What did you do in KSP1 today?

[capi3101]

(1.1.3) Didn't find the time to play over the weekend; had to finish moving out of the old place. Everything's at the new place now, so the challenge involved is A) finding where the crap we put everything and B) not going bankrupt while getting other things we need for the new place (like new bookshelves - I swear my wife could open up a public library for as many books as she owns, but only one of our large bookshelves survived the trip over...). 

 

Friday began with the return of the Spamcan 7a lander to the Minmusport space station from Minmus's surface, having ferried scientists Patzor and Sidbrett Kerman down for flag-planting duties. The two boarded the waiting ferry craft Strange Cargo docked at the station. After refueling, Strange Cargo departed the station and burned for Kerbin. With no new craft scheduled to arrive at Minmusport for the next five days, the Old Bessie refueling lander assigned to the station went down to the Deepwater Horizon refinery, where engineer Phovie Kerman conducted her first refueling operation as the new capsule commander and chief engineer of Deepwater Horizon using the crane rover Lunkhead as a bridge. Tanks topped off, Old Bessie returned to Minmusport with sufficient fuel to top off all the station's fuel stores while leaving her own descent tanks just under half full, plenty for further operations. Deepwater Horizon then replenished its own fuel stores.

With nothing else practical to do, I warped ahead five days to the arrival of Strange Cargo at Kerbin. A plane burn to align the craft with the Kerbinport space station took place and then pilot Buremy Kerman rapidly had to realign the craft for atmospheric interface, both of which happened within ten seconds of one another. A powered aerobraking maneuver took place and then yet another plane alignment burn was required, this time almost immediately upon exiting Kerbin's atmosphere. Strange Cargo then successfully rendezvoused with the space station:

 

Strange Cargo arriving at Kerbinport, with an Auk II passenger plane and an Auk VII heavy passenger plane awaiting (left). Also in the shot is the probe construction craft Faux News 7 (fore, left) and the engineering craft Mission Bloat 7 (left, nadir). Not the best of screenies, but the only one I took on Friday (sadly).

Strange Cargo docked successfully, her engines were secured and the eight passengers aboard were transferred to the two awaiting spaceplanes. A refueling flight for Strange Cargo was deferred until after the scheduled arrival of The Great Artiste from Mün and Next Objective from Minmus. Similarly, since neither of the two waiting passenger planes is full as of yet, neither one will depart the station for now; my Kerbal tourists will get to enjoy another two weeks of spaceflight...

About twenty minutes after Strange Cargo arrived at Kerbinport, Next Objective arrived in Minmus's SOI, where she was put into orbit and a rendezvous course with Minmusport. Rendezvous and docking are scheduled to take place at the next opportunity. Next Objective will be conducting two surface excursions to the surface of the minty moon, with KSC staff performing flag-planting training before returning to Kerbin.

[not enough fuel]

i finished my refueling station at 71km above kerbin

 

(credit for 6 o'clock tug: Whisky Tango Foxtrot.  i didn't make that)

 

it took a massive ship to get the fuel tanks into orbit --

i think this is why we use orange cans lifted with SSTO's? cheaper and less complicated? maybe if i'm short on money i'll make the next refueler with those.

i made a mobile ore refinery to get fuel to it from the mun or minmus --

Edited March 6, 2017 by not enough fuel

[drhay53]

1 hour ago, not enough fuel said:

snip

(credit for 6 o'clock tug: Whisky Tango Foxtrot.  i didn't make that)

snip

I've used that tug to death myself in station building, it's a great little craft. 

[n.b.z.]

Today, I uploaded my very first Youtube-video, which incidentally happens to be a KSP video.

It's rather longwinded, almost 14 minutes long.

But that sounds bad and boring, so let me rephrase: this video is for the connoisseur of the unabbreviated ascent footage. Sounds better?

As an aside: I have seen solid fuel boosters being used as sepatrons before, but as far as I know, this is the first recording of a Flea booster being used as an attitude thruster. I can recommend that.

Some info about that stack is in the Youtube description text.
 

 

Edited March 6, 2017 by n.b.z.

[DerekL1963]

I have proved to my satisfaction that if you're bored, or bugstuff insane, it's entirely possible to use air dropped relay stations to build out a global relay network...  I may or may not write an Airship Adventures side story on this.  (And if I do, I won't use such an insanely low occlusion factor!)

[Hesp]

Today I had to perform a proper gravity turn lifting off from Minmus with the first ore payload... 6000 units for the orbital refinery.

With Bill onboard, the mining process took about 15 hours.

Damn, that thing was heavy!

On the other side of the moon, the "development" rover (can I call it like that after 100+ days of surface operations?) reached a green monolith, granting a welcome reward for the KSC engineers 

[septemberWaves]

I launched my N1-L3 replica...

...only to discover that the Lunniy Korabl (Mun lander) doesn't have enough thrust. I went through the laggiest launch in my KSP history only to realize that the lander doesn't work.

Edited March 6, 2017 by eloquentJane

[joacobanfield]

I docked a station with another station in Munar orbit.

[astroheiko]

Have built a Lander for the moon Catullus from the GPP. In a test run I did a very good Gravityturn and I had 1983 m/s dV left in Orbit. Started from 2000m "Sea Level". In principle it is my EveLander, but I could exchange the Vector engine in the middle for a Dart. So I could take a crew cabin with me and can now land 3 Kerbals on Catullus.

 

In addition, there is also the moon Tarsiss which is around Catullus. For this I have developed a SSTO. Space for 3 Kerbals - also ISRU and thus the possibility to explore all biomes. Here I used as basis my Gratian SSTO. I only exchanged 2 LVN for 2 Spark and added a little more fuel. The Spark is needed because the LVN has a terrible ISP of 80 at sea level and it gets better only from 5-6000m altitude. Here was my test run also very successful and I had 2000 m/s dV left. But I needed a long time until I had a working setup. My standard lander with 3500 m/s dV failed miserably and then I tried it with the Gratian SSTO and 4 LVN. Until I had a sufficient height for a good ISP, the fuel was empty. So i added the Sparks.

 

Then I refilled my new mothership and lander, at least partly. The tanker must come again. The mothership, the Lander, the Tarsiss SSTO and the Catullus Lander will then make their way to Gauss. What an effort.

 

Greetings

[DunaRocketeer]

3 hours ago, Hesp said:

Today I had to perform a proper gravity turn lifting off from Minmus with the first ore payload... 6000 units for the orbital refinery.

With Bill onboard, the mining process took about 15 hours.

Damn, that thing was heavy!

I feel your pain, I made a similar sort of mining rig for Minmus as well. Even with seven LV-909's, ascents are... stately.

My space station hosted a small utility shuttle today, which delivered life support supplies and crew. Quickly, its arrival was upstaged by a substantially larger vessel: A fuel freighter arrived to refill the station's depot modules.

[Servo]

I discovered that if you have multiple planes, each holding to target onto a different one, they dogfight each other without any control input.

I then managed to do this with six planes before my computer ran out of memory and forced a restart. I'm going to try again soon, but this time with quicksaves.

[BubbleWrap]

Launched the new Mk.3 Orbiter twice. Engineers are concerned there may be a minor issue in the core booster and have asked for time to review the flight data.

 

[CatastrophicFailure]

30 minutes ago, Servo said:

I discovered that if you have multiple planes, each holding to target onto a different one, they dogfight each other without any control input.

I then managed to do this with six planes before my computer ran out of memory and forced a restart. I'm going to try again soon, but this time with quicksaves.

Aaaaaand cue Iron Eagle soundtrack!

...or maybe Hot Shots!  

[Triop]

Made a flying submarine.

That Maritime mod engine is amazing !

Edited March 7, 2017 by Triop

[ProtoJeb21]

I finally got around to collecting and posting a bunch of my Kopernicus screenshots taken over the last month of so...

http://imgur.com/gallery/Z7ubZ

[GDJ]

Nothing at all.

I was busy ripping apart my old HP OfficeJet 4110 (made around 1999 or 2000) and getting it back to work for a while. I guess after scanning and printing close to 10,000 pages in it's lifetime it's just about ready to give up the ghost.

Crazy thing is, when it works it does a better job than most of the brand new units out there. It's just not fast (it scrolls the paper down thru the scanner. Yeah, it's that old).

[SickSix]

I got a lot done last night.  Added a 'station core' to my Minmus station (4 XL solar panels, 4 docking ports and rcs). Then flew up an orange tanker. I need a beefier launch stage for my tanker because I burn too much of its own fuel.

Once the tanker docked I refueled the Minmus lander. Then Bob transmitted what science he and his partner had in the lab before boarding the lander.  They landed successfully about 1.5k from the ground base with no SAS. (That was a bit hair-raising) 

Then Bill came out to say Hi and set up the surface experiments. Bob activated the experiments and the wait began. 

While the guys were enjoying their reunion on Minmus, the engineers at KSC were still working.  The transmitted science allowed them to develop surface scanning technology.  So a satellite was built and sent to a polar orbit of Minmus. (Actually the sat completed a sat contract first then moved into its final polar orbit)

The scan revealed a lot of pretty colors. And ironically enough there is a 90% concentration of ore in the same flats the ground base is on. But far enough a way that a new base will have to be sent or wheels shipped out to Bill so he can install them on the current base so Jeb can drive over there. Of course we haven't figured out how to get the ore yet...

Edited March 7, 2017 by SickSix

[Sgt]

Hello!

I am currently downloading Kerbal Space Program for Playstation 4.

In the meantime, I am starting to write my first mission report.

Sgt.

[SickSix]

22 minutes ago, Sgt said:

Hello!

I am currently downloading Kerbal Space Program for Playstation 4.

In the meantime, I am starting to write my first mission report.

Sgt.

Welcome to the addiction family!

[Sgt]

Just now, SickSix said:

Welcome to the addiction family!

Thank you SickSix!

Sgt.

[capi3101]

(1.1.3) Yesterday began with the arrival of Next Objective at the Minmusport space station. Scientist Kelbus Kerman and the original crews of the Wildcat 7 outpost and Piper Alpha refinery - pilot Valcy Kerman and engineers Corbas and Paphe Kerman - were the first of two groups to make surface excursions in the station's Spamcan 7a lander. The group departed the station and made a gentle landing in Minmus's Greater Flats, planting temporary flags:

Flags at Minmus's Greater Flats. Pictured are Valcy (left foreground), Kelbus (left background), Paphe (center) and Corbas Kerman (right).

The group re-boarded and then safely returned to Minmusport, where they re-boarded Next Objective. The second group, consisting of pilots Shelbal and Raysy Kerman and scientists Hargard and Tamry Kerman, boarded the Spamcan. Both the Spamcan and Next Objective were refueled at that point, and the Spamcan departed the station once more, setting down in the Great Flats. Flag-planting was once again the order of buisness.

 
Hargard says, "So say we all!!" He was somewhat dismayed when Shelbal replied "By your command."......

The second group then returned to Minmusport and reboarded Next Objective. Having confirmed that all eight of the craft's passengers had planted flags on both Mün and Minmus during the current flight, and having already been refueled, Next Objective departed Minmusport and burned for Kerbin:


Next Objective departure from the Minmusport space station.

Next Objective (zenith aspect) on an escape trajectory from Minmus.

The two surface excursions left the reserve tank at Minmusport at only 7%, so the station's Old Bessie 7 fuel lander was dispatched to the Deepwater Horizon refinery on the surface, where engineer Phovie Kerman once again utilized the crane rover Lunkhead as a bridge to conduct a refueling operation. Old Bessie was topped off and Deepwater Horizon replenished its stores, and then Old Bessie made her way back to Minmusport:

Old Bessie 7 over Minmus, with Mün (far left) and Kerbin in the background.

The lander returned to the space station successfully and the station's reserve tanks were refueled, leaving all craft currently docked at the station also fully fueled and the Old Bessie 7 lander herself with a 77.6% fuel reserve, which is more than enough for her to make future surface excursions. The lander's return secures operations at Minmus for the time being - Next Objective will arrive at Kerbin in just under five days and she will be making a plane burn to align with the Kerbinport space station roughly ten minutes before atmospheric interface. Meanwhile, The Great Artiste is about nine hours from Mün, and with nothing else to do in the interim, I'll probably be beginning my next gaming session with The Great Artiste as her passengers conduct landing operations on Mün. That'll probably happen later today.

Edited March 7, 2017 by capi3101

[joacobanfield]

I present to you...The Bamboo-II Lifter!

Here seen dragging a K&K base to the Mun inside that faring.

[suicidejunkie]

18 hours ago, DunaRocketeer said:

I feel your pain, I made a similar sort of mining rig for Minmus as well. Even with seven LV-909's, ascents are... stately.

TWR of 2.0 is quite decent for a launcher, right?

0.05g net acceleration off the flats, but 200+ tons of fuel delivered to LKO in one go is quite a good deal.

[Nightmare]

Not from today but from way behound like 0.19 when there were no real shuttle parts...

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/613896720994021164/91BB691A7B7B67F6897061A6DF2DA3E21861CA30/

Edited March 7, 2017 by Nightmare

[netbumbler]

Jool mission vehicle.  The very top ship is the lander to ravage all the moons for science (except Laythe).  The little round tank next down is a fuel assist for the Laythe SSTO docked at the bottom of this craft.  And the small shuttle just below the fuel assist module is actually removing all the crew back to Kerbin so they can await the next good launch window without exhausting the onboard supplies (and so they can minimize their time aboard ships and maximize time with their families before the longest mission in Kerbin history). 

And here is the refueling base for Vall to enable all this.  I call it the 'Southern Cross' because it reminds me of the Crux constellation.  I'm going to redo the lights a bit so it looks cooler, but this is the final operational configuration.