What did you do in KSP1 today?

[JazzXP]

Finally rescued some of my guys from The Mun. Two flights. First was interesting, ran out of fuel and RCS, so Bill decided to jump out and push. Success!

Second was by the books and quite boring in reports.

[Milkshakefiend]

Got a probe into Duna orbit for the first time.

Well done on breaking your duck. The first extra-Kerbestrial trip is an exciting one.

Today I decided I'm going to venture out further than I have previously, and Do More Interesting Things. I hardly ever visit anywhere further than Minmus, and if I do I send 1 launch and follow it religiously. I'm terrible at multitasking flights, so I downloaded Kerbal alarm clock to give me some computerised help and set about designing some rockets. I decided before sending poor Kerbals to their doom in some hell (mo)hole I'd send a trio of probes to a planet - a satellite capable of changing from equatorial to polar orbit and transferring to a moon, a stationary probe lander to surveil the territory and the reeentry sequence of the planet, and finally a rover to blast around the planet/moon. To make things interesting I decided that each launch must contain all 3 probes - this minimises the number of flights my tiny little mind has to keep track of. Today I finished and tested what I have designated the Semi-Local Probe Launch System - it was designed with enough dV to transfer to Duna, Eve, Dres or Moho, although from the dV map I've seen, a Moho landing may be pushing the capabilities of my landers slightly.

Here's a shot from early testing.

Control is slightly problematic, so a Mk 1.1 variant was tested earlier using a 5m bottom stage, enlarged aerodynamic surfaces, more reaction wheels and no SRBs. Gimbal range for the 5m stage was reduced to 0.05. This stops the engine overtaking the nose during the gravity turn and reduces instances of rapid unplanned disassembly. Pictures of this and of the probes themselves will probably be in the mission reports section for anyone interested.

Using deadly reentry and FAR complicates matters slightly, so everything that goes up is faired, and everything that goes down again is heat-shielded, faired, has air-brakes for some semblance of atmospheric control, drogue chutes, main chutes and a reserve chute. Total stage count right now is 24, although only the first 5 are to get the thing interplanetary.

[SkyRender]

The space program is on light duty until the Minmus Kethane mission arrives at its destination (and until the last two semi-synchronous Mun satellites are aligned). The LKO and Mun Stations are fully fueled with 25,600 cumulative liquid fuel/oxidizer each, the Mun base has escape pods now, and generally everything is hunky-dory.

Also, some prototyping was done on a heavy-lift crane. Why not?

[WillHop]

Put a probe in to Eeloo orbit, which was my first ever encounter with Eeloo, and I replaced my decrepid old station with a much nicer one.

[leax256]

Tested the logistics of making and underwater base. it's tuff but possible.

[rvcrazy]

Finally-after a few failed attempts-rescued Jeb, Bill, and Johnkin from the crash site/impromptu base on Duna!

[papics]

"Jeb" must have been messing around with the design of my Hermes-1 probe to the Jool system, since upon arrival it turned out, that the capacity of the Solar panels is way lower than what is necessary to continuously operate the ion engine... Anyway, with 5 sec burns and half minute charging times I managed to get a gravity assist from Tylo and get on orbit around Jool, then after some aerobraking get on a trajectory towards Laythe, establish a stable orbit around, and then try to get on a nice low orbit with some aerobraking... Unluckily while my main panels were folded away for safety I managed to rotate into such an unlucky position that after the first pass through the atmosphere I did not get any Sunlight anymore (since I could not even rotate without any current), which of course resulted in a few more passes through the atmosphere, then a crash landing into the ocean :S Now it is almost 4AM here, so... next time: larger Solar panels, and better coverage of small panels/more batteries!

[Guest]

Made two stock SSTOs. 2 variations on the same theme.

Edited August 28, 2013 by Guest

[fcdrifter13]

In my efforts to make a realistic Kethane Base on the mun I have sent up many smaller units each with a purpose. All will be interconnected with those neat little Kosmos grid tunnels for realism and have a solar array with a power plant(nuke) as backup for when the sun goes down along with a complete battery arrangement/ light tower to supply much needed vision for landing in the night time. Only thing I really got done was making this completely self contained and moveable solar array which I will land tomorrow after work. Everything will be connected by loose KAS cable giving it a good look.

Then tomorrow I need to find out how to get this to the Mun.

My original way worked but it was kinda sketchy and I dont want to waste countless lives in another attempt

[segaprophet]

I crashed a big rocketship real good -

[Geschosskopf]

I'm very busy trying to meet windows for Dres, Jool, and Duna all within 30 days of each other. I'm sending out 8 ships in total, 6 of which need to be assembled in orbit, so there are a boatload of launches and dockings on the agenda. Today I finished up the rather extensive R&D (I've been working on this for a couple weeks now) and managed to get the 1st 3 launches up before calling it quits for the night.

[Tripzter]

Tried...landing on the sun.

Hit an invisible "land" and my ship blew up.

[Demobot]

Today I hit a major milestone, for me at least: I completed a 3-Kerbal mission to the Mun and back.

Let me tell you, RCS comes in handy when landing on those inclines. The lander very nearly toppled over.

[regex]

Nice, a proper "delta". I've been wanting to make one myself, I love the way you've done the wings.

[TheHockeyPlayer]

Alright, so here's the scoop:

I'm in the process of landing on every planet in the game; I've already laid the foundation by sending a lander to Duna. It's now landed, and I'm waiting for the planets to align themselves so I can send it home. I've also sent a space station to Eve; it's now a month away, in game time, from an encounter.

While I wait for everything to happen, I decided it would be time to set up a Kethane mining base on Minmus. I just sent a satellite to search for Kethane, and here it is:

I've started to attribute cool names to all crafts that are used for long term missions (i.e. the D.L.R. Project or the E.O.B.E.R. Project). I'm calling this one the M.K.M.O.E., or Minmus. Kethane. Mining. Operation. Establishment., Project. It should be a fun time.

Edited August 28, 2013 by TheHockeyPlayer

[Van Disaster]

Rebuilt my basic scansat yet again with an alternative model for the EL Ore scanner, so...

DarkStar III left for Jool with five plus local insertion stages.

Framerate is horrendous

[silkmonkey]

Built a jumbo rover. Used it to climb Jeb onto buildings at the spaceport. Trying to find a reason to send it somewhere. Also resolve sudden unplanned disassembly.

I can't build rovers for crap.

[palker]

Went to Duna and back for the first time here are some mission screens.

Lift of of Far away lands interplanetary rocket

Arrival at Duna

Lander separation

Successful landing

Exploring with RCS + parachutes

Docking with Kerbin transfer rocket to move the crew from the lander.

Back home

Few things i found out were that the lander has just barely enough deltav to perform the landing and take of from Duna when i docked with the transfer rocket i had just about 150 m/s delta v left while the interplanetary stage had way more delta v than necessary for Kerbin transfer. Also the time between transfer windows will require bigger more comfortable transfer rockets and landers.

[Jenteb07]

I've just landed my rover on Dres as phase 2 of my Dres mission (first one was deploying a satellite network around Dres).

I also made a one piece space station destined Duna, got it in orbit around Kerbin already, awaiting transfer time (is coming in 12 days).

[capi3101]

Launched Storax Anacostia 7 completely after two failed tries (had some structural issues with the orange tanks that didn't happen in last night's launch attempts). As I'd figured, a slow burn with the third stage was sufficient to get the craft into orbit. It would be nice to figure out how to make a quad-adapter engine sandwich that didn't blow up when you decoupled the lower adapter piece but the ship is intact and everything looks operational. Four days to the optimal transfer window. If Bill doesn't play his Enya CD over the loudspeakers again, all three Kerbonauts might be headed to Duna in a few days.

Got started with the Baja Munar Challenge. All I can say is that I don't like the rover design...a definite Mun buggy with a high center of mass. Good thing Jeb and Bill keep a portable Goodyear tire shop in their spacesuits; they've definitely been racking up the frequent flier miles this time around. Probably a good thing this challenge isn't on Minmus...

Started eyeballing the Eeloo challenge. That one looks quite difficult and yet fun at the same time.

[rodion]

After several days of extremely miserable performance in the VAB, my fortunes are finally looking up.

This still easily ranks as one of the ugliest boosters I've ever assembled in the VAB, but I must have done something somewhat right, because the flaky pilot design, with no flight tests or modifications, actually lofted just about 50,000kg to a 200 km LKO on the first ever rollout (which started as a test to see if it broke up on the pad or not - in the words of test pilot G. Tyson, 'She simply wanted to fly, so I let her.'). The X-64 and X-16 tanks at the top are dummy masses to simulate the kind of payloads that will supply my next permanent space station for mission support, or a reasonably sized one-launch mission to another body. On a less grandiose note, you may notice the novice omission of batteries or power generators, meaning yes, it's still up there.

[Guest]

Nice, a proper "delta". I've been wanting to make one myself, I love the way you've done the wings.

I love delta wings. F-106 is my favorite all time airplane. Anyway - this craft is pretty good - it will make 30000 still at full thrust and will reach 1500 m/s there (with air breathing engines only). I have nested numerous intakes as always it seems to be the key. I will be posting it to the Spaceport after debugging my issue of tail heaviness when empty. I need some ballast in the front. I don't want canards for the true delta configuration. I did actually do a successful de-orbit and was within 2 or 3 miles of the runway under positive control. I am almost there.

Edited August 28, 2013 by Guest

[Wayfare]

I built a lighter lander for my all-stock Grand Tour concept, allowing me to cut six launches' and three transfers' worth of support craft from the program - including a hairy tandem transfer to Moho. Yay!

Lesson learned: If you want to save delta-v, save payload!

Edited August 28, 2013 by Wayfare

[magnemoe]

Managed to get back into orbit with an 13 ton stock lander, on Eve. Has managed with 8 ton but is unable to replicate kerbal on ladder tricks, lander spins out of control during the circulate burn so this uses kerbal in seat.

Continues to crash launders into Tylo, you obviously want as few engines as possible to minimize weight, you must land with 3km/s left to reach orbit again.

[magnemoe]

I built a lighter lander for my all-stock Grand Tour concept, allowing me to cut six launches' and three transfers' worth of support craft from the program - including a hairy tandem transfer to Moho. Yay!

Lesson learned: If you want to save delta-v, save payload!

Nice, has done some grand tours myself. You need one reusable lander who can do Vall and Duna, use this with reduced fuel for the rest. You obviously need an Eve lander, Tylo is also best done in an disposable one, however you might want to do this and Laythe with an fist stage on the standard lander but this will increase weight.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/46340-Grand-tour-2-Jeb-s-revenge this is an 156 ton mission, I work on getting it down to 100 ton but have run into problem with Eve and Tylo landers who worked in grand tour 2.