What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Cavscout74]

Yesterday, I built, & tested a working robot arm.  I fitted it with a mini grabber (scaled down claw from Wildblue MOLE or DSEV mod) along with a decoupler & self-destruct charge and sent it to remove my obsolete Mun outpost.   Using the arm was completely pointless other than an operational test of the system.  Chief engineer Kelrik also enjoyed himself immensely while operating it.   He also took the time to clean up the surface experiments around the base since they were also past the limits of their usefulness.

Robot arm testing at KSC:

And in Mun orbit:

Landed at the Mun outpost (at night of course - I had to brighten the image quite a bit to see anything)

This morning, I realized I had enough science to unlock gravioli detectors.  Which was great but slightly annoying - I have multiple probes in orbit waiting for the upcoming Jool transfer window that.   So Kelrik got another mission - go into LKO with a wrench and half a dozen grav detectors, rendezvous with every Jool probe, along with a Moho lander that I accidentally forgot about in LKO, and bolt the detectors on.  As a secondary mission, he had to gather gravioli readings throughout LKO as well.  Due to the multiple rendezvous's at multiple different inclinations (due a mix of Dessert & KSC launches), I opted for a small NERV, although I ended up wasting most of the fuel.

Jool Voyager complete:

In work on the Laythe floating lander - capable of either ground or water landings

Val lander & relay combination got a pair of detectors - one for the relay that will stay in orbit, the other for the small lander

 

20 hours ago, Geonovast said:

Today I finally got a properly working, oriented, and textured (it's not great, but there are textures!) part made and into KSP!  I have a good amount of tweaking on the model, textures, and cfg yet, but I now have an all-in-one under capsule abort system

Nice work, looking forward to seeing that get released!

[Fraktal]

Began assembly of the Kerbin Gateway Station at the boundary between Kerbin's low space and high space. Core, power module and antenna module have been launched and docked together.I repurposed my JA-4 light-duty munar launcher (2 Thumpers and 2 Reliants around a single-Swivel core) for this but it turned out to be overkill, so subsequent launches used a standard JA-3 launcher (2 Thumpers and 1 Reliant). Core was the hardest due to its size (a six-axis cross of Structural Fuselages with an OKTO clipped into the center) making it both highly un-aerodynamic and too large to fit into a fairing (though it was still fairly light, hence I didn't have to use my JA-5 heavy-duty munar launcher). After several failed tries resulting in the rocket flipping over from front-heavy drag, I finally managed to get it up by flying directly upwards until 30+ km altitude and then starting the gravity turn up to 250 km. Subsequent modules launched up to 120 km as standard for all my launches, then rendezvoused with the station core at 250 km.

Power module is plugged into the ventral docking port, antenna module into the dorsal port. Fore is planned to be a crew module (Hitchhiker Storage Module with flat adapters on both sides), aft will be the maneuver module (four Ants, fuel and a medium reaction wheel), port will be a science lab once I unlock it, starboard will be a second core module for docking ships. Long-term objective is a full overhaul and upgrade to medium-sized docking ports and eventually a dedicated universal docking module with 1 large, 2 medium and 2 small ports in a five-axis arrangement (sixth axis is the attachment to the station). I'm currently undecided over whether to have a dedicated module for escape pods (that is, a Mk1 pod with monoprop thrusters for a deorbit) or have the crew module detachable and heatshielded for that purpose.

[stargazer424]

Been planning out my Duna colony.  Using Kerbal Planetary Base Systems, TAC-LS, Simple Construction (Extraplanetary Launchpads).

 

[katateochi]

When your Falcon-9 style ascent stage runs out of fuel in orbit but you told the marketing division that is was absolutely 100% recoverable.
#RocketRoofRack

Landed (somewhat surprisingly) safely. The CT-Heavy was already in orbit after delivering a payload, but the rocket stage wouldn't fit in the hold, so....why not just strap it to the roof (with KAS linkages). Main problem was trying to stay lined up while attaching the links on EVA. Couldn't get it perfect so the rocket was slightly over to one side which made staying level during approach a little tricky.
I find it an odd querk with aircraft; it can take ages to get the design of a plane just right, little tweaks here and there to get the CoM and CoL set right, but then in the end; hey, why not just slap a shuttle on the roof or precariously attach an unbalanced and totally un-aerodynamic rocket stage, and somehow it just works.

[Jeb-head-mug kerman]

14 hours ago, The Doodling Astronaut said:

Good Job I know how hard a first trip can be!

I try a new concept of crew

I'm going to land both crew but the orbiter will stay in orbit!

Thanks, The Doodling Astronaut!

[Guest]

I fulfilled some contracts in the Dunatian system: installed a Go-Ob station on the surface, and an ion collector on Ike. It turns out Daedalus is perfectly competent at operating on airless bodies as well, except of course it's not quite as efficient as it would be without the wings. Not an issue however because of the local fuel production. 

I also started planning the next steps of the BAK space program. However, BAK is going on hiatus for July as I'll be traveling without my kerbal-puter, so don't be surprised if I fade away for a while. Thanks a big bunch to @SQUAD for Breaking Ground -- it made me fall in love with KSP all over again; I haven't had this much fun with it since Kosmodrome Laythe.

[Lisias]

After some weeks of intense Real Life work, I finally have some sparing time again. Not much, but enough to retake some researches for some autonomous "weapons" and war birds.

(SXT and TweakScale were used on this craft)

More pictures clicking on the image.

I'm trying to get a nice "historical revisiting" on the airplane that launches this thing, but this is something for the next weekend.

[BadOaks]

Landed on the Mun today with a small 2-stage lander. 

[capi3101]

(1.6.1) Weekend was spent doing a lot of flying - and I do mean a lot of flying - on Eve.

With a contract to perform a two point pressure survey 1,160 kilometers southeast of the Alexander L. Kielland outpost on the surface, I had spent a very small amount of time sending the Echo 3 quadcopter that direction on Friday. Saturday the in-game and RL calendars were clear enough, though, so I went ahead and sent the quadcopter the rest of the way out there.

On Eve, if you're subsonic but stable enough, physics warp can be your friend. It still took me twenty minutes real-time to get out there, not counting the time needed for safe ascent and descent.

Echo 3 completed the contract successfully. I wasn't keen on flying back straight away, so I moved on to some other things.

With nothing left to accomplish in the area and two contracts riding on her return to Kerbin, I went ahead and sent LSV House Corrino from Eve back to Kerbin after sending some fuel supplies to space station Eveport via mass driver first. Kerbin was 180 degrees opposite Eve in their respective orbits, a fact I came to realize when I got to 1.3 GM over Kerbol's surface and saw that Kerbin's target marker was still well below the horizon. Since I was close enough to do so, I decided to take the opportunity to refuel Corrino's exotic matter tanks (not that they were particularly empty just yet). I also saw that the target relative velocity for Kerbin - which would correspond to my orbital velocity when I arrived there, was over 20 kps, so I decided to kill off as much of that velocity as I could over Kerbol; I warped into a position where I'd lose speed yet be far enough over the star that I could warp away in an emergency situation. The slow warp process got me down to about 3.8 kps before I started picking up speed again, at which point Corrino warped to Kerbin, ultimately settling into a 798x353.7 kilometer, 2.94° orbit. The process took a lot longer than warpbacks - nearly eight hours all told. In the interim, I got news from ALK that the new Echo Flyer 7b quadcopter was ready for launch.

Had a mishap with that launch, though...

Uh...there's supposed to be a Hitchhiker underneath that 'copter. Pretty sure those Mineshaft tubes are supposed to be attached, too...

Upon release, the game counted a collision between the passenger module slung underneath the craft and the launch pad, claiming the passenger module. Since I couldn't use a passenger ferry good for just one kerbal at a time, I reluctantly recycled the craft and did a quick redesign, which I'm reasonably happy about.

For another four tonnes, I've increased the craft's passenger capacity from five to nine, and given it more ground clearance in the process.

A redesigned Echo Flyer was ordered up at ALK; Gilford should have the new copter ready in 13.5 hours. Going to be a longer wait for my tourists stuck out in the Beer Can, I'm afraid. Somebody should go check to see if their toilets are full by now...

With House Corrino back in Kerbin's orbit, the two payloads it was carrying - a Bill Clinton 7c grabber probe hauling engineer Mathat's Craft and a G-LOC 7a return-to-Kerbin craft printed up at the Ocean Ranger outpost on Gilly - were both cut loose and both made their way to safe landings within twenty kilometers of the space center, fulfilling their respective contracts. The G-LOC's return in particular fulfilled the latest exploration contract, and the new contract as hoped opened up a new planet - Jool. Would've thought Moho would be next on the itinerary, but I won't knock it. Also unlocked a surface rescue mission for Eve to pick up engineer Luddorf Kerman.

Ah, he ain't that far away, right? (Marker on the right is ALK...).

I decided to go pick up Luddorf using Echo 3, since it didn't look like he was too terribly far away from the 'copter's position...just a mere 1,160 kilometers...at night......

You know, from twenty kilometers up, Eve's a pretty dull-looking world, especially through night vision cam. It'd probably be more exciting down by the surface.

Echo 3 did affect a successful pickup before the close of business yesterday. At this point, the plan is to haul Luddorf back to ALK so he can take up the sixth seat on the upcoming Beer Can 7 Eve ascent craft launch.

So, what's the distance to ALK from h......aw, crap.

That does mean yet another long flight on Eve. At least I'm getting my money's worth out of Echo 3 (and in the process verifying the veracity of NASA's idea to send a nuclear-powered quadcopter to go survey Titan). Echo 3's return flight to ALK won't probably take place for a little while, though.

Earlier this morning, I decided to give the honor of "first kerbal to visit Jool" to engineer Jergar Kerman aboard LSV House Atreides. After receiving a full suite of supplies from the South Base outpost near KSC via mass driver, Atreides set course for the green planet and engaged her Alcubierre Drive.

What's that brown thing between Duna and Jool, anyways? I don't think I've ever heard of anything actually being there, at least nothing trustworthy...

This may just be my opinion, Jergar, but I think you could've parked the ship a little bit closer...

Atreides fulfilled the flyby contract, unlocking a go-for-orbit contract as well as sci and an orbital EVA. Atreides maneuvered to slow to orbital velocity (she was a hair fast coming in but only needed one warp-back), settling into a 7,584.6x6,159.3 kilometer, 1.23° orbit over Jool. Jergar performed the required EVA and transmitted a crew report back to KSC for contract. At the present time, Atreides is out of contact with the space center, having gone around the far side of the planet and with no communications satellite network yet in place (obviously). Next contract is to send a craft on atmospheric flight at Jool. I'm making my calculations for the delta-V needed to skim the atmosphere as loosely as possible and then return to Atreides; assuming one has enough delta-V, Jergar is going to be printing up a G-LOC to perform the job. There's no way that there won't be a "return a craft to Kerbin from Jool" exploration contract as some point...

Next session I'm going to begin by checking at Ocean Ranger - the print of the Caue Serpente Yards should be complete by now. I've also got a group of five colonists that are headed towards the Scan Queen outpost on Ike, giving me seven tourists wanting to head up and warranting a spaceplane flight to space station Kerbinport from KSC; I might be doing that later today. I do need to get a probe under construction at Kerbin for a contract and I'm also still considering sending LSV House Harkonnen to Eve to act as a (hopefully temporary) fuel carrier between Eve and Gilly. Harkonnen's currently unmanned and not doing much of anything else these days. Jergar's probably also going to be kept busy for the foreseeable future as well.

[Guest]

A last hurrah from Brikoleur Aerospace Kombine before we go on summer hiatus: the BAK-9801 Cherub and BAK-9802 Gaudium non-reusable Eve lifters. The former has a fairly decent payload capacity and could certainly be adapted to return three-kerbal pilot-engineer-scientist crew to orbit. The latter is one of the lightest Eve sea level to orbit lifter that I am aware of, with a take-off mass of < 8 tons including one kerbal. 

BAK-9801 Cherub separating from the rotor stage.

BAK-9802 Gaudium preparing for take-off.

Wheeeeee!

More here:

Edited: I looked some stuff up and now I am aware of a lighter Eve lifter, weighing in at < 6 tons on take-off. It uses pre-Breaking Ground stock propellers. Still, this is pretty close!

Edit 2: I had to see if I could match the < 6 ton take-off mass, and I could! The BAK-6802UL weighs in at 5695 kg on take-off, including a kerbal. She's not as easy to operate however; the rotors are a good deal flimsier and she needs more finesse on take-off and in the early part of the climb. It also turned out that the launcher stage on the BAK-6802  is somewhat overengineered and she will make orbit easily with only two Cubs, rather than three.

 

Edited July 1, 2019 by Guest

[Guest]

Expedition Eeloo Update!

"NEW CONCEPT FOR SPACE EXPLORATION"

       We here at MAAR want to get the best science possible and our crew home from deep space exploration missions, and close space explorations. The Mid system is an easy place for a single launch base and return but bringing all the material on one launch for deep space is costly so why not have the material there for when you arrive? This is the the outerbase concept will try! Expedition Bop and Pol and Expedition Vall will not be having crew on board the orbiter with the new probe core on the return spacecraft. But Expedition Laythe and Tylo will try a new concept: A base already there for crew to use! This will be tested soon on the mun.

I'm flying the Expedition Bop and Pol mission tomorrow and hope to complete it by Wednesday

[Cavscout74]

I conducted my largest launch so far in this career, a mining base heading for Minmus to replace the outpost that has been there.  Val (the bigwigs still aren't letting Jeb land on Minmus as punishment), Kelrik & Ambera also headed out to bring the new station into operation.  In the meantime, crew #5 at the old Minmus Flats outpost have been busy picking up the surface experiments & transferring spare gear to their lander.  The new base is just a short hop to the east, so they will be able to make a few trips without burning a bunch of fuel.  Once another launch site was available, a new rover was launched as well - the small utility rover in use at the old base is not up to long surface trips on Minmus - mostly because I don't have the patience for it.  I had already pinpointed a nice 10% ore concentration near the equator & left the ore hopper drone in place to mark the location

Launching the base from the Dessert launch site:

Setting up operations:

Spoiler

Safely landed near the ore hopper drone.  I fitted the base with a robotic searchlight, but forgot to map the robotics to any axis groups.  I can control the individual parts but not with

Automated operations commencing while waiting on the first crew to arrive.  In addition to 2 large drills and a convert-o-tron 250, it also boasts a full lab, long term living quarters for 4 and snacks for several months.  Primary power is solar with a backup fuel cell array for night operations and an emergency RTG to ensure it can be restarted in the event of a total power loss.  It even sports a balcony for the control room so whoever is running the operation can get out and stretch before having to climb down.

Both the new crew landed as well as the old outpost lander nearby, bringing equipment over for use at the new site. 

Setting up a new surface experiment array with a new view of home just above the western horizon

Coming in to land with another load of equipment from the old outpost.  I have to set down close so the fueling hose can reach.  I may have to design an extending robot arm with a KAS hose reel on the end to add on so future landings won't have to be quite so close.

A few days later, the Buffalo-Minmus rover landed and once Kelrik repaired the two wheels that spontaneously exploded when the fairing was jettisoned after launch, it is ready for some exploration.

 

Edited July 1, 2019 by Cavscout74

[NHunter]

Today, I visited Polta:

[purpleivan]

Bob and Val took a couple of tourists out from Woomerang to the DSN station on Nye Island.

Val parked the Flaming Flamingo at one end of the island, letting loose Bob and a paying passenger to drive to the other end.

Some fun was had on the way.

Then after arriving at the station Bob had his hands full keeping his nosey passenger out of those "danger - no admittance" areas.

[cantab]

Suffered the consequences of my folly.

2 minutes of thrusting giving less than 100 m/s of delta-V, then timewarp to recharge the batteries off the paltry 3 RTGs. Repeat more times than I have any interest in counting.

And I've not even used a third of the xenon in this torture device.

[Cavscout74]

I experimented with a modified mining base with a fuel arm.  I thought about making a more complicated one with multiple hinges & pistons, but even this simple one gets me around 10m extra standoff between the base & a craft needing fuel.  I also redesigned the area between the crew areas - they now all exit onto a walkway, with a single ladder to the surface and another ladder up to the control room.  Even with the robot arm, part count dropped by 10 or so due to other design changes.

Now I have to decide if I want to keep the base as-is on Minmus or waste the funds, demolish the old one & launch a new one to replace it (at ~350k funds).   Ehh, who am I kidding.  I already know what I'm going to do - I can always get more funds.  Kelrik bravely stood out in the open to act as a target to pinpoint the landing, and happily, I managed not to fry him with the landing engines.

Edited July 2, 2019 by Cavscout74

[Mikenike]

I made a base, just 2 kms from KSC, and practiced docking.

[FahmiRBLX]

6 hours ago, purpleivan said:

 

I was wondering what do you use for the Loading Screen Image-stunning screenshots.

[Guest]

I was offline for most of the time and Docked with First crew to the Mansky station

CEO Kerbin Kerman and two astronauts flew to the station

 

[Mukita12]

I just Armed my Bahamuto's FJ-105 Replica (what i mean by this is i made replica for Bahamuto's Replica on F-15J/FJ-105) 

AND I NAILED THE LANDING

what do you guys think?

[James Kerman]

Today I broke a kerbal by using his head as a jack to get more clearance for the large scanning arm.

 

[purpleivan]

2 hours ago, FahmiRBLXian said:

I was wondering what do you use for the Loading Screen Image-stunning screenshots.

The main thing that's unusual (lots of people use Scatterer after all) is KS3P, which adds a bunch of post processing effects, like depth of field, bloom and ambient occlusion.

 

[Mukita12]

Just now, James Kerman said:

Today I broke a kerbal by using his head as a jack to get more clearance for the large scanning arm.

 

What the heck did you just bring upon this cursed land?

 

[GearsNSuch]

3 hours ago, James Kerman said:

Today I broke a kerbal by using his head as a jack to get more clearance for the large scanning arm.

Hm. Apparently the jetpacks are operable even when the occupant is... out of commission. Remote control, perhaps? Or mind powers?

[SwissSpace93]

12 hours ago, cantab said:

Suffered the consequences of my folly.

2 minutes of thrusting giving less than 100 m/s of delta-V, then timewarp to recharge the batteries off the paltry 3 RTGs. Repeat more times than I have any interest in counting.

And I've not even used a third of the xenon in this torture device.

In arround 50 Kerbal years i need to do this with my Explorer-1 to get into Plock orbit.