What did you do in KSP1 today?

[SwissSpace93]

Today i bring MapSat's in Orbit arround Dres

 

My Imgur Dres Album

Edited February 21, 2018 by SwissSpace93

[Jeb, The Lonely Kerbonaut]

Today, i recived bad news. The HD of my computer stopped working definitely. He was replaced by an cheaper HD, with an lower storage capacity, but the data of the old HD was not recovered. So, i lost everything, incluiding KSP. 

So i decided stay away from KSP for a time. But i will still participate of the forum.

[RizzoTheRat]

After the surprising success (in simulation/testing) the other day of  first ever Eve lander design, when Jeb made orbit with over 1000m/s remaining,

 

I'm planning to scale the design up to land one of my modular Hitchiker cans

However it seems that even with the bigger wings, it needs to be taller to get a big enough moment to stop it turning enough to over heat the first stage tanks.  I've seen a  few pictures of people using inflatable heatshields as umbrellas, are there any other good techniques for landing on Eve?  I always thought taking off was supposed to be the hard bit, but getting something to survive below about 40km is tricky.

With no fuel in the upper stages this can SSTO itself from Kerbin, and the wing section can be launched desperately and docked in LKO.  Trouble is if I fit a longer fuselage on the top for the wings, I'll need to carry it all the way to orbit or I won't have a nose cone.  Don't really want to use a smaller docking collar for the wings as it'll bend too much, and I don't want to go the umbrella route as I want to keep a docking port on the top for refuelling, I can't fit one on the bottom due to the heatshield and rover.

 

 

 

[Cavscout74]

Successfully returned my roverless explorers to Laythe station after they decided not to conduct a 32km foot march to the boat from the floating base.  At least they can do "Science!" at the station while awaiting their amphibious SSTO.  Since the Star Ranger lacks a docking port, they rendezvoused with the Jool Transfer Vehicle, spacewalked over to it, then took it on to dock with the station & the Jool cycler (also docked)

I also accidentally completed the lithobrake challenge - after it closed - when I was messing with a satellite I was deorbiting around Kerbin.  I stayed on it too long & got stuck once it reentered the atmosphere.  The engine exploded around 15km so it had well over a 1km free fall but both the probe core, battery & a structure piece or 2 survived.  Didn't think to get any pics of that though.

 

[Atkara]

45 minutes ago, RizzoTheRat said:

I've seen a  few pictures of people using inflatable heatshields as umbrellas, are there any other good techniques for landing on Eve?  I always thought taking off was supposed to be the hard bit, but getting something to survive below about 40km is tricky.

The best technique I know of, is to bring it in empty. Less mass, less heat buildup, lower velocity in the middle atmosphere, less scary touchdown.

[capi3101]

Had the day off of my paying job today due to an ice storm (sleet, freezing rain, general conditions that make driving crappy), so I figured I'd take this opportunity to catch up on my log. Only got activities for the last week...

This past week started with the flight of an Auk Ia 2-passenger spaceplane to the Kerbinport space station, ferrying tourists Gernand and Kerley Kerman to the station. The plane then departed with tourists Mardorf and Gempond Kerman aboard, landing safely at KSC 09 and clearing Gempond's contract. Meanwhile, the Spamcan 7a lander that had ferried the two tourists to Kerbinport from the warp ship MSV Fat Man departed the station to return to the Minmusport space station for an eleven day transit.

At that point, my attention turned towards getting a new consist together for Fat Man to deliver to Ike for monetary contracts and to set up the initial infrastructure at Eve. With a contract to put a station over Ike with a capacity of 20 Kerbals, 6000 units of liquid fuel and 5000 ore, my thought was to make several modules to expand on my standard space station design. To that end, I designed an ore storage module, which was dubbed No, It's 2 Food and 3 Ore 7:

It's not every day I get to make a Catan reference with my rockets...

I also designed a module based on a very large IFS Liquid Xenon tank, which was specifically for Fat Man to extend the ship's operational range (her Alcubierre Drive consumes Xenon, and the LX converts to Xenon at a steady rate). Since this craft looked like a big suppository and was designed to attach to the craft's aft docking port, I though it fitting to dub the module Preparation H 7...  

With these two modules designed, I decided to go ahead and get the crew of the Eve expedition together. An Auk II 8-passenger plane was launched to Kerbinport with Val, Bill, pilot Nelny Kerman, scientists Bobkin, Paley and Catny Kerman and engineers Dezor and Halzer aboard. Upon arrival at Kerbinport, Nelny resumed command of Necessary Evil and Catny relieved Bob as acting capsule commander of Kerbinport, with Bob boarding Strange Cargo. Bill, Bobkin, Paley, Dezor and Halzer joined Bob aboard as well as tourists Gernand and Kerley, with Val taking the helm of the ship as her new capsule commander (replacing Jeb, who has assumed command of Fat Man). With everybody aboard, Strange Cargo departed Kerbinport and burned for a rendezvous with Fat Man. Preparation H 7 and No, It's 2 Food and 3 Ore 7 were then launched.


Preparation H 7 at launch. And yes, I still think the payload looks like a big suppository...

The three craft reached Fat Man successfully and affected individual docking maneuvers with the warp ship, with Strange Cargo docking at Amidships 2, Preparation H 7 docking at the aft port as planned, and No, It's etc. 7 docking at Amidships 3. Next on the consist was a pair of Faux News 7 satellite delivery modules, and then I launched a Hellhound 7 rover with its skycrane modified specifically to help the craft survive atmospheric entry at Eve. Finally, I launched a space station core, which was dubbed Eveport upon arriving in orbit.


Eveport, having made its rendezvous burn for Fat Man.

Eveport gave me the most consternation - first, I had never tried to deliver a space station to its destination via warp drive before. Second, and more critically, and something I realized about five minutes from rendezvous, was that the design included exactly no RCS thrusters...

I wound up improvising, docking the Faux News modules to the opposite sides of the station and using them to steer the station onto one of Fat Man's pylon docking ports. Care was taken to make sure the station would stay within the ship's warp bubble. It took a little finagling to finally get everything docked up, but ultimately, I was successful. 


MSV Fat Man, hauling waaaaaaay to much crap at once. For reference, the ship's prow is the cupola module up at the top of the screenie. This shot was taken before I moved the Faux News module on the left hand side.

The ship's consist came in at 500 tonnes. With 120 kN worth of SAS wheels plus the cupola. Her steering characteristics during the trip out to Ike (Ike first) were pretty abysmal, and the journey took the better part of the day on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the Old Bessie 7a fueling lander assigned to the Dunaport space station arrived, delivering fuel to a station that had been bled completely dry by the last expedition that had visited the station. The lander delivered just enough fuel to be acceptable; the next expedition will undoubtedly require another fueling run. I also began landings of an ongoing expedition to the Ikeport space station, with the crew of Laggin' Dragon conducting flag-planting training in the vicinity of the refinery Scan Queen on Ike's surface. The expedition included the assigned nominal crews of the refineries Piper Alpha on Mün and Deepwater Horizon on Minmus and the orbiting Munport and Minmusport space stations. Three runs were made to Scan Queen, with the refinery refueling the crew lander used each time.

After Fat Man arrived over Ike, an attempt was made to fulfill the requirements of the space station contract. Eveport was cut loose as was Preparation H 7, which was then docked to the station. Strange Cargo was then docked up as well in an attempt to fulfill the other requirements:


Eveport (top) and Fat Man (bottom). I can only ask y'all to trust that this is over Ike...

Unfortunately, since Strange Cargo is a relatively old craft, it killed the portion of the contract that required it to be a new space station. So, the decision was made to leave the station over Ike to retrieve later. Deciding to rename the station Gillyport, burns were affected to circularize the craft's orbit and align it with Ikeport, in the process opening up the range between it and Fat Man to the point where the latter could activate its warp drive safely. Strange Cargo returned to dock at Fat Man, and Laggin' Dragon departed Ikeport to rendezvous with Fat Man along with a Spamcan 7 lander also docked to the station. Both have their rendezvous with Fat Man set; the plan is to haul everybody out to Eve for now, drop off what all needs to be dropped off over the purple planet, and then haul Strange Cargo and Laggin' Dragon back to Kerbin. I'm hoping that the mere act of orbiting Eve will be sufficient to get both crews up to 5-star status; it'd be nice to have 5-star engineers running the refineries at Mün and Minmus. Nothing I can't investigate via the wiki, of course. I have to get another space station out to Eve; next time I'll include the RCS thrusters. I also still need to retrofit a Piper Alpha refinery design for Eve; I have a refinery contract for the purple planet, so ultimately I'll need one. I already know the refineries can be hauled aboard Fat Man but I'll need to add the necessary equipment to ensure safe atmospheric entry. Finally, I'm still hoping to get engineer Suus Kerman and pilot Helming Kerman down to the surface of Minmus. The closest crew lander is still two days out...

I've also begun thinking about the design of the next warp ship, which is planned to be a larger ship than Fat Man, carrying a 3.5 meter warp drive. GSV Tsar Bomba is intended to be larger and more capable than Fat Man. More expensive too - I'm expecting a √45M budget for the craft. Actually need to sit down and design the thing at some point; then I'd have a hard fiscal target...

[Ace in Space]

1 hour ago, Jeb, The Lonely Kerbonaut said:

Today, i recived bad news. The HD of my computer stopped working definitely. He was replaced by an cheaper HD, with an lower storage capacity, but the data of the old HD was not recovered. So, i lost everything, incluiding KSP. 

So i decided stay away from KSP for a time. But i will still participate of the forum.

This is going to sound completely nuts to someone not familiar with the technique, but have you tried putting the HD in the freezer for a few hours? If you lower its temperature, you can often bring a hard drive back to life just long enough to pull data off it before it warms up and dies again.

1 hour ago, RizzoTheRat said:

I want to keep a docking port on the top for refueling

Radial docking port on the side maybe?

[TheKSPBeginner]

2 hours ago, Jeb, The Lonely Kerbonaut said:

Today, i recived bad news. The HD of my computer stopped working definitely. He was replaced by an cheaper HD, with an lower storage capacity, but the data of the old HD was not recovered. So, i lost everything, incluiding KSP. 

So i decided stay away from KSP for a time. But i will still participate of the forum.

I feel sad for you.

[qzgy]

4 hours ago, Brikoleur said:

This is why.

I mean... that works.

 

As for me...

This is supposed to get to Eve and back being launched from the water and then landing on it again before deploying an ascent vehicle in the cargo bay. Having some dV issues though on ascent from kerbin. I've chucked in more Oxidizer, but not sure if that would help. I could replace the Rhino with nukes, but I'm not sure if thats a good idea...
Any other suggestions?

[eberkain]

Redid my mod list again and started a new career, so new early game science plane design.  

[Geonovast]

I built a big plane.

And then I asked myself "Why?"

So I made a reason.

Apparently the rear-facing cockpit comes with X-ray glasses!

Edited February 22, 2018 by Geonovast

[Starman4308]

9 minutes ago, Geonovast said:

I built a big plane.

And then I asked myself "Why?"

That is not the Kerbal way.

The Kerbal way is "why not?"

For example, why not stick a space shuttle on top of a giant aircraft?

 

Launched Pioneer I to Mars, with the goal of getting low-res radar and high-res SAR maps of the planet. I was both lucky and unlucky with it: unlucky because one of the LR-87 engines suffered a performance loss, and lucky because it didn't happen when sending something on the more demanding trip to Venus.

With about 35 seconds of hydrolox remaining in the sustainer stage, I shut down the underperforming LR-87. This was something of a risk, since that meant the other engine had to run approximately 35 seconds past its rated burn time. Even with this gamble paying off, it meant the Centaur stage had to do more work than was originally planned to bring it the its LEO parking orbit, putting me about 300 m/sec short for Mars transfer. This meant making up the shortfall on the probe itself: fortunately, it's easier to circularize around Mars than Venus by a substantial margin.

 

I also completed my Apollo launch abort test, which used a single Minuteman to boost the capsule up to high dynamic pressure. The time it took to go up to full thrust was somewhat disappointing; it took a full second to get itself clear of the still-burning Minuteman.

 

The LEO-variant of Apollo will be launching on a truncated Gimel-2 stack, effectively replacing the Centaur upper stage with the Apollo service module. This permits some degree of flexibility with the mission, since if more delta-V is required, the Gimel-2 launcher can be replaced by the 4- or 6-booster variants, and I can potentially add the Centaur upper stage back in.

I also did some testing of the C/SM in a sandbox save, mostly just to figure out if the fuel cell LH2/LOX would boil (it doesn't seem to), and otherwise to figure out the Apollo service module's... quirks. I think I have a handle on it now: fuel cells generate H2O and power for 14 days, and a little bit of spare LOX is used to generate O2, for an overall mission endurance of 14 days.

Edited February 22, 2018 by Starman4308

[SwissSpace93]

7 hours ago, RizzoTheRat said:

I've seen a  few pictures of people using inflatable heatshields as umbrellas, are there any other good techniques for landing on Eve?

I used the Big Heatshield for my Eve Rover, but i had it below the rover.

I decoupled it at arround 20km and then it dont fall of because there was a force from the Aerobraking, it slowed me down later the Parachutes deploys and then the heatshield is go away and the rover descent with slow 8m/s.

Just use the heatshield until the Parachute gets deployed, specially when you have a atenna on a rover. (My first Rover for Eve lost the antenna).

[Guest]

7 hours ago, RizzoTheRat said:

I've seen a  few pictures of people using inflatable heatshields as umbrellas, are there any other good techniques for landing on Eve? 

I managed it with a plane with big enough wings, coming in empty. A retrograde burn as low as you dare helps a lot too. 

Of course that means a one-way trip or bringing an ISRU.

5 hours ago, qzgy said:

I could replace the Rhino with nukes, but I'm not sure if thats a good idea...

I'm not entirely sure about the specific problem you're trying to address, but probably not. The difficulty with getting out of Eve lies in the really soupy atmosphere: you have to find a way to cut through it fast and efficiently so you don't burn all your fuel fighting it. Nukes won't help with that. Once out of the thick lower atmosphere, you need a fairly normal rocket with reasonable TWR and sufficient dV, much like any upper stage you'd use to get out of Kerbin.

I.e., you need to focus on two things: making your ascent vehicle as slippery as you can, and making a lower stage (or stages) with enough thrust and dV to get you where your normal rocket works.

Put even another way: make a regular Kerbin lifter, then put that on a stupidly powerful lifter. That should work.

[RizzoTheRat]

5 hours ago, eberkain said:

Redid my mod list again and started a new career, so new early game science plane design.  

Nice

[Kronus_Aerospace]

Started working on the next one........ I have a feeling that I'm gonna regret this.

Edited February 22, 2018 by Kronus_Aerospace

[CatastrophicFailure]

9 hours ago, Jeb, The Lonely Kerbonaut said:

So i decided stay away from KSP for a time. But i will still participate of the forum.

Is there some reason you can’t download it again?

 

7 hours ago, Ace in Space said:

This is going to sound completely nuts to someone not familiar with the technique, but have you tried putting the HD in the freezer for a few hours? If you lower its temperature, you can often bring a hard drive back to life just long enough to pull data off it before it warms up and dies again.

Interesting... what’s the mechanics (electronics?) behind this?

 

4 hours ago, Starman4308 said:

This was something of a risk, since that meant the other engine had to run approximately 35 seconds past its rated burn time.

What the heck kinda sadistic reliability mod are you playing with, anyway? 

[RocketSimplicity]

Lauched a Rocket into Orbit. Just got a new PC and getting back into KSP. That’s it really.

Edited February 22, 2018 by RocketSimplicity

[Guest]

41 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Interesting... what’s the mechanics (electronics?) behind this?

There isn't. It's a myth which will either do nothing or make things worse. 

https://www.gillware.com/blog/data-recovery/hard-drive-freezer-data-recovery-myth/

[papuchalk]

hey guys.

i am planning to go to Jool, and use aerobreaking on it, to save fuel. So i designed ship with mountable heat shileds (those large inflatable). But something is wrong, few moments after i enter the atmosphere, the shield explodes !!! Why???

I do only shallow entry, alt max up to 180000 km above Surface. Yet still the shiled explodes

Something changed so much in descent physics, that those inflatable shileds dont work anymore ???

I mean i only enter highest layers of atmosphere, and still it doesnt work

Could be the entry speed too high even for a heat shiled?

Edited February 22, 2018 by papuchalk

[Guest]

The Jolian atmosphere is deadly. It laughs at your puny heat shields. 

Good news is, aerobraking off Jool is not necessary: you can get a Jool capture for (almost) free by gravity braking off Tylo or Laythe. (If necessary you can also aerobrake off Laythe. Laythe is a friendly place.)

[papuchalk]

sure, but i wanted to have easier way -  Jool is in the center of that system, while Laythe is going around, and i dont know where Laythe will be right at the moment when i arrive to jool.

I am not familiar with gravity breaking, how it really works, never used that technique before, didnt have to.. i thought going very close to a planet actually makes you speed up !

Also i wanted to have nice screenshot flying by Jool at close distance..

Ok thanks for reply. 

[Kronus_Aerospace]

29 minutes ago, papuchalk said:

hey guys.

i am planning to go to Jool, and use aerobreaking on it, to save fuel. So i designed ship with mountable heat shileds (those large inflatable). But something is wrong, few moments after i enter the atmosphere, the shield explodes !!! Why???

I do only shallow entry, alt max up to 180000 km above Surface. Yet still the shiled explodes

Something changed so much in descent physics, that those inflatable shileds dont work anymore ???

I mean i only enter highest layers of atmosphere, and still it doesnt work

Could be the entry speed too high even for a heat shiled?

Well, yeah. A Jool aerobrake will always be at an extremely high velocity. So even the lightest passes will produce enormous amounts of heat. Inflatable heat shields work in most cases, but they have no way of getting rid of the heat. For that application the ablative heat shields would work better since they burn away rather than just absorb the heat, effectively keeping them cool. However, ablative heat shields are much heavier than the inflatable heat shield, so that will reduce your mass savings. A Laythe or Tylo gravity assist is far safer and allows for a more fine tuned capture, plus that would eliminate the need for heat shields all together. Alternatively you could do a Laythe aerobrake since the velocity would be much lower.

Edited February 22, 2018 by Kronus_Aerospace

[Guest]

10 minutes ago, papuchalk said:

I am not familiar with gravity breaking, how it really works, never used that technique before, didnt have to.. i thought going very close to a planet actually makes you speed up !

Try this:

(1) Set an intercept course for Jool. Doesn't have to be precise, as long as you pass through the sphere of influence.

(2) Somewhere mid-course, put a manoeuvre node. Adjust it so that your trajectory will touch Tylo's orbit.

(3) Adjust prograde, retrograde, radial in, and radial out, and watch the Tylo encounter markers move, until you get a Tylo encounter. Try to make it as close to tangential as you can (ideally, your trajectory just touches Tylo's orbit rather than intersecting it twice, and the encounter happens at that point).

(4) Add another manoeuvre node closer to Jool. Adjust the markers and watch how your trajectory changes. You can make it so you end up in an equatorial, elliptical orbit around Jool with the Pe anywhere between zero and... very high, and Ap somewhere above Tylo's orbit. Note -- if you pass in front of Tylo, you'll slow down relative to Jool; if you pass behind it, you'll speed up (and be ejected out of the system a lot faster than you came in). Also make sure you still have a Pe -- if you get overexcited by the possibilities, you'll notice that your ideal perfect capture involves passing through Tylo, which will not end well for your craft.

This will let you swing by Jool as close as you like, too. The mid-course manoeuvres shouldn't cost more than a few tens of m/s.

It gets a bit more intricate if you want to end up in orbit around one of the major Jolian moons, but that's not too hard to do either.

Edited February 22, 2018 by Guest

[RizzoTheRat]

5 minutes ago, papuchalk said:

I am not familiar with gravity breaking, how it really works, never used that technique before, didnt have to.. i thought going very close to a planet actually makes you speed up !

It does, but in different directions depending on how you interact, so you can use it to accelerate or decelerate depending on which way it's travelling relative to you

https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Tutorial:_Gravity_Assist