What did you do in KSP1 today?

[vv3k70r]

3 hours ago, Misguided Kerbal said:

Big rock:

Cute rover.

3 hours ago, Misguided Kerbal said:

While Minmus definitely looks better, it's a pain to drive on. I also couldn't find any of the breaking ground surface features, so yeah.

Reaction wheels needed - then turn off  tracktion control and speed up on SAS only, when jum - turn reaction wheels for better landing and do not forget about spring/damper.

2 hours ago, Brikoleur said:

Arrived at Laythe.

Nice personal vtol.

26 minutes ago, RealKerbal3x said:

After delivering the Tug and its extra tank into orbit, the booster returned to the KSC runway for a powered landing.

I seen it somwhere in our world. Did I?

 

 

Tug docked with my third vessel from da Mun (most succesfull one) running purely on reaction wheels "on ground". It did Mun around, now get some more powerfull science stuff and nearest window is Moho - let it be.

Reusable, multiplanetary rover.

Not enough antenas around to get symetry in vab-anywhere:

Another refueling on Minmus - start to be a chore:

Landing booster - another chore:

Whale with fuel manouver on proper altitude:

And coming back for more (chore - it was fun forst three time):

I missed what kind of old booster I have on hauler and have to land oldest version of my reusable booster with forward heat shield:

 

[RP1IsSuperior]

the fact that in this universe exists an entire country surrounding a vocaloid artist opens so many scary possiblities. The rocket is very nice though!

[Pipcard]

47 minutes ago, RP1IsSuperior said:

the fact that in this universe exists an entire country surrounding a vocaloid artist opens so many scary possiblities.

Like what?

[Kerbals_of_Steel]

I've gotten temporarily burned out on my massive Mun colony, so it was time for some Survival, Search and Rescue training:

One of them seems much less thrilled with the idea...

Probably because she knew it was her turn to go for a swim.

Jonpond lining up to drop the new survival pods on her location.

Bombs away!!!

Sanpond only needed to swim 80m or so to get to them

Note: Tell Werner to move the pontoons forward for the production models

Safe and sound with enough snacks and power for a few days. Next up will be some higher speed tests (more than the 65m/s that the Wrescue MK I tops out at, anyhow.)

https://imgur.com/Mw4iX9e

[The Destroyer]

Did some work on super-heavy lift vehicles in RSSRO.

[Clamp-o-Tron]

36 minutes ago, The Destroyer said:

Did some work on super-heavy lift vehicles in RSSRO.

I’m sorry, but that is PENTABORANE! That is not OK! I suggest you be banned from playing KSP for potentially poisoning everything within 20 km.

[Pipcard]

1959-01-31 - Negi-2A sounding rocket of the newly-formed Hatsunia Aerospace Science and Development Agency, to prepare for the first orbital launch (modified RSS/RO)

The first launch occurred with a minimal payload, to test the downrange performance capabilities of the vehicle.

The vehicle achieved a downrange distance of over 3000 kilometers from Negishima Space Center.

 

Edited January 24, 2021 by Pipcard

[Okhin]

Finally found the time needed to research a bit how people leave Eve, and manage to create a ship which can helps me getting my brave scientist back into the crew rotation (even if they leave inside a nice mushroom, I heard they're getting bored).

So, here is the ERV (Eve Return Vehicle), but maybe it should be called the Orpheus (since it can get in and out of hell).

Missing on the picture is a Fairing to hide the landing stabilizers which mess with the aerodynamics on take off from Kerbin. Because yes, it is a Kerbin SSTO (and on a non efficient ascent I did have 100m.s of dV left).

You'll notice the lack of heat shields. That's because the rocket is doing a powered landing. It rans out of fuel around 20km of altitude in Eve thick atmosphere, but the aforementioned atmosphere allow to slow down the craft and end with chutes.

And then, it can take off. Well, after filling the 62.300 units of LF plus the 76.100 units of Ox. With only 2 small convert'o'tron and drills, so it'll take some time I guess. Crew can enter the shuttle with the lateral MK2 pods and ladders, and then transfer to the landing can with a magical lift.

From there, it's only a matter of dropping the asparagus engines clusters, roaring through the thick atmo with all those mastodon engines, dropping the first stage to let the second stage vectors do some heavy pushing through lighter atmosphere (while not forgetting to drop the drop tanks when they're empty), and finish on a more classic Skiff engine for orbital insertion above Hell.

So … sicne all simulations are OK, I need to build a mission around this, including carrying a ore extracting system to refill this monster around Gilly (I will not carry it filled from Kerbin orbit, it's way to heavy), some probes, satellites and com relay, probably a small electric plane for carrying crew around and some extension for the small space labs that's sitting in Eve LKO (docked to an emmpty nuclear tug, but that one could probably help somehow).

I'm quite happy with this ship anyway, and I'll probably do a proper mission report with all of this.

Craft is here

Did I mention it can fly without a crew ?

[KevinW42]

Decided to give interplanetary SSTOs a try. I had exactly enough fuel to stick the landing on the first refueling stop on the Mun.

[JorgeCS]

5 minutes ago, KevinW42 said:

Decided to give interplanetary SSTOs a try. I had exactly enough fuel to stick the landing on the first refueling stop on the Mun.

Nice! But... why not refueling on Minmus? Easier and cheaper...  

[KevinW42]

1 minute ago, JorgeCS said:

Nice! But... why not refueling on Minmus? Easier and cheaper...  

I considered that, but I figured Mun would make setting up the Jool transfer simpler. Maybe I'll try Minmus next time.

[septemberWaves]

@The Destroyer Intriguing rocket design. What is the staging process like?

[vv3k70r]

10 hours ago, Clamp-o-Tron said:

I’m sorry, but that is PENTABORANE! That is not OK!

Take a deep breath before launch^^

 

[AFF]

Spoiler

 

 

[jimmymcgoochie]

Tried to upgrade my RP-1/RO/RSS game to 1.10.1, failed due to drag cube issues; tried 1.9.1, also failed but due to a weird graphics issue in KSC view that made everything beyond a certain distance disappear. Oh well, looks like I’m stuck with 1.8.1 for the foreseeable future.

[Zeiss Ikon]

12 minutes ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

Tried to upgrade my RP-1/RO/RSS game to 1.10.1, failed due to drag cube issues; tried 1.9.1, also failed but due to a weird graphics issue in KSC view that made everything beyond a certain distance disappear. Oh well, looks like I’m stuck with 1.8.1 for the foreseeable future.

I'd be happy if I could get my 1.8.1 RSS/RO/RP-1 game to run right.  Sometimes I can play for an hour or so -- and sometimes it crashes the first time I try to stick a part on a rocket or aircraft.  And don't even think about trying to run with Simple Procedural Engines.

 

I did manage to complete construction of Eagle 2, my current RP-1 career's first rocket plane (crewed sound barrier was flown with three Derwent jets, launched from the runway).  A couple small drop tanks to get my burn time up to 6 minutes, and I should be able to complete all the rocket plane missions at least until I get the cockpit upgrade for higher altitudes than 30 km.  Sorry, no pictures, just about ready to take one, and the game crashed.

[Guest]

This is the BAK Durandal. It's an evolution of the Aerondight, with similar capabilities and performance, but improved handling, a lower centre of gravity (in rocket stance), and an innovative internally contained landing gear for better stability when landing on airless bodies, which can also be used as a high-altitude aerobrake/extra stabiliser, e.g. for hot atmospheric entries. It's now orbiting Laythe. I intend to fly it down to refuel and pick up some crew, then I want to see if she can handle Vall as well as the Mun. She ought to but we will see if the slightly higher gravity poses any problems. 

This is one of the easiest spaceplanes to aerocapture that I've ever built. Just really docile all around.

[Fulgora]

I think I reached a new level of Kerbalness today:

Launching two shuttles. At once.

Separation shortly before reaching orbit was less than 500m (just to be clear: this is NOT Photoshopped).

I decided to revive my kOS-shuttle launch script for this endeavor.

After figuring out the kinks of kOS with multi craft launches (e.g. you cant use `STAGE.` but have to write each staging instruction in code)... IT FRIGGIN WORKS!

[jimmymcgoochie]

1 hour ago, Zeiss Ikon said:

I'd be happy if I could get my 1.8.1 RSS/RO/RP-1 game to run right.  Sometimes I can play for an hour or so -- and sometimes it crashes the first time I try to stick a part on a rocket or aircraft.  And don't even think about trying to run with Simple Procedural Engines

I haven't had too many issues so far, but crashes are more common than I would like- today I got one that meant I had to reboot my PC because it was acting weirdly. I put SPEngines in today but dropped it again, looks too complicated at this stage when I'm almost at 1960 and building rockets is hard enough without the endless options that procedural engines would give.

[Guest]

I have been working on making my videos better. With music, and now, new thumbnails

 

[The Destroyer]

14 hours ago, septemberWaves said:

@The Destroyer Intriguing rocket design. What is the staging process like?

Bigger album: here. It's based on the UR-900 Soviet rocket design (thus the 4.15m tank clustering) but with an American upper stage.

Edited January 25, 2021 by The Destroyer

[Guest]

Hudfry K. arrived without incident at Laythe Kosmodrome in Durandal. She hopped over to the command module in the shared twin-rotor, to transmit back her experience and get a few stars on her collar.  Bill is refueling Durandal in preparation for an attempted Vall mission.Durandal is a really nice craft to fly. Only downside of note is that she doesn't glide all that well, touching down at less than 50 m/s demands a quite a bit of finesse, so if there's room a slightly higher landing speed is indicated. I don't want to give it more wing because that would start to eat into the mission dV. I spent a lot of time fine-tuning it -- it is slightly asymmetrical so it wasn't obvious to get the mass distribution and aerodynamics close enough to symmetrical that it doesn't noticeably torque in one direction or another.

Also it would be nice to have a slightly larger short-range copter there, for, say, three or four kerbals. While the microcopter is remote-controllable, it takes a quite a bit of shuttling to move an entire crew from the hab module to the craft... It is really nice to fly too, less stressful than a rover and much faster.

 

Edited January 25, 2021 by Guest

[Slam_Jones]

Continued my RSS Career, now up to year 1995 (RSS starts at 1955 or so).

Moving past Earth's SOI, I sent probes to Jupiter, Saturn, Ceres, Vesta, Venus, and Mars.  The Recon Probes, as I called them, were equipped with an Argon-fueled final stage that imparts 8km/s dv upon the Experiment Container, with a few tiny solar panels, a probe core, and a heat shield for re-entry.

The first returning probe (returning from Mars) entered the atmosphere much too steeply, and crashed into the ocean at a speed between several hundred to several thousand m/s.  Needless to say, we did not recover that one.

Learning from this, I set the Periapsis for all future returning probes to 50km above Earths surface.  This allowed the probes a long shallow angle to shed speed, and slow down enough to safely deploy the parachute, at which point the container returns to Earth at a comfortable 3.2m/s.

We safely recovered probes with experiments from the orbits of Saturn, Jupiter, and Ceres so far.  The rest either ran out of fuel too early, or smashed into the atmosphere at too high of a velocity.

Moving on from that, I began an ambitious project: place a factory in orbit of Phobos (a tiny moon of Mars) and utilize ISRU and Extraplanetary Launchpads (mod) to build ships and components in orbit.

I sent a flotilla of 6 modules to Mars, intending to rendezvous and connect them all in orbit of Phobos.  It was mostly a success, save for 2 modules that missed their mark and became impromptu relay satellites in an eccentric solar orbit.

I managed to link up the surviving modules, and attempted to move the station (CS Phobos) into it's final orbit.  Due to some game bugs, this was basically impossible.  So instead, I moved it into an orbit very close to Phobos, but outside its SOI.  This means that a trip to Phobos would cost my ExoMiner approx 500m/s of its available 2km/s of dv.

The ExoMiner is a small Nuclear Reactor (so it can run in darkness) attached to an ISRU unit, with a large Ore tank (for making fuel), a large Metal Ore tank (for making Rocket Parts), several drills, radiators, docking port for modularity and resource transfer, and a big old battery.

Loaded with Ore and Metal Ore, the ExoMiner is reduced to about 700m/s of dv, which is just enough to return to the Construction Station to offload its cargo.  The Ore is processed into Lf/Ox, about half of which goes back to the ExoMiner.  The remainder is stored on the station and used in the Metal Ore smelting process.  Lf/Ox is heated to bring the smelter up to temperature, then the Metal Ore is added which becomes Metal, which is then processed by the Construction Drone section of the station, and becomes Rocket Parts.  Rocket Parts are then easily turned into new modules for the station.

So far, I have built a larger Metal Ore container for the station, an additional Rocket Parts container (so I can build bigger components), and a better Ore container for the ExoMiner.  This means that the ISRU project is successful and should be able to greatly assist operation in Mars SOI.  I will continue building larger containers and modules for the station, and ejecting the deprecated modules into the surface of Mars (to save on part count for my poor tired i3).

Plans from here are to send a few Kerbals out to the station for some cleanup, such as removing RCS ports and excess Solar Panels (again to save on part count).  Doing so will reduce part count of the station from 220 down to 150 or so.  After this, I plan to build a few landers to drop onto Mars, which will hopefully survive and send back that precious, precious science.

 

One of several modules leaving Earth

 

Initial version of ExoMiner arriving at Phobos

 

After the first two trips, an Ore Modules was built and added.  Another one was built later, as this one had major thermal issues with the ISRU unit (mostly the fact that I forgot radiators).  Due to remarkably low surface gravity (and the fact that it take 12m/s of dv to reach orbit), the ExoMiner can be very tall and remain stable.

 

CS Phobos (Construction Station, unmanned, first iteration)

 

CS Phobos after building some new modules, and re-arranging old ones.  You can spot the new Ore Module attached to the ExoMiner.

Edited January 26, 2021 by Slam_Jones

[Zeiss Ikon]

On 1/24/2021 at 5:50 PM, jimmymcgoochie said:

I haven't had too many issues so far, but crashes are more common than I would like- today I got one that meant I had to reboot my PC because it was acting weirdly. I put SPEngines in today but dropped it again, looks too complicated at this stage when I'm almost at 1960 and building rockets is hard enough without the endless options that procedural engines would give.

If I could get it stabilized, I'd like to try a career with only procedural engines.  We've got tanks, fairings, and aero surfaces (and likely won't ever have procedural pods, though we do have procedural avionics).  The idea behind procedural engines is to reduce being locked into historic-like vehicles ("Oh, yep, today I put the first Kerbal in orbit with a rocket that looks suspiciously like an Atlas -- the alternative was one that bears a striking resemblance to an R-7.").  I'd like to explore HTP/Kerosene engines in 1958-equivalent, as a replacement for peroxide/ethanol, which was an evolution of LOX/ethanol (instead of the LOX/kerosene evolution we actually got).  SPE can do this -- if I can ever get 1.8.1 RO to settle down enough.  Hypergolics in different sizes seem reasonable, too (the Titan II that launched Gemini used hypergolics), and good for interplanetary because the propellants don't boil off.

[Martian Emigrant]

Today.

Jeb flew a Stock-throttleable-Kraken-Ship to the Mün and back.

 

ME