What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Elidnas]

High speed testing of the Void Dancer spaceplane has gone successfully with stable ascents and "mostly" unstable re-entries (anyone piloting the Void Dancer through re-entry needs to be very quick on the controls as it can test a kerbal's reflex's and g-force tolerances.

 

Afterward, the three pilots took the plane up to the Cerberus mother-ship and docked to the big ship in readiness for the long journey.

 

The Cerberus, (along with the Void Dancer docked), needs to burn for Jool and enter into a low orbit around the green giant. There, the crew will, for the first time, attempt to use the worm-hole and travel further than any Kerbal has ever gone.

 

Mission Commander Siry with her 2 other pilots will keep the ship on course through the journey while the rest of the crew takes long naps in the cryo chambers once Kerbin escape if achieved.

 

The mission computer estimates a 3 year journey to Jool. 10 years of life support has been provisioned for, purifiers and recyclers have been switched on and everything seems to be working as it should.

 

Onward we go!!! 

[vossiewulf]

I have started working on giant rovers for a couple reasons. One is extending on previous large rovers I've built, going with the Jeb-standard design philosophy that if large is good, huge must be better. I've decided I'm going to try to make a large mining and construction base that is mobile for no reason other than it will be difficult and I like the idea of Barsoomian roving cities. The second reason is below.

These are previous Dreadnought-class rovers, the one on the Mun was performing a rigorous test of its suspension by accelerating to maximum speed (about 35m/s) and launching off the edge of a large crater. It took about a minute for it to land, and it maintained enough parts to repeat the process jumping back out of the crater. 

The one on Duna carries everything needed to build a new large Pathfinder/EL mining and construction base, and after helping out with resources at the first base, it headed out via Bon Voyage and established another base 150km or away. I found that properly built, these large rovers were if anything easier to drive, had tremendous internal stowage and being based on girders there was plenty of space to tack on all sorts of parts and KIS containers.

The truncated cone wheelbase layout is extremely stable, so the starting chassis maintains that layout. I took this out running around KSC and hit 75m/s and you can do a max-G turn at that speed and it doesn't even skid. So this will be a good starting point for the Mobile Base Alpha.

But then came the other problem that led to an idea crazy enough that it got an immediate two fingroids up from Jeb. I'm playing with USI/LS, and with all due respect to Roverdude and everyone else who have done very good work with it, I'm not happy conceptually how the home time works, I think there is better way to do it rather than basing in on homesickness, homesickness that can then be fixed in a med bay(?).

It makes more sense to me to think of home time as contract length. Kerbals sign contracts of various lengths, and you're responsible for bringing them home at the end and if you don't they quit working.

With that idea, Kerbals working in Kerbin orbit would have 1-2 year contracts, colonists would sign 10 year contracts, and everyone else in between. Not only does this make sense, but if spaced out properly it should result in me needing to establish a good crew rotation logistics system with crew rotation flights launching every couple months at least. And all of that makes sense to me as being close to what you'd really have when we reach the point of having stations and bases all over the solar system.

So according to USI/LS rules, home time is the greatest hab time experienced by a kerbal since they left home. I can't quite follow that either. But that means you have to put them on a vessel with habitation time that equals whatever duration you want for their contract, and they can't return home afterward or the home time just gets reset. I thought about putting up a "hab time" LKO station and we'd stop there on the way to Icarus Station where most missions will launch, but I wasn't enthusiastic about multiple orbital rendezvous. And even then it would be tricky to ensure everyone gets set to the same home time value.

What I needed, clearly, was a rover. A really big rover. A really big rover that could take a very big crew, set their contract time, and DOCK WITH A LARGE ROCKET ON THE LAUNCHPAD for crew transfer before launch. Like a massive version of the GMC campers from the Apollo program.

Meet the RK-I Hometimerizer. A rover with a capacity of 509 and a four-axis JeboTranslatroDockoTron.

Between the modularity of its hab sections and varying the number of crew, I should be able to one-stop configure groups of Kerbals to whatever contract time I need. Its current max config can set 75 kerbals to a two year contract.

Testing is proceeding as expected.

Although we've docked successfully and transferred crew, we had a small kraken problem associated with the rocket sitting on the pad that was cured by hanging the rocket from launch clamps. At least it seemed to be in a quick test, getting ready to try to run the mission and send the second set of 75 crew to Icarus Station. Worse comes to worse, it will definitely work with a smaller rover requiring more trips.

Once I get this working, next will be designing the Mun base on this chassis, and then figuring out how to build and land it from orbit. Yes I could build it on the ground but that wouldn't be nearly as entertaining.

Edited August 25, 2019 by vossiewulf

[qromodynmc]

I modified my f-16 a bit, extra tanks etc, this gon fly so long now.

[rudi1291]

Loosely inspired by this i´ve built an catapult launched electric airplane.

Launch works surprisingly well. Now to get it safely back down without landing gear...

Edited August 25, 2019 by rudi1291

[Guest]

16 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Apparently I was awarded the tech "Experimental Motors," although I had already finished the tech tree. Oddly enough, I couldn't find that tech in the tree...

It's an unused stock node with no parts in it, and I don't think any mods use it either. If you do populate it manually it will appear like any other node.

[Cavscout74]

My career first manned Moho mission arrived yesterday & commenced investigations of the north polar anomaly.  Several months in advance, a rover had been landed to scout out a suitable landing site as the terrain is quite hilly.  Happily, a relatively flat valley was found just a few kilometers from the Mohole.  Once all the pieces arrived & met up in polar orbit (station, lander & crew), it was time to put boots on the nearly molten ground.

Spoiler

Once the flag was planted, it was time to fix one small issue on the rover - although capable of remote operations, it had a pair of command chairs to run the crew to the Mohole & back.  But there was one small problem - during the day on Moho, the crew would be baking in the sun with no shade.  So the crew packed some structural panels & girders before departing Kerbin to fix that.  Here, xxxx moves the main antenna and a solar panel up to the freshly added roof panel

The forward roof panel was a 1.8 m instead of 1.2, so it was a bit more difficult to move around - surprisingly, it didn't break the landing gear when it was dropped from the storage pod on top of the lander.  With everyone working together, they were able to get it into position & attached.

With the roof mostly complete, it was time to drive to the Mohole to set up science experiments

On they way, they found a patch of rock that actually WAS molten...

But they arrived safely and after barely getting stopped before driving off the edge, began setting up surface experiments

With the mission complete, it was time to mount up & head back to the lander before the sun rose fully over the mountains

And then it was time to head back to orbit.  The empty storage pod docked to the nose was jettisoned shortly after launch & provided the first seismic reading from the surface experiments.

I also landed a new emergency fuel station close to the equator (the north pole was barely 3% ore) just in case.  It's a variant of an Eve emergency fuel station I was designing - it's made to fit between two inflatable heatshields for Eve landing, so a few changes were necessary for the Moho version.  In addition to trading the heatshields for a skycrane, I also added some extra thermal control systems & added some structural panels to allow any crew that come to the station to be able to have some shade.  It mounts a pair of large solar panels, plus fuel-cells for night operations and a RTG for emergency power.  It also has a moderate snack supply as well as automated greenhouse to grow more.  For some reason, I didn't add any science gear.  Since then, I have also made Eeloo & Dres versions (getting rid of the extra thermal systems & shade panels, then adding larger antennas & a second RTG, plus adding scientific instruments)

Spoiler

I thought I saved an image after getting rid of the skycrane, but apparently not.  You can still see the extra thermal panels above the Mk 1 lander can, and sort of see the 1.8m structural panels mounted over the window & hatch of the can to provide shade to any crew. 

 

 

[NHunter]

Planting flag on Thatmo...

[Guest]

With 1.5 of 3 previous crewed Mun missions successful, the 'Big Mun' programme begins. This will make a stay of up to a month on the Mun, with a short-range rover to explore the locale, and later support launches to provide habitation space and whatever else the advance of technology brings. Without any high-tech equipment like labs or mining gear to send over, this is purely an experiment in life support and traversing a low-gravity world in light vehicles. The space program's hardware to-be-launched has grown, but the launch hardware itself has not, yielding a two* part mission whereby a tanker will be put into Mun orbit.

 

The MT2 launch vehicle burns into the dusk with its heaviest configuration...

 

... and again into the dawn. Poodle v2 backported to KSP 1.3.1. In case they show up in my future posts – I grabbed the external foil tanks too.

 

* The disasterously bad TWR of the crew launch's sustainer stage leads to a third launch to refuel it. Naturally, the scientific proceeds of this mission will go directly into Mainsail development. Our crew today is senior pilot Elimore, and first-timers Jean and Jebpond (perhaps a cousin of Jebediah?).

|

 

You know what also has a disasterously bad TWR? The lander! I forgot to check it in KER. Fortunately it plops down at a moderate 30m/s and all the mission-relevant hardware survives. The bay was partially opened during descent to serve as a squared landing surface, and amazingly while it bounced away further than the pod, it ended upright.

 

With the help of Jean, Jeb rolls the huge snack box up to the pod. He also attaches the batteries and solar panels taken from the bay, but finds the latter are all broken despite having been retracted for landing. So on one hand everyone gets their elevensies, brunch, supper and tea, but on the other the lack of power means they have to manually flush the toilet after each meal. Space poop! The worst thing about space! But at least the Mun does have gravity...

 

Undeterred by the day's failures, Elimore and Jean make some modifications to their rover with some parts taken from the bay, and head out of the crater, with a brief look back at the crash/landing site before descending the far side of the rim. Below, Jeb maintains what remains of the static equipment and awaits additional modules.

Edited August 26, 2019 by Guest

[Angelo Kerman]

I did some more texturing on my KFS mothership, then played more of my KSP 1.3.1 career. My aerobraking return from Minmus didn't go as planned...

RIP Chademy Kerman, pilot of Nautilus (DSEV-03). Derry Kerman, the ship's chief engineer, survived. Mission Control helped Derry return to Skybase where the ship will be refitted:

[capi3101]

(1.6.1) This weekend I brought the latest interplanetary tourist and colonization expedition to a close, begin with the deorbiting and landing of the Auk XVI 12-passenger spaceplane that had departed space station Kerbinport last thing on Thursday.

Mach 3.4 and 66 kilometers from the Runway? No problem...every flight on AA ends this way, I'm pretty sure...

Not exactly the center of the strip, but I'll take it...more importantly, so will the game.

The plane's landing brought two tourist contracts (with one passenger coming back from Eve's surface) and two rescue contracts (one from Eve orbit) to a successful close. I quickly followed up the landing with some credit taking on a contract to haul ore to Jool orbit from Bop (which I had done, despite the game not crediting me for the ore drilling) as well as on a similar contract to haul ore to Ike orbit from Duna. Six contracts complete, as hoped.

Next destination was Mission Control.

Dres, eh? Gee, I wonder where the game is going to send me next?

Of the five replacement contracts offered, I accepted four - I didn't take the Orbital Construction Study over Jool because A) I don't usually get credited for those Pathfinder science contracts even when I do them correctly and B) they pay roughly twice-butt (this one would've paid the "lucrative" sum of √2500 for a Jool trip). The other four were happily snatched up, which meant that all of a sudden I had to plan for yet another interplanetary colonization expedition. Getting eight colonists to the Ocean Ranger outpost on Gilly and a total of thirteen colonists to the Bohai 2 outpost on Bop isn't going to be a particularly hard challenge, but at the time I accepted the contracts, I did lack some needed infrastructure, so I immediately began working to rectify that. To that end, I ordered up a Crater Maker 7 8-passenger lander at the Samwell Tarly Yards over Gilly; construction will be completed in just under eight hours. A similar order for the Imo Pyramis Shipyards over Bop couldn't be given, however, as the shipyard is currently unmanned - the only available engineer at Bop is Gemul Kerman, who at the time was finishing up a crew report survey aboard the Spamcan 7 Bop-A 2-passenger self-refueling monoprop lander. Gemul completed her survey and landed the craft in the Peaks, then began the refueling process via ore drilling. Last thing that happened on Friday was a burn to put the Bill Clinton 7c grabber probe that launched from IPS in the short time Gemul spent there on Thursday on a course to rendezvous with Deoly's Pod; flight time to rendezvous was 75 minutes.

I had notes to bring pilot Leo Kerman and scientist Derney Kerman - the two rescuees from the last expedition - back up to Kerbinport for assignment at the earliest opportunity, and I had a total of 21 colonists that also needed to come up. 23 Kerbals meant that I could use my largest spaceplane - the Auk XIV, with capacity for 36 kerbals  - to get them all up there, do a number of smaller plane flights, or design a new craft. It had been a while since I'd designed a new craft and the flight characteristics on the XIV aren't all that great (especially when it comes to docking), so I opted for a new design and came up with the Auk XVII.

Auk XVII in the SPH, ready for its shakedown flight.

The new plane's shakedown flight would be an operational one, I determined. To that end, Leo and Derney were loaded aboard along with colonists Oblorf, Nedbas, Mauburry, Sigdous, Ralong, Freddous, Nataald, Bobvis, Trigas, Melzor, Joeuki, Tanfel, Kirbles, Dadrin, Karus, Ellen, Katbrett, Billy-Boboly, Wiloly, Billy-Bobmy and Marmore Kerman, leaving one seat open. 

Seven starts and rolling, with everybody looking very happy. Yeah, that's how happy looks.

Aside from a hiccup with some of the control surface settings that were, fortunately, correctable prior to take off, nothing went wrong with the launch; the plane arrived at Kerbinport a little over half an hour later.

Here's your needless, boring screenshot for the morning.

Rendezvous went well but I had left the RCS thruster controls a bit to be desired. The plane did dock successfully - which I suppose is what matters - but "add more thruster blocks" was added to the shakedown crew's report.

Yesterday the Gilly-bound colonists boarded Strange Cargo docked to the station, while the Bop-bound folks embarked aboard Next Objective and J.G. Backus also docked at the station. Leo and Derney were also transferred aboard the station proper, and with the plane emptied of passengers - none of whom were scheduled to return to the surface - it proceeded with departure and burned to deorbit for landing at KSC 09. I had noted in the SPH that the craft would be unstable when low on fuel (so not my best design work) and that observation was borne out relatively early after entry: it's not a good sign when you've got your elevators deflected full to go downward but your nose is still pitching upward. Fortunately I was able to use TAC to pump fuel to refill the nose fuel tanks and re-balance the others, which made the plane stable enough to fly in for a safe landing.

Auk XVII on final.

Only other design flaw noted was the failure of a pair of AIRBRAKEs to deploy; after landing, all of the noted design flaws were addressed in the SPH. I'll see how good of a job I did with tweaks the next time I need the plane.

Day on Sunday ended with the successful refueling of the Spamcan 7 Bop A and the rendezvous of the Clinton with Deoly's Pod.

All this fuss over a little box. Deoly's been trapped in there for weeks now...wonder how he's doing for air. And food. And toilet necessities...

The Clinton picked up the pod with a little finagling. The craft will remain in Bop's orbit pending the arrival of an available warp ship to take it on to Kerbin.

So on today's agenda, I'll be launching Gemul up into Bop orbit for a rendezvous with IPS. Once there, she'll be building a Crater Maker as well as a Crew Adapter for it, which will turn the Crater Maker into a 15-passenger lander. Strange Cargo will be heading out to Gilly aboard LSV House Atreides, which is currently in orbit of Kerbin. Next Objective and J. G. Backus, meanwhile, will be heading to Bop aboard LSV House Harkonnen, which is also in Kerbin's orbit at the present time building an Echo Flyer 7a base-seeding quadcopter for deployment on Laythe. Long term, I want to send out another couple of crews to tag along and gain experience prior to eventual deployment to ground bases, and I'd like to use Necessary Evil for the job but she's still sitting in the dock at space station Ikeport; I'm likely to be sending LSV House Corrino currently in low Jool orbit on over to Duna to retrieve the ship and bring it back to Kerbin. Necessary Evil will head to Kerbinport, pick up a couple of folks and then head over to Harkonnen. Harkonnen will then pop over to Minmus to pick up engineers, then warp to Laythe to deploy her 'copter (the copter's crew is already over Laythe), and finally head on to Bop. I also plan to load up Gilligan, which is currently docked at Kerbinport, with a few folks (most notably Bob) for training, though I don't know yet which ship I'll send them to just yet; leaning towards Atreides. Big do-si-do going on right now; hopefully it won't take all that long to finish resolving.

[Rockingjazz]

finally managed to land a kerbal on eve and return him back to kerbin! eve ascent was soooo tough :p but feels awesome to have beat the most difficult return in ksp  

[Cavscout74]

I did some further testing of the little atomic jet-powered plane I made last week, then had my Eeloo mini-lander carrier arrive & set up a low orbit around Eeloo.

For the CX-8 jet, it turns out that a single small radiator is NOT enough to keep it cool.  It will work for a few minutes, but then everything starts getting really hot.  And the radiator was mounted on the engine, so it can't even help with cooling the cockpit.  I did a short speed run out over the ocean, then turned back, flew past KSC into the mountains and just after getting into the mountains the overheating started

That's getting a little warm - it got much worse before I got back to KSC.  I thought about having Summer bail out, but the cockpit was so hot, I was afraid she'd go "Poof" when she EVA'd. 

The new version has a pair of edge radiators mounted to the probe core then offset aft so they're behind the wings.  Still gets hot, but so far hasn't gone crazy - and since they're mounted to the probe core, they will cool the cockpit as well as the engine.  I'm also thinking about sticking a pair of small thermal control systems in the nose storage bay for more rapid cooling on the ground.  The down side is it will barely break mach 1 down low.

The Eeloo mini-lander carrier deploying the first mini lander.  It carried three of these to drop in different biomes.  Each carries a basic set of science instruments (temp, pressure, seismic & grav) plus a landing site camera & surface sampler from Probes Plus.  Power is provided by a small RTG and a bunch of batteries.   An initial braking burn is performed by a "Landvermasser" retro-motor, which is then jettisoned & a "Jib" monoprop engine handles the remainder of the landing.  Both engines are also from Probes Plus

Two landers worked - this one, for some reason, had the SRB jettison instead of firing when I staged it.  And it only has about 550 m/s dV with it's Jib engine, so it slammed into Eeloo pretty hard

Second mini-lander slowing down after jettisoning the empty SRB

Safely landed, gathering surface samples to analyze

Finally, after a jettisoned SRB slammed into one of the radial LFO boosters, this launch actually managed to stay on course & make orbit.  I ended up needing to use over 200 m/s from the transfer stage to make orbit, but it shouldn't hurt the actual mission - an emergency fuel station for Dres.  The whole setup was originally built for Eeloo, so there was going to be plenty of excess dV for Dres anyway.

 

Edited August 26, 2019 by Cavscout74

[JadeOfMaar]

I've been developing my KK skills for some time now... Today I finally got water launch working with this KSC Harbor, part of my pet project codenamed "KerbinSide for JNSQ." With this success I finally completed a "rival space program" space center elsewhere on JNSQ Kerbin (not featured).

Never put spaces in your KK group center's name or water launch will bug out and cause crashes. :|

[Angelo Kerman]

The Nautilus Accident Investigation Board's report concluded that Chademy Kerman erroneously dipped Nautilus (DSEV-03) too far into Kerbin's atmosphere during her aerobraking return from Minmus. He then made a critical error when he tried to flip the ship around to raise its periapsis. That act resulted in the spacecraft tumbling out of control and causing excessive overheating, which resulted in numerous structural failures. One of those failures resulted in the loss of Chademy Kerman, pilot and spacecraft commander of DSEV-03.

The NAIB recommended that the Protector-class Deep Space Exploration Vessel use propulsive captures in the future, and that aerobraking is only to be used in an emergency and limited to no more than 50km altitude.

Damage assessment to DSEV-03 declared it serviceable after a extensive refit. To that end, Barfal "Barf" Kerman began refitting DSEV-03 several weeks later. Skybase printed up replacement parts, and Barf took a walk outside to install a new Mk 2 Docking port where the S1 Orbital Command Pod used to be:

Then she replaced the lost SAFER nuclear reactor along with its RTG auxilary power:

After that, Lemley piloted the Scrapper Pod to clip Nautilus' Space Transportation Main Engine:

Finally, Barf attached another Mk 2 Docking Port to the engine mount:

With the replacement reactor and new docking ports in place, DSEV-03 was ready for the next phase of her refit.

Edited August 27, 2019 by Angel-125

[capi3101]

(1.6.1) No screenies for y'all today unfortunately. Took a few; they just weren't all that terribly interesting to look at.

Began my day yesterday with the Spamcan 7 Bop-A 2-passenger self-refueling monoprop lander, which took off from Bop's Peaks with engineer Gemul Kerman aboard; Gemul had used the craft to complete a three-point "get crew reports in flight" survey at Bop and was badly needed at the Imo Pyramis Shipyards at that point. The lander aligned with the shipyard and burned for an intercept, with intercept scheduled for 43 minutes later. Meanwhile, engineer Ceri Kerman at the Dystopia Planitia shipyard over Kerbin completed her print up of a Bill Clinton 7b grabber probe, which launched after taking on fuel stores from the shipyard. The probe burned for an intercept with Module F-T9W1, which occurred 21 minutes later; at the intercept point, the probe aligned with the module and burned to schedule a rendezvous; flight time to the rendezvous was 47 minutes. The Spamcan then reached its intercept point with IPS and burned to get a rendezvous; flight time to that rendezvous was just under two hours. During that time the Clinton made its rendezvous with Module F-T9W1, which turned out to be an empty MOLE Titan 1800 LFO tank; the probe grabbed the module successfully.

With a small window to do so, LSV House Corrino broke orbit from Jool and warped to Duna, arriving at 4,095 m/s. 23 warp-backs later, the ship settled into a 362.6 x 310.4 kilometer, 3.11° orbit over the red planet, during which time the Spamcan reached IPS over Bop and docked. Gemul boarded the station's Bigby workshop and began construction of a Crater Maker 7 passenger lander, with total construction time estimated at seven hours. Shortly thereafter, the Samwell Tarly Yards over Gilly completed its print of an identical Crater Maker 7 craft. After that lander took on fuel, it launched from the shipyard, conducted an alignment burn with space station Gillyport and burned for an intercept; flight time to that intercept was 34 minutes, during which time I went ahead and deorbited the Clinton over Kerbin; it landed safely approximately 20 kilometers west-northwest of KSC, fulfilling a junk-hauling contract. The replacement contract would've seen me adjusting the position of one of my communications satellites over Jool, so naturally I gave that one a pass.

Upon reaching its intercept point with Gillyport, the Crater Maker proceeded with a burn to schedule a rendezvous. Originally, that rendezvous would've taken place after seven hours, but it occurred to me that the Crater Maker was designed originally for Mun and Minmus; over Gilly, it's vastly overpowered. Moreover, the fuel requirements for anything at Gilly are ridiculously low, and I had the thought that maybe I would save some time if I went ahead and flipped the CM's orbit around to retrograde. Acting on this thought, I went ahead and flipped the lander's orbit, then burned for a new rendezvous - the new rendezvous time was a mere ninety minutes. I used the time to have House Corrino warp over to Ike, arriving at 384 m/s - slow enough for direct insertion - and maneuvered to put her into a 448.6 x 210.6 kilometer, 2.12° orbit. At that point I went over to space station Ikeport, where Necessary Evil was docked pending a ride back to Kerbin. NE undocked and burned for intercept with House Corrino, with the intercept scheduled for just over one hour later; NE aligned with Corrino during that time. The Crater Maker also made its rendezvous with Gillyport, requiring a measly 38 m/s burn to flip back over and make the rendezvous; the craft docked without incident. Last thing that happened last night was the completion of a print of a Da Luv Boht 7 rescue craft at the Caue Serpente Yards over Eve; this craft will be named Andrea Doria as soon as she launches, which will happen as soon as I can bring up some needed supplies to the shipyard.

Today I hope to get Necessary Evil over to House Corrino and then back to Kerbin and space station Kerbinport. There, she'll take on some staff that are bound for assignments to new bases; the idea is to have them gain experience through visitation of other interplanetary bodies. Strange Cargo, Next Objective and J. G. Backus are all currently at Kerbinport fully loaded and ready to head out to both LSV House Atreides and LSV House Harkonnen, both of which are currently in high Kerbin orbit; Atreides is scheduled to ferry colonists to Gilly, while Harkonnen is scheduled to both ferry colonists to Bop and deliver a base-seeding craft out to Laythe, with a quick trip out to Minmus also scheduled to pick up a few engineers. I've got twelve contracts ongoing at the moment, one of which is a rock-scanning mission a third of the way complete, three of which are ongoing colonization contracts, three of which are the aforementioned new colonist deliveries, three of which depend on bases that aren't there yet, and the final two of which are going to depend on Harkonnen's arrival at Bop and Laythe, so it's definitely a ferrying day in the works for me.

I'll try to take better screenies tomorrow.

[catloverjerrygarcia]

I just puttered around on Kerbin trying to earn more science while waiting for something.

Rover joy ride. by AdmFranzvonHippie, on Flickr

[Cavscout74]

Just a few course correction in my career.  Most of my time has been spent on building new aircraft.  The first one had some serious yaw instability at first, but after some design tweaks (thanks again @bewing ), it is much better now.  It's also a heavy pig, and will barely break 300 m/s down low with it's twin Panthers on full afterburner.  But as Summer Kerman (chief test pilot while Jeb is away on Laythe) can attest, it can make a mess of the space center with the 6 underwing rockets.  Prior to fixing the stability issue, it also provided Summer with plenty of parachute experience, so she had some frustrations to work out and both the VAB and R&D suffered her wrath.

After I was satisfied with the CB-01 Stryker light bomber, I started on a heavier bomber.  I don't have a proper name yet, so for now its going to be the Hercu-bear.   It flies pretty nice right from the start - elevator authority was too low, which was mostly fixed by putting in some negative angle of incidence to the horizontal stabilizer.  At low speeds (ie landing), it still needs some additional authority to get the nose up. 

The main issue remaining is landings - they leave a little room for improvement.   Since the nose doesn't want to come up enough, the nose gear hits first, bounces & causes the tail to strike the ground

Once it can land safely, then it will be time to test it with a load in the bomb bay.   It has a dorsal girder running the length of the bay to be used to attach ordnance to in the future, as well as a convenient place to stick batteries, an antenna and any other small parts I can think of.

Edited August 27, 2019 by Cavscout74

[catloverjerrygarcia]

I just retasked the Kerbin VI mission profile from manned to unmanned orbital science mission.

https://flic.kr/s/aHsmGxgJrj

Edit: Upon analysis by a more experienced engineer the core swivel engine was replaced with a terrier.  Also here's my perfect rover for driving around Kerbin.

https://flic.kr/s/aHsmGxmZYG

Edited August 28, 2019 by AdmFranzvonHippie

[Elidnas]

Mission date: Year 4, Day 90.   (pic heavy)
 

Spoiler

 

Exploration Vessel Cerberus finally arrives within Jool soi. Faint signals have already been picked up from the anomaly and the mission computer has designated it Anomaly-WH-35325-B. The wormhole seems to be orbiting in close proximity to Jool and can pose a challenge in trying to plot an encounter.

During circularization at low Jool orbit, telescopes are able to pick up the bully of the Jool system, Tylo. During transit, Commnader Siry was adamant that no fancy manouvers should be attempted next to Tylo.

Initial calculations of a normal transfer from Jool to WH-35325-B have highlighted a key problem with such a small body orbit so close to such a large body, relative velocities from a normal Hohmann transfer are massively impractical.

An idea came from First Officer Adford to treat the wormhole less like a celestial body and more like a ship to rendezvous with. This proved very effective and relative velocities were now dropped to very low values.

Mission date: Year 4, Day 95.

Passage through the anomaly generated alarming warnings from the flight computers with one message being particularly persistent [STRONG SPACE-TIME DISTORTION DETECTED] with very strong vibrations being felt throughout the ship.

These lasted for a very tense 5 minutes but luckily stopped with another message flashing on the flight computer [SPACE-TIME HAS RETURNED TO NORMAL]. With a blinding brilliance, the 3 pilots realized that the wormhole had transported them much closer to the black-hole than initial calculations had predicted. The light from the massive gravity devourer was much brighter than Kerbol and was so strong that the solar panels were charging at a rate that had never before been seen in the Kerbol system.

And so the team has arrived. Only 3 of them are aware with the rest of the crew in cryo-sleep. The readings that the pilots are getting are that this system seems to have 3 light sources in close proximity. With 2 of them being too far away to study in any detail, Murph will be the source of most of the study and research.

 

 

 

 

Back at KSC, in the 4 years that the Cerberus team have been away, flight testing has begun on one of the first heavy space-planes in years after Jebediah, Valentina, Bob and Bill perished in a crash involving a heavy plane much like the new Ophiotaurus OP1. This new version is apparently much improved from the last version. Time will tell.

Also, BISON Ground Transportation have revealed a new wheeled ground vehicle, the B-AT12x Multi-Purpose Rover, which is design to go anywhere and crush anything. The B-AT12x was also seen undergoing tests at the KSC and the spy shots show the rover close to the new plane. Whether any interaction is planned between the two remains to be seen.

 

 

[capi3101]

(1.6.1) Well, as anticipated, yesterday proved to be a day of shuffling things around all over the system. The day began with a mass driver shot from the Alexander L. Kielland outpost on the surface of Eve to the Caue Serpente Yards in orbit; CSY had just completed the construction of Andrea Doria, a Da Luv Boht 7 emergency tanker I'd ordered up when it looked like one of my ferry ships coming from Gilly to Eve was going to need it. With the supplies of fuel, Rocket Parts and Enriched Uranium received, Doria launched from CSY.

Another day, another not-so-interesting screenie. Maybe I should just get over myself.

Doria burned for to get an intercept with space station Eveport; flight time to the intercept point was twelve minutes, during which time Necessary Evil made a burn over Ike to take her to rendezvous with LSV House Corrino in an eccentric Ike orbit; flight time to rendezvous was 2 hours and 41 minutes. Doria then arrived at her intercept point and burned to get a rendezvous; flight time to the rendezvous was 38 minutes, with the new rescue ship arriving and docking safely at the station. It's nice to know I have an emergency tanker available at Eve should I ever need one (which seems probable to me).

With Necessary Evil on course to meet up with House Corrino, it was time for me to get the rest of my ferries - all loaded with colonists - moving to their target warp ships. Strange Cargo was first, with the ship departing for intercept with LSV House Atreides in high Kerbin orbit. After that, Next Objective departed Kerbinport for intercept with LSV House Harkonnen also in high Kerbin orbit. After both ships had made burns for plane alignment with their target craft, J. G. Backus departed Kerbinport; she was also heading to House Harkonnen. All three ships made their burns to take them to their respective rendezvous with their target warp ships, and the rest of my day was spent with rendezvous and docking maneuvers, the four ships arriving at their respective destinations in reasonably rapid order (Necessary Evil's arrival at House Corrino was a tad soon after Next Objective's arrival at House Harkonnen, but not so soon that I had to overly rush the docking procedure).

Next Objective preparing for arrival at LSV House Harkonnen. See the KAC schedule there? That's how fast things ultimately happened, and it's the same overall order as well.

Necessary Evil coming up on LSV House Corrino (visible, though just barely, below and left of Duna in the background).

Strange Cargo docking with LSV House Atreides over Kerbin.

J. G. Backus arriving at House Harkonnen, with Next Objective already docked (right amidships)

...and that was my day yesterday. Pretty short and not a lot there to report to y'all.

Today all three of my warp ships are ready to head to their respective destinations. It's not likely I'll be finishing up three separate warp maneuvers in one day barring insane luck, but I still hope to at least get two of the ships to their destinations. House Atreides is headed towards Gilly; I'm liable to warp her to Eve and then have Strange Cargo head out there under her own power. House Corrino is heading back to Kerbin, where Next Objective will be taking on future ground crews at Kerbinport before heading back to Corrino; G. Grant still docked at Kerbinport will also be bringing future crew back to Corrino upon arrival. Finally House Harkonnen's first port of call is Minmus; I intend to pick up a few extra engineers there and complete the construction of the Echo Flyer 7a base-seeding quadcopter the ship is currently building; I hope that the engineers will vastly speed up construction time, which is still estimated at over six days and present. From there she's heading on to Laythe and finally Bop. Got nothing really going on until all three ships arrive at their destinations aside from a lander under construction at the Imo Pyramis Shipyards over Bop, which I will need before Harkonnen arrives there. Plenty going on, just not a lot of it terribly interesting; hope to have something more to talk about tomorrow morning.

[Marachdrifter]

Today as part of a clearing of contracts that will expired when i will carry my 3 years mission to Eve, i made a multi contracts mission. 

Objectives : recovery on a space debris orbiting Kerbal, having a tourist trip in suborbital trajectory over Kerbin, getting to the Mun, recovery of another debris there, scanning with a gravimeter 8 points above the Mun, heading to Minimus, put a space station in orbit with a tourist in it, take a lander on Minimus to mine a 1000 ore and get a tourist on the surface of Minimus, rendez-vous back with the space station that will go back to kerbin where it will land carrying the 1000 ores, the three tourists, the two debris and my crew.

 

And after 3 hours of gameplay, i got my space station to orbit around minimus to realised that since i started in the VAB with my lander, the space station built after the lander would not count for the contract, and that since i judged that my lander didnt needed and antenna, the contract would not be achieved...

[Cavscout74]

2 hours ago, Marachdrifter said:

And after 3 hours of gameplay, i got my space station to orbit around minimus to realised that since i started in the VAB with my lander, the space station built after the lander would not count for the contract, and that since i judged that my lander didnt needed and antenna, the contract would not be achieved..

I hate it when I do something like that.   One of my favorite parts of the KAS & KIS mods is letting me salvage mistakes like forgetting antennas or chutes.   I've also messed up by not reading the body of the contract - to me, when it says "mine x units of ore from Minmus & return to Kerbn" that means land it on Kerbin.  But it actually says to put it in orbit of Kerbin - I've landed with tons of Minmus ore, only to not have the contract complete because I came straight to Kerbin reentry from Minmus and had to repeat the whole mission because I was never in a stable orbit of Kerbin.

I managed to get my CB-02 flying better and tested it with a few loads.  Much to my surprise, it can take off from the Island airfield even loaded - barely, it can just start getting the nose up when I run out of runway, but it's enough to get it airborne.  I changed it to use a different cockpit and added one of the 1.7.3 grip strips (with their 60 m/s impact tolerance) to the tail for added protection against minor tail strikes.

Rack of 4 fuel-tank bombs.  They dropped cleanly but weren't very impressive when they hit.   They are connected by a structural panel with a self destruct charge set to 2 seconds, so they drop as a unit then the structural panel gets destroyed & the 4 bombs fall freely

Another run, dropping a cluster bomb - I came in too slow this time & was well short of KSC.  This image is the second set of detonations, there was a first set about a second before this set.  The cluster bomb is made from bunches of the spherical tanks attached to two girders with a single pylon to drop from the bomber.  Like the 4-bomb rank, a self-destruct charge destroys the girders, letting the spherical tanks fly off on their own.

After I was happy with my bomber, I went back to normal space program functions - several course correction maneuvers, then I hopped over to Laythe to check on my crew there.  The floating base was out of ore for the automated greenhouse, so it was necessary to resupply from the shore.   While finishing up that task, Kelrik was looking over the micro-ISRU by @Angel-125 .  I love some of the little details he adds to his mods, like this "Squishy things" warning. 

Finally, I gave my main install a rest to check on some further changes to a new KSP build I'm using with some different graphics mods & trying to prune as many mods & mod parts as possible without radically changing things.  So far I've knocked down the number of patches it has to load on start by over 200.  Anyway, I sent up Jeb in the first orbital flight of that career, and caught a nice shot of hm coming back down

[catloverjerrygarcia]

I got some help tweaking my orbital science probe design, hopefully it's stable in flight and can reach orbit.

Kerbin VIa mod ugh launch assembly. by AdmFranzvonHippie, on Flickr

Here's the probe when deployed.

Kerbin VIa orbital probe deployed. by AdmFranzvonHippie, on Flickr

Edited August 28, 2019 by AdmFranzvonHippie

[capi3101]

41 minutes ago, Cavscout74 said:

I hate it when I do something like that.   One of my favorite parts of the KAS & KIS mods is letting me salvage mistakes like forgetting antennas or chutes.   I've also messed up by not reading the body of the contract - to me, when it says "mine x units of ore from Minmus & return to Kerbn" that means land it on Kerbin.  But it actually says to put it in orbit of Kerbin - I've landed with tons of Minmus ore, only to not have the contract complete because I came straight to Kerbin reentry from Minmus and had to repeat the whole mission because I was never in a stable orbit of Kerbin.

Spoiler

I've found that the game is kinda lax about this kind of contract - all it's really checking for is a craft in orbit with the prerequisite amount of ore. So what I usually do is leave a craft in orbit (almost always one of my shipyards) with some amount of ore in it, and then when I get one of these mining delivery contracts I go mine the ore, then go to my ship already out there. Quick credits.

Missions to mine ore and then deliver to the surface of Kerbin are even simpler. You go out, mine the ore, go back to KSC and put a craft out on the VAB or SPH with the prerequisite amount of ore...

Sometimes in my posts on this thread you'll hear me talking about an "ore con job". This is what I'm talking about - you can really be quite cheatsy with these contracts if you so choose.

Nothing wrong with doing it the way it's intended of course; more power to you if you do go through with the whole shebang...

 

[Mars-Bound Hokie]

While drafting the next chapter of my KSP Fanwork, I thought about adding a rocket plane in the story - which led me to read more about the infamous Me 163 Komet. For those who don't know about the Komet, it was a German fuel-and-oxidizer rocket-propelled fighter that was also the fastest combat aircraft of WWII; and no, it was not supersonic. Though it was famous for speed, it only had around seven and a half minutes of powered flight. In other words, it had a crappy range. 

 

I knew that meant that, if I built a similar aircraft, I would need to glide A LOT to maximize my range while conserving fuel and oxidizer. I then built this simple design - which had approximately 1 minute and 38 seconds of powered flight at full throttle - and flew at a 45-degree heading after taking off. Though I got a 50-km orbital apoapsis when I burned out most of my fuel, as soon as I got back in the atmosphere I lowered my pitch angle to around three degrees and glided over the ocean. I kept the plane straight and stable until I finally got over some dry land, and then I slowed myself down to land the plane.

 

• Rocket plane - landed 342.5 km from the KSC
  • I programmed the KSC's coordinates into the MJ rover autopilot and got the distance. 

 

What other rocket plane ideas do you have? You think you can go farther away than 342.5 km?