What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Dafni]

Donated some cash to one of my favorite modders.

[Caerfinon]

It's not a pretty landing, but it's a landing. Built with USI Survivability Pack D.E.R.P parts... multum in parvo.  

 

[dudnees]

Some extreme orbital low-flying on the Mun.

Video:

The two main parts: setting up the precision orbit and designing the "goalposts" were equally difficult.

Great fun though!

 

[Dientus]

1 hour ago, dudnees said:

Some extreme orbital low-flying on the Mun.

Video:

The two main parts: setting up the precision orbit and designing the "goalposts" were equally difficult.

Great fun though!

 

That is just wayy to Kerbally awesome!!

[dudnees]

21 minutes ago, Dientus said:

That is just wayy to Kerbally awesome!!

Thank you!  :-)

[Kerminator K-100]

On 3/9/2021 at 5:39 PM, dudnees said:

 - snip - 

I saw a Scott Manley video where he did this but with the mun arches. I feel like having to set up your own posts would be harder.

[dudnees]

55 minutes ago, Kerminator K-100 said:

I saw a Scott Manley video where he did this but with the mun arches. I feel like having to set up your own posts would be harder.

I didn't think of using the arches.  They would be more difficult to aim at. A moveable target can be placed precisely on the equator.

[Caerfinon]

Space infrastructure projects. Building out CommNet might not be glamourous, but we don't want blackouts on the Dark Side of the Mun

[flyingshark]

On 3/6/2021 at 3:02 PM, flyingshark said:

Today I tested a standardized non-atmospheric lander on the Mun. Just trying to make my set of craft a little simpler. This thing has ~3300 m/s of deltav in a vacuum, but only 920 in Kerbin's atmosphere because of the poodle engine. Thinking of upgrading that to an aerospike and adding another fuel tank to try and make it work nearly everywhere. For getting to places farther than the moons of Kerbin, it's meant to dock to a transfer stage/kerbin reentry capsule with the shielded docking port at the top. Anyway, here's the crew all on EVA admiring it in low Mun orbit:

 

Made some changes, added a nuclear engine transfer stage, and sent the standardized lander to Duna. Here it is on Duna's northern ice cap. I let Jeb parachute off a hill, then had to hop the lander 3km to get him back. That cost me enough fuel that I had to complete the ascent with RCS thrusters and use the transfer stage to rendezvous and dock. But everything was okay in the end, and all six (yes you're reading that right, 3 on the transfer/command/relay section, and 3 in the lander) made it safely back to Kerbin.

[AFF]

[Single stage to ocean]

I bet this has something with eve. This reminds of some suborbital catcher some ksp guy did in a fully reusable eve system.

Spoiler

 

Edited March 12, 2021 by Single stage to ocean

[Francois424]

After a few sessions of Roving around, we're now ready for the next mission report !

As you know, we were heading Northwest of the Midland Canyon, heading to a Crater...

. . . Duna's Craters reached after a 123km trip west of the Canyon.  It was... a painful driving session, many hills and dangers reduced our average speed a lot, but we made it.  As usual, Bob did his things and reported a 7.1% concentration of Ore.

 

Everyone was tired, so we set the rover for automatic night drilling (one drill only, having the generator make the electricity.  Not efficient, but since we're not going anywhere for a few hours at least)... 
The next morning, dawning on day 5 of the expedition, we set our goal on a strange depression far to the west.  Since it's a day driving session, Bill will take the wheel this time, Agawise's driving style is too... Bumpy.

And on our merry way we go again.  We don't know the exact distance, but this landmark we're heading too appears to be a long ride.  Hopefully the terrain will mellow a bit !

Now while Bill was (and masterfully so, Jebediah was forced to concede) driving west, Jeb couldn't help but to take this cliché... It reminded him of some movie he saw when he was younger...

 

While that was happening on Duna, "Team-Two" reported a full tank of Ore and Fuel on the Mün and were given the "go-ahead" by the KSC.
So they got the pre-launch preparations done, pulled the drills back and...

. . . Blastoff !  Now the 'Hephaistos Miner' is so laden with ore at that time, that it's TWR is 1.05 on the Mün.  It's a very slow liftoff.

But slowly and surely as they say, the craft gracefully goes up and begins it's gravity turn to orbit.  Too much tilt and we'd start falling down again.

Almost there, we weren't sure the design would work on the Mün, but thankfully the engineers did their work properly.

And orbit is achieved.  A small burn to fix the inclination, and we have a rendez-vous with the Hephaistos engine section in about 5hrs.  Please add points to the cadet's score for a textbook liftoff and maneuver timing/planning.

 

 

Then, later on Duna...

The crew made it to the Duna's Northern Bassin after a long 264km trip.  Bill's driving was impeccable and quick and the terrain was superb, especially in the Bassin itself, the best Duna terrain thus far.
Bob did his scientific stuff again, and noticed the best Ore concentration we have ever seen on Duna... 21.43% (!!!).  Let's just say we're going to top off the tanks before heading south into another sort of Ravine.

 

That completes the last 2 sessions of KSP for me.
As usual, thanks for Reading !

 

[jimmymcgoochie]

Deployed some relays, did some contracts, upgraded the VAB, launched the first of several space telescope type experiments, then I decided to try and send up a crew to a "station" in low orbit, and this happened:

And to make things worse I hadn't programmed the abort sequence correctly- the fairings around the pod didn't deploy so it was still stuck inside, but fortunately I had control of the second stage and could deploy it that way instead.

The crew (both called Elvira) walked away unharmed in the end. And yes, those are bits of rocket in the background.

[KeaKaka]

Yesterday, I flew a Dyna-Soar.

 

[18Watt]

Finished driving a rover all the way around Tylo, for the Elcano challenge.  That took a long time.

 

[Kerbals_of_Steel]

Not much playing, but I made my first custom Module Manager patch to add compatibility between USI Life Support and Suicidal Insanity's Stockish Orion mod. The IVA's in that Orion mod are just too sweet to waste.

[Cavscout74]

Still don't have my laptop back - turns out the screen is made of unobtainium and requires 6 months to build from scratch and is only available from the computer manufacturer - but I bought a cheaper laptop while I'm waiting that will at least allow me to play KSP even if I don't have my JNSQ save. 

Launched (and crashed) a base to Mun....

After jettisoning the transfer stage, I was doing ~400 m/s and the fuel for the braking motors amounted to a little over 300 m/s.  Maybe next time....

then I test flew a small jet & crashed it as well.   At least I'm consistent.   Happily this was sandbox not a no-revert career

 

Edited March 12, 2021 by Cavscout74

[Puggonaut]

 

[Apelsin]

Some pretty miscalleneous pics of GU testing - highly recommend this mod. Runs suprisingly well on my below-average specs setup (laptop w/ integrated GPU).

Probably my favourite view in the game - Leethe (pulsar) viewed from one of its' two planets. Finally got INSTANTIATOR to work, enabling these animated "tails".

Orbiting above a brown dwarf

Proxima A&B (binary star)

[DunaManiac]

Since my last post here, I've built all 9 of my spacecraft and sent them to Duna as a part of Phase 2.

The first vessel to arrive was the Dune Trekker. The Dune Trekker was sent to explore a strange radio signal emanating from the south pole of Duna. Observations from the G. E. O. Satellite shows a strange, cone-like structure on Duna. Further exploration was warranted. However, the Dune Trekker's landing would not be precise. The scientists put the most precise landing zone at a 50 km by 50 km radius.

With 8 days until the next vessel in line reaches it's Duna encounter, the Dune Trekker had plenty of time to land on Duna. It's seen here with the CCM (Course Correction Module) at the edge of Duna's hill sphere. The golden fairing is key to the Dune Trekker's design, for reasons that are classified* as of now.

Spoiler

*The Dune Trekker had a much higher budget than it needed due to some sleepy accountant adding an extra 0 to the budget memo, so Wernher blew the rest of the budget by having the fairing coated in pure gold.

The Dune Trekker entered the atmosphere over the south pole of Duna.  (Note, these pictures are based off pictures taken by the GEO satellite of the Dune Trekker's descent, but is enhanced and modified for presentation.)

Soon after, the Course Correction Module dethatched from the fairing. 

During reentry, the scientists severely underestimated how much thermal stress the reentry would put on the fairing. The fairing nearly overheated, but the day was saved when the retro rockets automatically fired to slow down the craft. The jets seen opposite to the reentry flare are the plumes from the retro-rockets.

By the time the retro-rockets turned off, the Dune trekker was now travelling at mach 2.

The fairing separated from the dune trekker, but the deployment was so fast G. E. O. was not able to capture the exact moment of deployment, only about a second later showing the immediate aftermath.

The parachutes successfully deployed, slowing the Dune Trekker to under mach 1.

\

The engines provided the remaining deceleration. At deployment, the Dune Trekker began to lower it's cable** 

Spoiler

**A BG 1P2 Hydraulic Cylinder

And separated, safely putting the Dune Trekker rover on the ground to begin a 50-100 km journey to Site YXAL, the mysterious pyramid.

Edited March 12, 2021 by DunaManiac

[Ziggy Kerman]

Most Fridays it's planning day, so I brainstorm rocket ideas, missions, draft some of them, but now I'm more doing missions and that stuff.

[flyingshark]

Today I sent Bob on my first mission to Eve and Gilly, but I accidentally hit space and decoupled after I landed, stranding him there. So then I sent two more Kerbals to rescue him, and barely made it back to Kerbin with 2 m/s of deltav to spare.  As if that wasn't enough, the chute I'd picked wasn't big enough, so I had to EVA all 3 crew and glide them down and recover them individually. Got 6400 science though!

The original ship:

"Hello, security? I seem to be missing an engine and some fuel tanks." 

The rescue craft on Gilly:

Reentering at Kerbin:

[Ziggy Kerman]

2 hours ago, flyingshark said:

Today I sent Bob on my first mission to Eve and Gilly, but I accidentally hit space and decoupled after I landed, stranding him there. So then I sent two more Kerbals to rescue him, and barely made it back to Kerbin with 2 m/s of deltav to spare.  As if that wasn't enough, the chute I'd picked wasn't big enough, so I had to EVA all 3 crew and glide them down and recover them individually. Got 6400 science though!

The original ship:

"Hello, security? I seem to be missing an engine and some fuel tanks." 

The rescue craft on Gilly:

Reentering at Kerbin:

Congrats my dude, my first Eve mission burned up due to unplanned aerobraking, turned into aero-y-RUD-ing, and now, with the Frontiers program, I'm gonna launch a 2nd one, Phoenix II will have the Acanthis lander and the Raven Gilly lander, all unmaned.

On 3/11/2021 at 9:18 AM, Caerfinon said:

Space infrastructure projects. Building out CommNet might not be glamourous, but we don't want blackouts on the Dark Side of the Mun

My Hermes coms net is just for, general coms, Hermes M will be 2 around the far side Mun so I could start base on it.

[PTNLemay]

While I’ve never installed BDArmory, I have been wanting to experiment with designs that would work as a “gunship”.  As in, something with a dedicated cargo-space for bombs or missiles or something, instead of just awkwardly slapping some cannons onto the side of an otherwise normal interplanetary transfer ship.  From that brainstorm came the Guppy.

My go-to Cupolas have been replaced by a compact little Mk2 Inline Cockpit, which I have to say...  it’s a crime I haven’t used this one more. I completely missed the new internals it has, and they’re beautiful. I love those little hallways.  And the cramped space plus red lights really fit the “attack craft” feel.  A few other parts that people might see are non-stock are all from Nertea part packs (because they’re amazing).

The weapons would go in the frontal cargo-bay. I’m imagining a stack of short-ranged missiles.  The fuel tanks are so huge I can get an easy 4 km/s from the ship.

Overall it works really well, the one big issue I’ve been having with it is the landing legs.  I like the idea of it being able to do belly-flop landings on small moons, so I gave it enough ventral engines for a Minmus landing.  But the pistons... don’t really want to work as landing legs.  Even when I give them enough electricity, it goes all... young-giraffe-struggling-to-stand.  I think that the mass of it is imparting too much force, even in low-gravity.

I might just abandon the idea of having it land.  It was a fun concept but it's too much trouble.  The design still has a lot of fun elements just as an orbit-to-orbit craft.

Edited March 13, 2021 by PTNLemay

[Caerfinon]

Jeb: I didn't see anything! Did you?
Bill: I didn't see anything.... drive faster!!

Edited March 13, 2021 by Caerfinon