What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Geonovast]

9 hours ago, Delay said:

Do you have a service bay on your probe? You can repeatedly open and close it to get of the ground.

Not that I ever had to do that on any of my landings...

Nothing movable on the probe helped, but thankfully I'd tossed in an extra reaction wheel for re-entry stability, and I was able to orient it to launch it off a ramp.... retrograde... at like 30 deg inclination.

Didn't matter too much as it was just going back to Kerbin, and the outer tanks with the landing gear was ejected immediately after, uh, takeoff.  Just had an interesting return orbit.

[Whisky Tango Foxtrot]

16 hours ago, roboslacker said:

https://i.imgur.com/ZOjRVMh.png

Today I launched a moho flyby probe. The probe is currently on an intercept trajectory, but the signal strength is too weak. But I have a plan:

1. Upgrade the tracking station before the probe reaches moho

2. If I still can't make contact, take the science, and transmit it at the kerbol apoapsis

Unfortunately, HG-5 antennas really aren't suited to interplanetary communications. Their signal barely extends beyond Kerbin's SOI, even with a fully-upgraded tracking station. Even your second option probably won't work unless your trajectory brings the probe extremely close to Kerbin at its apoapsis. Unless you've got a relay with a more powerful antenna already in place around Moho it's extremely unlikely that you'll ever regain contact with this probe.

[Delay]

My Ike lander had a minor Kraken attack during it's way to Duna, things moved all over the place and one gear got destroyed. Fortunately I had a quicksave from not too long ago, so I still managed to do my very first landing on a body outside Kerbin's SOI.

Speaking of landing: I'm getting quite good at landing my lifter at the Space Center again. The only problem is... the landing legs don't provide a lot of room for tilting. But it's manageable.

[Julien Kerman]

Time to bring Donbro back home!

(It is a wonder that the Rover is still in one piece haha )

Successful reentry & splash down.

[Whisky Tango Foxtrot]

The Duna crew is back!

Upon arriving at Kerbin, they performed their capture burn, putting themselves into a highly eccentric trajectory that would take them just above Minmus, with a planar node at AP. Once arriving at that node, they added a bit of prograde thrust to their plane-change manoeuvre , putting them on an encounter course with Minmus.

Upon arriving at Minmus Station, the crew transferred into a large-scale re-entry vehicle designed specifically for their return (although I may re-use the design later.) It was placed onto a Kerbin re-entry trajectory by a tug that then detached and returned to Minmus Station.

The re-entry occurred on the night-side of the planet, so picture quality isn't ideal, but despite being launched without any ablator the re-entry capsule's heat shield proved to be easily up to the task of protecting the crew as they entered Kerbin's atmosphere.

By the time re-entry was complete, the craft had moved far enough east that the first hint of dawn was starting to appear on the horizon, but there was still no direct sunlight. Splashdown still occurred without issue, though, and the first Kerbals to leave Kerbin's SOI are now safe at home where they'll enjoy a long and well-deserved vacation before embarking on their next adventure.

[Angelo Kerman]

I made more progress on the EDL Frame:

The Frame has a built-in decoupler that is automatically set up to share fuel. What you do is attach the engine to the EDL Tank, then attach the frame to the tank as well (there are two nodes to do that). Once you decouple the Frame, it serves as a launch pad for the rest of the vehicle. All that is optional of course, you could SSTO the Estonian to low Duna orbit with enough fuel. The landing legs you see are placeholders; I'm almost ready to cut the mesh to make the integrated landing legs.

I've got the EDL Tank configs set up properly too. With Pathfinder installed, you get a Bootstrap configuration that has enough storage space and resources for a small Pathfinder base.

Edited November 8, 2017 by Angel-125

[Laie]

Just one more, because I haven't much else to show:

With all plans to recover the stages having gone out of the window,  the vessel works wonderfully. Any control issues are due to MJ: SAS can handle the vessel nicely, but I haven't figured out how to tell it to hold (say) 10deg above prograde.

I'm now setting out to assemble a space station, which will probably serve as a relay for lunar excursions, or maybe just do research. The ultimate goal still is to make a Mars mission, but I find myself tweaking the game beyond recognition, changing all kinds of part stats and installing ever more mods to satisfy this or that need. I now have lightweight tanks and a number of monoprop engines of an approved ~287s ISP -- I'm resolved to use nothing but these for all deep-space stuff, although the temptation to add a nuclear water->steam rocket is strong.

Newest mod is Extraplanetary Launchpads. Originally I wanted to do orbital assembly using KIS, but it doesn't seem to know about symmetry or angle snap. Besides, the lightweight tanks are supposed to be inflatable and I find no way of doing *that*, either. So I'll ship "rocket parts" instead.

@DunaRocketeer: looks sharp! Is that an SSTO, or do you have a supporting vessel to launch it?

Edited November 8, 2017 by Laie

[Daveroski]

The Duna window opened today.

Three launches today.

A com sat.

 

 

A combined surveyor and coms sat.

 

 

And a Probe.

 

The probe will land on Duna and collect great gobs of science which it will the stuff into an Experiment Storage Box and then the box will detatch and return to Kerbin. Meanwhile the part left on Duna will provide periodic assistance with communications as a coms relay.

More pics as the missions progress.

 

 

 

 

[Slam_Jones]

No pictures currently, but I made a new iteration of my USR (Unmanned Science Rover) with a kOS computer on board, as well as a larger battery, some new science experiments, and a slightly raised ride height.

Once the rover was ready, I started working on a kOS script to drive it for me.  The first test caused the rover to swerve about like a drunken sailor, but after quite a bit of tinkering, I seem to have sobered it up.  It will now either aim for and track the selected target, or, in the absence of a target, will hold it's current course.

The second half of the script controls the rovers speed, attempting to keep it cruising between 10 - 15m/s and taking appropriate action to ensure it stays in that range.  Surprisingly, it's stable at full sleep on Physics Time Warp x4, and so far has roved 100km+ from its landing site with no issue.

If all goes well, then I'll use this same system for the eventual Mars Rover!

 

Edit: I also had to evacuate my Moon Base, because I forgot that nights on the Moon are actually pretty long (about half a month IIRC), and they didn't quite have enough electricity to make it all the way ... :|

Edited November 8, 2017 by Slam_Jones

[DunaRocketeer]

59 minutes ago, Laie said:

 

@DunaRocketeer: looks sharp! Is that an SSTO, or do you have a supporting vessel to launch it?

Thanks . It needs a supporting booster underneath, I doubt this thing could ssto, and even if it could, the payload would be tiny.

[Laie]

1 minute ago, DunaRocketeer said:

Thanks . It needs a supporting booster underneath, I doubt this thing could ssto, and even if it could, the payload would be tiny.

Not necessarily a showstopper. I find that usually my payloads are limited by bulk, not mass.

[DunaRocketeer]

18 minutes ago, Laie said:

Not necessarily a showstopper. I find that usually my payloads are limited by bulk, not mass.

I'll give it a go when I next get the chance, it would be a fun flight regardless of the result.  

[Jeb, The Lonely Kerbonaut]

Today, i made some tests to see how will it be my scientific Mun base.

I decided to make this base because my scientific station around Kerbin, "Skylab", was not doing some much science like before. So a launch a ship, transfered the crew of Skylab, de-orbited the station, and brought the crew back to Kerbin.

This will be my first base in the game, so i have to make very tests, since the design of base to the rockets that will transport the modules. But i already planned how the base will be. The base will be organized in 4 modules:

The main module, with a lab to extract the maximum of science. 

The mining/fuel deposit module, with a ISRU to change the ore into fuel to the fuel deposit. 

The habitation module, with a Hitchkiner Container (i think that's the name, i'm not playing KSP now).

And the power module, with some Gigantors to handle the mining operation.

And i will make a rover to put together the modules and to explore and bring the science from Mun and process with the lab.

So, i will make more tests later. Wish me luck! And if you want, you can give me some tips.

And sorry for my long text.

 

[qzgy]

13 hours ago, DunaRocketeer said:

 

Pretty! Although I'm not sure why you need the terrier.... The ISP of the aerospace is already pretty good.

[DunaRocketeer]

2 hours ago, qzgy said:

Pretty! Although I'm not sure why you need the terrier.... The ISP of the aerospace is already pretty good.

It's really only there because the aerospikes don't gimbal.

[Castille7]

Here's what we did (Klond & Sector 7)

 

Edited November 9, 2017 by Castille7

[LordFerret]

Well my last bug on Duna crashed, but not before I discovered that leaving SAS on helped with driving over the seams... it prevented the bug from vaulting. On the other hand, it allowed me to really open up the bug speed-wise, and cruising downhill at 22.2m/s it went explodypoof. So much for that endeavor, zero return. In a few days though, my full size Mun lander will arrive, and if it survives the landing, I'll have something else to cruise Duna with.

[anti_con2]

added the primary solar array to my new space station, sky dragon 2: 

 

[Mister_Casual97]

Made a Mercury - Atlas and a Vostok thingy, then went for a bit of a fly around the Kerbinside airports near-ish to the KSC. Not much else 

[LordFerret]

1 hour ago, LordFerret said:

In a few days though, my full size Mun lander will arrive, and if it survives the landing, I'll have something else to cruise Duna with.

Nope. I like a good fireball and debris field as much as the next guy, but I'm beginning to think Duna doesn't like me. Surprisingly, it was the wheels of the rover which survived (and not much else).

[Galileo]

36 minutes ago, anti_con2 said:

added the primary solar array to my new space station, sky dragon 2: 

 

Hit F1 to take a screenshot. In your KSP folder, there is a screenshot folder. Upload a screenshot from said folder to any image hosting site, like imgur.com, and share the image here. This way you are posting much higher quality images for us to see.

[anti_con2]

1 hour ago, Galileo said:

Hit F1 to take a screenshot. In your KSP folder, there is a screenshot folder. Upload a screenshot from said folder to any image hosting site, like imgur.com, and share the image here. This way you are posting much higher quality images for us to see.

ok thanks

[Daveroski]

After a successful launch...

 

Sentinel 01 is now on it's way to an orbit near Eve to clock some asteroids.

 

 

 

It will double as a relay sat.

 

 

[capi3101]

I've begun the process of updating to 1.3.1. Got at least two mods installed that the game doesn't like right now; trying to narrow it down to the culprits.

Been doing a lot of other things in game this past week; I've got it all logged. Might talk about it more come the weekend.

Started writing an assistance utility for one of the mods. Been a long time since I've done any substantial coding work...

[TheKorbinjer]

I installed Rescale 10.625x for the game, making Kerbin more earth-like in size, but i finally got into orbit yesterday after about 50 unsuccessful launches over 2 days, Believe it or not, it was a relatively accurate replica of the Saturn V rocket.

woot!