What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Geschosskopf]

I made a ridiculously STOL airplane. It's going to Duna but in the much thicker air of Kerbin, you can make it do silly things like landing on the spike-like island adjacent SSW to Airbase Island.

I also created the definitive work on why the blue stack separators are superior in every way to the yellow stack decouplers between the main stages of a rocket:

[cantab]

Context: Career mode, trying to do as much science as possible before unlocking any new tech. Currently still on tier 0 tech.

I got my Mun orbiter into a low enough orbit - Perimun 10km, Apomun 60km - to get EVA reports from different biomes as it went around, and made a few orbits doing that. Then I broke orbit to head back to Kerbin - and hit trouble. I needed 290 m/s of delta-v to get back to Kerbin with a burn at apokerb, and I only had 225.

Tried a bit of getting out and pushing, but it was clear that would take too long. Experimented with re-ecountering the Mun, hoping for some sort of gravity assist, but that wasn't looking much good either.

Then I gave a bi-elliptic transfer a go. Burn at perikerb to put apokerb as far out as I could without escaping, then on reaching apokerb burn retrograde. Lucky that the Mun and Minmus didn't interfere with this at least. I fell just short of fuel, needing only 3 m/s delta-v more to hit Kerbin, so Bob had to get out and push one more time.

Came in fast so the re-entry was a bit tense, but the ship splashed down fine and I recovered it for a haul of 247 science.

Might try for a Minmus flyby with the same rocket next, and then I think I'll unlock some tech. I know people HAVE done Mun landings on the tier 0 tech, but not for me I think.

[Parallax]

ssto mothership carrying an ornithopter into orbit. it is to refuel in orbit and proceed to duna. ornithopter is to deploy to duna surface, perform geological survey, return to orbit, refuel, return, etc

mothership is balanced to allow flight independently as well as while carrying ornithoper.

Edited March 5, 2014 by Parallax

[problemecium]

Had Jeb show a couple newbies the ropes aboard the Kerbatar. So essentially I added some crew and accomplished nothing. YAY!! x_x

I have also confirmed my suspicions that ion engines do indeed suck. Yes, they suck more in real life. But in real life they keep running while you go do other stuff. And 4200 Isp is great, but 0.5kN of thrust means I made the right call when I initially skipped them in Career mode.

[Felsmak]

I returned my Kerbals from Duna and finished my first "serious" interplanetary mission.

Preparations

I started the mission by sending a dummy lander - same mass as a real lander - just to test if it could reach orbit and return to its mothership. The results were satisfactory.

Then I sent a rover to search for a suitable landing site before I sent the first section of the base.

There were some issues with the power section, though. It landed over 2 km away and broke its wheels in the process, so I had to send the rover to give it a push. It was slow and tedious, but eventually it was firmly docked to the surface habitat.

The mission

The next window opened and it was finally time to send living Kerbals to the red planet.

The twin spaceships Dido and Helena entered orbit successfully. Later on the landers Aeneas and Paris touched down on the Dunan Surface - each a few hundred meters away from the base.

Returning home

Many days later it was time to go home again. The two Kerbals said goodbye to Troy base and started walking towards their landers.

After making sure everything was in order the landers could finally take off and climb into orbit.

Then it was time for them to rendezvous with their respective motherships.

After searching the cabin for forgotten belongings and making sure no one was still inside it, the crew dumped it in orbit and started the journey back to Kerbin.

Many days later Kerbin could finally be seen through the windows. The crew steered the ship close to the planet and started their final braking burn.

It was now time for the trusty old crew taxi to dock with the spaceships and bring the astronauts down to the surface.

And that was the end of that mission!

Edited March 5, 2014 by Felsmak

[Klingon Admiral]

Trying to kill the time to the upcoming Eve transit window.

[Felsmak]

I performed my first "modern day" Vall landing with my Vallander probe.

[jdmgto]

Made a course adjustment to get my Bop science lander on a good intercept with Jool.

Took a crew from my Duna base on their short range rover to the long range rover. The DLRR broke seven of it's eight wheels on landing so the first thing my long range roving crew got to do was fix a bunch of flats before heading back to the habitat for system's checks.

[Concentric]

More testing, you say? Why yes. Testing the twist as seen above, then transfer. Started to make some decisions on the target biomes (I'm thinking the Polar Crater and nearby Polar Lowlands...).

Then, after some issues trying to adjust inclination to pass over said polar biomes, refueled from the lander and went to return. After a little aerobrake and some orbit adjustment, I looked at my remaining fuel and decided to try to get a transfer to polar orbit around the Mun.

This pretty much worked, given it was something I had never tried before (not intentionally, at any rate). Then a return, which necessitated thrusting on RCS. Unfortunately, physics warp during the opening of parachutes caused a lethally hard impact with the ground, so that's something I should pay more attention to in future rather than completely relaxing because "it's parachuting down now, so all is well". Will perhaps add a few more RCS thrusters and reconfigure the parachutes just in case, but next time, I'll launch the mission itself. Might put that in Mission Reports.

Edited March 5, 2014 by Concentric

[cantab]

Built and launched "Space Hotel USA", the station from Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, in my sandbox save. Biggest thing I've put in orbit yet, just under 26 tons. My launcher was kinda naff, but did the job.

Fuller discussion: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/45377-Idea-for-a-Challenge-41-Space-Stations-from-Films-%28Wikipedia-List%29?p=1006119&viewfull=1#post1006119

[Jouni]

I returned to my main sandbox game, where I did some course corrections for the ships heading to Jool.

The next event was Jebediah returning from Gilly. After the initial aerobraking, I noticed that the ship was going to have a relatively close encounter with my LKO station. With some minor course corrections, I turned that into a proper rendezvous. The only problem was that the ship was on a 900x25 km orbit with 17° inclination, while the station is at a 120 km equatorial orbit. The relative velocity at the rendezvous would be a bit over 1000 m/s. I looked at the current TWR, and guessed that I should start braking 48 km from the station.

It was a bad guess, as the ship came to a stop 1.7 km too early. I then docked the lander and the transfer stage to the last remaining docking ports at the station. The transfer stage had no RCS, so it was the first docking of its kind for me. Of course, it became dark just as I switched to the transfer stage. After refueling the ship, Jeb saw a Tylo lander waiting for the next launch window, and jumped in.

[Superfluous J]

I returned almost 5,000 science from a fairly simple Mun mission. 8 biomes with one of each science instrument, then back up to my orbiting lab to refuel and scrub the Jr and Goo, then repeat 8 times.

[Xacktar]

I brought some rovers to Dres.

[problemecium]

Landed a Mun base... and then immediately discovered that the rovers were broken. So I un-landed the base and got it into something that barely counted as an orbit. From here I might try to tow it back to Kerbin to be replaced with a new and better base.

[Parallax]

SSTO mothership deploying ornithopter to duna.

[capi3101]

Prepping to go to Ike for science. Designed the craft, built it and launched it; a bit hairy and low on TWR but she made it okay. Scipacks tested alright. I then tested my intended means of getting the lander re-attached to the transfer stage - that bit failed. Good thing I tested that in orbit of Kerbin instead of the orbit of Ike. I've made a quick redesign; will have to test out how it handles tonight.

Meantime, I'm also prepping a ship to go to Gilly.

[Technical Ben]

Successfully launched my new long distance Kerbal transport. Even though it lost one of it's 6 liquid boosters during the gravity turn... yes, it just kept flying. First non-explosive failure ever!

[cantab]

Nice one. I had one launch a while back where a booster fell off and the rocket started veering. Managed to save it with a bit of quick-thinking by pulling the thrust limiter down on the liquid engine opposite and it came back on track.

[WaveFunctionP]

Cheating my way back from a failed eve return. I thought I had enough twr to lift off again after refueling on eve, but mechjeb lied to me. As it does so many times with kspinterstellar parts.

I'll return again one day, perhaps in a new save.

[Technical Ben]

Nice one. I had one launch a while back where a booster fell off and the rocket started veering. Managed to save it with a bit of quick-thinking by pulling the thrust limiter down on the liquid engine opposite and it came back on track.

Yep. That feature is great. This one just naturally did the Scott Manley spin to keep it on track.

[pauix]

After a few failed attempts (which mainly involved broken solar panels, I finally managed to dock two ships without smashing solar panels!

<iframe class="imgur-album" width="100%" height="550" frameborder="0" src="http://imgur.com/a/vNWr3/embed"></iframe>

[cantab]

Aborted a launch due to a staging error. The abort on this rocket simple shuts down the second stage and fires off the third, so I decided to shoot for Insular Airfield. I overshot, no big deal I thought, just a quick swim right. Right?

7 km over sea wasn't quick, but it was at least simple. Crossing the island itself was another matter, I kept randomly "crashing into Kerbin" and exploding. Lots of quicksave was needed.

I made it, but have vowed never again for long EVAs on Kerbin.

[Mybackhurts]

Today I put a mapping satellite in orbit over the Mun

[Jank]

Kewl colored lights, Mybackhurts, which mod is that?

[zeppelinmage]

Made a SSTO: