What did you do in KSP1 today?

[MaxwellsDemon]

A busy weekend!   In a good way.

A new crew was rotated up to the Orbital Workshop to continue running experiments; Harkhuf 1 and 2 are on their way to Moho and passed out of Kerbin's SOI; the 'Rosetta' probe successfully docked with/landed on asteroid BRT-215 as it made a Kerbin-grazing pass (at 77km altitude!), and the asteroid was named Hanlie after a brave Kerbal who gave his life for the space program.  The new 'Wedjat' space telescope successfully imaged Dres and several moons of Jool before turning its attention farther outward, toward some galactic nebulae.  Horus 8 is scheduled for launch soon to check out an anomaly on the Mun.

[Jouni]

I decided to try KSP again after a long while. The first thing I built was a shuttle. Kind of.

Spoiler

Destination: Mun

Because I hadn't really played since 1.0.5, I wasn't sure how dangerous reentry would be in the current version. I did two aerobraking passes just to be safe.

Spoiler

Unfortunately the parachutes were not properly balanced, and I lost some engines in the landing.

Spoiler

After writing this, I remembered that the change of forum software was a major reason why I stopped playing KSP. I really don't like rich text editors.

[Spartwo]

http://i.imgur.com/ZYBSgm8.mp4

If anyone was wondering what was going on in the background of yesterday. I started on a dropship that's the last thing I need to build. Wanna call it the Bananaboat but that's not professional sounding enough. Anyway, today I took it on a test landing with a pair of jumbos and that's about it for the day.

Edited May 15, 2017 by Spartwo

[NISSKEPCSIM]

No! Banana Boat is the most Kerbal-sounding name ever. (And with a few boosters, it would also be the most Kerbal sounding rocket)

[NISSKEPCSIM]

3 hours ago, EpicSpaceTroll139 said:

Puzzled, I went into mission control and found... the contract was completed???

It's a bit confusing at first,  but having a facility supporting 5 Kerbals actually means having a facility that is capable of supporting 5 crew. The crew doesn't nessesarily have to be aboard.

[astroheiko]

Today, the Nero mission has returned to Gael, after 32 years and 180 days. The mother ship is now parked in a 500km orbit around Gael and the crew is waiting to be picked up.

 

For this I use my CrewShuttle, a SSTO. The replacement team is already on board. They are to fly to Leto.

 

The rendezvous is proceeding according to plan.

 

After the docking the crew is changed and the 602 records I may not forget, of course.

 

The SSTO enters the atmosphere. Jeb, Bill, Bob and Valentina are looking forward to returning home soon.

 

This is happening to me all the time, I have overshot the target. No matter, I still have fuel - So let us turn around and fly towards the runway.

 

At least the landing works the first time.

 

40554 Science Points. I believe this is the highest value I have ever had.

 

The team has long been at 5 stars. Jeb gets 93 in addition. Bill and Bob get 148 and Valentina 135 each.

This is the end of the mission to explore the Nero system.

Slowly a strange feeling comes to my mind. I realize that I only have to equip the mother ship once, because only Leto did not have a visit from Gael. Soon I will begin the last mission.

Greetings

[Triop]

Today I've learned how to build bases....My head hurts now...

[Zeiss Ikon]

(Science save)

Last night, I brought both Gilly landing crews safely home to Kerbin.  Sigemy, Luory, and Dottie had launched and were already committed (transfer burn done, would have taken the same dV again, at least, to return to Kerbin) before it was noted that the vessel they occupied had no science experiments mounted -- not so much as a thermometer or barometer, never mind goo canister.  A hasty upgrade to an otherwise identical ship, then, and a second crew, Sherny, Lagerlyn, and Jonbus was sent after them, laden with experiments.

After both crews had landed (some twenty-five days apart), both elected to leave Eve's orbit immediately, rather than wait for an opportune launch window.  From Sigemy, we expect such cowboy decisions -- Sherny has a better record, but later said "Sigemy was already gone -- I just wanted to keep up."  Both crews had to enter phasing orbits slower than Kerbin, after arriving at Kerbin's orbit more than a quarter orbit ahead of the planet.  After a long, long wait, Sigemy and crew were able to reenter and land safely with total mission elapsed a little over four and a half years, while Sherny's slightly different choice of phasing orbit parameters required a little longer wait, and a total mission time of close to five and a quarter years.

It was (mostly) worth the wait, however; between the two crews (the first brought back multiple crew and EVA reports, and surface samples, despite lack of proper experiments) enough data was returned to allow R&D to finish the design of technology that will allow a properly equipped vessel to refuel on the surface of a body, providing there's sufficient concentrate of "ore" and enough electrical energy to operate the equipment.

The ammonia smell was hardly evaporated from the blueprints for that hardware before the VAB team was hard at work, fitting the new equipment to the mostly-completed Miner Master, designed to be a self-contained fuel depot.  Its destination, not surprisingly, was the captured asteroid Valentina 1, which initial scans showed to have a concentration of about 83% ore.  Put another way, there's more than 800 t of LF/O to be had from that one space rock.  Once completed and some basic tests done, Miner Master launched, with Valentina commanding the liftoff (assisted by engineer Neelle), while the fuel depot's lander can was crewed by pilot Maltry and engineer Magcella.

In order to lighten the craft for launch, Valentina's command/service module was launched with empty LF/O tanks, only RCS on board -- plan was to transfer enough fuel from the refinery's tanks for her return to Kerbin.  Once the combined vessel reached orbit, however, Val changed plan; in order to give the refinery (to be rechristened Fuel Station Valentina) the most margin for maneuvering to reach the highly inclined orbit of Valentina 1, Val decoupled in LKO and left Maltry on his own for the outward journey.  It was only after Maltry had burned to intercept the asteroid that Val remembered that she had empty main tanks.

Fortunately, the vessel she was left with had a huge inline RCS tank, which provided plenty of dV to deorbit (though the task took a long time, with only six RCS quads mounted).

With Val and Neele safely on their way back to Kerbin, Maltry belatedly reported that the refinery-only section of Miner Master was something of a pig to fly -- it hadn't been noticeable during launch and LKO insertion, probably because of the length and mass of the complete vehicle (not to mention the pitch and yaw authority of the huge gimballed engines), but the mass wasn't well balanced along the craft's centerline (likely due to VAB crew working too much overtime trying to fit the fuel converter, ore holding tanks, drill unit, and radiators, along with multiple additional fuel cells, to the already-constructed transfer stage that was to become the refinery).  Once Maltry began his transfer burn, with only four Poodle engines and a greatly truncated vessel, it had a very strong tendency to pitch and yaw, with a little roll coupling (likely due to the interaction of thrust vectoring and reaction wheels).  Worse, the RCS (using the newly developed, and not previously flight tested, Vernor engines instead of monopropellant based RCS) was even more unbalanced (though that was likely also due to the unbalanced mass with ungimballed motors, as the Vernors are symmetrically mounted).

With all that, Maltry was able (with the assistance of SAS) to keep the vessel on course through the burn, and will intercept Valentina 1 in a few days.   How well he'll do trying to claw-dock to the virtually gravity-free space rock is yet to be determined -- he's a good pilot, but he's not Jeb.

[Maelstrom Vortex]

Went to MInmus and Mun with 12 tourists and landed with a boatload of money.

[Drakenex]

United Launch Alliance (ULA) and Boeing unveiled an add-on aeroskirt to the Atlas V rocket that will launch Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner capsule for NASA. It was developed after engineers encountered difficulties with aerodynamic stability and loads resulting from the difference in width between the capsule and the rocket.

The Starliner capsule is wider than the Atlas V launch vehicle on which it would sit atop. During the ascent phase, this would cause an aerodynamic dead zone just behind the spacecraft, generating drag and dangerous differences in pressure.

The aeroskirt would attach aft of the spacecraft, extending the Starliner Service Module’s cylindrical surface to smooth out the air flow over the integrated capsule/rocket and bring load margins back to acceptable flight levels.

 

[Starman4308]

So, recently I've been focusing on A, playing the game, and B, updating my mission report. It's past time to post a bit in this thread.

The two primary advances since last time are completion of the Theseus-Ariadne project, and launch of the Lifson prototype.

The Theseus project was a pair of robotic landers for Iota and Ceti, loaded with every scientific instrument I could cram aboard, and enough propellant to get themselves back to orbit after landing.

The Ariadne project was by far my most ambitious (and also precisely my third) manned mission to date. Sent to Iota and Ceti with one copy of all the experiments available, and crewed by a scientist, there were three main objectives.

1: Farm science on the way in and out of these moons, using a scientist (Bob for Iota, Sally for Ceti) to both reset the goo/materials bay and move the science into either one of five experiment storage units or the capsule itself.

2: Rendezvous with the Theseus landers and collect their science, stuffing that also into the experiment storage units.

3: Get crew and EVA reports from space around these moons.

The Lifson prototype was to test reentry for my new 4-man capsule (the Lithobrake 4K made by @NecroBones), that will be my workhorse for the foreseeable future.

[Bornholio]

My RO/RP-0 Campaign Venus transfer window opens just as a Jupiter probe needs circularizing...

So i prepped the Comsat/Test lander i'm sending this time.  Next time will be un-manned return abort mission and robotic test manned lander.

But that needs comsats of which i will put two in equatorial orbit reasonably high to give good north south coverage

First test craft had a RUD during the hydrolox upper stage staging. so I tested the basic functioning of the lander pod on earth re-entry.

Second Launch is much better.

 

 

Edited May 16, 2017 by Bornholio

[Triop]

Out for blood...

Edited May 16, 2017 by Triop

[netbumbler]

Landertron to the rescue!  Love that mod!  I was in docking mode for some reason so smashing the space bar didn't do much...lulz...luckily Landertron was already activated by the abort sequence.  Notice the un-deployed parachutes...

 

[qzgy]

Nothing smashed? Or went poof? Wow.

[scottadges]

Working the last several days on designing, building, and testing a new class of vessel for the Kerbal Space Command Navy (KSCN).

Some more photos and narrative at my Imgur album: http://imgur.com/a/fb478

The KSCN Ariadne (KN-03) was finalized and successfully launched amid quite the fanfare at KSC. She's a Lathe-class Command Cruiser and can comfortably carry 36 Kerbals. She's nearly twice as long as the earlier Kerman-class Orbital Frigates. 

 

She immediately became the center of the show with a majority of the fleet coming to dock with her. There was so much fuel left over from the launch, she became the hub of an impressive refueling and off-loading effort for several ships.

 

After the work was done, nothing left but the cruisin' (in a synchronized orbit, of course)

 

Edited May 16, 2017 by scottadges

[CatastrophicFailure]

19 minutes ago, scottadges said:

 

 

Doze nozzles doe! 

[Whisky Tango Foxtrot]

I finally mined and converted enough Moho ore to refuel the tug that I used to transport the mining equipment there in the first place. It'll depart for Eve with the next transfer window.

The outpost itself is on the night side of the planet right now and neither it nor the fuel transport have lights on them, so I'll have to leave it in orbit for a while before I can land and start producing fuel for the manned mission's return trip.

[JadeOfMaar]

Deep Sky finished developing a very serious rover and took it for a test drive at the most difficult world that it's allowed to descend onto... Niven. (Atmosphere matters first to it, then gravity.) It's going to get a lot of action once it launches for real and gets its proper fuel.

[Flamingo]

TODAY I BROKE TIME, SPACE AND EVERYTHING IN AND AROUND IT!

I have found that the Kraken lays somewhere on the edge of the SoI of Ike. Cause it was when I left Ike, that this strange phenomenon occurred, the scientists back at KSC are sure that it was because I got too close the the Kraken, and therefore it felt so threatened, that it had to distort the entire existence of the universe to stay hidden. When I got back to my station and had to dock with it, I realized how big of a problem this was gonna be, as space was very, very distorted in this area.

Edited May 16, 2017 by Flamingo

[Gh0stReaper]

Tried to make a Kraken Drive.

*Sigh* I failed.

The parts just clip.

[Alpha_Mike_741]

KPOLLO IV LANDS ON THE MOON! (read in 70s commentary voice)

Apologies for being two weeks late for today lol

 

So folks , i landed my first manned LEM and returned back safely , accidentally successfully doing a skip re-entry that marks my proudest reentry yet to date. I mean i came down to 60 something kilometers and thought it was time to offset my CoM and i did AND FLEW BACK TO 70 KM still gaining vertical speed . chances were if i didn't roll 180 degrees again i would skip off the atmosphere

 

 

I have some +600 screenshots from this mission only . Meaning there should be thousands of photos from the program (Kpollo I - II - III- III-A - Simulations) but I'm laaaazzzzy so just picked a few  :

Spoiler

 

Stats for nerdz

Skippy!

 

And as i promised , here's the lunar plaque ! @sal_vager

 

Inscription :

Kpollo IV honours

Sal_vager

Developer , moderator , explorer

Bring us earth rocks ! Jeb

Good luck and godspeed. Bill

Answer our call sometime ! Bob

 

 

[Sufficient Anonymity]

Decided to mess around in Sandbox rather than continuing my career progression for a little while.

 

[Bornholio]

1 hour ago, SufficientAnonymity said:

Decided to mess around in Sandbox rather than continuing my career progression for a little while.

MAXIMUM LITHIUM!   On to other news the cost of new cellphone batteries to triple this month....

[Gaalidas]

On 5/5/2017 at 6:19 PM, Shadowmage said:

To be fair, I am not the original creator of KerbalFoundries, that credit goes to @lo-fi and @Gaalidas.  I did however work some magic to get them working in the KSP 1.1+ environment, and am the current maintainer of the mod.

Either way, thanks, and glad you are enjoying it

To be fair, I created the Dust and some of the action groups for the original mod... which is pretty much nothing like the current one except in the parts.  Oh... and, if any of the parts have retained their stock nodes for optimal placement, you can blame me for those too.

Only other thing I did was inspire the smart people to add Tweakscale support to it.