What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Landwalker]

Having never been to any celestial body outside of the Kerbin-Mun-Minmus system except for one very brief fly-by of Eve in my ruined campaign, it was time in my new campaign to stretch my wings and finally go get a real encounter (and the science to go with it).

Launched a probe that was supposed to travel to, orbit, and eventually crash into, Eve.

Didn't pay attention to my launch windows and ended up being about a month too late for Eve.

As a result, the mission was diverted. One as-yet-unvisited celestial body is as good as the next, right?

And so it was the the Apollonius Zeta probe traveled to visit our red neighbor to the radial-out and its creepy satellite.

We started out coming into the encounter a little... below target?

<iframe class="imgur-album" width="100%" height="550" frameborder="0" src="http://imgur.com/a/43vte/embed"></iframe>

[Daniel Lix]

This is the most random plane that I make today xD

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8aURxOhjrM

[annallia]

Tested the X-304 sto plane. Got treated to a nice moon rise on my evening launch. And no, Bill is not in the control tower, his lander came down up there so I decided to leave him up there.

Unfortunately I burned too long on re-entry and came up waaaay too short to reach the KSC so headed a bit south to try and find a flat spot to land on, however ran out of fuel anyway so figured why not test the ejection system?

[Biker Joe]

Put my Mun base in Orbit ready to send it to the Mun!

[dudester28]

Story time! (Too bad spoilers are no longer used. Sorry!)

As background information, I have TAC life support installed so Kerbals need resources and electricity to survive. Remote tech also plays a part in this.

The mission I had planned involved placing two small communication satellites in munar orbit with a manned ship to conduct science also (similar to what Scott Manley did). The first part of the mission went by nominally. The problem occurred when I realized I placed a decoupler backwards so it was stuck on the engine. This prevented the engine from generating any propulsion to conduct the munar capture burn. I was basically stranded.

The good news was that I was not on an escape trajectory out of kerbin. The apogee of my new orbit was around the altitude of the mun while the perigee was near geosynchronous orbit altitude. The bad news was that I didn't pack enough snacks to keep the kerbal alive for long. I had just over 12 hours of life support remaining. I would reach the perigee in 12 hours. If I conducted a rescue mission, it would be close. (due to the nature of the orbit, it would have been basically impossible to get back just by pushing on the pod from EVA)

So I quickly put together a rescue mission. I would only have one shot at doing this correctly. Because the remote tech communications network was not yet fully established, I needed the rescue ship to be manned. I had not unlocked much in the way of command pods so I just stacked two command pods on top of each other and had one piloted.

I launched the rescue mission into low kerbin orbit and waited for an intercept. I got a decent intercept and completed the burn. Unfortunately, I was running low on fuel. As I got closer to the target, I was closing in at 700 m/s. After I burned all of my fuel, velocities were still about 400m/s apart.

Instinctively, the brave kerbonaut of the doomed ship went on EVA to try and match velocities. At this point, he had minutes of life support left that he took with him on EVA. I was in no position to be patient. I watched the distance from target increasing. Eventually, the relative velocities started slowing down until they started getting closer. I made it to the rescue vessel with minutes to spare and about 20% pack fuel remaining.

This leaves one problem: The rescue vessel is out of fuel. I included RCS on the ship but being the idiot I am, I forgot to include thrusters. Luckily, I packed enough life support to keep the two kerbals alive for 5 days. Plenty of time to plan another rescue mission.

There is not much to say about the secondary rescue mission. It wasn't hard. I included more than enough fuel. It successfully rescued the rescued and the rescuer.

Why did I go to such great lengths to save a single kerbal? First of all, it's fun. Second, the name of the kerbal in trouble was Kirk Kerman. How could I just let him die?

[/story]

[WillHop]

Story time! (Too bad spoilers are no longer used. Sorry!)

-insert impressive story here-

I had a similar thing with a manned Munar landing that went horribly wrong a couple of days ago. Bill (the only survivor of the original 3 as Bob and Jeb had both died in TAC Life Support related incidents) did NOT kill all of his velocity and like a moron he smashed in to the Mun, leaving only his capsule, 1 day of life support and some solar panels - the dark side of the Mun was coming and he would run out of electricity and die should he not be rescued. What follows is probably one of my proudest moments as a KSPer.

I did originally have an unmanned rescue lander orbiting the Mun due to a failed rescue mission of Bob, so I tried landing that. Unfortunately, the unmanned technology did not do its job and again that crashed in to the Mun at high velocity, leaving nothing. I designed and sent a rescue mission as soon as possible.

At this point, Bill was entering the dark side and he his life support was running low. As I entered Munar orbit with the rescue vessel, Bill had ran out of everything and was on the cusp of death, and so I set about the descent. Achieving the first pinpoint landing of my entire career, landing mere meters from the stranded Bill, he EVA'd and made it to the rescue vessel with literally minutes to spare, and happily he gorged on snacks and oxygen as the unmanned technology took him back to Kerbin, and he was praised as a hero. TAC really does make things a lot more interesting and especially for me personally as I don't use respawns and if all the original 3 had been killed, I would have been seriously dissappointed. [/story]

[dudester28]

I agree that TAC makes everything more interesting. However, I don't use the original 3 often. Anyways, they all died in an "accident" while testing experimental aircraft. (The space program totally didn't cover up any incidents)

[zapman987]

Did a flyby of Eve and setup a flyby to go to Jool. Probably wont have enough fuel to orbit but we'll see.

[KerbMav]

While still waiting a few more days for the Duna launch window I shot up a gravitational-and-atmosphere probe ridiculously excentric around Kerbin as high as Mun's orbit. and took lots of readings.

Send a mapping probe to Minmus - while on route the window for the Duna mission came up and the probe was finally sent on its way.

The Trio took an under-equipped Mun expedition rocket to set up a preliminary base at a rich Kethane deposit at Mun's south pole.

Launch was severly inadequate, but sufficient for a polar orbit around Mun was aimed for anyway.

Deleted/recovered quite some debris - not every launch cleaned up as planned and some crashes left heaps of metal in the meddows.

[Deadweasel]

Began the process of rounding up the Sherpas at Duna so the pilots could get some downtime and prepare for the arrival of their ride home in a few weeks.

Sherpas DE-1 and DE-2 met up with IPEV Venture without issues and started putting their birds to sleep.

Each rendezvous had gone without a hitch, the dropships approaching and docking quickly and smoothly.

...then it was Jeb's turn, piloting Sherpa-01 (an older out-of date design that had suffered damage, and was slated to be sent to the Breaker after Jeb left for home with Karavel.)

The rendezvous once again proceeded smoothly, approaching at a sedate 25m/s.

Got into physics range: check, all okay.

Got to about 700m out: ummm.. abort? Guys? Anybody?

Seems the Breaker had heard of the meal to come, and in its eagerness to partake, broke the wrong ship.

[jfull]

A Career mode mission to Moho (just barely made it back)

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[SSSPutnik]

I made magic debris!

https://moc-per.micromine.com/owncloud/public.php?service=files&t=181d173fa41aca892974b58eec7d68b5

https://moc-per.micromine.com/owncloud/public.php?service=files&t=67a361a338026b52e5461f683bcc916d

Yes, it's ye olde faithful booster engine spell of following.

Edited December 2, 2013 by SSSPutnik

[Deadweasel]

I took out AACT-102 to shatter windows and cause flight controllers to spill their koffee. We shall not speak of the Javelin-shaped dent on the side of the VAB. No sir, we shan't.

We should, however, take particular interest in the winglet that was apparently where Javelin II kept all of that crazy power and maneuverability, for as soon as it was freed from the plane, poof.. ZIIIING!

And so begins one winglet's global publicity tour, sparking curiosity, imagination and forest fires everywhere it goes.

One winglet, aspiring to heights like none that came before it.

One winglet, on a mission to spread the message of science and exploration wherever it goes!

One winglet! From half a world away! Bent on just one goal. One place that knows little of such things as Hohmann transfers and launch windows.

THIS winglet is bringing its message of freedom, hope, and foolish keyboard fat-fingering to the denizens of.... Antarktika???

One winglet had more air time flitting across the world on its own than I did with a carefully designed, computer-controlled machine.

Edited December 2, 2013 by Deadweasel

[Commissioner Tadpole]

Remember back a few pages ago, when I said I had went to Duna for the first time, and my first flight to another planet?

Well, I've decided to set a base in there for the crew to have fun as they wait for the return window. It was painful, with an unexpected Kraken encounter on the way, but I did it. Now they have some toys.

Mallan takes a photo of Bill next to one of the rovers. The other rover, the rocket and Ike can be seen in the distance.

Afterwards, Mitkin decided to take one of the rovers for a drive northwards. Unfortunately, these rovers were not exactly perfectly suited for driving on Duna...so a lot of crashes and F9 presses near misses happened.

Mitkin poses near a large boulder he found during his roving.

During that, he passed through several hills, leading him to name the field 'Rolling Hills'. His goal was a tall mountain he could see in the horizon. It was tough to get there, but unfortunately he was unable to climb it, so he just planted a flag on it's feet and named it 'Mt. Roundcliff's feet'.

Afterwards, the first driven exploration of Duna was concluded, making a huge leap in the sucess of the space program back on Kerbin. I heard some of the upper heads are even planning on sending Kerbals to Gilly, Eve's moon.

Edited December 2, 2013 by Commissioner Tadpole
Forgot to add the second picture.

[gre8]

Yesterday I did something that really made me proud.

I had just installed the glass cockpit mod - which is absolutely great for immersion, if you wanna fly missions entirely from the cockpit - and the Map Scan mod I can't remember the name. So I planned to send a Scanning Satellite to orbit Duna and gather information about its surface. I also decided to attach a landing probe to gather some sweet science.

Since I have remote tech, I had to set up a ring of satellites to beam information back and forth to the Probe. That was the first challenge.

The second was to make a nice probe from the parts I unlocked in career. After fitting it all together, it was time to send it off to Duna.

Playing with remote tech gives the game quite a nice challenge and the Map Scans make probes more interesting to send to other planets.

Also having to plan the mission according to remote tech's line of sight and power requirements was also a nice challenge and once everything came in place the sense of reward was incredible: "I did it all myself." Detaching the landing probe and landing it on the surface of Duna while communicating to the Orbiting satellite relaying info back to Kerbin gave me quite a different appreciation for real life Mars missions and all the detail and engineering it has to go into it to make it all work.

KSP is a brilliant game. I have some 300 hours of play time and still haven't seen the last of it.

[Jollyroger6969]

Career mode as always. I dont think I have played sandbox since purchasing the game when .22 came out. Back to topic though.

Yesterday and the days prior were spent in design mode trying to find a nummy spacelifter ( I dont even know if thats the right word for the massive rockets I Kerbal-taped together and lit a match under)

The lifter didnt go boom so I strapped an interpanetary explorer to it and sent it to Duna, Eve, and then back to.. Oh wait... No more fuel...

TODAY! Rescue mission, then lander designs. (Also finally got unlazy and made zee forums postings)

Pics and vids to come once I figure out how.

And as always!

F=MA

[quasarrgames]

Just finished making a reusable launch stage in career mode! It resembles the falcon heavy lifting stage form SpaceX, but it has 3 radial boosters instead of 2. I am especially proud because i am not very far up the tech tree at this time. The highest science-value part i have currently is the nuclear engine. i tested the stages and i am fairly sure that the ship is 100% reusable. I can carry a 20-ton load into a 100km orbit with fuel to spare, which is good enough for me.

[Liowen]

Today I landed 22 Kerbals on Mun and returned 20 of them home. Why not all 22 you may be asking, well the Kraken came when I was time accelerating to stop a Kerbal from spinning on the ground and two of them poofed. SO to honor their loss Bill put up a flag to remember them.

Bill is behind the plaque, and cannot be seen but he is there.

[Exhilarate]

Went out of my comfort zone and finally decided to send a probe to Duna. It was my first interplanetary mission and it took quite a few tries as i kept messing up, first time I ran out of fuel and so I had to fast forward almost 150 days in order to get Kerbin aligned with Duna again.

Managed to obtain a polar orbit and named it the Duna Orbiting Polar Explorer (DOPE) ;D

[SRV Ron]

Compiling a database of engines and fuel cans to make it easier to select engines and fuel cans from the Squid, Nova Punch, and KW Rocketry selections.

[Deadweasel]

Built, tested and flew yet another AACT variant to the Mün, where it delivered a modified Kurb Burner rover. You know, just to see if it could be done.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tu6mrku-jRw

[KerbMav]

Built a comm-hut - experimented with a truck design for transport into the hills near KSC, would not work, shelved it for the time being.

Launched an Eve probe into parking orbit around Kerbin to wait for a window - twice, forgot to include a comm-sat for the small ground probe ... patched a few things to the insertion stage, not pretty, but will do.

[thiosk]

I am building an extensive station in eve orbit. My transfer stage is a beast and carried about 60 tons out there on the first trip. The second trip, docked and ready for window, contains a small gully booster pack to simplify that sample return mission and large station segment (including a full orange tank, always good to have extra fuel and rcs in orbit around other planets!

[capi3101]

At long last, I continued my Constellation Program challenge entry with a 40k rove over the Dunan southern polar ice cap. Apathy, the Hellfury 7 rover sent on the mission, successfully set a new personal total roving distance record - 120 kilometers, breaking the old record held by the twin rovers Malaise and Lack of Prospects (all three, incidentally, were sent to the southern polar cap region on Duna). Lined my crew up for some publicity pics, then started the process of loading them into the return vehicle for the journey back to Kerbin. I ain't done yet, but the important stuff has been finished at this point.

[psistorm]

More of a last night thing, but recently I finally got the first part of my science station in orbit. The hab module with the central docking nodes is up, with some science modules from the station science mod coming soon.

Also finished another probe mission in interplanetary space. Got a nice chain of sun orbit -> high ike -> high duna -> low ike -> ike landed. Got me a good bunch of science to play with.

Also working on spaceplanes lately, but they seem to love going into a flat spin and lose all control once they get near the transition to rocket power. Despite me having the CoL behind the center of mass, it seems to decide that about 16km is flatspin time with all control inputs going essentially dead. (yes i still have power, it just seems to not have any effect what i do. also using FAR btw). Ah well. a few more explosions should eventually let me come up with a design