What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Prat4545]

Designing a rocket to Jool. Trying to get to laythe but i com to hard to the atmosphere! (FFFFFF99999999) and yea it was my first time to joul.

Tomorrow i'm going back at it again.

 I got a threat here if you want to help! :

 

 

And that was it i guess!

Sincerely Prat4545!

[problemecium]

What have I done?!?

Edited July 29, 2020 by problemecium
better image

[Grogs]

I delivered a new fuel tanker to my Mun station. I forget that there's no probe core on the station, so it was a bone-headed move to undock the old tanker before this one arrived. I had to manually line up the docking ports so it was a good thing the tanker has a full RCS setup and plenty of monoprop.

 

I left a bit of fuel in the old tanker so it could deorbit and crash near my seismic scanner on the surface.

 

Unfortunately the return was pretty pathetic. I hit within 100 meters of the setup at over 500 m/s and got less than 0.4 science out of it.

 

Over at Minimus, my crew shuttle arrived and set down on the surface. Bob and Bilbas EVAd over from the nearby science lab where they've been marooned working hard for the past several weeks. They planted a flag before coming on board so that everyone would get credit for planting a flag on Minimus.

 

It's really crowded back in economy class now. Eighteen kerbals - my entire space program - are onboard. It sure would be embarrassing if I crashed my ship and lost everyone.

 

After taking on fuel from the orbital tanker around Minimus, the crew shuttle set course for the great unknown. In three days, the crew shuttle will become the first kerb-made object to ever leave the Kerbin SOI and (hopefully) return safely.

 

Back at the KSC, I did some design work for the new Minimus Station. I'm pretty pleased with it at this point, although I plan to replace the small ore tanks with large ones once I research that branch of the tech tree. Total cost empty is 186,000. If it takes 50,000to launch each of the three sections, I'll still turn a profit of over 400,000 on the venture. I'll have to pay for the surface miner separately, but I also have a contract that will pay for that.

 

The middle of the station has the crew quarters 16 kerbals, fuel, and power including 28,000 units of EC storage, fuel cells, and solar arrays. Oh, and the all-important 1500 units of monopropellant will reside there. I also added 2 Sr. docking ports for future expansions. The upper section will hold 6,000 units of ore and the convert-o-tron 250 with cooling. Regular and Jr. docking ports are available for refueling and ore deliveries from the surface.

 

The lower section has a mobile processing lab and hitchhiker pod, bringing the maximum crew size to 22. A full set of science instruments reside in the 2.5m cargo bay, and another set of docking ports will be used for crew transfers.

 

 

[Selective Genius]

I completed my first interplanetary vehicle "IPV Bruh!". It launched its heavy butt to Duna and will get there in 292 days. Interestingly, another launch window 43 days from now will get its payload to Duna 8 days before.

Here's the IPV Bruh!

The satellite bay contains 4 comms/ science sats and 1 resource survey satellite.

A closer look at the satellite bay. Please keep in mind that it has been autostrutted to infinity and beyond, else it would rip apart everything.

I dunno why, but no matter how much I reassure myself that this mission will go okay, there's a part of my brain which keeps screaming in my ears that the crew's gonna die. Let's see how this plays out.

 

[JorgeCS]

30 minutes ago, Selective Genius said:

I completed my first interplanetary vehicle "IPV Bruh!". It launched its heavy butt to Duna and will get there in 292 days. Interestingly, another launch window 43 days from now will get its payload to Duna 8 days before.

Here's the IPV Bruh!

The satellite bay contains 4 comms/ science sats and 1 resource survey satellite.

 

A closer look at the satellite bay. Please keep in mind that it has been autostrutted to infinity and beyond, else it would rip apart everything.

I dunno why, but no matter how much I reassure myself that this mission will go okay, there's a part of my brain which keeps screaming in my ears that the crew's gonna die. Let's see how this plays out.

 

I don't know bruh, but I really like the VEPM(tm) name... by the way, did you assemble the VEPM in 5 independent launches? if that was so, good job with the 4x double-docking! I remember my first one a few years ago, each section made of 2 orange tanks... it was painful, and they were only 2x. In fact I had to set the orbit at around 400km to have enough time to try and retry and retry and finish while still had light. I don't use many lights in my ships...  

[Selective Genius]

59 minutes ago, JorgeCS said:

I don't know bruh, but I really like the VEPM(tm) name... by the way, did you assemble the VEPM in 5 independent launches? if that was so, good job with the 4x double-docking! I remember my first one a few years ago, each section made of 2 orange tanks... it was painful, and they were only 2x. In fact I had to set the orbit at around 400km to have enough time to try and retry and retry and finish while still had light. I don't use many lights in my ships...  

Yes it took me 5 launches for the VEPM(tm). I was nervous about double docking initially, but I think this to be more stable than single docking under high thrust and less threatened by the Krakken.

Launch 1 : The core module with service module attached.

Spoiler

Launch 2, 3 and 4: Drop tanks 1, 2 and 3

Spoiler

Launch 5 : Satellite bay. I got bored of drop tanks.

Spoiler

Launch 6: Drop tank 4

Spoiler

Despite calling them drop tanks I don't think I will be 'dropping' any of those. This docking operation was a painful, yet a rewarding experience and I don't have the heart to eject those tanks in the cold unforgiving vacuum of space. The stack will be refueled in Ike orbit and brought back in its entirety to Kerbin orbit where it will be reused for the next Duna/Dres mission

The reason its called the IPV Bruh! is because Valentina got bored waiting for the maneuver node that was still 48 days away. So she plotted a course and ejected to Duna orbit. But, if she had followed the original plan, she would have been in space 53 fewer days than her current travel time and unlike the scientists who are busy at the Lab, she has nothing to do but wait, wait and wait. And the government classified her and her crew as pirates. That's why the entire population of Kerbin is right now 'Bruh!'ing her on literally every online forum over the Kerbnet because they think she was making a point against the establishment, and they relate to her (Obviously that was not the case! Valentina was just bored, thats it!). Thus, the spaceship is now unofficially named 'IPV Bruh!'. The general public is cheering on for her and the crew and wishes them the best of luck much to the chagrin of the government which is now looking for a scapegoat.

Edited July 29, 2020 by Selective Genius

[OutInSpace]

1 hour ago, Selective Genius said:

Snip

How much dV does the VEPM get, fully loaded? I'm curious since I usually don't bother with chemical engines on my interplanetary ships.

Edited July 29, 2020 by OutInSpace

[Bej Kerman]

20 hours ago, Prat4545 said:

Designing a rocket to Jool. Trying to get to laythe but i com to hard to the atmosphere! (FFFFFF99999999) and yea it was my first time to joul.

Try going for a very light ascent instead of a divebomb to the surface.

[purpleivan]

57 minutes ago, OutInSpace said:

How much dV does the VEPM get, fully loaded? I'm curious since I usually don't bother with chemical engines on my interplanetary ships.

But when you do go chemical and light it up for the transfer, there's that "ah... this is the life" moment, as you see the remaining DV for the burn rapidly reduce.

[Selective Genius]

14 hours ago, OutInSpace said:

How much dV does the VEPM get, fully loaded? I'm curious since I usually don't bother with chemical engines on my interplanetary ships.

Ugh it's like 3700 m/s. To be honest, since I am using ISRU, just the core tank would have been enough to comfortably make the trip. Or I could ditch the core stage and main engine and push the IPV with the lander engines alone (margins would be very thin in that case).

So today I realized that the Jool transfer window was only 6 days away. I did not want to waste this opportunity. However my original plan was to make a 'uncrewedJool 5' (if that made sense) for max science recovery without crew. But I decided against it, and instead sent up a 'SnapKitty Exploration Tool (SKET) to explore the Joolian moons from orbit (maybe land on Bop and Pol) and return with the science. I also got a chance to verify my 10 ton rocket SSTO.

The rocket SSTO is launched!

Spoiler

The Payload: SnapKitty Exploration Tool with chemical kick stage. The SKET is a nuclear electric probe designed to explore outer planets (Sponsored by the World's First Record-keeping Society) .

Spoiler

The botched landing burn, and the accidental water landing.

Spoiler

I have always thought that the Vector engines need to be more efficient in vacuum. They are SSME analogues, thus they should at least have an ISP of 340s in vacuum for being so heavy and goshdanged expensive, imho.

Also, this rocket SSTO has a cross range of a brick. If I could add some wings and control surfaces, maybe I would get more flexibility while landing.

[Flying dutchman]

I'm shooting a video. Only problem is that one take takes 7 hours to take so i will be babysitting my computer today..

[Grogs]

Eighteen brave kerbonauts passed out of Kerbin's SOI, entering the great unknown for the first time ...

 

... and then decided they wanted to go home and did a U-turn.

 

 

Since I won't have any kerbals available for the next 15 days, I decided to do some missions with probes. First up was a mission to put a satellite in keosynchronous orbit.

 

 

Then I tested a new rover probe and skycrane. This one was remarkably well-balanced. It was a bit too heavy for Spiders, so I had to go for Twitches instead. As a result, I was able to fly it up to 2000m and land safely on Kerbin. I sent it one the way to the Mun where it will scan a Mun crater with it's large scanning arm, and then landed the booster on the front lawn of the astronaut complex.

 

 

Then I sent up two modules of the new Minimus station. First was the center module with crew quarters and power.

 

And then the science/docking module.

Both modules are now on their way to Minimus where they'll be joined together. The next time kerbals visit they'll find a fine new station waiting for them. The only module missing right now is the ISRU refinery. Hopefully between what the crew brings back from Kerbol orbit and the rover scans I'll get enough science to unlock the large ore containers. Once I get those, I'll send the ISRU equipment out along with a couple of newly-minted 3-star engineers to man the equipment.

Edited July 30, 2020 by Grogs

[Flying dutchman]

12 minutes ago, Flying dutchman said:

I'm shooting a video. Only problem is that one take takes 7 hours to take so i will be babysitting my computer today..

And my computer crashed now i have to start over again.

[Hotel26]

Sometime back, I downloaded and fiddled with myrddin's Konkorde Mk3.  It's a beautiful airplane with very skilful work on the wings:

 

Concorde is such a temptation.  The closest I have come to giving into that temptation is with my Esprit, which is not Concorde, but merely an impression:

 

Inspired by myrddin (and many, many others too), I am tuning this:

We'll see if it turns into anything.  (And, yes: I gratefully borrowed Konkorde Mk3's nose.)

 

UPDATE: tracing how I came across Konkorde Mk3, I recall now that 'myrddin' is the KerbalX parallel of one @JorgeCS, and my grateful acknowledgement to him.

Edited July 31, 2020 by Hotel26

[FezCool]

Throughout this week I sent the "Falcon" SSTO to Minmus as the first Minmus landing in my new sandbox save.

After this I sent scanning  probes to the Mun and Minmus.

And then after that I sent my first space station into space and docked a couple solar arrays to the station.

 

[Angelo Kerman]

After concluding my "To the Mun" mission report yesterday, I started working on the vehicles for the follow-up:

Freedom is named after the shuttle from my old KSOS Mission Chronicles thread. Back then, I flew the Kerbin Shuttle Orbiter System, but the new ship is from the Shuttle Orbiter Construction Kit. The pad it sits on is from Modular Launch Pads.

[JorgeCS]

2 hours ago, Angel-125 said:

Freedom is named after the shuttle from my old KSOS Mission Chronicles thread. Back then, I flew the Kerbin Shuttle Orbiter System, but the new ship is from the Shuttle Orbiter Construction Kit. The pad it sits on is from Modular Launch Pads.

Mmm... then you can launch the Independence, rendez-vous with the comet (now that we have them stock!) that's about to hit Kerbin, drill, deploy the nuclear warheads, which will be detonated by Bruce Kerman (RIP in the process) to save Grace Kerman and the rest of the Kerbalkind... no? Too much?  Sorry just a bit bored of the new career in 1.10 with limited mods so I just needed to let my imagination go with the flow a bit. And your post was perfect for that  

Cheers!

J

[JorgeCS]

4 hours ago, Hotel26 said:

Sometime back, I downloaded and fiddled with myrddin's Konkorde Mk3.  It's a beautiful airplane with very skilful work on the wings:

Concorde is such a temptation.  The closest I have come to giving into that temptation is with my Esprit, which is not Concorde, but merely an impression:

Inspired by myrddin (and many, many others too), I am tuning this:

We'll see if it turns into anything.  (And, yes: I gratefully borrowed Konkorde Mk3's nose.)

How can I not like this post?  But missing more pictures of your Esprit! Looking good!

[Fraktal]

About eight hours ago, I pulled off a chain of missions to replace the lab module of my space station in high Kerbin orbit with one using a larger docking port, moved all my scientists and data over, deorbited the old lab, then flew a science lander over to the Mun but instead of landing, I used the lander's fuel to slingshot around the Mun at low altitude, do orbital science during the flyby, do a deceleration burn once past the mun, aerobrake around Kerbin as low as I can without flipping over and burning to ash (since the lander wasn't designed for this use case), rendezvous with the space station and transfer the data into the lab before heading home.

Then I discovered why my old lab was producing around 0.1 science per day and the new lab still said 0 science per day after all the data was transferred over, despite being stuffed with half a dozen 2-star scientists: it had no less than 140 experiments in it that haven't been converted into data. Once I corrected the mistake, the lab is now chugging along producing 9 science per day.

I'm thinking of moving the lab over to the Mun to get the celestial body multiplier, but that would require more extensive modifications at my existing munar space station. And while I'm at it, I also should take the scientists out on a field trip just past Kerbin's SOI so that they all level up to 3-star, but doing it in one go will be a little tricky because one hitchhiker module can't carry this many guys at once.

[Grogs]

My rover arrived at the Mun. I used the fuel from the transfer stage to drop it straight down over my target - the deployed scientific instruments below - and then ditched it. I got a decent impact for the seismometer, a whole 1.5(!) science for this impact.

 

The rover used the large arm to do scans of a mun rock, small crater, and (the contract objective) a large crater. I keep forgetting to put "parking brakes" on these rovers so I had to hold the B key for the scan.

 

I needed a new fuel tanker at Minimus. Hopefully this will be the last full one from Kerbin and I'll refill it from the Minimus Station ISRU. I also picked up a contract to rescue a kerbal from Minimus orbit, so I attached a small lander with probe control on top of the refueler.

 

After the initial burn to Minimus, I separated the lander from the refueler. I then realized I had sent the lander up with no fuel. Luckily there's a fuel tanker nearby, so a quick redock fixed the problem. I sent the tanker towards a low equatorial orbit and the lander adjusted towards Algard's inclined orbit.

 

I also launched a probe with a Sentinel telescope to look for Class E asteroids between the orbits of Eve and Kerbin. This will be the first long-range extra-Kerbin mission in this career. It will be about 190 days before it reaches periapsis and begins the search.

 

I now have a small fleet of ships heading towards Minimus. Two station segments, the fuel tanker, lander, and the telescope probe (which is just coincidentally on the same heading).

 

The lander arrived at Minimus first and rendezvoused with Algard's craft.

 

Little does she know, but this "rescue" will take her directly to the surface of Minimus where she'll be put to work in the salt mines performing research in the mobile processing lab.

 

I lost power during a storm and my persistent.sfs save got corrupted. Luckily I was able to copy over the latest quicksave and get it back up and running. Tomorrow the rest of the ships will arrive at Minimus and hopefully I'll get the first two modules of the station assembled. I need about 200 more science and then I can build the ISRU module and miner using large ore tanks.

[RealKerbal3x]

3 minutes ago, Grogs said:

I keep forgetting to put "parking brakes" on these rovers so I had to hold the B key for the scan.

FYI.. you can click the brakes icon next to the altimeter to lock your brakes.

[Angelo Kerman]

Prototype shuttle Freedom (named for the shuttle in my old KSOS Mission Chronicles) takes her first flight:

Jeb buzzed the retired K-20s:

Using the power of robotics, I can move the air intake nose caps forward for launch and reentry, and backwards to allow air into the jet engines:

Still more to do, like moving the umbilicals so they aren't routing through the jet engines...

That shuttle is @benjee10's Shuttle Orbiter Construction Kit:

 

Edited July 31, 2020 by Angel-125

[Grogs]

5 hours ago, RealKerbal3x said:

FYI.. you can click the brakes icon next to the altimeter to lock your brakes.

Nice, thanks. I've been playing for how long, and never realized that? I've been putting Breaking Ground hinges on my rovers and extending them to hold my rovers still.

[Kerminator K-100]

Evicted the director of the KSC

Exploring the Kosmos

2 hours ago, Angel-125 said:

Still more to do, like moving the umbilicals so they aren't routing through the jet engines...

That shuttle is @benjee10's Shuttle Orbiter Construction Kit:

 

How do you do a mini topic like this?

[Angelo Kerman]

18 minutes ago, Kerminator1000 said:

Evicted the director of the KSC

Exploring the Kosmos

How do you do a mini topic like this?

Just link to a forum thread.