleanly without rotation + hitting things. Finally fixed it so the mainsail is action grouped and is manually disabled for a split second before separation - it's a brittle solution and I don't like it because if i forget to do it my whole payload, vehicle, crew falls in the ocean and gets obliterated, but since the launch vehicle is otherwise capable (tall, oversized, heavy payloads, handles well) I think i'll just live with it temporarily. Probably the longest I've ever spent on a single-issue build problem in KSP, also most design defects i caught on one mission build before launching it (11).

[rodion_herrera]

realized that the sep. motors were causing the mainsail to overheat and explode, but only if it was at 80%+ throttle.

Really? I thought residual heat from an SRB was negligible. I have had similar setups but the SRBs didn't affect heat. What I do know is that mainsails do heat up if attached to large F/Ts, which is why the usual practice is to attach them to shorter tanks first, then attach the short tank to a longer tank.