What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Guest]

Am getting better at gravity pinball.

Plotted a Laythe capture that costs less than 350 m/s, starting from a rough intercept of the Jool system. Brake off Tylo correcting inclination at the same time and getting into an orbit that's just outside Laythe's (8 m/s midcourse correction), then burn retrograde to intercept Laythe at an almost perfect tangent (72 m/s), then burn for capture (270 m/s). 

(I know I'm still a rank amateur compared to some of you orbital mechanics, but I'm pretty proud of this one.)

[ROXunreal]

The Taker has been orbiting Kerbin with a captured Class A asteroid for a while now. Following the completion of our Kerbin Orbital space station, it was finally time to complete the last phase of this old asteroid capture mission and attach the asteroid to the station itself for study. The Taker was specifically designed for this phase, the grabber hand unit being detachable from the rest of the craft and having independent RCS capability.

Rendezvous.

Detachment

Asteroid docked

 

Following docking, the main part of the Taker craft was left adrift, the engineers failing to include a second probe core on the craft which would enable it to safely deorbit. The official statement by the engineer team during the subsequent investigation was "Post-it note adhesive failure resulting in engineer oversight".

Since having such a massive hulk adrift so close to the station was judged to be "an unacceptable eyesore", it was decided that the station's autonomous tug unit was to dock with the Taker, thus providing it with control ability, and that the Taker would then deorbit using its own engines and remaining fuel. This left a lasting trauma on the station and ground control crew, as this tug had been brought up with the very first station module and had played a crucial role in nearly all of the following new module assemblies. It completed its mission and final flight as flawlessly as everything it was involved in before. Nameless tug, you built this station as much as anyone else did. Salutations, and godspeed.

Final resting place of the Taker and nameless tug. A memorial Tomb Of The Unknown Tug is to be built on this site.

 

Edited January 26, 2018 by ROXunreal

[Guest]

... and here we are.

Had an encounter with a particularly annoying subspecies of kraken. After I dropped my drop tank, switched to the tracking station, and eventually switched back, the entire Pelican warped into several different dimensions. There were parts flying in loose formation and still interdimensionally attached to each other, but most of the craft simply disappeared.

I eventually figured out (by watching closely what was happening) that the problem was an attachment node: I saw it staying put when the rest of the drop tank floated off. So I found it in the save file and removed it. After that everything worked fine again.

So that was today. Tomorrow... tomorrow, the JUNO MIDGE flies.

Edited January 26, 2018 by Guest

[Martian Emigrant]

5 hours ago, Just Jim said:

It's not that... I have the exact coordinates. But for some reason that's the one egg I can't seem to find. I read somewhere it depends on the screen resolution, but mine's maxed out, and it keeps eluding me... I'm thinking it may be underground in my game.

I have heard (Read Read) (English is so weird sometime) that there are some older eggs that are now under ground with the newer (Mapping I guess) surfaces of planets.

 

ME

[SkunkTwerks]

Today I've nearly finalized a design for Kylo Ren's Upsilon-Class Command Ship. The aerodynamics were a lot like Kylo's feelings about his family: complicated and volatile. Prototype versions A-K all had major problems, but Version L flies well without sacrificing too much visual accuracy.

Not the nimblest of ships, but it's imposing enough to intimidate rebel Kerbals without even taking your shirt off (right Kylo?).

Fully capable VTOL.

It's not the most aerodynamically efficient beast, but I did manage to land it on the far side of the mountains west of the KSC just before running out of fuel.

Soon, it shall be posted on my replica thread, and we shall rule the galaxy together!

May the Force be with you and your poor, terrified rebel Kerbals.

-SkunkTwerks

[Starman4308]

Spuuuuuuutnik! Spuuuuuuutnik! And all on just 3 tech tree nodes in RP-0, with the level 1 launchpad, and Test Flight not liking me. Or possibly liking me, with a bit of tough love.

The final iteration of the Sputnik design, after two prior attempts, was a 7-stage monster, launched on 9/13/1953.

First stage was a pair of RD-100 engines, three fins, and a 717 kg procedural avionics core to provide full control and SAS. This went as planned.

The second stage was 6 early AJ-10 engines. The piloting became a little trickier, since I no longer had SAS, meaning I had to keep it stable manually.

Then Test Flight decides I didn't need all six engines, and the piloting goes from "slightly annoying" to the trickiest rocket flight I've ever managed. No SAS, asymmetric thrust, still in some atmosphere, oh, and I need to keep the nose up to keep my apogee increasing.

I apologize for the lack of screenshots. I was busy flying a rocket which was supposed to have six functional engines.

The third stage was a trio of AJ-10s. This, at least, performed nominally, even if I had to keep the nose up (still manually!) past 30 degrees, because I think I lost more vertical velocity than planned from the engine out.

The fourth stage was by far the most complicated one. The primary engine was a single AJ-10, plus a ring of 12 nitrous oxide control thrusters, plus a 600kg A4 guidance core. This carried me to an apogee of ~172 km, with a 1 minute coast to apogee.

That was a very busy minute. I had only relatively weak attitude control thrusters to point the rocket at the horizon and spin it up in preparation for stages 5-7, something that probably would've been easier with a bit of SAS. Since this stage had the last active control unit (the A4 telemetry unit), I needed to be very careful to set up the next stages to get me into orbit.

Once spun up:

Burn,

Baby,

BURN!

Once in orbit, Sputnik transmitted for four hours. The final rocket had cost 3197 funds and massed 39.167 tons on the pad (very close to the 40-ton limit). I also had no idea at the time you could fit the 3x-Baby Sergeant motor inside the 11x-Baby Sergeant, so I probably could've gotten away with a shorter, lighter fairing.

 

In general, I've noticed that when launching with ridiculously primitive rockets (using just three tech nodes):

Avionics are absurdly heavy. 1.377 tons of that 40-ton rocket was just avionics. Even second-generation avionics are a huge improvement: the Thor core masses just 200 kg, has SAS, and has a mass limit of 65 tons (vs. the 20 tons of each of my first-generation cores).

First-generation liquid-fueled engines don't have very long rated burn times: the RD-100s were at 70 seconds, and the AJ-10s were at 115 seconds. My original, pre-Test Flight design had just two AJ-10 stages with a total of 5 engines; the burn time limits imposed by Test Flight meant I had to go with three AJ-10 stages with a total of 10 engines. One of which failed. FOR THE LAST TIME!

Much like the other AJ-10s, which succeeded for the last time, because I sure didn't have any recovery system on any stage of that booster.

Also, while upper stage engines don't improve that spectacularly, first-stage booster engines make a radical improvement. The RD-100 to RD-108, for example, goes from an ISP of 237 to 308, and TWR from 35 to 73.

Finally, I need a bit more in the way of control thrusters than I first thought.

 

With more advanced technology (that I've had for a while, I just wanted to get Sputnik up first), I'm now building my first proper booster, one I'm calling an R6-Able. The upper stage has an Able control unit, control thrusters, and an AJ10-104D, burning through 1.94 tons of UDMH and IRFNA-III in 150.6 seconds. The lower stage has a Thor control unit, and a first-generation RD108 engine, burning 27.5 tons of kerosene, oxygen, and HTP in 109 seconds. My estimate at this time is that this significantly cheaper booster, with two (rather than 7!) stages, will be able to lift 250 kg payloads to LEO, a vast improvement over the Sputnik launcher, that got 12 kg of non-launch-essential equipment to orbit (plus 63 kg of sounding rocket core and burned-out Baby Sergeant).

My second proper booster will likely be called R6B-Able, with the sole difference being an elongated first-stage tank. The original design will be tearing off the pad at 1.8G, mostly because the 40-ton launchpad limit means I can't stuff even more propellant onboard. The third, I'm guessing, will probably be called the R7-Able, pulling off a proper Korolev cross, possibly with an option for an expanded 2-engine upper.

[Hotel26]

I'm presently taking a class called Spaceplane 101 and the current homework assignment is to find something interesting and reverse-engineer it.

I'm surprised how much this exercise is teaching me!  I'm getting a real tour of the SPH parts catalog, also.

I did have to pick something with a lot of interesting geometric conundrums, though, didn't I? 

Update: maiden flight complete.  (I am naming it Pterodactyl.  But no photographers were permitted within a 20km perimeter of the base.)

 

Edited January 27, 2018 by Hotel26

[Guest]

Leia Kerman has started preparations for setting up Kosmodrome 1 on Laythe. 

JUNO MIDGE performed to perfection. It honestly is ideal for exploring Laythe -- much faster and less prone to sudden backflips than a rover, you get a better view of the terrain, and it's a lot of fun. Ore density isn't fantastic but she found a suitably large and flat area for the Kosmodrome easily enough -- it needs to be pretty big and pretty flat because some of the take-offs will be heavy.

My ISRU unit however is misbehaving mysteriously: the fuel cell array output is not sufficient to keep everything running, at least when Leia is in the driver's seat. I suspect it's because being an engineer she raises its efficiency past the point the fuel cells can put out power. Right now she's in the tedious part of the operation: producing enough fuel to get the Pelican back into orbit to fetch the tanker that lets us move fuel more effectively. Since she only has the ISRU's internal tanks to carry fuel and the Pelican has no docking port suitable for attaching when drilling, this means several trips back and forth. (No I don't want to drill through the wing of the plane.)

Next in the program -- once the Pelican has enough fuel to get back out there -- is to fetch the tanker. That should make the next fuel-up much less troublesome. Then back up to fetch our friendly interplanetary hobos' mobile home. And then start running fuel to the rest of the Jool operation.

Edited January 27, 2018 by Guest

[Hotel26]

11 hours ago, Brikoleur said:

... and here we are.

I have to say: CONGRATULATIONS.  There is nothing like working long and hard on a big plan and then comes the moment of FRUITION.  You are now doing everything on Laythe you had imagined.

(Incidentally, do my eyes deceive me or do you now have EIGHT engines on Pelican?  Also, if I might ask, what do you have in the service bay?  And to dock it in space, where did you place the dock?*  I know, I know, I am suspiciously nosy...  )

* or did you use the port on the back of the bulkhead?

Edited January 27, 2018 by Hotel26

[Guest]

Thank you!

I'm not quite there yet, but close. I'll consider the Kosmodrome open for business once I've got the tanker down and don't have to do so much running around just to produce fuel.

Yep that's eight engines. There were two per pod before. The service bay has a bunch of batteries, a RTG, and a probe core. There are two docking ports, and both are in use in the above picture: the ISRU is docked to one and the JUNO MIDGE to another. I attached the drop tank to a port on the back of the ISRU that I put there for that purpose. 

I.e. I don't dock the Pelican; other craft dock with the Pelican. It's designed to bring one module down (or up) at a time, and that module has to have a docking port at a height that matches the Pelican's. It's a little fussy as I have to get the rotations aligned as well but it hasn't been terribly difficult thus far.

[purpleivan]

Jeb went on a high speed trip, or rather a series of trips, as an entry to the Duna Kiathlon challenge.

First his vehicle took a quicker than normal trip from the KSC to a 51km orbit of Duna, that got him there in 194 days.

 

Then once in orbit he took it down for a much more rapid than normal descent to the surface. This was by burning for a vertical descent, then burning straight down to accelerate towards the surface, before flipping around for a braking burn to avoid pancaking on the surface.

The time to get to the surface was 4 minutes 3 seconds. Not anywhere near as short a time as it could have been, but a lot short than the descent I'd normally take.

 

For the last leg of the challenge, he took off for a rendezvous with a small but speedy runabout he'd left in orbit, to use for the trip to Ike.

The time from leaving the surface until he met up with his ride to Ike was only 6 minutes. However the ascent vehicle's last stage was almost full of fuel at the end of the ascent (about 2000 delta-v) so the design for this stage of the journey was not efficient at all.

 

Jeb finally made it to the surface of Ike in 42 minutes from the time he left the red soil of Duna.

[Scorpu]

Today I have beaten my personal record for the longest orbital insertion burn. It happened during Mars orbital insertion of MARIO spacecraft. Mods: Real Solar System/Realism Overhaul/Realistic Progression 0.

I started the burn 37 minutes before periapsis.

At least I had a lot of time to admire the views. Here's one of my favorite formations on Mars, the Noctis Labyrinthus.

Acraeus Mons on the left and Tharsis Tholus on the right. Propulsion still nominal.

After 1 hour 27 minutes and 54 seconds (of ingame time) the burn is over. I ended up burning 200 m/s more because of steering losses. But I didn't really care, because I had lots of delta v left and I can save 1200 m/s with aerobraking. Long orbital insertion burns are more punishing around smaller planets, I guess. For my next Mars orbiter I'm taking an 890 Newton thruster.

[Colonel Cbplayer]

I made a bike that is actually fun to drive

 

[Alpha 360]

I got two questions

1. how many reaction wheels did you stuff in that thing

2. how long did it take to build

And with those two questions, I can say that that is one of the coolest vehicles I've seen. Ever. 

[WolfCoAerospace]

Today I screwed up my staging in a non-revertable save game. Oy vey!

 

[Colonel Cbplayer]

1 hour ago, Alpha 360 said:

I got two questions

1. how many reaction wheels did you stuff in that thing

2. how long did it take to build

And with those two questions, I can say that that is one of the coolest vehicles I've seen. Ever. 

like an hour to build it and like 2 hours to get it to drive good
it helped I made this using another bike I already made as a basis
I think it has about 8 of the small reaction wheels
also here is a link for a download if you want to give a try https://kerbalx.com/Colonel_Cbplayer/Kanedas-Custom-Motorcycle

 

Edited January 27, 2018 by Colonel Cbplayer

[Rocketsciences101]

Made a ejectable Launch Escape System without just strapping 4 Radial mount parashoots on it

[Martian Emigrant]

23 hours ago, LordFerret said:

Trama rag-dolling at "Impossible Rock". What the heck is that thing?!?

Hey.

 

I went to look at the Easter eggs wiki. Hadn’t been there in a loooooooonnnnnnng while.

Someone updated the info:

Quote

The camera which looks like that of the Curiosity rover, no longer buried in the soil as of 1.2 (now sticking out of boulder 30° 20′ 30″ S 28° 48′ 37″ W

So there you have it. It was but ain't no more.

 

ME

[LordFerret]

18 hours ago, Just Jim said:

It's not that... I have the exact coordinates. But for some reason that's the one egg I can't seem to find. I read somewhere it depends on the screen resolution, but mine's maxed out, and it keeps eluding me... I'm thinking it may be underground in my game.

I'm still playing v1.2.2

What you see of it in the image I posted, that's only 1/4 of it... 3/4 of it are buried in the ground, and it does look like an asteroid kinda sorta. If you want, I'll post the image. I think @CatastrophicFailure's suggestion is the ticket. @Martian Emigrantis likely right about map/version variations.

[Rocketsciences101]

Here's how to build it get a 1.25 faring a MK 25 parashoot and any Decupler Place faring on top of command pod  place MK 25 parashoot on faring  place the Decupler on the node on top of it make sure the arrow is pointing down place the Launch Escape System on the Decupler then build faring to the Decupler

[Just Jim]

Ahhh, I finally found the Duna Rover... and it was my fault I didn't see it before. I was looking all over the ground, and never realized it was sticking out of the top of a boulder... until I hit a boulder with a collider, and it blew up!!!  Definitely the right one... lol... 

Edited January 27, 2018 by Just Jim

[NISSKEPCSIM]

I performed a test flight of my Notangara A5 rocket, from my recently-released NotantaresLV mod.

 

[LordFerret]

Kerbonauts Garble, Dottie, and Jedtrey returned home this morning. Their initial mission a failure, we'll accept their return a success... nearly 4 years spent in orbit around Duna.

[Guest]

The Kosmodrome is open for business.

Also available, Lakeside Mansions, with fresh (if unbreathable) air, and a splendid view over Lake Notinthewaterplease, and Jool.

Freshly delivered by Pelican Logistics Service -- now serving the entire Jolian system.

Entertainment includes rover safaris by people who can't drive, and free use of the JUNO MIDGE.

Most everything going well. The Pelican is really doing a fantastic job, shuttling to and from orbit is easy and fun. Other toys are fun to play with as well. Only fly in the ointment is that my tanker doesn't have enough wheels: it can only do its job up to about three-quarters full; after that it needs towing help from the ISRU unit and is still to heavy to easily load onto the Pelican. That's more of a minor annoyance than a showstopper though.

The rest of the crew is currently on its way to Jool Station to level up in the MPL, so it's a little lonely at the Kosmodrome right now. If all goes well that should be sorted in a few days.

Edited January 27, 2018 by Guest

[Geonovast]

Science game put a relay satellite in a solar near polar orbit.  Just, uh... cause.