What did you do in KSP1 today?

[FinalFan]

4 hours ago, Randox said:

as long as the manned landing goes off without a hit, I'm sure these snafus will be forgotten. No pressure.

I was expecting "without a hitch", but I suppose landing "without a hit" is the most important part.  

[CatastrophicFailure]

3 minutes ago, FinalFan said:

I was expecting "without a hitch", but I suppose landing "without a hit" is the most important part.  

As long as they don't go off without a hatch. That's a very real risk with KSP... 
Badum-tish.

Myself? At the behest of a rather talented and prolific mod maker, I've been messing about with... sigh... spaceplanes. 

Results have been... mixed.

Spoiler

Getting to orbit in this otherwise stock 1.4x game has been all too easy, thanks to this mod's truly crazy amounts of power and ability to pull oxidizer straight from the air.

When the business end looks like this, orbitin's easy...

See? Even Kelvin, there, is happy despite being smashed into his seat at 4 or 5 G's for the last few minutes...

 

There were, of course, some... teething troubles...

 

And I'm really liking the newer version's built-in parachutes.

...like for when you forget to install landing gear...

 

Oh come, now, Kelvin, it's not that bad.

Are you hot? You look hot. Maybe you should drink some water or something...
or just lie there curled up in the fetal position and whimpering, whatever works for you...

Aaaaanyways, it's the getting down that's the problem
probably because I have no rhythm...

So here we have the Bat Outta L 2...-a.

I'm sure that ginormous buggy shadow is nothing to worry about. Nothing ominous at all, right there...

 

Successful orbit! And with a slightly useful payload capacity, too. Here, the Sci-Schlep Kerbin Observing Satellite is deployed...

...which ends up with its cameras pointing on the one azimuth where they never see Kerbin. Ever. and no reaction wheels, so...

Moving on, FlarpSat 1 follows just after, somewhat more successfully.

 

Re-entry's off to a good start... nice and stable, just a bit of pitch correction...

 

Itsworking.gif! Just have to make it over the mountains...

 

Well. That can't be good. Perhaps steep Mach 2 turns aren't such a good idea...

 

That's ok, we have the thrust! We'll just land this thing SpaceX style!

 

Or you can bail out screaming, Kelvin, that works too.

 

Not sure if my Kerbals need more stupidity or less courage...

 

Well... at least the wing's still flying!

Back to the drawing board, I suppose...

*pokes @JadeOfMaar with a stick* 

 

[Zosma Procyon]

I launched a one-shot station to Minmus. The crew were not enthused during the launch.

Edited July 20, 2018 by Zosma Procyon

[Randox]

4 hours ago, FinalFan said:

I was expecting "without a hitch", but I suppose landing "without a hit" is the most important part.  

So was I, but I think that works too 

Yes. It is very important that we land on Duna today rather than just hit Duna 

[Epicdreamer]

I've been preparing for the third transfer window to Duna, which is due in a couple of Kerbal days (timewarp) whenever I want.
After sending a probe on the first and a crewed visit to Ike on the second it's time for some serious infrastructure and exploration. The Duna R&RS (Refuel & Relaxation Station) is in LKO already, ready for it's TDI (Trans Duna Injection). Ready for launch is the first crewed Duna Mission and DSTV (Duna System Transfer Vehicle). And nearly ready is the whole Ike ISRU shebang, consisting of a low res scanner-sat, a scanning-rover and a ore mining rig as large as I deem feasable at this moment in my Science career. I forgot to add a converter to the the R&RS, so I'll send that with the DSTV to dock with the R&RS once at Duna.
Just need to finetune the mining rig to the local Dv and TWR requirements. It's way overpowered (meaning inefficient) at the moment...

Busy times coming up, the EEV (Eve Exploration Vehicle) is on route as well. Thanks Kerbal Alarm Clock for existing!

[Tw1]

I launched a station segment!

Actually, two station segments at once:

It's far more time efficient this wayy

And then I docked them together.

notice my loss meme

Edited July 28, 2018 by Tw1
see what i did there?

[Xurkitree]

I landed on the Mun.

May sound ordinary, but I actually did an Apollo recreation since today is 20th July!

Its not very good though, but I do like the design of my LM.

I also executed this perfect gravity turn.Loved it.

Weird fluke - I landed very close to a Mun arch. Not EVA distance, but a quick hop is possible. I found out when I crashed during takeoff and rendezvous. Yay!

[EpicSpaceTroll139]

Took a little break from working on my Failcan 1 guidance script* and just did some messing around in multiplayer.

Flew an old gem, then proceeded to hit stage having forgotten that the fairing that made up the fuselage was enabled, resulting in the aircraft becoming possessed by the kraken. Had to bail out.

Speaking of the kraken, I got blown up for no apparent reason a few times:

Yah nothing too exciting.  

*It turns out the landing guidance script currently is a bit unreliable for high energy launches that require droneship landings. I think this is primarily because, at the greater distances and velocities involved with the droneship landing, my equation that approximates the maneuvers needed to hit the droneship becomes wildly inaccurate. So... I've gotta rework that...

 

Edited July 20, 2018 by EpicSpaceTroll139

[Randox]

First, a pick of my first interplanetary docking. Nothing special. Just something to remember it by:

Spoiler

The landing was a bit more...exciting. A quick glance out the window suggested Duna is a pretty hilly place, and the miserable attempt at aero braking confirmed the atmosphere was thin, so a shallow landing trajectory was selected, and the brave kerbals aimed for what they hoped would be a valley. Bill decided to rig the parachutes to open at minimum pressure, maximum altitude, and removed the 'suggested operating parameters' safety locks (intermediate danger setting).

Bill and Bob passed out when the chutes opened, but Jeb was the one flying anyway so it didn't matter. With only 15% fuel burned, the rocket touched down with a healthy buffer of extra fuel to make it back into orbit. The landing spot wasn't precarious at all:

Not precarious at all

The instruments say the ground is 6.8 degrees, but the attitude indicator says SAS is holding the nose at 9.9 degrees. It will stay up upright on its own, but the landing gear dampers must have been damaged in transit, because they are way too bouncy. Bill got it swaying as he was getting out and the whole thing started to sway so bad Jeb had to throw the SAS into radial up and activate the RCS thrusters to recover. The SAS system itself likes to make the nose trace out a circle, so the reaction wheels have been set to a low intensity. Problem solved (there is probably enough power to keep SAS running all night).

After everyone had a good stretch and took a group photo, Bill decided to go back into the ship and run some more diagnostics. Bob amused himself with some ground samples before joining Bill back on the ship for breakfast.

Jeb decided to go paragliding:

This is a fantastic idea

Jeb thought he would be so light that the parachute would work just like at home. It didn't:

Jeb after hitting the surface of Duna at ~20 m/s

He tried to stop his descent with the RCS system. It didn't work, but it probably slowed him enough to save his life. He just kind of laid there for a couple minutes, but was able to walk it off in no time:

Jeb, five minutes after hitting the surface of Duna at ~20 m/s

After a quick inventory of supplies, it has been decided that Bill, Bob, and Jeb can stay at Duna until the interplanetary relay arrives in a couple weeks. After that, it's lift off back to the spare fuel in orbit, than it will be time to make their way back home.

EDIT: Here is the computer readout for the vessel orientation with the Center of Mass marked (colours are resource status). It could land on a steeper slope, but this is definately pushing my comfort level a bit:

Spoiler

 

Edited July 20, 2018 by Randox

[Zaphod12]

Today, I sent Jeb, Bill and Bob on a Grand Tour of the Kerbin system with this weird Apollo-Soyuz hybrid, sending them to orbit Minmus and then the Mun, and then back to Kerbin. (The trip lasted around 15/16 days)

 

And I attempted to make a ripoff of our version of the Space Shuttle, known as Buran.

Lemme just say it ended in failure. (Gosh, I'm utterly horrible at spaceplanes, when I try re-entry, I lose control of them and they crash due to capitalist physics, that's why I prefer capsules.)

(Hmm, when I'm already speaking of Soviet stuff, perhaps I might do another mission report thread, but rather than Apollo missions, it'll be with a Soviet-style space program)

[Servo]

I finally released my F-35 (shameless plug: https://kerbalx.com/servo/F-35B-Lightning-II ), and then moved on to something bigger.

A lot bigger...

[anoldtincan]

Hi everyone! Long time lurker, first time poster.

I started a new career today in 1.3.1 since the upgraded mod repository is much better than 1.4.x. I have been playing KSP since 2013. My last career was cut short by a corrupted save file, but the goal remains the same - Sarnus and Eve colonies to get that sweet sweet karborundum.

Today was the usual early career stuff - sounding rockets and early airplanes. Here's a few iterations of the SR-1 Sparrow:

Looking forward to posting more here as the game progresses.

[Zeiss Ikon]

2 hours ago, Zaphod12 said:

(Hmm, when I'm already speaking of Soviet stuff, perhaps I might do another mission report thread, but rather than Apollo missions, it'll be with a Soviet-style space program)

"Heroes of the Soviet Union today had great success.  It is not permitted to reveal what they actually did, but they had great success, and have once more demonstrated the superiority of communism over capitalism."

Soviet style missions, good.  Soviet style reporting, perhaps not so much.

[Cavscout74]

I brought my first crew home from my MOLE station - not counting the repair mission that came & went yesterday.  They completed 6 different research projects ranging from space adaptation experiments to ice cream research.  MOLE station remains in orbit but is currently uncrewed due to other projects having greater need for limited launch pad availability.  More than likely, another crew won't head up until after the fast approaching Duna window.

[Zosma Procyon]

I installed this space station in Minmus orbit. I called it "Anaxagoras Station", after the ancient Greek philosopher who suggested that the sun was the same thing as the stars, just much closer.

[Hotel26]

7 hours ago, anoldtincan said:

Hi everyone! Long time lurker, first time poster.

Beautiful looking rocket!  Looking forward to seeing your further exploits as you post...

----

Lately.  I did a docking experiment with an SSTO mock-up in space.  The mock vehicle consisted of an Mk-3 cabin with 700k RCS tanks and senior docking rings at each end and I placed two of these 150m apart.

One had a belly ribbon of 4 RCS thrusters girdling the CoM (my standard approach to SSTO maneuvering) and the other had 3: one top dead-center and the other two under angled 120 degrees away down on the lower-side, symmetric to each other.  Docked one with the other; returned to save file; docked the other with the first.  Measured time do dock and MP consumed (limiting max speed to 1 m/s) and concluded (unscientifically, non-rigorously) that only 3 RCS thrusters confers no significant disadvantage in maneuvering.

But just 3 belly RCS thrusters can look a lot better rather than having lateral RCS thruster blocks placed between two cabin windows...

Edited July 21, 2018 by Hotel26

[Artyloo]

 

Took the KSX Ballerina II (can you guess why it's named that way?) to a quad-biome mun-hopping adventure which netted me 1758 science. I honestly thought I had massively over-engineered it but then made the Kerbin reentry with nly 30dV to spare!

 

 

Edited July 21, 2018 by Artyloo

[Hotel26]

22 minutes ago, Artyloo said:

Album 1hdLAOG will appear when post is submitted

Good to see you in the forum!

Would like to see your pics, too!

But Imgur albums don't work, AFAIK.  I think every shot has to be individually linked.  (pain)  I use the link in the sidebar on the shot that Imgur labels [BBCODE] and that works.  (Someone more expert than me may embellish on this...)

[Artyloo]

5 minutes ago, Hotel26 said:

Good to see you in the forum!

Would like to see your pics, too!

But Imgur albums don't work, AFAIK.  I think every shot has to be individually linked.  (pain)  I use the link in the sidebar on the shot that Imgur labels [BBCODE] and that works.  (Someone more expert than me may embellish on this...)

Thank you friend! That worked.

[aagun123]

[Broken pictures removed by moderator]

Edited January 28, 2019 by Snark
Redacted by moderator

[Zosma Procyon]

I established a new base on Duna. AN exploration contract required it be at least 2 parts.

3 science labs, 6 drills, an ISRU converter, and more than 20 crew; 16 of the crew were immediately transferred off planet and are already back in orbit waiting for the transfer window back to Kerbin.

Duna's dinky little atmosphere makes landings look more dramatic than necessary.

I chose a landing site on the edge of the southern ice sheet.

Here is the transfer craft landing. The crew ride in the container. All 16 packed like sardine in their space suits.

MechJeb's autoland system can be hit or miss. It pretty much nailed it this time. Landed this expansion within 20 meters of the main base.

Pretty in pink.

This is the first time I've successfully docked with airlocks on the ground.

One of the first crew to leave the base looking out on the lifter.

And here is the transfer lifter burning into its parking orbit.

[FinalFan]

9 minutes ago, aagun123 said:

 

All I see is a smiling Chinese child and a "broken picture" symbol.  

[aagun123]

31 minutes ago, FinalFan said:

All I see is a smiling Chinese child and a "broken picture" symbol.  

well，uploaded to google

[Zeiss Ikon]

Over the past couple days, I've been working on the "first satellite" contract in my "Take Four" RSS/RO/RP-1/Principia career -- but meanwhile, one still needs to have "interesting" missions to keep the Big Four from retiring too early (apparently, astronauts get bored if they just sit on the ground for years at a time -- who knew?).

So, I built this (slightly handicapped by the time it takes to build, and, what I consider a bug in KCT, the fact that the tiniest edit to an SPH craft resets build progress to zero -- need to repack a parachute or refuel?  Scrap the vessel and build a new one, takes the same time).

Two J85-GE4 turbojets, on detachable hardpoints.  All the kerosene is in the tip tanks, a bit less than 30 minutes at full throttle (and it has to fly at full throttle to get anywhere or climb decently; these early jet engines are pretty weak, at about 12 kN each).  The fuselage holds a little over 4 minutes of LOX and Ethanol 75 for the XLR-11 four-chamber, "throttleable" rocket engine (from the X-1 -- canonically, throttling was accomplished by shutting down one or more chambers, and was generally not done in flight except for sequential ignition), which is supposed to push this monster past the speed of sound.  It's cranky on take off, because with full rocket tanks it's too heavy to fly well; liftoff, with the "help" of bumps in the runway, is around 60 m/s (if the runway were smooth, it'd be more like 75 m/s).  With the jet pods at full throttle, it can fly at around 240 m/s in level flight.

Unfortunately, with a large enough wing to make a ground takeoff possible without burning most of the rocket fuel just to get off the ground, there's too much drag to reach the speed of sound.  Top speed in level flight appears to be around 320 m/s with both jets and rocket operating, about the same after dumping the jets.  Worse, the CoM shifts aft a tiny bit when the rocket tanks are near empty, rendering the machine almost unstable in pitch (very, VERY touchy to fly).  I doubt there will be further attempts to fly this craft.

While Val (and Jeb, now pictured) were trying to tame this beast, the build crew in the VAB were hard at work.  The result of their efforts was Baba Yaga.  Named for a Russian witch of myth, partly because the RD-103 engines were a Russian design, and partly because they're unreliable enough that it took six launches to get a flight in which all the RD-103s ignited on cue.

The rocket is long and slender because the tanks were sized for the 1.65 m diameters of the A-4 Guidance Units -- three in the booster core, another in the second stage -- which were the most convenient way to have control through most of the flight (there's a brief control lock after second stage ignition, but either SAS or Smart A.S.S. can still hold, I just can't make profile changes during that time).  Notice the available dV?  Yep, this 4 1/2 stage craft can make orbit on Ethanol 90, if everything goes right.

The sharp-eyed might note that the dV readout shows the craft will actually lose velocity briefly after the boosters stage away -- it's not as bad as it looks.  TWR for the core is about .98 (due to core fuel burn) by the time first staging takes place, and the vessel is close to 15 km high and angled well over by that time (and horizontal velocity continues to build) -- and TWR quickly rises above 1 as more fuel burns away.    Flight profile is more or less a traditional gravity turn, near vertical for the first several kilometers to get out of the soup, turnover enhanced by the low-TWR period.  No photos of the second stage burn, sorry.

With two AJ10-27 upper stages, there's roughly 3000 m/s on tap after second stage burnout.  That allows even a manual flier enough to get an orbit (if I'd been watching apogee a little closer, I might have shut down the final stage a little early, but hey, I wasn't being paid for low eccentricity -- that'll come later).

The 26 units of HTP in the final stage, with a pair of ullage thrusters, was plenty to raise perigee out of the atmosphere (this shot is about halfway through that burn).

Final orbit: 1090 x 156 km, subject to variation due to perturbations.  Unfortunately, the battery ran down after less than one full orbit (this is no Sputnik or Vanguard, with batteries for days or weeks -- that avionics core is pretty power-hungry).  Bear in mind, though, that this was done with essentially 1955 technology -- LOX/Ethanol booster, surface-optimized engine in the second stage, and sounding rocket motors for the upper stages.

[Zaphod12]

Since it's the 49th anniversary of Neil Armstrong taking a small step for man and a giant leap for mankind, we I decided to fly a Soviet-style Mun mission, using the Tantares parts pack. (Weird i know)

We I sent Jeb and Val on the most Kerbal rocket to have ever existed in real-life, the N1 and landed Jeb on the Mun to raise the flag of the Motherland Soviet Union.

 

From now on, it will be our Mun.