What did you do in KSP1 today?

[capi3101]

Yesterday was a reasonably busy day. First thing that happened was the arrival of space station Minmusport over its namesake minty moon. Once it was in orbit, Necessary Evil docked with the station, after which tourists Joner and Natafield made an excursion to the surface at the Deepwater Horizon refinery. I had forgotten that the stock Spamcan 7 2-passenger RCS lander, which the two used to make their excursion, didn't have a KAS connector port natively and unfortunately refinery engineer Julfry Kerman didn't have a KAS screwdriver handy to add one and conduct a refuel mission, so the lander merely returned to the station. Scientist Ludson Kerman and engineer Naford Kerman, who were also riding aboard Necessary Evil, went down to Minmus next, conducting flag-planting training before they too successfully returned to Minmusport. While they were down there, the Old Bessie 7 tanker lander that had been orbiting Minmus awaiting the arrival of Minmusport docked to the station, and Necessary Evil was refueled for her return trip to Kerbin. With all planned excursions complete and the crew transferred back, Necessary Evil undocked and burned to return to Kerbin; she'll hit Kerbin periapsis in twelve days - not exactly the best-planned return burn there...

I got a contract to send tourist Ribbles Kerman on a Munar flyby; this gave me seven Kerbal tourists wanting to go to Mun and one Munar rescue mission to do, so plans were drawn up for a flight out that way. An Auk XIII single-passenger spaceplane flew Ribbles up to space station Kerbinport and successfully docked. Ribbles along with tourists Barvin, Franler, Gercal, Phoebe, Geofdrin and Philsy Kerman, all of whom were already at the station, boarded Strange Cargo with Jeb at the helm. Strange Cargo then departed the station and burned for Mun, arriving a little over four hours later. Strange Cargo is still heading for Munar periapsis as of this post; she should arrive at space station Munport later today.

Today so far has been quite profitable. I started with the flight of an Auk VI ore hauling spaceplane to LKO to deliver 1950 ore to Kerbin's orbit, with a side mission to deliver 1500 of that ore to Kerbinport.

I don't get the Auk VI out of the barn very often, on account of the fact that it's easier to fulfill ore contracts with Con Job 7 craft. She was designed to haul ore from orbit, not to orbit...and yet she's done the job successfully twice now since I designed her.

The Auk VI arrived at Kerbinport with only about 50 m/s of fuel remaining after rendezvous burn, but did affect a successful docking and ore transfer to the station. Just putting the ore into orbit netted me around √450k, and then a subsequent replacement contract to deliver ore from Mun to Kerbin's surface was completed using the refinery Piper Alpha on Mun and a Con Job 7 craft on the Runway, netting me another √600k on top of that. Not exactly in the spirit of those contracts, but it does work. I still need to land the plane (as well as Ribbles' Auk XIII); maybe that will happen later today.

Got an offer to put a new surface outpost on Mun. I'm thinking it's been a while since I visited the Armstrong Memorial - like v. 0.24 or so, when I established a rover parking lot - so I'm seriously considering it.

 

 

[Tyko]

In retrospect, the pilots all agreed they should have tried to look less chipper when they landed...

After several months of on orbit testing the crews were in love with their new capsule. It was roomy - you could actually stand up and spread your arms almost all the way - and there were plenty of snacks to go around. There was even a separate orbital compartment with a hatch between them so one crew member could pass gas without asphyxiating the other. It was fantastic. The engineers had a nickname for it though...they called it "The Kedillac"

Here are two Kedillacs docked nose to nose in an early rendezvous test

 

The first lunar orbit mission was coming up and the Kedillac, loaded with enough fuel to make it to Iota, was WAY over the weight limit. So the engineers got together and lopped off the extra orbital module. "Who needs to stand up and stretch?" an engineer asked. "It's only a 6 day trip. Bob over there has lived in a Prius in the KSC parking lot for longer than that. They'll be fine"

Enter the "Krius" with "optimized" living space - I've gotta admit, this might be the cutest lunar capable craft I've ever designed. Thanks @Beale for the amazing capsule - even if I did scale it up to 1.875m :)

(it's tough playing at 2.5x scale and 20% science...nothing is easy)

 

Add a Translunar Injection stage (shown below) and the entire vehicle weighs under 8.5 tons vs about 11 tons for a lunar capable Kedillac. The engineers shelved the Kedillac and will probably dust it off when the longer 15 day Ceti missions commence. 

 

Edited October 9, 2018 by Tyko

[Fearless Son]

16 hours ago, Mjarf said:

Your suggestions definitely helped. I did a major re-design and the latest prototype is actually partially self-stabilizing, so definitely more stable now. It can get into 100ish km orbit and re-enter the atmosphere with enough fuel to spare to fly back if I over shoot KSC. The basic fins I used for stabilizing went poof during re-entry so I definitely needed more heat resistant parts, I also ditched the aero brakes.

[...]

I wasn't able to land on the runway, but the grass field next to it is more even anyway:

Congrats!  You have managed to make a functional spaceplane! 

I find the Whiplash/Dart combo on a delta-shaped air frame is pretty effective myself, but it requires a different ascent profile than a R.A.I.P.I.E.R.-based spaceplane.  It favors a more aggressive climb, close to forty-five degrees from the surface, followed by a long slow burn from it's space engines that cuts out just as it reaches it apoapsis.  Some players poo-poo it for being less strictly efficient than a R.A.I.P.I.E.R.-driven model, but honestly I find it is easier to reliably get to orbit and it does it much quicker than the shallow ascent, and if I am going to actually be running missions with a spaceplane I will take quick-and-reliable over elegant-but-too-fussy.

[Cavscout74]

Today I mostly got a few more ships launched for the approaching Jool window - and got my career first manned Jool mission going a few days early.  My main accomplishment today was my Laythe Explorer drone arrived & landed on Laythe.  It's basically a cruise missile with landing gear & without a warhead.  Everything went off without a hitch - I even managed to accidentally land on the same island I usually build my bases on.   Now if only I had actually remembered to mount the ore scanner.  This was supposed to be an advanced scout to find a high ore concentration and pinpoint a base landing zone. 

Approaching Laythe, still attached to the transfer stage.

Atmospheric entry - the Explorer handled it steady as a rock

Cruising to a suitable island, and collecting atmospheric science along the way.

Approach to landing.  The area is a little hilly, but the Explorer can get fairly slow for landing, so not a big problem.

No resource info, but at least it has a full set of science gear (including goo, atmospheric analysis & materials study) thanks to Universal Storage 1 & 2.  And it's LF tanks were barely touched, so it should be able to reach a few more biomes once it finds a good LZ for the ground base.

[Raptor42]

I considered starting Mission report thread about my career, I have plenty of missions to write about, but the writing takes so much time. My mission today was to deliver first part of my space station to orbit and so I took tourism contract for Gaia orbit as well. I really hate that writing about it took at least 2 times longer than the actual mission, and I'm only half way through. I hope that I can publish it tomorrow, it is also my first experience in that area (and definitely not last... maybe)

[Magzimum]

Duna Orbital Station got a bunch of visitors. Career game, and I have 7 missions on and around Duna. All stock, and tech-tree nearly complete.

[FinalFan]

On 10/8/2018 at 8:46 AM, Aeroboi said:

I made a asymmetrical/lateral asparagus staged rocket using a self invented stage activated mechanical pivoting system for thrust re-alignment to gain Dv for a eve ascent rocket.
More importantly, I found out how to do this while keeping all the contents of the mechanism faired. The system itself only weighs 250kg so is especially ideal for airless world where the fairing isn't required like Tylo for instance.
In testing each booster stage can reach well over 2000m/s above sea level under its own thrust and is as aerodynamic as a typical one stack with nosecone and engine at the rear.

It's simple but complicated  and 100% stock. This is how it looks like and I'm still quite some distance away from incorporating it in a finalized vessel. But I'm getting there.

1: Ready for lift off

\\

2: Vehicle lifts off with the engines in their default position.

3: A explosive bolt trigger via the staging system frees the mechanism and angles the engines.

4: Of course in a actual design I will stage pivot one by one opposite of the dropped fuel tank rather then activating them all at once, otherwise the cosine losses make up for nothing I'd gained in Dv. The angled thrust will actually help me in the proper roll position during a actual ascent as it can contribute to radial Delta-V while staying on prograde.
The next picture is just for show  

5: The reason the engines are angled is because they are on a decoupler spring which has fuel feed on so it can still drain fuel from the tanks.
Because the mechanism is decoupled the engine thrust angled them at a certain angle. The angle is tweaked by adding to the spring or moving the springs position.

6: Getting the parts insid the fairing properly aligned is the greatest challenge. If they clip to far in the top fairing nasty things can happen. Luckily I figured out how the bugs are caused and Kraken type things seen on the picture below are completely avoidable.

It took me a week of continuous testing with many failures to make it work "properly"
But the result is here  

That's a really tascinating solution.  I confess I'm not 100% sold on the utility but I hope to see more.  Like, what's under the fairing exactly 

[CatastrophicFailure]

6 minutes ago, FinalFan said:

That's a really tascinating solution.  I confess I'm not 100% sold on the utility but I hope to see more.  Like, what's under the fairing exactly 

IIRC, the Saturn V did something like this with engine gimbal, tho that was in case an engine failed. 

Im still not entirely sure what @Aeroboi is trying to do, here, but I hope to see moar too!

[Triop]

Today I've rebooted the Kurburgring

 

[Jacke]

38 minutes ago, Triop said:

Today I've rebooted the Kurburgring

That arch colour scheme.  If I was driving, I'd have to really think "Next is the white arch, not the yellow one."  That one moment out at the Tracking Station when you were headed towards the VAB and there were two arches in sight, one white, one yellow, I really thought for a moment "Go for the yellow arch!"

[Triop]

4 minutes ago, Jacke said:

That arch colour scheme.  If I was driving, I'd have to really think "Next is the white arch, not the yellow one."  That one moment out at the Tracking Station when you were headed towards the VAB and there were two arches in sight, one white, one yellow, I really thought for a moment "Go for the yellow arch!"

This must be you.

[Zosma Procyon]

Today I'm abandoning three long depleted science bases on Eeloo, one of which has been there for 47 in game years. Once the scientists are transferred to the return craft in orbit, I'm going to deorbit and crash them into Eeloo and leave the debris. I landed a mobile base to take over exploration yesterday.

[Aeroboi]

8 hours ago, FinalFan said:

That's a really tascinating solution.  I confess I'm not 100% sold on the utility but I hope to see more.  Like, what's under the fairing exactly 

A spring, decoupler, strut and a fuel line. I made a newer version of the mechanism. It's 3-4 parts per mechanism in each booster or 7-8 if you want it aerodynamically faired. Unfaired it weighs only 0.1 Ton, faired it weighs 0.5 Ton or thereabout (depends on fairing shape) Currently I made one for 1.875m parts. I'm still doing some tests and then open a thread about it soon.

7 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

IIRC, the Saturn V did something like this with engine gimbal, tho that was in case an engine failed. 

Im still not entirely sure what @Aeroboi is trying to do, here, but I hope to see moar too!

While the Saturn V is a good example a better one is the spaceshuttle SSME. It's thrust was angled to compensate for the CoM that was inside the external tank. In KSP that would mean a shallower gravity turn while staying on prograde.

So that is one thing that this does. The other thing for which I made it is asymmetrical asparagus staging to gain Dv and a better TWR spread to be benefited from on worlds such as Eve. That means dropping one booster on one side and then the next instead of a whole pair at once. The angled thrust can then be used radially to push the vessel upwards so the thrust angling doesn't count towards cosine losses.

Edited October 10, 2018 by Aeroboi

[purpleivan]

It started with a racing rover, an electric racing rover.

Then I thought what about adding a jet engine for some extra power, how bad could it be?

That rover escaped from its pilot after a crash and proceded to go all kinds of crazy careening around the KSC.

With that experience in hand I thought, what happens when you let 12 rovers with bigger jets engines loose in the KSC... lets watch!

 

[Klapaucius]

44 minutes ago, purpleivan said:

It started with a racing rover, an electric racing rover.

Then I thought what about adding a jet engine for some extra power, how bad could it be?

That rover escaped from its pilot after a crash and proceded to go all kinds of crazy careening around the KSC.

With that experience in hand I thought, what happens when you let 12 rovers with bigger jets engines loose in the KSC... lets watch!

 

That deserves some kind of medal or special mention or something. Unbelievable!  

Did you expect that level of destruction or were you caught off guard?

[THEdragon]

Today I actually went ahead and bought the game. (The last few days I'd just been playing the demo). I'm about to play it for the first time now.

[Dafni]

1 hour ago, THEdragon said:

Today I actually went ahead and bought the game. (The last few days I'd just been playing the demo). I'm about to play it for the first time now.

Nice! Congrats! I hope you'll have many many nice KSP moments.

For me it was one of the best purchases I ever did.

Welcome to the club!

[Hotel26]

Speaking once more about mission creep: upgrading my Pegasus to carry moar fuel was so successful...  ahm, so OK, here is Pegasus 3.  Moar fuel!!

What I realized is that Pegasus could carry so much fuel it could be used to set up a pop-up airport.  And the moar fuel onboard, the less often it has to fly out (to the nearest hub) to restock.  No more fracking! 

[Click the first for a slide show and then hit right arrow to slide...]

It performs well [no numbers yet] with a full load of LF and no OX and serviceably well albeit slowly (~240 m/s) with a full load of both LF and OX, but I plan to fly it out to the destination with a light load to get there quickly and easily, first landing at the nearest hub to fill up, then making the last leg bringing in the first full load.

I put a shielded docking port in the nose so that one Pegasus 3 can top up another on the ground at the destination.

LF: 7,185 kallons
OX: 7,315 kallons
MP: 1,100 kallons

First unit off the line is destined to Mawson Station in the Antarktik.

 

Edited October 10, 2018 by Hotel26

[Delay]

16 minutes ago, Hotel26 said:

slowly (~240 m/s)

How KSP distorts the perception of speed.

[capi3101]

Reasonably full docket of events yesterday. After returning the Auk VI ore hauling spaceplane to KSC safely yesterday, Necessary Evil left Minmus's SOI and began her twelve day journey back to Kerbin.

At least, I'm reasonably sure this is Necessary Evil - she looks just like her sister ships Strange Cargo and Next Objective...no wait, Evil's got the antennas...so yeah, this is her, and she's definitely leaving Minmus in this screenie.

Meanwhile, Strange Cargo arrived in low Munar orbit, docking with space station Munport successfully. Tourists Barvin, Phoebe, Geofdrin and Philsy Kerman made their way to the Piper Alpha refinery aboard the station's Spamcan 7a lander for contract, and after refinery engineer Philmal Kerman refueled the lander, the four made their way back to Munport successfully. After transferring her passengers back and refueling, the Spamcan then conducted a rescue mission over Mun, retreiving pilot Tridrin Kerman.

I keep telling you guys - the signs in your lander cans say "No Smoking" for a reason...

Once the Spamcan returned with Tridrin to Munport, both it and Strange Cargo were refueled, Tridrin boarded Strange Cargo and then Strange Cargo departed for Kerbin. At the time I finished playing this morning, she was about thirty minutes from her scheduled aerobraking maneuver into LKO.

Yesterday also saw a full refueling operation at Minmus, with both space station Minmusport and the refinery Deepwater Horizon charged to full, awaiting the next expedition. I also landed an Auk XIII single-passenger spaceplane safely at KSC 09. This morning I launched a Heartbreak Hotel 7 outpost craft on a mission to establish a Munar outpost at the Armstrong Memorial - I plan to dub the craft the Michael Collins Convention Center upon landing. I also returned the Old Bessie 7 tanker lander at Mun from Piper Alpha to Munport, affecting a refueling of the station.

I also fiddled around with this stupid thing in my litterbox: 

Jeb: "I'm gonna need a bigger boat". Me: "How'd that work out for Roy Scheider? Three seasons and they kept on blowing the damn boat up until he got replaced." Jeb: "Whut?!?!". Me: "Never mind..."

I've been getting this design ready for the AIRS challenge. The craft did make it intact to the island runway; I'm rapidly determining that the real challenge is getting up and down those hills, though...

Edited October 10, 2018 by capi3101
got rabbits.

[RealKerbal3x]

I played around with Falcon 9s for a bit:

Then Jeb watched his own plane crash.

(Thanks to my top-notch art skills, the plane isn't quite in the centre of the blue circle, rather a bit to the left).

[Lisias]

I gave some love to Impossible Innovations, and while testing the Ionized Wings, I leaved the computer unattended for some time.

What could possible go wrong? 

Will poor Stelard be able to come home someday?

Well… I think some rebalancing is on the order.

Edited October 10, 2018 by Lisias
My God! It's full of typos...

[Cavscout74]

47 minutes ago, RealKerbal3x said:

Then Jeb watched his own plane crash.

Been there, done that.  On the bright side, at least you are watching it crash, not participating in the crash

Today, I mostly launched a fleet to Jool.  The crew cycler departed yesterday, but everything else that was going - 2 tankers, Vall lander, improved com relay, Laythe floating base, a crew boat & a mining boat (to keep the floating base supplied with ore for the snack converter), and 2 Pumera spaceplanes.  Oh and an improved relay & lander for Eeloo went out too.  The little time I had left was  a quick training mission to Mun for some new recruits, then a test run in sandbox of a completely pointless (in stock scale) Apollo-Saturn V analogue.

Laythe floating base heading off to Jool

"Sarnus V" dawn launch.  Yes, I know, its missing an entire stage, but there was no need for it in stock scale.  The first stage got me up to 175 km Ap, the second stage was just used to circularize & transfer

Docking with the LM

 CSM-LM separation.    After entering Mun orbit, I reverted this for some design fixes, and didn't have time to try again.

[Castille7]

There are many great craft builders on KSP and I often find craft that motivates me to create a video using them. Many thanks to LABenterprises for allowing me to make this video with his impressive Super Sports Car L.A.B. 37 GT. You can find many of his cars like this one on Kerbalx. ***Notice: The car was modified for this video*** 

 

Edited October 10, 2018 by Castille7

[Adstri]

Woo!