What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Guest]

EVERA-1 made it to Eve orbit.

And here's a more lightweight and otherwise improved utility shuttle. It also looks cooler than the previous one. I'm also working on a better Mun lander -- working name LK-4 -- based on this design, basically put landing legs on it and tune tune tune. The first version looked wack but the centre of gravity is very high so it's really finicky to operate. I think the new one will work better, and looks cooler too.

These designs are surprisingly functional by the way. I am adding some cosmetic bits -- like that antenna, I want it on any craft that either dock, or relay messages -- but overall these are pretty tight. Payloads are heavier of course because I wrap them in that Onion, but consider that plus the antenna role-playing.

I think I can see why the Soviets designed them this way. The chassis is highly adaptable and you can fine-tune it with different numbers of small fuel tanks. The same basic module also works as a lander base or an orbital shuttle. They're super modular.

[Okhin]

Finally took time to do some sandbox KSP, been a while.

So, I sent this in LKO. The idea is to use that as a first module of a space station/hostel/spaceship/whatever and plug and play stuff as I go.

I thought I was going to be short on fuel, so I did not take much screenshot, but I had enough to reach a stable orbit (and a little more). The thermal dissipation array arms where flapping like hell during flight.

This is when I realized two things. First, I'm going to make it to orbit. Second all my crew is on board, I'll have to recruit (but well, sandbox, not really an issue).

And deployed, stabilized in orbit, nuclear core running and stable. And yes, it's a lot of thermal panel. Also, there's like 5 years of nuke fuel in the ship, should be enough for just maintaining attitude.

Next will be adding radial engines and tanks. A science / tech-hab module, a tourist center somehow and launcher for com sats and probes. And some shuttles and refinery rig, migt be usefull. I'll see where it goes.

Edited May 21, 2020 by Okhin
Fixed the images links

[michaelbezos1]

Hi guys big progress today 

 and even gor bravos ,claps and support from previous enemies and abusers. It is sign to progress more and keep going and develop new ideas as well. 

 

Much Love:> 

Keep things together. 

[michaelbezos1]

I got 3-4 failures with first launches due to not fixing igniters properly random tenant fixed engine and igniters and big success. Obviously if no England or other wester or top worlds [America, JApan] probably i would not perform that great but support and encouragement from very begginning from people whom did not like me as I am immigrant [abuse i should leave " their county" ] gave me good words [this "well done michael at some stage of video is from this transformed enemy]. 

 

Big support, lifesgiving source, draw path where to go next [but i plan to contiunue many ideas not only that one(mathematics, poker, wikipedia,work ,car mechanic and others. Give likes support or if you really like follow at instagram ,youtube,twitter and anywhere.

 

Much love:>

Keep thigns together. 

in my opinion it is sign that people love things like rocket launches ,innovation, intelectual [neutral not aggressive connected with war] stimulation and other neutral not aggressive inventions behaviours [mathematics, computer science, books, poker, wikipedia and would find other fields.]. I got hesitate after 4 collapsed launches [due to not fixed correctly igniters with remote launch ] but random man fixed [ i did not ask him how he did as i went to find rocket [which i did not find and did not fix gps(navigation))..

 

I got support at this activity [and mathematics ]from very beggining from hotel workers and rommates [bravos from very beginning and support even at collapsed launches] 

 

I did not write how random man fix igniters correctly to remote control but i still believe if there will be simmilar challenge there will be some solution or if not i will ask this man to tell me how he did it or write it . 

 

Much Love :> 

Keep things together. 

[Delay]

Since COVID-19 prompted schools to close and instead forced us to do schoolwork at home, I'm buried under a lot more work than I'm used to and it's stressing me out. I didn't really find the time to work on anything.

So today, after more than a month, I finally made some more TU patches, and it's all for science!

Hopefully I can start working on this more consistently again. KSP does have a huge number of parts, but it shouldn't take one entire year to make simple metallic maps and patch them all (I started September last year).

[southernplain]

I have continued to iterate on my Mk2 shuttle design. Test Article 40 (TA-38 and TA-39 definitely did not explode in various [redacted] ways) is an entirely new vehicle after the brass decided that strapping the shuttle to the side of an SRB just wasn't going to cut it.

TA-40's primary changes were the complete redesign of the rear engine shroud. Gone are the KJ-10 OMS engines replaced by entirely monoprop fueled OMS pods. The benefit of this is it allows a modular girder segment to be secured to the base of the spaceplane, which can then be mounted atop a normal LF/O rocket. Another upshot is that there is also a fully functional (if dangerous in its own right) Launch Abort system at the base of the girder mounting the spaceplane to the rocket.

TA-40 after LKO insertion burn complete, jettisoning the second stage and Launch Abort system. 

TA-40 remotely docked with the Low Orbital Station. Kerbonaut Lisus Kerman boarded the shuttle, conducted checks of all systems, returned to the station, and TA-40 undocked and attempted to return to from orbit.

The view from the crew cabin on TA-40.

One of the goals of the mission was to verify if reentry was stable, safe, and if the craft could be brought down back at KSC. Unfortunately, it was very much not safe. The redesigned engine shroud is very light, meaning the shuttle is too nose heavy. I couldn't keep the AoA high enough to bleed off enough speed to keep the temperature down coming it at JNSQ reentry speeds. 

Amusingly enough though, TA-40 has a probe core mounted behind the crew cabin so while the cockpit exploded, the rest of the shuttle just reached the part of the atmosphere where heating effects were starting to decrease. So we returned half of TA-40 to the island airfield (200km downrange from KSC, but tackle that problem another time).

"Not to worry, we are still flying half a ship."

Only half the crew would have been burnt to a crisp I guess, but it was still a landing. TA-40 has certainly flown its last flight as it will be completely torn down and analyzed by the engineers.

[Hotel26]

A new object in the Minmus skies (on the far side, away from prying Kerbin eyes).  The nature and purpose of which is still uncertain.

Two more "spokes" to be placed...  Kerbal astronomers (and Minekraft addicts) believe it it most probably some kind of nascent Enderkube...

Edited May 22, 2020 by Hotel26

[purpleivan]

Today was a day of rocket powered SSTO's.

First was a spaceplane that runs on a single aerospike, which made it safely into a 75km orbit before returning to the surface in one piece.

Then it was the turn of The Klipper, loosely based on McDonnell Douglas' Delta Clipper concept. This was also placed in a 75km orbit, but it had a healthy amount of fuel left onboard by the time it landed, so probably would make it to 90km and back.

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

[xendelaar]

I had an idea of making a real AIRSHIP and got a bit carried away....

 

[Guest]

Continued chronicle of the Certain Aesthetic campaign.

EVERA-1 completed its primary mission. The lander was safely delivered to the Evian surface, where it performed its scientific mission, transmitting important readings back to KSP through the orbiter-relay. 

The scientists at KSC want to bring back the EVERA-1 orbiter for study after it has returned to Kerbin orbit. For this purpose, the Space Program commissioned a recovery vessel from Kupolev Design Bureau. The mission will have an engineer remove antenna, solar panels, and thruster modules, retaining the orbiter core. This will then be captured in the cargo bay of the recovery vessel, which will return it to Kerbin.

Kupolev Design Bureau decided to use some reliable chemical rocket propulsion for the vessel, and produced the KU-160, meeting mission requirements: makes orbit easily with a pilot and engineer, has a cargo bay sufficiently big to carry the EVERA-1 orbiter core, containing an AGU to capture it, and has RCS capability for the fine positioning needed for the capture. THe KU-160 has completed test flights and is ready for the mission.

 

 

[Guest]

Woo-hoo, the mission was a success! EVERA-1 Relay has been recovered on Kerbin after partial disassembly in orbit!

[DunaManiac]

After finishing the MS1, I went about building the Minmus Science Station, I've been building modules for the past few days to transport modules there. I've also been building a "station" in orbit out of used IKS tankers, I dunno, it's where the IKS tanker will reside once i've finished the MSS. Today's launch was the Airlock module.

It took off on a "Mule" I rocket, and is using a "Bus" II 3rd stage to maneuver it to the IKS bus waiting in orbit.

Now, as you might notice, the airlock only has one docking port. You also might notice that there is no RCS or probe core on the airlock module. "How are you going to dock to the IKS bus or the MSS?" You might ask. But no fear, for I've developed a procedure I like to call,

THE BUS MANEUVER

But seriously though, it has 3 steps: 

Step 1: Maneuver the tug into a DIRECT course for the docking port, make sure that's it's going relatively slow, it needs to be able to drift on it's own.

Step 2: Position the the craft in such a way that the docking port is facing the other docking port, undock and move the tug out of the way.

Step 3: Watch the two dock entirely automatically!

I moved the IKS bus to the MSS and I successfully repeated the Bus Maneuver, and here's the new MSS!

[Misguided Kerbal]

Today CTV-11 successfully docked with the ADT (Advanced Docking Target). This is my first successful docking, after many failures.

Shameless self plug (for more pictures and info, and a little bit of storytelling):

 

 

Also, I have this beautiful picture from CTV-11 just about to perform SM separation:

 

Edited May 22, 2020 by Misguided_Kerbal

[Cavscout74]

Got my Minmus mining base landed finally.  Took forever to find a suitable ore concentration - for some reason, the orbital scan is not accurate to the actual surface concentrations.  Everywhere that looks like a high concentration from orbit was only around 7%.  Finally, I sent my rover to a spot that didn't look like a high concentration and it was 11.7%, so something weird is going on here.  Anyway, finally found a good spot and got it landed:

Got a crew launched to man the base, and they are well on their way, then launched a fuel shuttle to bring fuel up to my Minmus station and suffered a catastrophic failure of the first stage Twin Boar engine 38 seconds after launch, resulting in loss of vehicle.  I briefly attempted to make a survivable landing with the shuttle, but realized its low powered vacuum engines were no match for Kerbin at low altitude.  Didn't even get out of sight of the launch pad.....

[SuicidalInsanity]

Dres has a certain reputation as a place to avoid. Since I've never bothered to go there before, and I was bored, I decided to see what all the fuss was about.
It didn't end well.

 

[Guest]

Performed another mission with A Certain Aesthetic. 

The ZEND probe module has been slightly improved from the one used for EVERA-1. The difference is that now it can self-disassemble in orbit, without requiring KIS and an engineer.

The lander module consists of an aerodynamic shield and a probe with a retro rocket and twin parachutes. Mission profile is:

1. ZEND brakes to Pe at 15 km.
2. Lander separates.
3. ZEND burns back up to safe orbit.
4. Lander enters Dunatian atmosphere and deploys parachutes.
5. When parachutes open, lander jettisons aerodynamic shield.
6. Shortly prior to touchdown,  lander jettisons parachutes and touches down on its retro rocket.
7. Lander jettisons shroud.
8. Lander performs its scientific mission and transmits results back.

The Soviet Mars missions this is inspired by was a great deal more sophisticated, it even packed a tethered rover; there's no way to fit one into this with KSP scale parts though. Sadly only one of the missions made it down intact, from where it transmitted the first picture of the surface of Mars. It stopped transmitting shortly after, presumably disabled by the ongoing dust storm. Unlike Duna, Mars is hard.

Here's a diagram of the craft that inspired this mission:

This was quite difficult to build, and I had to make some trade-offs I don't really like. The main issue was the atmospheric shield: I had to add an entire 2.5 m heat shield in it to get the aero balance right; the connectors and nose cone that sculpt it are purely cosmetic, and of course a heat shield isn't even necessary for Duna. It was also quite tricky to build the lander module so that it could do that combination chutes/retro rocket touchdown, jettisoning bits on the way. 

The real probe had a hinged "lotus flower" housing for the core. After touchdown, this would open and flip the probe upright if had happened to bounce and land in a bad position. I did not attempt to recreate this with stock parts; I'm playing a career game and I'm missing the small triangular bits that could be used for it. Maybe I'll do another one later when I have them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 23, 2020 by Guest

[luizsilveira]

I've made a mistake. Accepted a contract to extract ore from Eve and deliver it to Gilly, having at first understood it would be the other way around. 

[Stamp20]

Loaded up my save file for the first time in a few weeks and landed on Eve.

[purpleivan]

Started a deep sea adventure.

Maybe not the start you'd expect.

But that delivered this.

Which went down here.

Spoiler

Then this flew to where the Drop in the Ocean was, well... dropped.

Spoiler

The submarine in the plane's belly, the Naughtylus, was detached and headed down to go meet up and dock with it on the seabed.

Science and maybe shenanigans will follow.

[capi3101]

6 hours ago, luizsilveira said:

I've made a mistake. Accepted a contract to extract ore from Eve and deliver it to Gilly, having at first understood it would be the other way around. 

Gilly's orbit or Gilly's surface?

(You can fulfill the contract by putting a craft at Gilly with the pre-resquisite ore amount, landing a separate craft on Eve for the drilling part. Once the drilling's done, just switch to the craft at Gilly and that'll complete the contract. I mean, that's one way to do it...if you want to do it the honest way, more power to you...)

[luizsilveira]

45 minutes ago, capi3101 said:

Gilly's orbit or Gilly's surface?

(You can fulfill the contract by putting a craft at Gilly with the pre-resquisite ore amount, landing a separate craft on Eve for the drilling part. Once the drilling's done, just switch to the craft at Gilly and that'll complete the contract. I mean, that's one way to do it...if you want to do it the honest way, more power to you...)

Gilly's surface. Not that it makes all that difference since Gilly is not the bit that worries me lol

Thanks, I didn't know about this, ahm, "shortcut" at all. But I mean, I could also just ALT-F12 it away. But I think I'll give it at least one proper go, even if I accepted the thing by mistake. 

[Guest]

The maiden flight of the MK-4 did not go entirely as planned. There was a malfunction of the onboard computer which prevented calculating the optimal landing burn, and the pilot failed to bring the craft down to a soft landing by eyeball, due to unfamiliarity with the low-TWR design. A fuel tank, the landing struts, and the main thruster were destroyed on impact. Fortunately there were no casualties, but a rescue mission had to be mounted to recover the crew from the Munar surface.

The DUNA-3 probe returned to Kerbin and was successfully recovered by Capt. Valentina Kerman piloting a KU-160. This time no engineer was needed as the craft was designed for orbital disassembly for recovery.

[Hotel26]

Background: KSC's most powerful flight-control computer system, Terra, has a motherboard limiting it to a measly 8GB.  Many craft in operation put pressure on memory.
 

Situation: a transfer window to Moho early in this epoch resulted in the launch of a coupla thousand tonnes at that planet along with a dozen or so brave Kerbals.  Failed to capture (except for a half dozen puny ion-powered comsats that managed to bale out and acquire the target).  Those Kerbals are now "lost in space" with a completely disgraceful inclination.  What are the options here at Mission Control?  Rescue is not possible (or not profitable).  We cannot bring ourselves to just "terminate" those brave souls.  But we need that memory back!
 

Mission: Divine Intervention...

Rules: 

1. mark the distressed vessels with an 'SOS' prefix in the name.
2. at some later time, if deemed unrescuable by conventional methods, invoke the divine powers of Alt-F12 to beam such vessels into geosynchronous Kerbin orbit.
3. craft engines/RCS may NOT be used.
4. Kerbals may NOT transfer to another vehicle.
5. Kerbals may NOT EVA unless and until within the Kerbin atmosphere.
6. a rescue craft, such as Mercy, shown above will rendez-vous and dock, using either its Large Ring or claw.
7. rescue vehicle may use fuel from the distressed vehicle, augmenting its own MP supply, to proceed to de-orbit for re-entry.  (Mercy has an LFOX tank for fuel-transfer but carries no LFOX itself on launch.)
8. any/all remaining fuel may be vented to space (via a mod such as ShipManifest, or by .sfs tweaking, before and/or after the de-orbit burn)
9. rescued survivors MUST be retired from operations.
10. it is only fair that Divine Intervention only be played in Sandbox where there is no unfair temptation to benefit from recovered funds or personnel.  Needless to say (being totally unruly), I only play Sandbox... 

Procedure: as above, but I've made Mercy stackable so I can launch a bunch at once.  I think I'd get a fleet of them (still all docked togther) stationed in geosync.  Then when a Mayday vehicle comes home, I'd detach a Mercy, tweak its orbit for a rendez-vous, then perform the rescue.  Notably, this is the first time I've had to figure out how to use a heat shield.  (It's a warm-up for Eve missions, coming soon.)

This one's for you, @RoninFrog !

Edited May 24, 2020 by Hotel26

[magnemoe]

Remains of an sucessful Tylo landing next to the Tylo science lander who did not work well because I forgot radiators on it. 

Heavy use of KAS, the entire thing was build on Pol, an tug took it to Tylo orbit, the radiators was mounted on the strut, it was also an RTG there who I took and used on the lander, this is why the top is placed on the side now. 
Yes it had an engine and an extra tank segment also some of the protective struts got destroyed but it was single use anyway  

Some larger stuff too, like finishing my munshadow base with the last module.

[Guest]

I tinkered with the KU-160 and came up with a more efficient, more elegant version. It will make orbit fairly easily with only twin Reliants, but is even nicer with twin Kodiaks. It only uses about 3200 m/s to get there, so it's pretty efficient too. Very easy to fly both up and down. Interestingly, the CoM/CoL helpers give a really wrong idea of the aerodynamics, the CoL is way behind the CoM which would make you think it flies like a lawn dart, but actually it doesn't. The canards will keep the nose up very nicely and the whole thing pointed quite efficiently. 

To fly up I pull up at about 70 m/s to 30 degrees, then switch to surface prograde at about 5 km altitude, then alternate between surface and orbit prograde to fine-tune the arc. Circularise at 100 km, there will be 200 m/s left over. This is great for recovery missions. It behaves just beautifully on the way down, easy re-entry, efficient glide, docile handling, easy landing. This is easily one of the easiest to fly spaceplanes I've made and in my opinion it's very pretty too.