What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Pipcard]

Y46, D146 - Iwahoshi Maru arrives at Dres

Refueled by the WiM-7 miner

Y46, D149 - Chadely, Tanchelle, Corner, Kerti, Burzer, and Teuki Kerman become the first to live on Dres (Taiko Base)

Edited June 27, 2019 by Pipcard

[Superfluous J]

I made a triangular support out of pistons and hinges for engines, that allows me to translate them back and forth across my craft to keep them on the COM.

It may be not 100% easy to see but the vertical (actually horizontal to the ground on landing) piston is the only robotic part with a motor. The two hinges and the diagonal piston are all just going where they're pushed by the motorized piston. Where the engine is, a strut holds the engine to a cubic octo strut, that is attached to the hinge that is on the unmotorized piston.

It works quite well, and I'm using RCS Build Aid to make sure the engines can reliably push forward no matter how mcuh or how little fuel or ore is in the ship.

Edited June 27, 2019 by 5thHorseman

[capi3101]

6 hours ago, Dale Christopher said:

Those crater walls really sneak up on yoooooooo!

Yep. If i had a dollar for every time this has happened to me, I'd...probably be able to go eat lunch at Red Robin. Somewhere. Whatever...

 

(1.6.1) After spending about half my day working on trying to make a viable design out of it, I decided to go ahead and end work on the Auk IIaE. The magic combination of an electric tiltrotor VTOL and spaceplane capable of landing eight kerbals on Eve at once and taking off to orbit is just ain't going to happen. At least, not before I melt my motherboard. I've started working on the idea of a disposable launch-to-orbit system, where I'll build a craft at ALK, launch it, have a Bill Clinton 7c grabber probe derivative pick it up and haul it to Eveport. When the next expedition arrives to visit the surface, the payload enters, after which an Echo Flyer derivative rendezvous with it, transfers off the passengers (at which point it's discarded) and ferries them to ALK for waiting until a new craft is printed up. I'm still debating as to whether or not I want to have the payload include its own de-orbiting equipment or not; occurs to me that I could print that up at an orbital shipyard and have it dock prior to departure. It'd save on takeoff mass for sure...I might get away with something like a trio of Mk1 Crew Cabins. Three tonnes to Eve orbit is definitely doable.

With nothing else going on and everything waiting for stuff to get printed, I went to the Ocean Ranger base on Gilly and proceeded to warp ahead six days in order for the outpost to finish its print of an Ikeport Core 7, which became space station Eveport upon fueling and launch.

Boy...talk about overworking your design...

The Ikeport Core 7 design was originally made for an orbital launch and transfer from Duna; on Gilly, there were a few extra unnecessary bits.

And every last one of those pieces of crap instantly attained escape velocity...

Eveport settled into a 15-kilometer equatorial orbit over Gilly at launch, at which point Bill along with engineers Gemlorf and Mathat Kerman boarded Eunice Howell docked at LSV House Corrino in orbit. The trio of engineers went over to Eveport in order to fulfill a new space station contract that involved having 4000 units of fuel and two engineers aboard a new space station over Gilly, something the nascent space station fulfilled easily.

Eunice Howell arriving at Eveport in orbit over Gilly.

Having fulfilled the contract, the three engineers departed in Howell and started making their way back towards House Corrino. House Corrino will be cleared to leave for Kerbin once the trio arrive and dock. The engineers did forget to level up while they were docked to Eveport...not the only mistake that was made yesterday, as it turned out.

Once the engineers departed, Eveport burned to break orbit.

Gee, I wonder if I should've finished filling up those gas tanks before launch...

Eveport's burn would take it to a 125 kilometer periapsis over Eve, with a mid-course burn to align it with Next Objective already in equatorial orbit over the purple planet. While the course correction went alright, it turned out I didn't have enough fuel in the tanks to circularize - the station is out of gas right now in a 500x125 kilometer equatorial orbit over Eve. Had I bothered to allow the station's booster to finish fueling fully (say that three times fast) prior to launch, I might've saved myself this headache. And it turns out that ALK's mass driver doesn't have the oomph it needs to send up additional fuel. I'll check the Pathfinder parameters - either I need to add another Castillo depot for fuel at ALK, or I need to muck with the Pipeline parameters again (would rather not do the second if I can at all avoid it).

Also cleared two colonization contracts at Enchova Central on Duna and South Base near KSC yesterday. Three contracts cleared and not a single decent replacement offered...

So today I'm going to go check those parameters and take whatever positive action is needed. The hope is to circularize Eveport and then get Strange Cargo and Next Objective docked up. I'll probably also be attending to House Corrino's glorious return to Kerbin and begin printing up Delta IV at ALK - it's probably going to be the easiest element of the new Eve launch and landing system to design. Don't know what else I'll try to accomplish today. I do still have that pressure survey contract on the far side of Eve; might start sending Delta III that way. Probably going to take a while for it to get over there, what with the craft being subsonic and all.

[Guest]

I went back to my career and am preparing a major push on Duna. I've got the launches figured out, with two still needing some fairly simple work. I already have a CommNet there, plus a survey sat I've used to scan both Ike and Duna, so this is the second launch window. I've also collected a ton of Duna contracts which ought to sort my budget problem nicely.

My main objective has been to make something that's (1) fun to operate and (2) reasonably efficient.

Component 1: Forward fueling base on Ike. This consists of three craft in two launches.

- Craft 1 is a tiny little surveyor lander. The surveyor will go first and look for a nice place to set up shop, based on data from the satellite. This is launched together with Craft 3.

- Craft 2 is a drill + ISRU. I will drop this into place once the surveyor has identified where to go. 

- Craft 3 is a tanker. This is designed to dock with the ISRU and haul fuel to orbit. It has tilt-engines for easier surface and space operations, also they're kinda cool and the mass penalty for two servos is negligible.

Component 2: Orbital station (2 craft, 1 launch).

- Craft 1 is the station itself. This is your basic bare-bones affair with an MPL, command module, Gigantors, and a bunch of ports. It goes into orbit around Duna.

- Craft 2 is the crew return module which also provides the shove to get the station to Duna in the first place; the station itself has no thrust at all, it can only rotate in place.

Component 3: BAK-6000D Ikarus. This is a solar-powered tilt-rotor carrying a mega science pack, including a heavy scanning arm. It will be sent on a one-way trip down to Duna. It also has two command seats so it can carry scientists around on the surface.

Component 4: BAK-6100D Daedalus. This is closely related to the Ikarus, except that it's a rocket-powered VTOL rather than a solar-powered tilt-rotor. It has four command seats it uses to shuttle kerbals to and from the Dunatian surface. Daedalus is fueled in orbit and performs atmospheric entry and landing on full tanks.

I've got everything packaged for launch except the planes. Since I don't have high-power air-breathers yet I'm just going to strap a bunch of boosters onto them to fly them into orbit; after that, Daedalus can fly itself to Duna as-is, whereas I'll probably have to strap a pair of Sparks on Ikarus to get it to do the same.

Once that's done I'm not quite sure what I want to do next. Surface base on Duna? Expand operations to the Jolian system? Finally visit Dres? Attempt to figure out a way to use the Seraph on Eve? We will see how much I manage before taking off for the summer without my kerbal-puter... 

[Fraston]

Made the BFR. Its 1013 tons, 50 meters high, and 20 wide.

The first stage is a mammoth and 8 twin-boars clipped snugly into a engine plate.

TBC

(more coming)

[Fraston]

Oops.

[purpleivan]

This usualy goes something like this.

Lovely day to be rovering around on the (insert celestial body).

Ooo... is that a crater wall... yep.

Yahoooo... aiiirrrbooourne.

Ahhh, it's tumbling, must... get... under... control.

Phew... back under control, nothing to see here, let's head back to the lande... ah no, no, it's not under control.

Okay, just a bit more time to staighten it out and everythings fin...

KERSLAM!

Ok, I can go with just 7 wheels.

KERUNCH!

Hmmm... ok, 5 wheels, I can still make it back to the lander.

SKRAPE!

A 3 wheeler huh, well we'll see how this goes.

BAM!

Bicycle... with one battery and no solar panels... this could be challenging.

DING!

Unicycle... well if clowns can ride em.

THUMP!

So... no wheels or power, but at least the cabin's intact, plus we stopped moving.

"Errr, KSC... someone call me a cab."

Edited June 27, 2019 by purpleivan

[jost]

Went to Moho for my Kerpollo run and discovered volcanic activity

[Guest]

I'm still recovering after surgery and medicine was going to be at midnight so I wondered what mission to do. I wasn't going to do expedition Ike because I wanted to save that for a road trip soon, I thought of a Jool 5 mission but thought that would take forever and then realized that O YEAH! I didn't realize that I didn't find all the surface features on Duna. So I wanted to fly a cool lookin craft to Duna!

I am going to post rover feed on spoiler threads for surface features

[Cavscout74]

Had some extra time on my hands yesterday & today due to a minor injury, so I got a wide assortment of stuff done in my career.  First up, I had some of my Duna probes arrive finally.  A Pioneer arrived to perform both science & relay duties in a highly elliptic polar orbit, along with a repurposed Probes Plus version of the Venera probe with lander.  For the first time in 2 or 3 game versions, the Formalhauf lander didn't explode upon contact with Duna's surface.  Then I set down another lander of my own design near the edge of the southern ice caps.  All in all, gathered a ton of science.  Now I just need the funds to upgrade R&D to actually use it.

Parachutes slow it to ~12 m/s, then the landing bags absorb the final impact

 

I also continued work on my Minmus station - now renamed Ridbas Kerman Memorial Station, due to another unfortunate event.  Note to self, always test fly downloaded kerbalx craft in sandbox unless you know the source.  Or if you are going to test fly it in your no quickload/no revert career, make sure you check it out thoroughly in the SPH.  Minimal roll control combined with mismatched wing angles of incidence led to an almost uncontrollable aircraft.  I briefly thought Ridbas was going to make a mostly successful landing near the KSC runway, but I lost it again close to the ground & couldn't recover.

After docking the next fuel segment, I realized it was slightly misaligned, so Jeb had to undock the MPV & reposition it before I let my engineer weld the ports. 

 

My best achievement was designing a folding Moho lander - it fits in a 1.875m fairing but unfolds into a nice wide, stable "+" shape.  Shown here still packed, coasting to it's circularization burn.

[NHunter]

Today, KSS Discovery II - the crewed part of the Urlum Exploration Mission - finally arrived to its destination.

It then immediately headed for Priax:

And three days later, it's finally there.

 

[Guest]

Busy day with the career today. At the end of it, all my assets are safely parked in the Dunatian system. There was one mishap but it was fortunately recoverable, the cost is an extra refueling mission from Ike before I'm able to get my kerbonauts to the Dunatian surface.

The first to arrive in the system were Ike Forward Operating Base-1 and its associated tanker and surveyor in a separate launch. Here they are after reaching LKO, some days before the transfer window. IFOB-1 still has its boosters attached and has just ditched its fairings. IFOB-1T and IFOB-1S will make the trip together. Once around Ike, IFOB-1S will drop first, scouting suitable areas previously scanned by satellite.

IFOB-1.

IFOB-1T and IFOB-1S.

Some hours later, Ikarus arrived in the system, and executed an atmospheric entry straight from the transfer orbit, flying to her landing spot in the Eastern Canyon. Her fuel load was calculated to have little margin of error as she needed to burn all her fuel before atmospheric entry, since the engines must be ditched before then. She performed flawlessly and is now parked overnight in the canyon, ready to start doing science the next day.

Ikarus shortly after atmospheric entry, cruising to a suitable landing spot in the Eastern Canyon.

Shortly after, the craft in the system were joined by Duna Station Orbital-1. DSO-1 did not perform an aerocapture, instead making a conventional retrograde burn to park in an equatorial orbit. The two scientists in her crew are already hard at work performing research in the MPL on readings collected on the way.

DSO-1, with the return module that doubles as a tug that got her here.

Ah, the mishap.

KSC lost contact with the last member of the group -- Daeadalos, the surface/orbit liaison craft -- before she was able to execute a correction burn. Contact was only re-established a few days out of Duna. Fortunately, being a fully fueled surface/orbit craft, she was carrying enough fuel to be able to execute the highly expensive manoeuvres required to bring her into equatorial orbit around Duna so late into the flight. A successful aerocapture helped save a couple of hundred vital m/s.

 

However, her orbit was not stable as it intersected Ike's sphere of influence. DSO-1 had to rescue her.

The rescue mission was successful and both craft, now docked, are in a stable orbit around Duna. However, the manoeuvres required to save Daedalus were so costly that the craft have insufficient fuel to make a surface trip. Once fuel production is up and running on Ike, however, we should be able to refuel the station and Daedalus, and the mission will be back on track. The Ikarus surface operations will not be affected.

The Dunatian system is starting to look pretty busy, with a comsat constellation, a scanning satellite, DSO-1/Daedalus, IFOB-1, IFOB-1T/S, and Ikarus!

Some notes --

The commsat constellation perfomed flawlessly. I did not come close to having a single blackout on any of my probe craft. I lost contact with Daedalus because none of the craft in my fleet were equipped with an interplanetary-grade relay antenna; in retrospect I should have given at least one of them one -- in fact there was one on IFOB-1 but I downgraded it, reasoning that it would not be necessary at her destination. Had I not done that, she would have been able to serve as a relay to Kerbin for all the craft in the fleet over the course of the transfer, and the mishap would not have occurred.

The aircraft are absolutely wonderful to fly on Duna. Both are aerodynamically almost perfectly balanced, meaning they're much too twitchy in the thick air of Kerbin. On Duna however they respond to controls much like an agile but controllable aircraft on Duna would. They're really easy to fly, manoeuvre, land, take off, and orbit (Daedalus only) -- by far the easiest craft I've operated there.

Edited June 27, 2019 by Guest

[FahmiRBLX]

22 hours ago, Daniel Prates said:

I thought it was not supposed to work well with 1.7.x. Are you experiencing any problems or does it work fine?

So far, so good. I'm on 1.7.1 and I suppose parts mods (Including weaponry mods) should work fine with the latest KSP releases, as long as @SQUAD didn't make drastic changes to the game coding (e.g 1.1 which witnesses change of game engine, 1.3 which seems only has localizations but any drastic changes? IIRC 1.1 mods didn't work for 1.3 and above).

Only CameraTools which the "Aim Camera" button is missing and Janitor's Closet which I could no longer open the Mod Filter menu.

Anyways, I'm looking forward for a Munar and Minmusar mission woth this shuttle in the future.

Edited June 28, 2019 by FahmiRBLXian

[Daniel Prates]

54 minutes ago, FahmiRBLXian said:

23 hours ago, Daniel Prates said:

I thought it was not supposed to work well with 1.7.x. Are you experiencing any problems or does it work fine?

So far, so good. I'm on 1.7.1 and I suppose parts mods (Including weaponry mods) should work fine with the latest KSP releases, as long as @SQUAD didn't make drastic changes to the game coding (e.g 1.1 which witnesses change of game engine, 1.3 which seems only has localizations but any drastic changes? IIRC 1.1 mods didn't work for 1.3 and above).

Oh beleive me, that's a kspurban legend. Every new version has the potential to cause issues, as I have experienced countless times. The sentence "it should't break mods" always has to be taken with several grains of salt. 

Anyway, this is an old discussion that I dont wish to revive. My main concern is that it has been stated explicitly that this does not work with the most recent BdA, but since you tested it and it does, I will grab it too!

Edited June 28, 2019 by Daniel Prates

[Cavscout74]

It turns out my luck couldn't last forever - while doing a routine crew change at my Minmus Flats outpost, I did almost as much damage as running out of snacks would have.   My actual landing was great:  <5m from the rover, just had to reposition it a little to transfer the fresh snack cans over from the lander.  This is a view from the previous lander, looking at my near-perfect landing.  After that, everything started going down hill.

First off, on approach to landing, I attempted to dump my transfer stage so it landed near the base to get the seismic sensor science.  That failed in two ways - first, the sun hadn't quite risen yet, so the sensor was unpowered when it impacted.  AND the transfer stage apparently smacked my Minmus speeder bike when it hit.  I thought it would still be salvageable - only the probe core was gone, but the seats, engines, vernier thrusters & reaction wheels all looked intact.  But for some reason, even after flipping it on its side & jumping in a seat, I couldn't get it to respond to the reaction wheels.  They are set to normal, torque on, control set to the seat.  Engines work, verniers work.  But I can't roll it back over with the reaction wheels.  I could get it to do kind of a back flip by disabling one of the verniers & using the other & an engine, but I still couldn't control it with the reaction wheels and it just flopped back onto its back again.  So I stripped it of most of the useful equipment, set a KIS C-4 charge & sent it sliding across the flats until it blew up.

Second, while moving the fresh snacks over to the base, my engineer managed to go crashing through one of the solar panels.  First time I've done that in a long time.  And this is one of the few missions I didn't include a spare panel or two in KIS storage somewhere.  The auxiliary monoprop power units will pick up any shortfall until I can sent a replacement parts.  Oh well, this base is nearing the end of its useful life - all currently available science has been extracted except some seismic impact data, there is no research lab, and there is no ISRU - and even when I do unlock ISRU, the ore concentration here is only ~3%.

Unrelated to all this, but I thought it looked nice:  I swear that looks like a thunderstorm approaching the dessert launch site.

 

Edited June 28, 2019 by Cavscout74

[FahmiRBLX]

1 hour ago, Daniel Prates said:

My main concern is that it has been stated explicitly that this does not work with the most recent BdA, but since you tested it and it does, I will grab it too!

But I haven't tested jettisoning the bomb via BDAC's Weapon Manager part, so you may give it a try. It's been a very long time that I haven't built loaded bombers (I mean bombers ready to drop bombs since it got bombs attached in editor; or in other words, armed). The last time I've tried performing a bombing run is back in 1.5.1 when I tried bombing from my Mach 3+ bomber but some only dropped. Since I'm banking quite slightly, that could be the reason since BDAC tries to avoid weapons from hitting the launch craft.

[Zosma Procyon]

On 6/10/2019 at 1:39 PM, Brikoleur said:

BAK has completed the Kalypso, a modified BAK-68 built on commission for the famous oceanographer Kousteau Kerman!

https://kerbalx.com/Brikoleur/Kalypso

Taking off from KSC, on a mission to explore the deeps near Gilligan's Island:

Jeb has gently lowered her on the ocean surface:

Valentina is on her way!

The most refined version of the NAVTLIVS design yet, her craft can reach 13 m/s underwater!

After a successful exploration mission, she is guiding the Navtilvs back to Kalypso:

Hooray! She has surfaced in the bay!

... allowing Jeb to deploy the bay guides positioning her precisely under the capture port, so he can then lower it to snag the sub, then raise it again to lift her fully into the bay:

We are ready to go!

The crew of the Kalypso pose for a publicity photo after the successful mission:

 

How did you get the rotors to spin in the water?

[KerikBalm]

28 minutes ago, Zosma Procyon said:

How did you get the rotors to spin in the water

Ummm, with rotors? Give them a couple seconds to spin up and break the glue that water seems to be at low velocity

[Zosma Procyon]

I figured out why I couldn't get hinges to work properly: Autostructing. They can't be autostructed. I wonder if that means they won't survive a transit using BonVoyage. Anyway I slapped together a plausible design for an amphibious boat base using medium hinges to lift powered wheels out of the water. Something like this might get sent to Eve.

At the moment it has no aquatic propulsion. I'd like to use wholly or partially submerged rotor propellers, but all previous experiments with rotors in water have resulted in either the blades exploding on contact with the water, or the blades just not spinning.

 

UPDATE: Partially submergerged propellers REALLY didn't work. I have summoned many krakens on my day, but this was one of the most impressive.

It launched this 150 ton boat about a hundred meters into the air. So obviously the best idea for propulsion here is a fan boat. Won't be fast, but it won't fly.

Edited June 28, 2019 by Zosma Procyon

[Guest]

8 hours ago, Zosma Procyon said:

How did you get the rotors to spin in the water?

I have adjustable pitch on them. I also used a bunch of KALs to program them with a bunch of presets for different conditions - start/crawl, normal operation, max cruise speed. They start up almost instantly in “crawl gear.”

Edit: Update from Operation Sandworm...

Senior Engineer Valdo Kerman has commenced fuel refining operations on Ike. IFOB-1S located a suitably ore-rich and level spot for the refinery which had the additional benefit of being at high altitude. IFOB-1 with Senior Engineer Valdo on-board made a pinpoint landing next to it. Her internal tanks were already full by the time IFOB-1T joined her, with the flashing beacon on IFOB-1 as an additional guide. She will have DSO-1 resupplied in no time!

IFOB-1 on approach to the target zone.

Landed on Ike.

IFOB-1T has joined the party.

IFOB-1 briskly producing fuel for IFOB-1T and IFOB-1S. The little probe is Valdo's ticket out of Ike when it's time for a crew rotation -- it carries a command seat.

Edit: IFOB-1T successfully refueled DSO-1, providing them with sufficient fuel for Daedalos to perform two orbit-to-surface missions.

Docked for refueling.

While this was a satisfactory outcome, regrettably IFOB-1T's handling is not up to the usual stringent BAK standards. She has enough thurst torque to adversely affect manoeuvring and the control setup is not entirely satisfactory either. Moreover, it would have been smart to include a command set on the IFOB-1T also, which would have made it possible to rotate IFOB-1 crew during routine refueling missions.

Her suspension is also not entirely up to the task of keeping her steady on Ike on a full fuel load.

We will likely send up an improved version in the next launch window. She performs acceptably but we need to do better than merely acceptable.

Update: The mission to Duna's surface was successful, a few oversights aside -- notably, it seems that nobody had remembered to pack a surface mystery goo observation station despite BAK being on contract to perform that experiment. Something for the next transfer window, then. 

We performed a great deal of other Science, however, in particular bringing back surface samples and a Duna stone, and performing a number of scans on a variety of interesting surface features. Ikarus and Daedalus performed flawlessly; the crew scientists made a short field trip in the former in search of the elusive Duna stone. Daedalus also proved itself an able craft in its own right -- while she does not have the unlimited endurance of Ikarus, she is capable of highly efficient atmospheric cruising while retaining enough fuel to return to DSO-1.

All packed up and ready to go. Except somebody forgot to pack the Mystery Goo Observation Station.

Touchdown next to Ikarus, and an interesting rock formation.

It was a sand dune. Imagine finding one on Duna!

Dr. Bob Kerman found a mysterious floating rock. It failed to divulge its secrets.

The surface experiments have been set up. Shame about the goo.

Back home on DSO-1!

Commentary: The Ikarus is a really nice alternative for a rover. It's much easier to traverse any amount of distance with it than on a rover, and it's easy to spot potential surface features from the air. The downsides compared to a conventional rover are that the brakes aren't as good -- scanning features requires a lot of fiddling to get the drift down low enough for the scan to complete -- and it's not quite as easy to drive up to a feature... although it is in my view a good deal more satisfying. She handles really well both when hovering and when cruising, and switching between the two is very easy.

The Daedalus is likewise a real success. She's so light and controllable that even conventional horizontal landings might be feasible on Duna -- but vertical ones are very easy and only require minimal amounts of dV. She's also a surprisingly efficient cruiser: the occasional puff of rocket power will keep her straight and level at pretty much any desired speed -- if you want to go faster, fly higher of course. And she's supremely simple to fly to orbit.

Edited June 28, 2019 by Guest

[Flibble]

[RO/RSS 1.6.1]

Made it at last! First lunar flyby. 3 stages to LEO (200km) followed by a spin stabilised unguided burn for TLI. 680km perilune (target was 1000km).

[capi3101]

(1.6.1) Since the attempt to send up fuel to space station Eveport from the Alexander L. Kielland outpost on the surface of Eve failed late in the day on Wednesday, my day yesterday began with the addition of a Castillo walkway module and Castillo Depot to ALK. Pilot Lerod Kerman and scientist Rodemone Kerman built the modules, while engineer Gilford Kerman deployed them, ultimately attaching them off the side of the outpost's observatory.

Now the symmetry is all off...

The Depot was set for fuel and electric charge, and additional electric charge storage was set up in some of the other existing modules. Unfortunately, it proved to still be insufficient and a re-calibration of the Pipeline still took place. Another test later in the day still proved insufficient and I have yet to make another attempt at a mass driver shot from ALK. If I can't do one to Eveport, my efforts to be able to send down tourists are all going to be for naught, I'm afraid...

Speaking of the tourist effort, the next part of my day was spent designing the necessary bits and pieces I would need in order to work the current plan. New designs include the Cigar 7 Eve Descender Stage, the Bill Clinton 7cE retrieval probe, the Echo Flyer 7b crew retrieval quadcopter, and the crown jewel of them all - the Eve Ascent Vehicle, which I dubbed the Beer Can 7.

An awful damn big rocket for an awful damn small paywad.

Despite what KER is telling me in that screenie, that craft has the 8k it needs to get to orbit. I know - those numbers are about the same as the ones for the Bento Box. Delta-V is not what I'm worried about. Heating is...

Once I was done designing things, it was time to get back to business. Eunice Howell carrying Bill and engineers Gemlorf and Mathat Kerman rendezvoused and docked with LSV House Corrino in orbit over Gilly, at which point I set the trio to work on a test of the Cigar 7 design - I'm confident in the ascender, but I want to test the descender to see if it's going to be able to ferry folks safely. The trio printed up a Cigar 7 probe (which took 1.5 hours to complete) and the new probe docked with Corrino after release. At that point the print of a Beer Can Test Article commenced - this is just the payload of the Beer Can 7, a trio of Mk 1 Crew Cabins stuck together with a Jr. Docking port on either end and nothing else (comes in at just over three tonnes to orbit). The Ocean Ranger outpost on Gilly's surface shot up fuel supplies and Rocket Parts to House Corrino, at which point the ship warped out of Gilly orbit and headed over to Eve, warping into a position to pick up speed for a stable orbit.

♫ Now I'm freeeeeee / free-fallin... ♫. This type of maneuver always makes me a little nervous. Get too low for the warp drive to engage and suddenly I'm out three engineers, one contract and a warp ship that took three weeks to build...

Corrino settled into an 841x738 kilometer, 2.59° orbit over Eve, at which point it shot the needed fuel supplies over to Eveport. With a full tank of gas, Eveport burned to circularize its orbit, finalizing at 125.5x125.3 kilometer, 0.012°. Both Strange Cargo and Next Objective already in 150-kilometer equatorial orbits over Eve burned for rendezvous with the new station, with both ships docking earlier this morning.

The two ferries are old craft and they're mucking up that space station contract; next chance I'll transfer over the tourists and cut them loose. That should clear it.

Meanwhile, House Corrino completed its print of the Test Article.

House Corrino with the Beer Can Test Article in the drydock and the Cigar 7 docked front-right. Going to see how safe this system is...

The Cigar 7 undocked from Corrino as it released the Test Article from its drydock, and the Cigar docked to the Test Article successfully. Afterwards, the Cigar burned for a rendezvous with Eveport. The plan is to dock to the station, refuel and then conduct the deorbit and landing test. Doing it this way will give me an accurate test of the actual working conditions of the final operational craft. Hoping no redesigns/re-tests will be needed; keeping my fingers crossed there.

Working on the assumption that the test is going to work and I'll be able to get the mass driver working, I ordered up an Echo Flyer 7b at ALK; it'll take the crew there 12 hours to build the new 'copter. Meanwhile, I still had that pressure survey on the far side of Eve to get to - nearly 1200 kilometers to the southwest. The Echo 3 quadcopter was fired up and flew about thirty kilometers of that distance before I had to call it. I probably won't finish that flight until I've got an ample window of time with which to work. 2,400 kilometers round-trip. On Eve. Subsonic the entire way. Going to be fun...

I'm probably going to have a shortened day in which to play, but I'm hoping to get the Beer Can test done today. I also need to attempt another mass driver shot from ALK, and at this point I can go ahead and send House Corrino back to Kerbin; Mathat is a rescuee and the ship is hauling a G-LOC 7a return-to-Kerbin capsule, which I'm hoping will clear the current exploration contract and unlock the next body in the Kerbol system. I don't know which one that'll be - I've never gotten this far in the game before...

[Frank_G]

1 hour ago, Flibble said:

[RO/RSS 1.6.1]

Made it at last! First lunar flyby. 3 stages to LEO (200km) followed by a spin stabilised unguided burn for TLI. 680km perilune (target was 1000km).

Great achievement  Congratulations!!

[Flibble]

1 minute ago, Frank_G said:

Great achievement  Congratulations!!

Thanks. Incidentally, for those who don't play RSS - that mission required just over 12k dV.

[Guest]

23 minutes ago, Flibble said:

Thanks. Incidentally, for those who don't play RSS - that mission required just over 12k dV.

Is it possible to play RSS without MechJeb? I mean, can you even make orbit?