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What did you do in KSP1 today?


Xeldrak

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Today I made an attempt at an SSTO spaceplane using three RAPIER engines. It didn't work, but I made a successful emergency landing back on Kerbin. :D 

I also tried to make a huge rocket that was supposed to orbit Kerbin. Instead, it escaped Kerbin's gravity well and its payload is now orbiting Kerbol (the sun). :P 

Another huge rocket was made. It didn't make it to orbit however :(  

Finally, I made a spinny ride using four small rocket boosters. It worked for half a second, but exploded. ;.; RIP one kerbal.

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2 minutes ago, TeslaPenguin1 said:

I also tried to make a huge rocket that was supposed to orbit Kerbin. Instead, it escaped Kerbin's gravity well and its payload is now orbiting Kerbol (the sun). :P 

Another huge rocket was made. It didn't make it to orbit however :(  

..Are you shooting straight up?  It's easy to not make orbit, it's pretty hard to accidentally leave Kerbin's SOI.

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Just now, TeslaPenguin1 said:

Um...

Yes. I have left Kerbin's SOI multiple times using only two SRBs.

What I meant was it's hard to leave Kerbin's SOI if you're trying to get to orbit.

If you want to get to orbit, going straight up is not the way to do it.  You need a hefty amount of horizontal velocity, by doing what's called a gravity turn.  If you need help with doing that, or are going straight up because your rockets are flipping, head over to the Gameplay Question section and post there, and we'll get you to orbit. :wink:

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16 hours ago, Kronus_Aerospace said:

Thinking of building a full scale Saturn V, usually you would just use Rhinos for the F-1 Engines, but I decided to make my own! This has the same diameter (3.7 meters), and approximately the same thrust (about 6800kN SL and about 7500kN vac vs the real F-1's 6770kN SL and 7770kN vac). The asthetics are a WIP, but I already like how it's turning out!

 

Where can I get a subassembly of that? (or is it modded)

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Another quiet day at the Space Centre. 

The Kosmodrome lofted a load of fuel to orbit, from where it made its way to Jool Station on Vall. We have a contract to research Bop and Pol, so after planting another flag on Vall, that's where we're headed. The fuel delivery was transferred to the ground-capable tanker docked to Jool Station. A pilot will dock the Vall lander to it, and head for Bop, where we will do a landing and maybe some biome-hopping while the tanker refuels. From Bop we head on to Pol, and from there, back to Vall to report in and refuel.

The R&D department also knocked together some quick proofs of concept of ultra-light landers running on a combination of fuel cells and ion drive. They were demonstrated to work, but the result had no better endurance and poorer TWR than a similarly-sized lander running on a conventional Oscar/Ant, so it is unlikely these concepts will ever see deployment to the field. 

VAV1ZW1.png

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Despite help from @Geonovast (thanks) I managed to overshoot the KSC by nearly a whole ocean today. I’d aimed my trajectory just west of the eastern peninsula’s shores, and I ended up screaming 25km over KSC going at nearly 2km/s.

After the re-entry flames receded, the shuttle naturally positioned itself to a steep descent path, just like the real shuttle. (The re-entry was quite exciting actually. At one point I noticed that the shuttle was not quite wings-level, so I corrected for it. Of course I overcorrected, and for a bit the shuttle rolled around, presenting its payload bay doors to the brunt of the heat. Thank Kraken for high heat tolerances.) Cormorant Aeronology has really done a good job with making the shuttle fly like the real thing.

We had to make a water ditch. The orbiter’s landing speed was about 55m/s this time, over 20m/s faster than the UTP-1 water landing. This time, we came in too fast and the wings and two of the three main engines were destroyed. So much for reusability.

STS-1, the first crewed flight, will happen tomorrow. The first Kerbin observation satellite has been developed (KerboSat 1) and is scheduled for launch on this mission. I am also planning to do some MMU EVA testing (read: playing around). This time I’ll put my re-entry trajectory closer to KSC.

Also today, the Eillorf Kerman Memorial Space Station (named after an engineer who died in another save) finished its final design phase. The first launch will not be on a Shuttle, but on one of my Kraken V launch vehicles as the core module is too large and heavy to be launched on a Shuttle.

That’s all folks! :D

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43 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

Not enough thrust for Vall.

Yep, Mun is the deepest well it's able to handle. In theory.

Edited by Guest
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4 hours ago, Jett_Quasar said:

It's not really KSP, but I put together a highlight reel for the Falcon Heavy launch... it's pretty great!

 - Jett

Wow cool! I'm not sure if I understand  your decision to re-write history with the center stage landing successfully...I guess that's an artistic choice. Great work though :)

Edited by Tyko
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Well, the day started with installing Precise Maneuver (for the gizmo mostly) and TextureReplacer, with SpaceKraken's Skybox in it. Then, I loaded up the sandbox save I use for running simulations, to see how can Kerbals find themselves stranded in retrograde solar orbits.

ewEdgEv.jpg

~1950dv to get me a Jool encounter, then a ~10dv correction burn at the right point, in order to get a Laythe flyby in such a way, that exiting Jool's SOI, would get me a solar Pe, as close to the sun as possible. The maneuver in the picture is set to be executed from Laythe's Pe, and it includes orbit reversal, with the target solar Pe, being Kerbin's orbital alt. That's ~4000dv so far.

I still have much to learn.

Edited by Atkara
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Working on some new race course's for the fellow racers that will not take days to complete.

Now don't get me wrong the Dakar is a fine race, but long. I been working on some short tracks. And as in the WRC more than one.

eqju22Z.png

Edited by Wrench Head
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4 hours ago, Tyko said:

Wow cool! I'm not sure if I understand  your decision to re-write history with the center stage landing successfully...I guess that's an artistic choice. Great work though :)

LOL, I did the video before I found out the center stage crashed.  I've been waiting for somebody to call me out on that one; you're the first.

 - Jett

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6 hours ago, Geonovast said:

#closeenough

Actually bounced off the freakin' runway light.

uXEbqc.png

Any landing where your wings don’t shear off is a good landing.....

when I last landed my shuttle that’s exactly what happened but don’t tell anybody..........;.;

Edited by RealKerbal3x
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I've been tinkering with a successor to the Pelican, my roll-on/roll-off Laythe cargo and liaison plane. 

The Pelican only really has one problem: it has terrible, no-good, awful drag characteristics. Cut the engine and it drops like a feather pillow. This is only a problem for one particular kind of mission, but that mission is becoming more and more frequent so I decided to address it: lofting fuel up from Laythe. I end up burning most of my payload just clawing my way through the atmosphere. I only got into this pickle because I scrapped my original idea of flying in a dedicated tanker. Instead of sending up one now, I decided I'll make a better Pelican.

I think I have the main problems solved. I streamlined the nose part and made a more streamlined tanker as well. This version gets a full Rockomax 64's worth of fuel and oxidant to LKO no problem; since Laythe is a good deal easier to fly out of, that should make a big difference.

Incidentally, I also confirmed a long-standing suspicion of mine: the SSTO high-altitude acceleration run is a bad idea. I dropped it to six engines, which reduced power just to the point that I had to start playing with those acceleration runs -- first one around 10k to get into the ramjet feedback cycle, then a shallow climb up to build up speed. This ended up burning significantly more fuel than the eight-engine version which was also much less fussy to fly: I just point it up at 25 degrees until 5k, then 20 degrees, then sit back and switch mode once the jets start sputtering, and follow prograde from there on out.

So for SSTO spaceplanes, sometimes more is less, and if your plane needs to fly level (or dive!) to build up enough speed, you would probably end up with a more efficient version by adding an engine or two (or, of course, improving aerodynamics or reducing mass, those are always winners).

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This week, I am shamelessly [self-]promoting ION DRIVE so today I constructed and announced the first of three ION DRIVE challenges taking place on the Mun.

Check it out here:

[Self-disclosure: last week I inherited a packet of shares in Dawn Electric Co, Inc.]

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My giant Hermes II craft has 3,634 m/s of Delta-v in the main to-and-from Moho stage. Is that enough for a Moho orbital insertion and a return to Kerbin? 

Also, I realized that the Hermes II lander only has 536 m/s of Delta-v, which isn't enough for a Moho landing...on its own. I have an idea that could work.

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