What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Laie]

3 minutes ago, Angel-125 said:

Thanks for the feedback.

Thanks for not getting angry.

[Kevin Kyle]

On 10/31/2017 at 10:59 AM, Kevin Kyle said:

Havent done it yet but I will tonight. Doing the RO/RSS/RP0 thing following Nathan Kell's tutorial series. So tonight when I get home from work, Im going to put Sputnic in orbit for my first orbit. Already made my rocket. Its just a matter of making a successful launch. Much science to gather and then I will be ready for episode 5. So much different than Kerbin is, Really enjoying the whole RO/RSS/RP0 thing way more than I thought I would. Should have done this long ago. Not as hard as I thought it would be. If you have been on the fence about it, go for it.You wont regret it.

Well, as it would happen, this didnt happen until just now. I believe the delay part came with " Its just a matter of making a successful launch. " OK, so I was 4 days late but alls well that ends well eh? That will teach me to get ahead of myself. I probably should have posted in the "You will not go to space today" thread but I neglected it because of self disgust. lol Anyway, I made it without having to use the RD-103 and I actually made it on the RD-102 , so it sort of made up for my blunder. Im happily in orbit now.

Edited November 4, 2017 by Kevin Kyle

[Boorang]

built a new station. The Chlon Richert station

[septemberWaves]

@Laie Haven't you seen Angel-125's mods at all? That command pod isn't something stand-alone, it's a new part in a set of mods that's been around for a long time, and it's designed to fit in very well with the other parts in those mods (which it definitely does). It's not meant to be general purpose like Modular Pod Extensions, it's designed for a specific use on a specific vehicle (though, like all of Angel-125's parts, will undoubtedly be versatile enough for a wide variety of situations).

[XLjedi]

After a stop at Minmus for fuel, visited Duna...  

Landing was a bit of a challenge!  Glad we packed those chutes.

Refueling ops...  and now where to next?

Edited November 4, 2017 by XLjedi

[Angelo Kerman]

Quite happy how this turned out:

Exterior work is done. I'm going to work on the other parts for the Estonian before taking on the IVA. Specifically the EDL tank. Happy to finally be working on this, I've had this on my mind since May:

[Laie]

1 hour ago, eloquentJane said:

@Laie Haven't you seen Angel-125's mods at all?

Only on screenshots.

1 hour ago, eloquentJane said:

It's not meant to be general purpose like Modular Pod Extensions, it's designed for a specific use on a specific vehicle

As far as I'm concerned, "specific" is not a benefit. For an especially bad example, look no further than Porkjet's adapter tanks. They're nice and sleek and... only work with each other. Take them out of their context and they become extra-super-double jarring.

I had a look at several part packs while searching a suitable cockpit for the Ferry Rocket. It was frustrating to see the sheer amount of redundant effort, cockpits and adapter pieces and tanks and structural parts that were all basically the same, yet every modder felt he had to make his own.

I don't know squat about what is necessary to make a part; I'm coming at this as the user of part packs. Which is why I usually tread carefully and withhold judgment, lest people stop making and sharing parts altogether. Having similar parts in five different shades of off-white isn't exactly ideal, but a whole lot better than not having any of them.

Edited November 4, 2017 by Laie

[Hydrothermalventclam]

I launched a NTR transfer stage for an Duna mission

Launch

Booster separation

Fairing separation

The transfer stage in orbit awaiting something to transfer

 

Sorry, I can't get imgur albums to work, so there was a lot of pictures.

Edited November 4, 2017 by Hydrothermalventclam
pictures

[septemberWaves]

35 minutes ago, Laie said:

As far as I'm concerned, "specific" is not a benefit.

You're ignoring the rest of what I said. The design of Angel's parts is usually for specific vehicles, but I also pointed out the fact that they're versatile enough for a wide variety of uses, which is true. It's similar to how the stock Mk1 command pod is designed specifically to imitate the Mercury spacecraft capsule, but it can be used just about anywhere you need an aerodynamic single-kerbal pod. Designing a part for a specific vehicle influences the aesthetic of the part, but unless it also introduces very specific connections that only work for one or two other specific parts (which Angel's parts do not) it can still be widely useful.

[Azimech]

1 hour ago, Hydrothermalventclam said:

Sorry, I can't get imgur albums to work, so there was a lot of pictures.

I don't mind, I give you my like because of your fantastic username.

[Ultimate Steve]

I've got too much on my hands.

Two mission reports. (PI and Voyage)

A YouTube series I thought I'd make. (Long story)

YouTube in general.

Songs I want to record. (So many ideas, so little time)

Other stories I would like to finish.

RO/RP-0.

Drawing.

The Solid Booster Grand tour I said I'd try a few dozen pages back. (Landers are all finished, and the interorbital transfer stages, but I need an SRB lifter that can put 1000t in orbit, that's the hard part)

 

And I've made another addition to the list.

I'm going to try and visit every single flag I've ever planted to read the plaques.

 

Who am I kidding, I'll probably never make it 20% of the way...

[Julien Kerman]

Another Atlas V Mission today:

Variant: Atlas V 402

The contractors wanted their satellite to be in a polar orbit.

First stage separation and fairing opening.

Satellite release! 559km x 596km // 90.04 degrees inclination.

[anti_con2]

built and launched a giant mun transport ship in my latest ksp stream: 

 

[worir4]

I have not played KSP in quite a while but today my Steam Link arrived and i though i would give it a go with KSP and it works great! (Building is a bit of a pain with a controller though)

[Zeiss Ikon]

Yesterday, Val aborted the first attempt at a Mun landing less than two minutes from touchdown.

This mission used the Taxicab IIIml (further stretched upgrade of the Taxicab IIIm), fitted with landing legs on the wing tips and landing gear for the Kerbin return, and given stretched boosters and a pair of Thud engines to bring the launch TWR back into line.  Launch was nominal, reaching orbit with appr. 15% fuel remaining in the booster core -- fuel which was used to help with trans-Munar insertion.  A very carefully planned Munar encounter allowed Val to capture and circularize at only 25 km above the Munar surface.  After waiting three orbits for the chosen landing site (in Northeast Crater) to be sunlit, Val made her deorbit burn.

Watching the fuel gauges, however, she lost her characteristic smile.  There was plenty of fuel to land -- but (after instruments gave the length of the final braking burn) there pretty clearly wasn't enough to land, return to Munar orbit, and then escape the Mun into an aerobraking orbit at Kerbin.  So, with approximately 100 seconds until landing, she made the decision to abort -- turned ship to a Mun-vertical attitude and burned to produce an apoapsis with enough time to set up a node to recircularize.

While Val (with scientist Bob and the clone of Adeny, along for retraining, in the crew cabin) went through the lengthy set of aerobraking passes required to shed Munar return velocity without burning up the flimsy Mk. 1 Cockpit, ground analysts argued over where Val's retrograde Munar orbit required enough delta-V to make the difference.  Eventually, however, someone pointed out that with the Mun's 6 day rotation period (tide locked to Kerbin) and small diameter (about one fourth Kerbin's) the Mun's equatorial surface velocity is less than 80 m/s, and Val's shortfall was closer to the 550 m/s of Munar orbital velocity.

Careful rereading of the contract suggests that a scientist isn't actually required on this mission, so Planning is sketching a possible two-stage lander design using a Mk. 1 Command Pod instead of the winged Taxicab series orbiters that have served so well for tourist flights to orbit and Munar flyby/orbit.  An anonymous source in Accounting has said the cost of this failed mission won't require any special austerity measures, so long as this kind of failure doesn't become a pattern.

[Jett_Quasar]

I finally finished my latest video.  It was a blast to make and even more fun to watch!

Download the Y-Wing from my Star Wars hangar on Kerbal-X

 - Jett

[Laie]

Trying to recover the first stage of a Ferry Rocket:

As per the draft, the first stage is supposed to weigh 700t dry, of which 160t are steel-mesh parachutes to be deployed at separation. I tried to do that and see if and how I could make it work. Results:

• parachutes have to be deployed in the upper atmosphere or not at all. Further down, forces are just too damn high.
• BUT: parachutes deployed so early will experience serious friction heat. See above. Nothing that resembles cloth, and be it made of steel, would survive that.

However, it only lasts for a minute or less, and 160t would allow for more sturdy telescopic drag devices instead of chutes. It doesn't take much area -- the chutes you see will bring it down to well under 100m/s on impact. The remainder would need to be done by retrorockets, which is where I hit a snag: the only solution I know is Landertrons, which unfortunately fire too early, bringing the stage to a near-stop at 30m above the sea, then shutting down. This does not end well. If I put on enough chutes to survive a 30m plunge, I don't need retrorockets.

Would anyone happen to know an alternative?

 

 

[Jeb, The Lonely Kerbonaut]

I made some tests for my first Jool mission. I put the transfer stage with the main ship in orbit using the cheats, and i made a Homman transfer to Jool, a mid-course maneuver to get a Tylo encounter, and a correction maneuver to use the Tylo encounter to put me in orbit of Jool. The maneuver was a sucess, i passed very close to Tylo (13 Km) and very fast (5.5 Km/s), but without problems. I entered in orbit of Jool, went to the Tracking Station, and i warped until a another Tylo encounter appear. But i warped too fast, and i don't knew that the encounter would put me in a escape trajectory of Jool. When i see, it was too late. So i lost the ship. But the mission was a sucess to go to Jool. Now i just need a lifter to put the transfer stage with the main ship in orbit. Anybody here have a lifter that put about 30 tons to LKO?

[Julien Kerman]

22 minutes ago, Jeb, The Lonely Kerbonaut said:

Anybody here have a lifter that put about 30 tons to LKO?

I havent played the stock version of the game for about 6 months, but I think you should choose a simple design.

Upper stage: Kerbodyne S3-7200 Tank and Kerbodyne KR-2L+ "Rhino" Liquid Fuel Engine

First stage: 3 x Kerbodyne S3-14400 Tank and S3 KS-25x4 "Mammoth" Liquid Fuel Engine

Boosters (if necessary) 2 - 4 x S1 SRB-KD25k "Kickback" Solid Fuel Booster or just cluster the first stage

 

(Yes I had to google and copy the part names because I am playing Realism Overhaul at the moment and I forgot the old names )

Edited November 5, 2017 by Julien Kerman

[qzgy]

Technically not today.... more over the past couple weeks or so... but anyways. I made a tilt engine VTOL.

Nothing too fancy.

The actual pod design is heavily inspired by EJ_SA, though of original design.

[Delay]

I started my Duna/Ike vessel bombardment today. 4 vessels (2 satellites, 1 probe, 1 lander) are going there for several contracts, 5 or 6 out of 9 take place here.

Some of them were accepted in Year 1, it's now Year 8...

[CatastrophicFailure]

5 hours ago, Laie said:

Would anyone happen to know an alternati

No, really. A ring of air brakes should be more than enough to get you subsonic, then you can use regular chutes to slow enough for landing. 

Also, I see that you’re using FMRS. If you look on the map, there’s a spit of land sticking up across the ocean due east of KSC. If you can tweak your flight profile enough, it’s a great booster landing spot, landing gear would save more weight and might be more forgiving than a water landing. 

Or, you could go full SpaceX there. MechJeb’s landing AP should be able to hit it if you can spare a bit of fuel. 

Come to think of it, with that spare that bit of fuel just use MechJeb to cancel the last of your speed landing on water. 

[Laie]

2 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

No, really. A ring of air brakes should be more than enough to get you subsonic, then you can use regular chutes to slow enough for landing. 

Sadly, I can't. I'm using FAR, and while it doesn't take much drag to slow the vessel down to reasonable speeds (a number of sufficiently-sized airbrakes would indeed do the trick), a safe landing speed on chutes alone would require an preposterous acreage of chutes.

About going full SpaceX: this is (part of) a replica of rockets as imagined in 1950. Retrorockets with a proximity fuze are about as good as it gets. Maybe I should build my own, using smart parts. Will become finicky, though.

[Cavscout74]

Started a new career a few days ago & accepted a poorly read contract to recover Adeny and debris from the surface of Mun.  Oops.  So the following mess was born from my fevered imaginings.   Launched upside down for added fun, with a low altitude flip over after dropping the transfer stage to attempt to land the claw on the debris.  I managed to fall over on landing ~100m from the debris, and then the debris rolled itself into the claw without my input.  Popped the gear back out & managed to get more or less upright & launched to Mun orbit.  Reentry back at Kerbin was.... messy.  The heatshield & both skycranes blew up, but my periapsis was low enough for aerobraking - only took 3 orbits to land.  Somehow the chutes all survived.

 

 

[fourfa]

9 hours ago, Jett_Quasar said:

I finally finished my latest video.  It was a blast to make and even more fun to watch!

LOVE that gun-camera sequence!