What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Agustin]

I drived to the south pole to get more science (different biome) and it is so fun driving this rover...

VIDEO:

Coming, It was wrong edited..

Edited November 30, 2017 by Agustin

[JadeOfMaar]

I did some more development on my engine pack, and later I indulged in pure madness! A sandbox deep space ship (damaged by 1.3.1's ground jump bug) was swiftly returned to Low Gael Orbit and a manned shuttle sent up to retrieve its crew of two: @Galileo and a random female scientist. The large ship had no probe core (oh right. There was one but it got blown off...) so the thought occurred, why not have the captain bring the ship down (deorbit both craft together) and then hop over and have the shuttle chase down said ship?

This took two tries ... *cough cough*

Album link: https://imgur.com/a/uw1y2 

[anti_con2]

made my first ever kerbal landing on minmus!

Operation Minmus Landing EP 5: Vulture Has Landed

[eddiew]

6 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Speaking of which, pity about Titan. Was looking forward to seeing it. 

Next mission (to Saturn) maybe   Tinlion wasn't equipped to land there, and certainly would never have gotten back to orbit, so it'd have been mapping a hazy orange ball with radar - no major loss imo  

[Zeiss Ikon]

6 hours ago, harrisjosh2711 said:

Found out the BFR would make a nice boat/submarine.- Something tells me this shouldn't be buoyant. I'm pretty sure ksp added a config for this recently

Anything light enough to launch as as rocket ought to float in water, especially with empty tanks.

[ARS]

I'm testing a new SSTO prototype. It's still in test stage

There's some problem during launch, the craft is a bit nose-heavy, so it's kinda hard to keep it steady

Nevertheless, it's finally managed to get into orbital velocity

I may or may not be continuing the project, since I'm still have to fly other test craft

[capi3101]

Haven't done much since my last post. Had another tourist, Liseny Kerman, who decided to repeat Kenson's flight out to Minmus in an Auk XIII single passenger spaceplane, except she went to Mün and only wanted to orbit it before returning. She docked at the Kerbinport space station and since the station was out of reserve fuel, an Auk VIII heavy tanker followed her up to the station. The VIII arrived safely and offloaded enough fuel to refuel the XIII as well as the station's reserve tanks to the limit. Both planes then departed, with Liseny headed to Mün and the VIII affecting a harrowing landing at KSC 27 (came out of re-entry burn at Mach 2 ten klicks from KSC 09 and wound up having to double-back twice for landing; I was in an RL time crunch at the time). Liseny arrived at Mün this morning and upon completion of her orbital entry it was determined that she had sufficient fuel to return to Kerbin without stopping at the Munport space station first, so the plane burned for Kerbin; at this point she's returned to a 100x99 orbit over Kerbin and I'll conduct the re-entry flight later this morning.

Meanwhile, the Tater Catcher 7 mission finally re-entered comms range, and I was able to put the mission's target asteroid into a 118x118 orbit over Kerbin at 53 degrees inclination. Slight problem now is that the mission is out of gas; I'm weighing my options at this point, but I'm leaning towards sending up an ISRU to just mine and convert the available ore from the rock. Not sure that would be at all sufficient; the rock only has 28 tonnes of ore and the Tater Catcher's fuel load is 5 x S3-7200 tanks. Refueling the flight is doable, but I'm loathe to fly that many Auk VIII missions - I really hate flying the VIII...

[Castille7]

10 minutes ago, ARS said:

I'm testing a new SSTO prototype. It's still in test stage

Nice! Any mods here other than paint?

[Corona688]

15 hours ago, eddiew said:

Got creeped out by a surprisingly large gas giant.

With just under 6km/s left in the tanks, mission control has two options for Tinlion; first, map Titan and then land on Iapetus before terminating the mission. Second, bow to the massive public pressure demanding that the probe be brought home and put in a petting zoo museum.

Oh my goodness I love that lander.  It's so crazily asymmetric yet flight-worthy and beautiful, packed with instruments and love and noble gases.  It makes me proud.

[Agustin]

Rover VIDEO:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bz2ec2aomldyxri/2017-11-30 13-19-23.flv?dl=0

EDITED: NOW IT WORKS (the video wasn't showing the whole screen)

Edited November 30, 2017 by Agustin

[TheKorbinjer]

I watched my 7 yo brother try to build a car, to  rescue some kerbals he crashed with in another car, and that car was in it's way to rescue another crashed car.

I taught him how to land a plane for the first time. 'twas the Albatross 3. He performed well. Proud of him

Edited November 30, 2017 by TheKorbinger

[Urus28]

Finally after many hours I finished my space station ! I named it "Manchu" based on the name of a science fiction painter I really like.

The goal of this station is to provide the fuel for a big mission to Duna.

 

[Corona688]

Nothing amazing, just a spreadsheet:

It can do straight staging, droptanks, and asparagus just by changing where you put 1(engine burn), 0 (engine idle) and -1 (engine eject) in the green grid on the lower left.

It can't do boosters, yet. 

[ARS]

7 hours ago, Castille7 said:

Nice! Any mods here other than paint?

No, that's not a paint mod. It's HRP (Heat resistant part) mod. Basically an additional stock parts, colored black, with absurd heat resistance. A very outdated mod since KSP 1.0 (but still usable, as long as you have the necessary plugins)

Here's the link:

https://spacedock.info/mod/218/Heat-Resistant

Great to use when your ship disintegrated a lot because excessive heat 

Edited November 30, 2017 by ARS

[eddiew]

Brought Tin home!

It doesn't take long for the engineering team to realise that Tinlion is not going to survive re-entry. After a (very brief) pondering, they rush off to the shed, and a few hours later the appropriately named Kitty Grabber is launched.

Using advanced aerodynamics calculations, the flight team assure mission control that they're going to bring Tinlion right down on KSC.

They lied. Fortunately, Tinlion has wheels, and despite over 12 years in the far reaches of the solar system, all of them still work, and he embarks upon a long trundle across the wide open plains of the Amazon rainforest grasslands.

It's about this point that Nicols Kerman notices the misalignment of Tinlion's rear wheels, which might explain why he's really squirrelly when driving... 

The successful return of this valiant little probe/rover (prover?) sees a swell of approval from the public, and a number of additional sponsorship deals materialise. Eventually, Tinlion is decommissioned and now has a new home at a children's playground, where starry-eyed young kerbals clamber through his steel framework and dream of the day that they, too, can misalign the wheels on an expensive piece of technology and get away with it.

7 hours ago, Corona688 said:

Oh my goodness I love that lander.  It's so crazily asymmetric yet flight-worthy and beautiful, packed with instruments and love and noble gases.  It makes me proud.

Ain't gonna lie, it took a while to figure out - but in the end I got him balanced within 0.2kNm of torque at all fuel loads   After touring 4 moons with him, it seemed unkind not to bring him back.

Edited November 30, 2017 by eddiew

[XLjedi]

Just did a fun little island base refueling mission to show someone how my fuel truck works...

 

[LordFerret]

Finally got a 'shuttle' (MK3 parts) to work in my favor. Unconventional launch, I put it on the top of a rocket - but it works. I hoisted a 'Hubble' into orbit. Deorbit (tests empty & full) went just fine... plopped it down on the KSC runway. Finally, one which glides.

 

[AngrybobH]

I had a bunch of tourist contracts and decided I do one big mission with them all. Loaded up 15 passengers and 4 crew into my 3rd gen space bus, the HS3-2e (dark blue in picture). Destinations were an oncoming asteroid (for tourists and divert mission), a mun flyby, and a minmus flyby. because of positions I had to go to the mun first. I wasted a bit too much dV messing with the asteroid and ended up with enough fuel to make minmus but not really enough to get home safely and there wasn't enough O2 for a free return. I had to send Val in the space tanker to minmus to wait for them. Everyone lived and both planes still had wings when they stopped on the runway, so I guess it worked out fine, but someone in mission planning probably needs fired.

[MattJL]

Been working on a stock Saturn V/Apollo spacecraft replica for the last two weeks-ish, and just had the opportunity to test out the LESS/Long-Range Flyer this afternoon.  (LEM and CSM got a major overhaul as well, which I'm pretty happy with).

It's loaded with excess propellant from the descent stage (~15% residuals for a full load, I think).  Surprisingly skippy little thing; I was able to run a rendezvous with the CSM while only burning about two of the toroidal tanks worth of prop.

Hitching a ride!

The CSM is based heavily off of @Servo's absolutely fantastic design from the Apollo Applications Program challenge.  I added some tweaks to allow for a jettisonable SIM bay cover, but that's still a work in progress (test below).

Go check Servo's design out, it's beautiful.

[JadeOfMaar]

I dropped a skybox! "UltraViolet" (Download if you like purple) : Gallery : Collection

[harrisjosh2711]

Selfie taken moments before death.

Darn you jumping 1.3.1 bug

Yep bill Is bad shape down there. 

Also accidently participated in the destroy the KSP challenge when my rocket fell over and the launch pad and I attempted to save it just for the heck of it. It didn't work

[Whisky Tango Foxtrot]

My next ship due to arrive at my Jool installations got a little closer to its destination, having successfully flown through its capture flyby of Tylo (I learned to always keep my craft in focus when they do these flybys after having a couple of ships encounter a spontaneous existence failure when left to make the journey on rails.) However, after it did so I re-checked the manoeuvres I'd planned to bring it in to dock at Pol (where all of my incoming ships first arrive in order to take on fuel for the remainder of their journey) and found that while the path I'd plotted out was a very efficient one, it was also a very slow one. It would still arrive before my first crewed vessels would (as they'd been sent out with the following transfer window) but the next Kerbin - Jool transfer window would already have passed before its tug would be able to transport the fuel necessary to allow my Laythe surface base to land.

This posed a problem because the nature of the next Jool mission would depend heavily on the viability of that surface base. If it was successful then I could send a full relief crew with the next transfer, enough to man every base and station that I'll have in the system by that time. If it wasn't then the main cargo with that next ship would simply be a passenger module that would allow my original crew to come home, with the full conquest of Jool needing to wait until some later date. I couldn't wait for that next ship to find out if LaythePort could do its job; I needed to find out now.

LaythePort consists of two parts; a docking assembly consisting of a series of AGUs mounted on a framework of girders at various heights in order to allow a variety of spaceplanes to dock with it to refuel and the mine itself, which would meet up with the docking assembly using rover wheels and connect with a Clamp-O-Tron port. The docking assembly needed a lot of fuel to land as it had no protection against the atmosphere and no passive means to slow its descent, relying on a set of Swivel rocket engines for both. The mine, on the other hand, was safely encased in a fairing and had parachutes to bring it down to the surface. Finding the exact right re-entry trajectory to land on the small island that I'd selected for my base site would be difficult, but once I'd managed that it wouldn't actually take much fuel to make the trip; just enough for my tug to slow the mine down to suborbital velocity and then get itself safely back into orbit after detaching.

I was pleased to find that this part of the mission went smoothly. The mine touched down on its wheels without damage and, while navigating Laythe's hilly terrain proved difficult for the vehicle's electric wheels with careful driving it could be managed. So that's one part of the mission done, but what about the rest? I still didn't have the fuel I needed to land the docking assembly so I couldn't complete the base "for real," but I could simulate it. I created a new named save, cheated a tug and a tank of ore into a rendezvous with Laythe Station, used the ore to manufacture some LiquidFuel and sent the assembly down to its landing site. I then began the long and difficult task of bringing the mine across the 15km necessary to meet up with it, carefully negotiating a path around Laythe's hills that would keep me off the steepest slopes where the rover wheels would prove to be inadequate. At last, the two components of the base that would form an essential part of any future manned missions to Laythe joined together, the mine's landing legs were extended and its wheels (which were in reality a trio of independent rovers that could be decoupled from the main craft) were discarded. Everything seemed to be in order. At first.

It was only when I extended the mine's drills that I discovered the flaw in my design - the drills were too low. While most of the length of a Drill-O-Matic has no physics collider, allowing it to embed itself into the ground in order to extract resources from it, the tops of the drills are much more solid. When I deployed them, I'd discovered that the drills had been mounted so low that they raised the mine off of its landing legs. Worse still, when I turned them on and they began the constant up-and-down motions that accompanied surface harvesting they began to shake the entire base. The base still held together and it was still able to generate fuel, but any plans to leave a crew inside for significant periods of time would be unfeasible; they'd be constantly shaking every moment they spent on the surface.

So while this was a bit disappointing at least I know what I'll have to do going forward. That next transfer window will have to carry a new mine to Laythe, one that can fully function on its surface. It will need to be tested more thoroughly than this one was, but that'll be easier now that my surface scanner and the beginnings of my space station are already in place around the watery moon it'll be easier to conduct those tests than it was when the mine was originally launched. And even in its present condition it's not a total loss; I might still be able to get a plane refuelled at this base which will let me complete an initial flag-and-footprints mission to Laythe. It just won't be suitable as the core of a new colony.

 

[Kermagerd]

Well, it wasn't today, but i thought it was dumb enough to share. So i had this rescued kerbal in my Mun's orbital station, and wanted him back to Kerbol. I load a standard Kerbol-Mun-Kerbol rocket with its Mk1 pod, heat shield, decoupler, parachute and such and then the launcher. But then i remembered i also had a couple of kerbals in that station that i didn't need to be there, so i thought well i just add an Mk1 crew cabin and make a couple of adjustments. Launch, get to munar orbit, load kerbals into the vessel, get to escape trajectory, enter the atmosphere, and BOOM i decouple the Mk1 crew cabin. Bye bye Jeb and Valentina. Then, and only then i realised i added the crew cabin but left the decoupler and heat shield attached to the MK1 command pod. I felt SO stupid and i laughed so hard at it.
It was okay, in the end i could load my quicksave just in escape trajectory of the Mun and as i had enough fuel i could adjust my orbit to do some good old aerobreaking. It took 3 orbits around Kerbol and the Mk1 crew cabin got to the ground glowing red, but i'm sure Jebediah and Valentina had a lot of fun there, they are brave adventurers after all.

Edited December 1, 2017 by Kermagerd

[MikeZDB]

Today, we had publish and finish the Kariner 4 stile mission reports and data.

 

As always, the mission report here, and the photolog mission here. (Spanish language)

 

BONUS!: The KSC & RES industries are close to celebrate 10 years of space exploration!

Enjoy with this Mun exclusive picture for celebrating 10 years.

[KSK]

Personal Journal: Valentina Kerman.

1 Day to Launch

Jeb took the MSR up today. Biggest rocket we've ever launched, specially with that oversized fairing on the top. Five Mainsails were barely enough to get it off the pad but after a shaky start it seemed to fly truly enough. Jeb didn't sound worried but then Jeb never does. Vehicle could be coming apart around his ears and you'd never tell. Flight Dynamics seemed happy enough though which was reassuring. Pad team are rolling our ship out to the pad as we speak - fuelling starts later tonight, final checkout before dawn.

Launch Day

Earlier start than I'd have liked but time and orbital mechanics wait for no kerbal. The launch went nice and smoothly - which was expected aboard a Mark III but always a relief when it happens.

Rendezvoused on schedule and dear Kerm above that vehicle looked ridiculous. I mean it wasn't a surprise or anything - we'd all been on plenty of test and training drives, but seeing the Munar Science Rover on the ground where it belongs compared to seeing it floating 200 klicks above Kerbin with the departure stage hanging off one end... Yeah.  The view out of the forward cupola is nice though, no doubt about that.

Day 3.

Third day in space and I think we're all set. Teddous arrived in the second orbital transport this morning. Executive order 1 proved its worth during the EVA transfer - not the slickest spacewalk I've ever seen and I was glad to have the Gigantors safely stowed.

I guess I should say something about this flying car I'm sitting in. The central core is basically a standard Mobile Science Laboratory with a Hitchiker on each end.  Each Hitchhiker is capped with a cupola module and there's a dinky little turret built around a SJ 9000 mounted on the lab roof. The turret also holds the probe core and data processing facilities. The whole thing rolls along on a set of four RoveMate 3s and I'll leave the various batteries, spotlights, ladders, antennas and such to your imagination.

Oh - and the decoupler mounted VTOL engines. Let's not forget those.

Day 5

Another early start checking out the wheel heaters, probe core, VTOLs and suchlike. I have to give RoveMate full credit - an extended cold soak in vacuum doesn't seem to have fazed those Mark 3s at all. We're just battening down the lab gear and then it's time to get the PDI and TKI updates from Mission Control.

Landing

Well she may look like a brick but she handled as well as any Mun lander I've ever flown. Although I'm not sure what that says about our landers. Descent orbit initiation went off without a hitch, PDI came and went, and everything was feeling weirdly routine. Until I saw that wheeled shadow on the Munar surface and suddenly the whole thing came crashing home! A giant VTOL flying car and we were about to land it on the Mun.

Touchdown was beautiful! I punched off the landing engines, polled the crew for a final status check and - I don't mind admitting - took a deep breath. Then I fed power to those big wheels and we were off! And dear Kerm - those motors! Most electric motors are pretty quiet but these ones purr. Deep and rumbly and happy, like the world's biggest cat getting a belly rub.

I'm going to enjoy this....

 

Edited December 1, 2017 by KSK