What did you do in KSP1 today?

eddiew · March 16, 2017

Today we start with an exciting new opportunity. A request from the popular Second Breakfast TV presenters Sonsen and Tatiana Kerman to visit Ceti - and more importantly, the studio is offering a full million roots to give them the ride of a lifetime!

Packing Jinx, Tora, River and Piper Kerman alongside the celebrity guests, mission control gives the mission a double green light and Pegasus I takes to the air.

...barely.

At 35.4 tons on the runway, Pegasus is pretty hefty for two rapiers to move. Combined with minimal wing surface, takeoff speeds are best described as breathtaking. Jinx hopes that the ship performs better with empty tanks, or it's going to be a very exciting landing on the return!

The nuclear engines need to be briefly ignited at 8km to overcome the drag between 320 and 380m/s and get the jets into their power band, but from here they can be shut down again and the rapiers kick the ship to a final speed of 1450m/s before switching to closed cycle mode for a final sprint to altitude.

Arriving in orbit, it becomes more obvious why the design folio refers to Pegasus as a space"plane", with the top up from Piggu resulting in nearly 4.5km/s range at a starting TWR of 0.3. No longer trying to make use of an atmosphere, the ship starts to feel more in its element. Mission control plots the transfer at the ascending node to avoid having to match inclination, and the ejection burn to Ceti is completed in reasonable time.

With twin nervas, landing occurs at a local TWR of 3.5, or more than enough for comfort - and all of a sudden the draggy bits on Pegasus' wings start to make sense! Jinx pilots the ship down gently onto a flat pink patch, and the crew stretch their legs while the celebrity guests watch out of the window and wish for the day that they, too, know how to use a space suit.

Gathering up a few pink and tasty rocks, the crew heads back to the ship. Sonsen and Tatiana are given a strict deadline of one hour to take photographs and make in-situ reports before Pegasus heads skywards once again, taking advantage of Ceti being at it's AN with Gael, and thus being able to head straight back home on the equatorial plane.

All this careful optimisation does seem a little overkill however, since Pegasus arrives back in LGO with around 1km/s to spare. While the landing is deemed "acceptable", the design team is tasked with making a v2 that more closely matches the mission parameters while being a little easier to fly. And since there is a 1.4 million root contract to take 4 tourists to Iota, it looks like we'll be needing it pretty soon please!

Meanwhile, a new candidate has appeared on the recruiting board...

Admin claims to have a good feeling about this one, and quietly approves the recruitment without consulting mission control. We suspect he may be someone's nephew.

joacobanfield · March 17, 2017

I finished my first Extraplanetary Launchpads-K&K base. It is entirely self-sufficient! It´s on Minmus.

It is powered by seven Gigantors, and has over 10000 EC capacity, a drill, 750 ore capacity, a metal ore drill, space for 12000 rocketparts, etc.

Thank the Kraken for KAS´s winches.

KerrMü · March 17, 2017

Hey folks.

Today I added a small quality of life improvement to my career save while waiting for the pre-release.

The problem was, that I have two stations in 200 and 300km orbits around Kerbin, but all my interplanetary ships park and begin their missions at 1000km. That´s where I´ve put quite a few E-class asteroids for refueling. Until now, every time I had to transfer crew or tourists between those orbits, I just refueled the SSTO that got them up to the stations and flew that to the "asteroid belt". Yeah, that´s just inefficient. So I thought "what If I had a spacebus or something like that? And maybe a terminal where I could collect Kerbals who are waiting for their next flight?"

So that is exactly what I built today. Transfer Hab 4 "Abeona" (nicely parked at 1000km)

"Regular shuttle service will get established very soon, so please have your boarding pass ready and check out our duty free concessions. Have a nice flight." AirKerbin :cool:

Edited March 17, 2017 by KerrMü

JadeOfMaar · March 17, 2017

I started writing resource distributions for another emergent planet pack, and wanted to build a mothership to send to its star to survey the planets up-close and screenshot them. Getting carried away with the ship design I completely forgot where I wanted to go :blush: and aimed for a real sandbox mission: a flight to Tellumo. So I cheated into orbit and sent this on an interplanetary transfer. It even took a random gravity assist from Ceti, passing as low as 37km on the way out from Gael. I happen to have Snacks! installed at the moment (as part of a test to get my Airline Kuisine mod and MiniAVC to cooperate) so Bob and Val alone ate about 2/3 of a generous stash of over 6000 snacks.

I've decided to categorize this as a a colony frigate. It turns out to be very fit to deliver starter supplies and survey vessels to a target planet for off-world construction, and then persist as a relay boost with its two top-tier stock dishes or better/more.

Edited March 17, 2017 by JadeOfMaar

Boganaut · March 17, 2017

I successfully tested a "rocket orientation failure reversal rover" next to the KSC launchpad. Treating my ongoing careers save as the epic story it is, and responding to a mission to deploy a large base on Duna, I decided that not only would I rescue the scientist Daxie Kerman from the surface, but I would also look to recover her ship from its embarrassing position whereby the long axis of said craft remains approximately parallel to the planet's surface. Jebediah, the architect of this debacle will be required to return to Duna to pilot the rocket back home to Kerbin.

A replica of the rocket (currently known as Jebediah Station) was launched from KSC and made to land on its side just like the real thing on Duna. Jeb, in true form, remained supercool throughout the precarious manouvre. He remained on board to operate the gyros while the "rocket orientation failure reversal rover" was "launched" and drove over to latch on to the top of said rocket. The test was a great success and the bean counters over in the admin building were pleased with the recovery price on the rocket and rover!

The new mobile Duna station was deployed on the launchpad to test whether this excellent new rover could be deployed OK from one of the cargo ramps, but de-coupling caused a very stupid explosion. I need to work on that tonight or tomorrow! Something to do with the wheel position, springy suspension and a fast-moving fuel tank, I think. Once that hurdle is cleared and the various rover types are stowed in their cargo bays, I'll look to re-attach the two detatchable Duna Ascent Vehicles which will double as landing rockets because lets face it, chutes alone ain't gonna cut it with this hulk of a base! Will post pictures once mission underway and craft design more final. Currently looking a bit like a giant hi-tech catamaran who wants to be an army tank. Bill has been spotted just staring at the blueprints, alternately drooling over it and then losing his cool when he finds something stupid.

I'm pretty sure we won't iron out all the stupid before launch time, and I'd be not-so-secretly disappointed if we do... Perfect mission? Wheres the fun in that!? I like the fact that this is the 2nd rescue mission centred around the same damn rocket!

Edited March 17, 2017 by Boganaut

NISSKEPCSIM · March 17, 2017

Testing the carrier plane for the MAKS:

NISSKEPCSIM · March 17, 2017

Some pictures of the MAKS on the runway at 'Bigimot' (Russian: БИГИМОТ) Cosmodrome.

Edited March 18, 2017 by NISSKEPCSIM
Mistake in the word 'Bigimot.'

Whisky Tango Foxtrot · March 17, 2017

I turned my Minmus station into a giant mess.

I re-checked Alex Moon's Launch Window calculator and it turns out that I've got an Eve window coming up in a few days, so I scrambled to get a mission up to Minmus ASAP to refuel in time for the transfer. Luckily I'd already been testing a Gilly lander and my space stations are built using standardized components these days so it was pretty easy to whip one together (well, half of one, really, but enough to act as an orbital ISRU and fuel station.) Here they are both docked with my Minmus station, which was already a bit cluttered with the usual assortment of support craft (landers, tugs, etc.) and a few components from my previous Minmus station that I haven't de-orbited yet (a MPL that still has some data in it and a tank with some oxidizer that I couldn't get rid of since the station's tanks were already full.)

In other news, I successfully put my relay/scanner/science probe into a polar orbit of Moho.

I also received a contract proposal that I will absolutely not be agreeing to.

astroheiko · March 17, 2017

I landed on Catullus. As always, I have far too many pictures, over 50. I show you but only the most beautiful / interesting.

Dissolve the transfer stage and prepare to enter.

Just before entering the atmosphere. At the rear you can see Gauss, Tarsiss and Loki

fog of horror.

A memorial photo for mum.

Oops....

(The Ladders, Chutes, Airbrakes and Science were at decouplers)

it is not too bad

The Ascent has worked well.

Orbit reached with 1621 m/s dV left.

Greetings

Edited March 19, 2017 by astroheiko

adsii1970 · March 18, 2017

Today I was able to finish the latest chapter in Kerny's Journal and began capturing images for the next. Here's a teaser shot:

GDJ · March 18, 2017

Just a quick trip to Minmus....

Getting ready to undock, spin 'er around...

...and that's done.
Both the command module and landing module has alot more science equipment than the first Mun landing. Added some thermal radiators to the service module and ascent module. Heat was a bit of a problem last time.

Descent towards a nice flat spot. Landing on Minmus is a snap compared to the Mun.

Touchdown!

Doing some EVA's, flag planting, soil samples, etc....

Minmus has some crazy awesome views.

And it's sunset.....

Edited March 18, 2017 by GDJ

cantab · March 18, 2017

It's got a few niggles to resolve, like stage separations snapping off airbrakes, but my 20 ton to LEO lifter is working. And I have a payload lined up for it that's going to make for a very Kerbal launch.

Brownhair2 · March 18, 2017

Built the Emperor:

It's a fully-chemical SSTO. No relying on puny LOX afterburners for thrust. Instead I get the raw power of 3 Vectors! I had my doubts about the Gladiator, but this should be more than enough for Tarsiss.

I also buit the Lemming, a small scanning probe:

As the name suggests, this probe takes advantage of the Mk 1 drone core*'s high anomaly detection by performing suborbital orbits (feel free to suggest a better term), then marking as many anomalies as possible before bad things happen. Not that bad things will necessarily happen, since it has small RCS engines for getting back into orbit. It's also very heat resistant, thanks to its innovative ablating nose cone technology (the nose blows up and there's a heat shield behind it)

*From Airplanes Plus. For reference, it has the same KerbNet properties as the Mk 2 drone core.

Edited March 18, 2017 by Brownhair2

Planetace · March 18, 2017

Am I crazy?

Cause the TITAN series is very stupid, each iteration has more fuel and boosters... Thats it...

AND IT SOMEHOW WORKS!

Each iteration capable of lifting 250 more tons than its previous, the TITAN series will revolutionize the SSTO lifting field of technology! The TITAN booster we see here is Koios, capable of lifting 1250 tons into orbit!

eddiew · March 18, 2017

Picking up a lucrative contract to take some B-list celebrities to Iota, mission control orders a revision of the Pegasus spaceplane that recently visited Ceti. With larger wings, the new model is much easier to fly, easily taking off in half the runway.

Pegasus III sacrifices a little of the range of its predecessor, but 4.1km/s is still more than enough to get to either of Gael's moons.

Double nervas are verging on overpowered for Iota, and Lyssa decides to handle the boredom this induces with some terrifying low flight. (Actually it's not, Iota's rugged terrain tends to look a lot closer than it is, but that's not going to stop her giving the tourists a scare for her own amusement.)

With the bank balance finally starting to look comfortable again, mission control finally accepts the increasing demand for an orbital hotel. Featuring seven independent suits housing a maximum of seven kerbals each, it's sure to be a popular holiday destination for the mega rich for many years to come.

SleepyMan · March 18, 2017

I fought the Krakken and I won!

I had finally launched my probe to Duna, my first ever interplanetary mission. I may have been a bit generous with fuel, what with having 9000m/s dV left in the tanks after the transfer burn (Ion engines ftw). So with that mission on the backburner for the next 129 days before the mid course check in it was time to start base building.

My first step was to build and launch a skycrane towards Minmus.

There was nothing special about the design or build of the crane. The launch and circulisation went well but when I came back to the game after dinner to do the Minmus transfer burn the Krakken reared its head. The slightest movement of the craft induced a shaking that eventually tore it apart. Many reloads later all with no success I remembered a posting here about autostruts being the devil and causing ships to shake themselves apart.

Now I don't use autostruts normally but checking to see if I had inadvertently enabled it on a part or two was a simple check. Nope, no autostruts. Then I thought what if I turn it on, will that prevent the shakes? Another reload and some rapid clicking later my fully autostruted crane successfully completed its burn and is now on its way to Minmus.

Spent the rest of the evening designing a base and working out how to section it so that I can launch, land and postion and mate all the pieces.

GDJ · March 18, 2017

The return trip home:

LIFTOFF!!
Minmus is very easy to leave. Engines at 1/3 is plenty to get going.

Rendevous on the dark side of Minmus. (sorry for the dark picture. It is the Dark side after all)

Docked, transfer remaining RCS, fuel, and crew.

And jettison the emptied ascent module. Still has some fuel and good batteries. Might be useful later on. We'll see.

Fast forward to Kerbin Re-entry and chute deployment.

Splashdown. Another spotless flight, and first landing on Minmus.

Jimmy Stiff-Fingers · March 18, 2017

Working on a 10x scaled Kerbol system using Sigma Dimensions.

cratercracker · March 18, 2017

Hi guys! Got some launch results for you!

1. Landing of "Ulan" mining centre near the "Violator" rover!

2. Dock of "Sileniy" with the "Artemis" orbital space station!

After docking ,2 members of the crew joined a lander (on top of the station) And then proceeded to land on every large crater except 2 polar ones. Personally, i can say that some of the craters that further from equator are very dangerous and scary place to land!

(actual conditions of landing on one of the craters)

3. Fly of the "Nachtigall" spaceplane to the "Triangulurum" space station!

4.Test of reusable rocket with only engine landing style.

Brownhair2 · March 18, 2017

The Lemming probe is working as intended!

Edited March 18, 2017 by Brownhair2

Abrecan · March 18, 2017

Apollo LASS (Lunar Applications of a Spent Stage) and the pressurized rover awaiting crew was soon a busy mission to purge the tanks and get that sweet, sweet oxygen into that tankage.