What did you do in KSP1 today?

[DerekL1963]

1 hour ago, regex said:

Here's Klamath making its adjustment burn and the parade of craft leaving Kerbin.

I wouldn't have spaced 'em so close...  leaving a day or so apart helps keep them from bunching up on arrival.

[kraden]

@DerekL1963 he mentions adjustment burns for that reason in his second paragraph.

[regex]

10 minutes ago, DerekL1963 said:

I wouldn't have spaced 'em so close...  leaving a day or so apart helps keep them from bunching up on arrival.

A small correction burn on four or five of them should be enough to do the trick, I'm not super worried about it. I haven't checked them but experience tells me variations in TWR and initial correction burns (the ones made immediately after the main burn) will also space them out. So long as they're each a few hours apart it won't be bad; getting them all settled in can happen after all the braking burns.

Edited February 16, 2017 by regex

[DerekL1963]

Just now, regex said:

A small correction burn on four or five of them should be enough to do the trick, I'm not super worried about it. I haven't checked them but experience tells me variations in TWR and correction burns will also space them out. So long as they're each a few hours apart it won't be bad; getting them all settled in can happen after all the braking burns.

Different strokes and all that...

[kraden]

The Kodiak's maiden voyage was a success.  Details and more pics in the spoiler.

 

Spoiler

The assembly crew remain aboard the Kodiak as it takes on it's first passengers; several of KSP's rising star kosmonauts.  Jeb is in command, Valentina is piloting, Rosphe is secondary pilot/training, and Bill is head engineer.  The crew capsule will remain in orbit and eventually bring everyone home.

Val burns to match planes with Ceti, Gael's second moon.

Some time later, the Kodiak arrives in orbit around Ceti.  Jeb and Bill remain onboard while everyone else piles into Lander 1.

Lander 1 returns to the Kodiak with only 52m/s DV and Jeb advises Val to park the Kodiak a little closer in the future.  Ceti has more gravity than Iota, but best not to take chances when you don't have to.  Val takes everyone out of Gael's SOI for just a few hours and sets up an encounter with Iota.

Lander 2 sets down and returns "by the books" and everyone gets ready to head home.  Jeb and Bill began to get unhappy with the accommodations.  As part of the assembly team, they had been on the Kodiak the longest at this point.

Val sets up a rendezvous with the crew capsule.

Docking and disembarking per usual.

Val lights the engines and tries to get them to land near the Space Center.  After the burn, she decouples the engines.

Well, it wasn't the Space Center, but she did do it by eye, and there was thick cloud cover at the time.  Just a little southwest and on the mainland, the crew capsule sets down safely.

As it turns out, the Kodiak has enough DV to probably make the trip twice, however the landers and supplies would still need to be topped off.  Already the tourists are lining up and waving their cash for a chance to ride.  Future plans for the Kodiak include fuel and eventually resupply from Ioatian orbit after a sufficient base is set up.  This would take place on the return side of the journey before drop-off/pick-up from Gael orbit.  R&D is talking about a modified version with hibernation chambers for interplanetary trips.  Mission Control says that until R&D can come up with a more efficient and reliable system, they'll either keep the Kodiak near Gael or if they do choose to take her interplanetary, they would have to do it with a much smaller crew.

 

[Whisky Tango Foxtrot]

I landed my first rover on the Mun.

A Shover Robot carrying the rover en route to Mun Station:

My Mun lander/lifter taking it down to the surface:

Landing successful, Gerra Kerman takes the rover for a test drive:

Unfortunately the mission was only partly successful. The same launch that brought the rover into orbit also launched an extension to my Mun surface base that would have increased its fuel capacity and provided a docking port for the rover to attach to. However, a misaligned docking port meant that the new module sat too high for the rover to dock with, so it had to be discarded. I've already launched a replacement so I just have to free up one of my Shover Robots to pick it up and take it to the Mun.

The rover itself works fairly well, although I have to be really careful going over the edges of craters since if I do so at too high a speed it'll launch itself into the "air" and will likely land at an odd angle. It still does its job, but I think I'll add a reaction wheel to the design before deploying a similar vehicle to Ike or another body.

[DerekL1963]

I've been testing the mining rig I posted the other day by using Hyperedit...  tonight it was time to do it the hard way, lifting each piece from KSC to Minmus using good ol' fashioned methods and proving the system could be bootstrapped from scratch.   Finished everything but the final test - transporting fuel from Minmus down to Kerbin orbit.  Too tired to tackle that tonight.

Learned a great deal along the way, though there's still a few details that can be improved before the final version.

[Zeiss Ikon]

The past two days encompassed a great deal of game time, as Val was up in the rotation for the first flight of Duna 1.  Duna 1 is a lightened version of Selene 1 Mod. 3a1, same launcher, but with the lander deleted.  Future Duna versions will incorporate more dV and have enough payload capacity to accommodate a lander.  This first mission into interplanetary space was intended as a simple flyby.

Launch was routine, with about 15% remaining in the upper core tank after circularization.  Because of the demanding nature of this mission, the decision was made not to deorbit that stage, but to use its remaining dV to begin the trans-Duna insertion.  With that aid, only a small fraction of the upper stage fuel was used leaving Kerbin.

Spoiler

 

The mission had been hastily planned, and there wasn't a low-energy window to Duna, but Val had some experience with getting there the long way on her trip to Minmus; she set up a phasing orbit to Duna, then flew as if doing a rendezvous in LKO -- only much, much, MUCH slower.  Fortunately, less than a full orbit was needed for an intercept.  Eventually, she got within naked eye sight of Duna, and arranged a gravity assist return to Kerbin's orbit -- the only way she would have enough dV to get home.

The trip home was slow, as well, with multiple tiny correction burns (a couple smaller than 1 m/s) needed to finally set up a direct reentry periapsis at Kerbin.  Fortunately, when applied well ahead, a tiny correction can have a big effect.  Fortunate, because by the time the Kerbin intercept was complete, that double orange tank was virtually empty (the image above shows how little was left before the gravity assist burn at Duna).

Val had to spend the last part of the return orbit creating magic squares in her flight computer's text editor; her cards wore out from playing tens of thousands of games of Klondike.  Eventually, however, it was time for the final burn to adjust the aerobraking altitude, and then, with the path down to Kerbin almost set in stone, to send the faithful transfer stage on its way -- intended to burn up in Kerbin's atmosphere, an oversight of decoupling direction led to the stage passing unharmed (with a periapsis of ~38 km) to escape Kerbin once more and orbit the sun until, at some future date, it should encounter Kerbin again.

Val burned the RCS fuel remaining in the service tanks to lower interface velocity and ensure capture (as opposed to requiring an interplanetary rescue mission).  Reentry was retrograde (beggars can't be choosers), so the more she could slow before hitting significant air, the better.  As a result, there was only one temperature alarm during reentry, as the groundward RCS quad exceeded operating parameters, but it remained attached and intact (and there was no fuel for it anyway, by that time), and soon it was time for a parachute.  Not, it wasn't forgotten.

Landing wasn't especially close to KSC -- not even on the right continent -- but with the amount of dV she had to work with, Val was heard to say "I'm just glad I landed on the right planet!"

Edited February 16, 2017 by Zeiss Ikon
Correct spoiler

[capi3101]

(1.1.3) Yesterday saw the arrival of the ferry ships Strange Cargo and Next Objective at the Munport space station, both ships arriving and docking at the station about two hours apart from one another. Engineer Liztha Kerman, coming from Strange Cargo, and scientist Kelbus Kerman, a recent rescuee brought along by Next Objective, boarded the station's Spamcan 7a lander and proceeded to attempt a landing in the vicinity of the Piper Alpha refinery, with a mission for Kelbus to plant a flag and for Liztha to relive the crew of the Piper Alpha refinery, who have been on the Münar surface for close to 150 days. Owing to a mishap and bad fortune, the lander tipped over on landing. I waited a few hours until daybreak, and then had engineers Barna and Corbas Kerman pile out of the refinery and board the nearby crane rover MIRV. The two of them spent some time removing parts from the nearby prototype Jiffy Lube 7 lander, removing and storing the craft's Poodle engine (in the craft's own KAS container bay, no less) before allowing it to settle on the ground on its tanks, then removing the landing legs, external lights, all but one of its RTGs, and the external fuel lines. One of the craft's outrigger FL-T800 fuel tanks was attached to MIRV to act as a counterweight for its crane boom. The two then reboarded MIRV and made their way to the Spamcan, where they will attempt an operation to right the lander later today (if I have any time to play today, that is). If they're successful, I intend to perform a refit on the lander; it has had a tendency to tip on landing and quite frankly I'm tired of that happening...

[Flamingo]

Today i pressed space one time too many...

So, there goes my descent stage. All I'm left with now is the heatshield, but that's unfortunately not going to protect me much from Muns rough surface. I facepalmed so hard when I realized that I hadn't quicksaved.

 

At least Jeb still looks happy...

[HalcyonSon]

18 hours ago, The Budgey Admiral said:

Today, I was bored and it was getting late. You will see why that is important later.

So I decided to do something I normally won't do: A VTOL. A small one. And I wanted it to look something like a bug. Somewhat cute. And it should still (more or less) fly. The result was this:

This beauty bears the name "Fragonfly" ( Now you see why the time was important, was a typo and I was too lazy to redo the blueprinting. Normally I won't be this lazy but hey, it turned out well at least). She is somewhat flyable, however forward thrust is worse than horrible, so you can not really sustain an ascent with the single Juno.

 

Made in KSP 1.0.5. No mods, sandbox mode.

I see two Mk 0 tanks there with the intakes.  Why not two Junos?  Double the thrust, double the fun!

[HalcyonSon]

I have a window to Moho opening in about one Kerbal day.  It's on!  

... as soon as I get Richlong down in one piece from his botched Mun rescue, and get Bob refueled and heading back home from Minmus.  I'm hoping to get a single launch comm net and unmanned expeditionary mission out on Day 46 with arrival around Day 93.  My trusty dV map tells me that I'll need about 13,000 m/s for Moho landing (worst case including plane change + 20%).  With the Science I've been able to transmit home from Minmus, I know I can unlock Nukes and might be able to unlock Ion Engines.  This is the furthest I've ever progressed in the game.  I've fooled around with Nukes a bit, but never Ions.  Wondering which would be better for this mission.  It's really going to make the most of my MicroSat design, as I'll be scattering probe droids across every biome with no intention of bringing them back.  Looks like I'll have to pile on twelve probes to hit every biome.  Add four Relays (three equatorial and a polar) and a Resource Scanner...  This will be my most complex mission yet, and my first interplanetary, and probably my highest part count.  Next question is if I have a strong enough antenna to connect Moho to KSC...  Looks like the DTS-M1 and RA-2 will go on the Moho Relays.  But does that mean I have to upgrade my Kerbin commnet?  Much to learn.

[justidutch]

We have had a ship in orbit for over 100 days now, just waiting for the right moment to burn its way out into deep space.  And today the moment finally arrived, to set a course and fling itself into a path where, in close to a year's time, it will rendezvous with an old derelict ship.  You may recall that our first attempts to explore Duna went awry when it was discovered our communications network wasn't yet up to snuff.  Because of this three ships were lost: two satellites and one ship that was supposed to function as a station there.  Several months ago we were approached by a party interested in resurecting this dead ship and expanding it, and we readily agreed to this proposal.  And now this mission is underway.  Exactly what will happen when the two ships rendezvous has yet to be determined; we could just leave the station where it is and it can function as a communications relay; we could set a new course for it, or something else could be decided also.  Plenty of time until that happens though, there's no rush.

 

 

 

We also just accepted three new contracts that will all be accomplished together.  Somehow an astronaut has been left stranded in LKO and is in need of rescueing.  Another company would like a new yet simple station in orbit, and yet another company would like some gravity readings done on the surface of Minmus.  Our department heads put their thoughts together and devised a ship that should accomplish all three missions.  We came up with the following that will pick up the stranded soul, ship out to Minmus, refuel at our station there, take the various science readings, and return to Minmus Stayshun.  After that point all crew new and old at the station will return back home here by taking the shuttle bus that is currently docked at our second Minmus station.  We'll need to rendexvous in LKO with a drop ship that will bring them and the Mun crew home as well - all hands are coming home before the new transfer window to Duna opens in 70 days.

 

 

 

[The Budgey Admiral]

2 hours ago, HalcyonSon said:

I see two Mk 0 tanks there with the intakes.  Why not two Junos?  Double the thrust, double the fun!

I thought of that too, but it would have messed with the CoM and that would mean I would need to redo the VTOl apparature too. Also, I did not want the thrusters to be misaligned, because the tanks are placed on the cockpit, they are actually angled quite a deal.

19 hours ago, eddiew said:

Finished up the rover expedition on Niven with a trip to the Lowlands. Since Desert Willy proved to be basically indestructible during the excursions to the Trench and the Midlands, the crew decide to send pilot Jay out with scientist Ollie for the final run, risking the inability to repair a puncture but gaining some good field data.

It's always a little sad when you have to leave a rover behind, but Desert Willy's RTG will keep him going for many, many years after the solar panels dust over. Also, he's really heavy and we can't spare the fuel.

The ascent is a little tight on fuel, but Jay's piloting is accurate and catches an intercept with the orbiting transfer stage just barely after their AP. Docking however... may not be his forte.

Despite having their head on backwards, the crew decides it probably isn't a major problem and prepares for the return to Gael. Not like anyone at mission control has their heads screwed on right after all...

Great work, especially on the rover! Amazing design, looks like something really sturdy and reliable. Nice!

[regex]

I did more fast-forwarding last night and also prepared the team at Ike Station to return to Kerbin. They'll be leaving some infrastructure in place but no one to run it.

Dres got really busy really fast. All of this took place over about five days. After Klamath pretty much scraped its way into Dres orbit at somewhere around a 4km periapsis I began adjusting braking periapsis of later craft to 70km. There was one mishap with a fuel slug which somehow missed Dres SOI, and it was probably because I wasn't paying attention and timewarped through it. Not a big deal, a correction burn will bring it back to Dres in something like 27 days only short a few hundred m/s of fuel compared to its counterpart.

I later brought the station core down to a 35km orbit at 0 inclination. Construction begins tonight.

[HalcyonSon]

2 hours ago, justidutch said:

We also just accepted three new contracts that will all be accomplished together.  Somehow an astronaut has been left stranded in LKO and is in need of rescueing.  Another company would like a new yet simple station in orbit, and yet another company would like some gravity readings done on the surface of Minmus.  Our department heads put their thoughts together and devised a ship that should accomplish all three missions.  We came up with the following that will pick up the stranded soul, ship out to Minmus, refuel at our station there, take the various science readings, and return to Minmus Stayshun.  After that point all crew new and old at the station will return back home here by taking the shuttle bus that is currently docked at our second Minmus station.  We'll need to rendexvous in LKO with a drop ship that will bring them and the Mun crew home as well - all hands are coming home before the new transfer window to Duna opens in 70 days.

 

Very cool looking ship and launcher.  Is it a Skipper or Mainsail under the center stack?

Have you thought about replacing all those Kickbacks with two more of the center stack?  I've found it's far more economical to go SSTO and recover Skippers and Orange Tanks than it is to throw away Kickbacks.  That goes double for Mainsails.  I just launched a 69,000 fund Mun rescue, and recovered the first stage (three Skippers and three Orange Tanks) for 33,000 funds.

Edited February 16, 2017 by HalcyonSon

[McFarnsworth]

Reverted my earlier launch and built a bigger launcher.

 

This looks safe. I'm sure it'll be fine.

 

Coasting to Ap. Nothing fell off so far, and it only took like 5 tries.

 

Braking at Minmus. Balance isn't perfect, but surprisingly good.

 

Before Snuffles can do his rovering business on the surface, he needs to be an orbital construction facility for a while.

 

I have a Jool window coming up, but instead of doing the sane thing ... I noticed my ludicrously oversized space station actually has almost enough dV to serve as an interplanetary stage, and that it's also just a bit short on TWR for a Tylo landing. So, it's upgrade time.

 

First we add two of these so it has a dozen or so RTGs because I hadn't unlocked those yet when I first launched the station.

 

Next up we fix the TWR issue by stuffing two of these on the bottom.

 

Then we add a large comsat to throw around Tylo or Laythe or wherever.

 

And finally, some smaller sats to drop near the other moons, and to balance out the weight of the big sat.

 

Next update, a dV upgrade by some unknown means that I have yet to figure out. And a Laythe spaceplane of course because it would hardly be worth the effort of going to Jool without one.

[eddiew]

Finally made a spaceplane! (Because I changed the universe and dropped planets to 1x while keeping 3.2x orbita radii. Still, I was hankering after some SSTOs so it had to be done).

Alekeg and Badgermole between them for some reason had three engineers, which never made sense, so mission control recalls two of them while sending only one replacement, the newly promoted 3-star River Kerman. We're pretty sure her experiences on Niven will have taught her how to optimise drills! Kind of.

And seeing as Ollie Kerman also returned with an extra star on his shoulder, mission control assigned him to Mo'dur, where he relieves Llew Kerman and joins Leo and Lyssa.

It's not until the heat of re-entry fades that pilot Ellie Kerman makes an unfortunate discovery; Firebug doesn't handle at low speeds. At all. Despite pumping fuel around to try to balance the ship, she is unable to get Firebug to perform any sort of manoeuvre at less than 250m/s.

Fortunately... it turns out crew cabins are quite tough, and KSC was built on the ocean. While the majority of Firebug slowly sinks through the briney waters, the crew remain intact, if a little soiled.

A strong reprimand is handed to the engineering team, and new safety measures are put in place. Measures like testing the landing profile before getting as far as orbit.

 

2 hours ago, The Budgey Admiral said:

Great work, especially on the rover! Amazing design, looks like something really sturdy and reliable. Nice!

Thank you   Tbh, I think it looks like a golf cart, but it can flip, roll and tumble as much as you like and all that can touch the ground is steel plates or wheels, so it's pretty darn hard to break ^^

[DerekL1963]

My Minmus fuel depot/refinery tested, commissioned, and ready for operations.  If you saw my earlier post, you can see the power and refinery modules have been moved.  When I sent the OTV down to LKO to fetch the fuel transport tank, it brought the ore storage/adapter along.  (There's already plenty of LF and Mono storage in the main body, and since I had to drag the adapter up anyhow I thought I might as well make it useful.)  Getting those two modules up and away from the main docking adapter  makes life much easier.  Next time I go fetch ore from the Mobile Miner, I'll dock the ore transport tank (currently on the bottom) in the same plane as the fuel cannister to make swapping the OTV between them that much easier.

If I ever build this in a real game (I'm currently screwing around in the sandbox), I'll remember to add docking lights...

[cantab]

Finished my Reddit challenge entry. Jetpacked from Pol to a Kerbin intercept, because Gilly is too easy. And snagged the Kerbal on the flyby with an ion ship, because need ALL the delta-V.

[Aragosnat]

Landed near one of these on the Mün:

Got the you visited x place record then I thought it poped up again when I EVA'ed the Kerbal. Turned out it was a plant the flag contract I forgot I accepted. Then after return the craft to Kerbin. I had a very very good transfer window for another one  my Craft around the Mün that was used for a Mün contract and was able to dip back down to Kerbin to find I was able to get this:

Still need to do a correction burn once out from Kerbin's SOI. But, still a nice chance. Will be sending another directly from low Kerbin's Orbit. It will be a refinery and miner so I can refuel craft that are around Duna that will become stranded there. So all is good there.

[Servo]

I started work on a stock 1:1 F-14 Tomcat (with variable geometry, of course).

The SAS wheels are to help test the wing positioning, they (obviously) won't be on the final thing. I need to finish off ground tests on the wings, finish off the top, and then move on to flight tests.

This thing is going to be well over 300 parts by the time I'm done, but it will look sweet. Assuming that it works...

 

[Angelo Kerman]

I finished the D2 Cryo Shelter exterior tonight. You can see that it's a bit more armored than the other modules. It's a combination cryogenic freezing chamber with DeepFreeze support, and a radiation storm shelter.

And a simple re-scale let me make the new D2 Truss Segments. The Hex Truss system remains 2.5m, but I added 3 new truss segments at 3.75m diameter. The DR-375 will also get a hex option to complement the new trusses.

Finally, my Discovery II reference design is coming along nicely:

The window textures are placeholders. The lander on the nose can reach all five moons as long as it refuels at Laythe and Tylo. For engine balancing purposes I don't have the flyable fuel tanks attached- In the NASA paper, the fuel tanks detach from the ship and fly down to a refinery to get refueled. For KSP, you'll have flying tanks as part of the sample craft files, but you'll still need to send a tanker to the Discovery to refuel the central truss tank. Once I get the remaining parts finished for the reference design, I can re-tune the Supernova fusion engine so that you'll have just enough delta-v to reach Jool and a moon or two before the ship needs refueling.

Edited February 17, 2017 by Angel-125

[Jett_Quasar]

An old design updated for the latest version of the game.  Still works as an SSTO

Download on Kerbal-X.

- Jett

[SuicidalInsanity]

Attempted to debug some wing parts, which led to experimenting to see just how necessary ModuleLiftingSurface actually is for something to fly...

Top speed ~100m/s, max TwR is around 0.6; files rather well, surprisingly.