What did you do in KSP1 today?

[capi3101]

Had a fairly busy weekend. The third Mun science mission was a success, with scentist Kirmund Kerman landing his Fireball 7b science lander craft at the Mun's Poles, Polar Crater, Highland Craters and Farside Basin before returning to Kerbin. The transfer stage didn't really have enough juice to get all the way into a low polar Munar orbit, so I wound up junking the thing at a relatively high post-orbital apoapsis (set it to crash at that point) and using the lander's own engines to finish getting the craft into LMO. Another four Mun biomes; another 2267 science earned for my troubles. After spending the sci, I'm left with a total of five remaining nodes to unlock on the R&D tree, all at the 550 level. All but the most advanced of my space fleet from 1.1.3 is now operational, though there are about a dozen craft I still can't fly between the VAB and the SPH. I'm concerned in that I only have four Mun Biomes left to hit, which may not eke out enough sci to cover the remaining amount I need. Didn't stop me from launching one final Fireball mission on Saturday, with scientist Zelwin Kerman at the helm.

Also finished up my commsat constellation over Mun:

The three Muncomm Satellites in a coplanar triangle orbit.

And I've already had the opportunity to test it out:

Spamcan 7 bouncing its signal off of two of the Muncomm satellites.

The lander craft in the screenie there is a Spamcan 7 monoprop craft, which I intend to keep at the Munport space station to have available for Mun-orbital rescue missions, like the one I conducted to rescue engineer Dilnard Kerman from Mun orbit just after the Spamcan arrived. Craft and Kerbal made it safely to the space station (took a screenie but it's rather badly backlit, unfortunately).

Saturday saw some heavy tinkering with the White Noise 7 communication probe design, mainly in an effort to add RCS capability (lack of which was a gigantic pain with the Muncomm sats). I also launched another Superfortress 7 ferry craft on an initial mission to Minmus with Nelny Kerman at the helm, carrying tourist Tati Kerman and most of the rest of the KSC ground staff (poor Gilnard was the only Kerbal left behind). Craft's name is Next Objective (just need Laggin' Dragon now to finish the fleet out, but I'll want a Kerbal available o pilot it before I launch). 

Also did a parts test of an XL-16 parachute. The test itself was mostly successful:

This is not really the sort of thing you like to see at the end of a part's test...

Yesterday I launched a trio of modified White Noise 7 satellites on a mission to Minmus as well as a Boop-Boop probe, bound for a tundra orbit also over Minmus. And then I launched a Hellhound 7 rover:

Hellhound 7 at launch.

The rover will be landing in the Mun's southern midlands to conduct a ground survey. Not too keen on the launch and delivery craft, to be honest (the final booster stage has enough delta-V to also act as a transfer stage, though that Rhino gets a bit unwieldy over Mun, and KER lies about how much delta-V that skycrane has available to it), but the Rover In a Can is one of the craft I can't launch yet (and that design requires an engineer to put the thing together anyway, something I don't want to do on a remote section of Mun). Will have to see how the mission plays out.

This morning I launched Minmusport station from KSC as well as a Spamcan 7 lander for the outpost, and sent them both out towards Minmus. Got a lot of missions going on at the moment and while I still have about √2M available, I'm starting to get concerned about my available funds. I want to launch some ground refineries for Mun and Minmus soon, and the design I have for those aren't cheap...

 

8/21: Launched Minmusport station, arrives about 4 hours behind Next Objective. Launched Spamcan for Minmus, arrives thirty minutes ahead of Next Objective.

[Tyko]

On 8/18/2017 at 10:28 PM, DerekL1963 said:

Building a space station in the sandbox just because.  I devised a simple and elegant way to move the RCS on my delivery tug close to the loaded/average COM.

wow...well done! great way solution

[Whisky Tango Foxtrot]

My second mission has arrived at Pol.

This one contains various landing-related equipment (a lifter vehicle, a crew transport module, a science pod and a fuel transport module) that will be needed by future craft. It can't do much at the moment, though, since I only packed enough oxidizer for one landing, which I'll need to set my mining base (already en route, and which itself contains enough oxidizer to offset its increased mass, but only just) down. Still, I'm one step closer to having sustainable operations in the Jool system.

Speaking of arrivals, my Eeloo probe also arrived at its target.

This is a standard science/scanning/relay probe and has parked itself into a polar orbit. With that, I now have a permanent presence around every planet in the Kerbol system (although not every body yet; most of Jool's moons remain untouched outside of a few gravity-assist flybys.)

[Mecha Pants]

I've been building a space station off of the back of a spaceplane. Unfortunately, I barely scraped by on getting the fuel storage depot up, and had to do a lot of RCS work

to get it docked.. Looks like I need to build a <13T nuclear fuel miner to start fuel operations next..

Spoiler

A very abbreviated look at how it goes up, here we have the power and cooling armature in its aeroshell.

.

And here it is when initially docked to the station core.

 

[AlamoVampire]

well, i noticed something truly curious while screwing up a launch to my new station. I kinda lacked the speed to exit the atmosphere and fell back in because I messed a calculation up. No biggie, all crew survives to relaunch. BUT, it was as the crew module was on its way in I noticed that the engine was over heating while entering. Again, nothing new there, atmospheric entry = HOT, BUT, what floored me is, the moment I fired the engine it began to COOL DOWN. I do not have the image of the cool down happening, but, I do have the one with it over heating. any thoughts on why Atmospheric entry + ENGINE RUNNING = Cooler than Atmospheric Entry - a running engine = getting HOTTER?

thoughts? While yall consider this, I am off to lob these guys at the station again with moar boosters!

op 00:25:30

[septemberWaves]

25 minutes ago, AlamoVampire said:

the moment I fired the engine it began to COOL DOWN

This is probably because it was slowing down the vehicle, which means a reduction of the atmospheric heating effects from the high speed. And I don't think KSP models engine heat except for nuclear engines.

[JadeOfMaar]

I finished off a couple of features/fixes for the next releases of 2 mods. And then I went for a few rounds with test planes. I think this one is a keeper, it's a Learjet sort of thing. 

8 minutes ago, eloquentJane said:

This is probably because it was slowing down the vehicle, which means a reduction of the atmospheric heating effects from the high speed. And I don't think KSP models engine heat except for nuclear engines.

Absolutely right about deceleration leading to cooling.

KSP models engine heat for every engine. For most of them, their heat production value is nothing to sneeze at. Plus, cooling by convection is a powerful thing that few may have really noticed. I tested more than one engine with exceptional heat production values and saw the difference. In atmosphere it was no big deal but in vacuum one of them threatened to explode in seconds.  

Edited August 22, 2017 by JadeOfMaar

[AlamoVampire]

39 minutes ago, eloquentJane said:

This is probably because it was slowing down the vehicle, which means a reduction of the atmospheric heating effects from the high speed. And I don't think KSP models engine heat except for nuclear engines.

I can see where your pointing, but, to me, and this is just me tossin the ol spitball around here, even though I am decelerating thanks to that engine, logic to me says, the raw heat from the engine would speed the over heating, but, again, thats just how I am seeing it. I concede the fact the heat model may be less than accurate here

op 01:27:30

Edit:

Forgot to show off the picture of the aforementioned mission after a successful docking:

edited post time: 01:32:30

Edited August 22, 2017 by AlamoVampire

[harrisjosh2711]

A normal ole' docking test. One of my closest landings ever (1ms of deltaV left). 

 

 

 

[capi3101]

Not much accomplished yesterday, and no screenies, unfortunately. Finally got a contract out of the way to put a probe into a low polar orbit over Kerbin for a quick √90k, and then spent my time contemplating whether or not I wanted to try to do the replacement contract or not (a ground waypoint temperature survey on some islands south-southeast of KSC). I fiddled around with a mini-rover design for the job for quite a little bit, then decided (against my earlier judgment) to launch a refinery craft and towards Mun along with the fuel hauler that goes with it, a pair of launches that cost √1.5M between them.

Also watched the eclipse; it got up to about 85% where I was at, enough to make a nice toe-nail sun and do some trippy stuff to all the shadows from the tree leaves. Sky darkened up a bit but it didn't get as awesome as it did in other parts of the States. I'll get a better chance of seeing an eclipse in totality in seven years, apparently. And then definitely one in the 2040s (if I'm still around then).

[eddiew]

34 minutes ago, capi3101 said:

Also watched the eclipse; it got up to about 85% where I was at, enough to make a nice toe-nail sun and do some trippy stuff to all the shadows from the tree leaves. Sky darkened up a bit but it didn't get as awesome as it did in other parts of the States. I'll get a better chance of seeing an eclipse in totality in seven years, apparently. And then definitely one in the 2040s (if I'm still around then).

Jelly   We got about 2% coverage here... and it was cloudy. At least we can always come to KSP for a guaranteed regular eclipse  

[Puggonaut]

Bill " Will check the landing co-ordinates for the runway again please "

[dangerhamster]

 

With the Duna probe nearing the halfway point and plenty of spenderoonies lying about the engineering dept were casting about for a project to fill the time. They came up with proposals for a nuclear powered rover (Project Glowworm ) and a nuclear powered airship (Project Highsotope). Catching wind of this Val rapidly kidnapped an engineer and scientist and headed out to a safe distance. Calling in the Globetrotter rover they set off on a circumnavigation to hoover up the remaining science and visit all the unchecked anomalies around the equator.

After picking their way out of the major crater and entering the Midlands Val was able to open the taps somewhat. With a bit of hooning thrown in.

140 km later they located the first of the anomalies on their list. Which was nice.

 

[Julien Kerman]

Started to build the Vessels for my manned Venus Missions, and I already ran into a few problems. 

This is the station which will hold the crew. It features 2 years of Life Support, a heatshield for aerobreaking at Venus, 8 solar panels

and it contains 4000 m/s to refuel the Command module.

Actually is was quite happy until I looked at the weight....

.....112 tons ..... how to get 112 tons to Venus?!  I will need at least a Saturn V-B MLV

Spoiler

or a Saturn C-8, 

Spoiler

but I doubt that even these are powerful enough...

Well this is gonna be interesting.....

Edited August 23, 2017 by Julien Kerman

[Jacke]

3 hours ago, Julien Kerman said:

...how to get 112 tons to Venus?!  I will need at least a Saturn V-B MLV ... or a Saturn C-8, but i doubt that even these are powerful enough....

You mean this beastie?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova_(rocket)#Specifications_for_Nova_C8

Well, that's one way.  You could also go for orbital assembly of the mission spacecraft.  I've never gotten to that level, but one thing I know other players have done this is launch the mission spacecraft all-up but without propellants into LKO/LEO, then send up tanker launch(es) to fuel it.  That or component assembly or both could help here.

[harrisjosh2711]

This is what I call re-usability.

[Daeridanii]

I made the majority of the hull of a replica of the Scimitar from Star Trek: Nemesis. Stock, of course.

This thing has enough autostruts to hold a bundle of spaghetti together.

 

[Drakenex]

No civilians allowed. Air Force Space Command Space Station.

 

[Ultimate Steve]

Realism overhaul! Yeah!

I docked the second module to my space station. I launched a GEO satellite to help communication to the station. I also am currently "landing" on Venus with a probe.

It burned up in the atmosphere but the heat shield survived. It is currently at 22 kilometers in altitude and moving downwards at an average velocity of 3m/s.

At 4x time warp it will still take half an hour to reach the surface.

Fun times.

Also tomorrow is my first day of school.

[StupidAndy]

1 minute ago, Ultimate Steve said:

Also tomorrow is my first day of school.

ha. ha. I have an extra day off school

what I did? nothing. but I'm planning a thing that wont really be all that big and nobody will ever care

I launched a Keostationary satellite a few days ago though. that's interesting. and I got the Apoapsis and Periapsis the same in KER! yay!

Edited August 23, 2017 by StupidAndy

[Ultimate Steve]

@StupidAndy Good for you!

Also I did some timed tests. The heat shield is at 15.5km now... It should take 45 minutes to hit the surface... yay...

[Geonovast]

Installed like a dozen parts mods.  Gonna take me awhile to get used to all these new pieces.  I don't even know how to build things anymore.

 

 

[DeltaDizzy]

I've been in school since the 9th

D:

as for ksp,

Edited August 23, 2017 by DeltaDizzy

[Ultimate Steve]

AAAAAAAA 13 KILOMETERS!!!!!

I should go to bed so I can get to school, but I want to see it land!

[invision]

nuclear jet capable of full orbit from take off