What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Cavscout74]

5 hours ago, obnox twin said:

A good tip you see because of aerodynamics you want the center of lift near the center of mass so you don't go flipping around. If you check out my Jool 5 I had plane but I had to launch it with big wings on the booster to contract the other wings(Thank god for old drawings for prototpye things aka dynarsoar booster designs.)

5 hours ago, Aelfhe1m said:

Elaborating on @obnox twin's point, most RL design concepts have either had large wings on the booster stage; mounted the spaceplane piggy back (like Shuttle and Buran) so that the plane's wings are as close to the rear of the combined vehicle as possible; or wrapped a small spaceplane in a fairing for launch. Without one of these choice the centre of pressure tends to be too far up the vehicle for stability.

I should know that, but didn't think about it when I slapped that thing together.  I've built dynasoar-like craft before, but it's been a while (2 years since I played KSP regularly, 3+ since I tinkered with a Dyansoar-like).    The first two tests didn't even get going fast enough for the wings to be the problem, as my CoM & Thrust weren't quite aligned well enough.  Only the last test built up any speed (or altitude) at all before ending badly.   I'm mostly amazed the pilot survived the tests. 

 

I also forgot the pic of my failed 2nd Moho outpost landing - because I forgot to rotate the landing engines to not be occluded by the foot plates.  I can't even blame that on being rusty as I had launched that craft before I quit playing KSP.

 

Edited June 1, 2022 by Cavscout74

[DunaManiac]

A good old fashioned RUD. Hadn't had one of these in a while.

This apocalyptic scene was caused while I was attempting to launch a small drone to Laythe, and I accidentally stage the fairings immediately after launch, which can be seen below.

[Kerbals_of_Steel]

Jeb and Bill made the first non-stop circumnavigation of Kerbin on board the high altitude research plane Pegasus:

It's basically a flying fuel tank with a small science pod on the bottom with a data camera and some basic atmospheric science experiments.

On final for KSC:

Gus, Permission to buzz the tower???

Jeb tried everything except throwing Bill out of the plane, but he couldn't get that final meter...

 

KoS

 

[Watermel00n]

Deployed my Mesbin Base for a trip to the North Pole of Mesbin.

[Cavscout74]

Continued with the revived 1..8 career today, with a few accomplishments - Eve orbital crew headed for home, Laythe Ocean Explorer arrived safely & I unlocked another tech node and was able to place a very long range comm relay in polar orbit around Kerbin.

Departing Eve -  I almost screwed my crew on this one, as I forgot to transfer snacks from the station before departing.  I was already out of Eve's SoI before I realized.  Luckily, after unlocking two snacks containers on the ship, I have enough for the trip back to Kerbin plus about 20 days.  When the containers were locked (and the unlocked parts nearly empty) I had only 80 days or so of snacks for the 180-some day trip.

The 1000G relay was one of the last things I did, but it was pretty simple - toss a big satellite into polar orbit, then bump the Ap over the North pole out close to the limits of Kerbin's SoI

The biggest part of my day was the arrival of my Laythe Ocean Explorer and managing to splash down safely despite "iffy" communications - and this save has "Require signal for control" turned on, so if signal gets lost there's a pretty good chance of losing the craft.  

Resting on the surface, waiting for the RTG to recharge batteries.  It will run in excess of 32 m/s submerged but the motor sucks the batteries down pretty quickly at full speed.

Spoiler

Approaching Tylo for the gravity assist

Tylo's assist put me on a course to Laythe after a course correction

First pass through the upper atmosphere to help capture into orbit.  Afterwards, I circularized & jettisoned the empty NERV stage

Atmospheric entry

This wasn't quite my intent, but the fairing took out most of the orbital stage when it jettisoned.  No matter, the actual Ocean Explorer was undamaged by separation although I did lose my grid fins

The drogue chutes worked, and pulled the Explorer cleanly away from the remnants of the orbital stage

Followed by main chute deployment

After that was a clean splashdown at 4.5 m/s, the chutes were jettisoned, ballast tanks flooded & shallow & deep water science gathered successfully before returning to the surface to transmit & wait for the batteries to recharge

Also popped over to the glide rover to wait for daylight, and caught a nice night time geyser eruption into some low clouds:

 

[LHACK4142]

Flew around my F-18

Spoiler

 

[DunaManiac]

I've designed a probe with a functional scan platform and a small lander that'll be headed to Vall in the next 90 days.

(Disregard the Decoupler.) The lander is mounted in that place because I have to stay within the strict 2.5 meter allowance of the cargo bay. It has all the scanning components one needs, including a camera.

[Geonovast]

I made an SRB with a thrust termination system.  I... don't know why.

Doesn't actually stop the srb, just opens up some angled side ports to effectively zero out the thrust.

[Sunn]

A pretty random apollo mission

Edited June 3, 2022 by Sunn

[ColdJ]

12 hours ago, Geonovast said:

I made an SRB with a thrust termination system.  I... don't know why.

Doesn't actually stop the srb, just opens up some angled side ports to effectively zero out the thrust.

Seriously interested in the mechanics of how that works in KSP. Does it utilise the reverse thrust module?

[Geonovast]

2 hours ago, ColdJ said:

Seriously interested in the mechanics of how that works in KSP. Does it utilise the reverse thrust module?

Basically, yes.  Except there is no such thing.  I checked both the Goliath and Wheesley configs, and they just use ModuleAnimateGeneric to move the thrustTransforms.  So that's all this does, moves 2 of the thrustTransforms 120 degrees out in a single frame animation. (You'll notice the plume out of the nozzle gets less dense, since there's now only 1 instead of 3.)

[QF9E]

I made a low tier SSTO during my lunch break, just to see if I could make the Cessna landing gear work on an SSTO. The result: it is possible, by doing the re-entry upside down, so that the craft shields the landing gear from entry heating.

[Cavscout74]

18 hours ago, Geonovast said:

I made an SRB with a thrust termination system.  I... don't know why

I know why - because it is awesome!!!! 

 

On to my career save: 

My manned Moho mission arrived, docked & landed.  The two lucky kerbonauts on the surface got to take the MoRo-1 rover from the equator to the Mohole, back to a spot of debris south of the equator about 90* ahead of the outpost, then finally back to the outpost.  Thank you, Bon Voyage!!!

Flag planting on Moho by Phoebe & Johnny.  This was the point I realized that I never switched to the new suits for the mission.

Spoiler

Lander docking with Moho station

EV-1 Avalon docking with Moho station

Moho tanker rendezvous.

Grabbing a Moho stone to bring home

MoRo leaving it's landing cradle to go pick up the kerbonauts at the Lancer outpost

Getting ready for the rover trip

At the Mohole

Driving through the polar mountains at night

Finally scanning a fissure near the Lancer outpost on their way back

 

I also added the inflatable ballutes mod and did a quick reentry test back from Minmus, which went very well.

That test also involved a quick surface rescue on Minmus, poor Stephanie was stranded, and had to get picked up by rover then transferred to the pod that got used for the reentry test.

Last but not least was the capture of an asteroid coming into Kerbin's SoI on a retrograde fly-by.  Capture went well, just waiting to get to Pe to brake into orbit.  I almost launched into a normal orbit, but around 5000m, realized what I was doing & reversed course. 

Actually, this was an entirely different asteroid - an E class on a collision course with Kerbin that I barely managed to redirect, about a month before the one I'm capturing.

Edited June 3, 2022 by Cavscout74

[ColdJ]

3 hours ago, Geonovast said:

Basically, yes.  Except there is no such thing.  I checked both the Goliath and Wheesley configs, and they just use ModuleAnimateGeneric to move the thrustTransforms.  So that's all this does, moves 2 of the thrustTransforms 120 degrees out in a single frame animation. (You'll notice the plume out of the nozzle gets less dense, since there's now only 1 instead of 3.)

Still good to know, I hadn't realised they could do other angles other than a 180.

[Neptunium_69]

I sank probes into the ocean on kerbin.

[stephensmat]

I don't get to play every day, but I've more or less 'completed' my Science game.

My ship, (The SS Lewis) has been unlocking most of the tech tree. I finally made a halfway decent Digger, and made several round trips to Ike, so I was able to refuel and fly the whole thing straight past Kerbin, and on to Eve.

I wasn't sue I had the Delta-V, so I left my Digger/Refueller (Unmanned) on Ike. I figured if anything ever flew that way again, I could use it as a fuel station.

I started the flight from Duna to Eve, and then went back to the space centre. My Digger (Complete with Booster) is saved, so I launched another and flew it to Eve. It got there independently of the Lewis, and I landed Digger2 on Gilly; ready to start refuelling as soon as the Mothership got there.

My Lander doesn't have the power to get off Eve again if I landed, but Gilly is another story. With a Science Lab, and a few scientists on my crew to let me reuse experiments and EVA's at various biomes, I've not unlocked the whole tech tree.

I have no idea what to do now. I've successfully flown a 35 year mission around three planets; and unlocked the tree.

I've never successfully run a 'Career' Save. Maybe I'll use my Science Game to design a few rockets with appropriate cost saving/early parts; give myself a leg-up on the Career path.

[Aelfhe1m]

2 hours ago, stephensmat said:

I have no idea what to do now.

Some suggestions for new challenges:

• Eve landing and ascent (hard)
• Jool 5 - land on all the moons of Jool
• Grand Tour - use a single vessel (mothership) to visit every planet and moon, landing where possible
• Start a new career with a larger tech tree
• Outer planets mod to give you more destinations
• One of the planet packs that adds additional star systems - interstellar is a whole new level of difficulty, especially if you don't install any of the mods that add FTL
• A new career in an upscaled system 2.5x and 2.7x can still be done with stock parts but the delta-V margins are harder (try JNSQ or KSRSS) or go full scale with RSS with or without RP-1 for the full career challenge

[QF9E]

After many, many, MANY failed attempts I finally succeeded in building an SSTO on Eve. This craft is able to reach Low Eve Orbit from Eve sea level without dropping any stages. It's a pig to fly, and there's definitely room for improvement, but I finally DID IT!

Some digging in my archives unearthed this picture from 2 years ago, which was one of my first attempts at building an Eve SSTO. Back then I naively believed that I could easily do this with a slightly modified Space Shuttle. How wrong I was!

[2Tricky]

Made my first ever base and it was in science mode!

My plan was to be able to refuel at minmus just to make it easier, yet to be tested.

Was also able to build a geostationary relay satellite with parts left around. Finished build is somewhere close to 500-ish parts.

[Krazy1]

I built a small crewed science pod and modded an SSTO to deliver it to LKO to add to the probe that came back from low solar biome (under 1 Gm). I'll refuel it at Minmus and send it back again to get the rest of the science. I should have just done this originally. I hope my scientist doesn't get cooked. 

9 hours ago, QF9E said:

I finally succeeded in building an SSTO on Eve.

What KSP version? Did you use any electric motors for this one? Why all the wings? Without air breathing engines I'm surprised wings help.

[EpicSpaceTroll139]

Finally found some time to take a little break from my graduate research and do some messing around in KSP.

Because ADHD (and not wanting to deal with load times), I decided to work on a stock KSP project instead of doing stuff in RO.  Most of that involved building a rocket with a stupid number of SRBs.

This monstrosity has 150 MN of thrust at liftoff and can yeet two large kerbodyne tanks out of the kerbol system with delta-v to spare.  It does in fact have a purpose.  It will be used to lift, wait for it, even more SRBs into LKO at the start of a really crazy (sandbox) mission I have planned.  More on that later.

 

I also decided to fly one of my older crafts, basically a giant pancake, because why not?

 

[EpicSpaceTroll139]

3 hours ago, Krazy1 said:

I built a small crewed science pod and modded an SSTO to deliver it to LKO to add to the probe that came back from low solar biome (under 1 Gm). I'll refuel it at Minmus and send it back again to get the rest of the science. I should have just done this originally. I hope my scientist doesn't get cooked. 

What KSP version? Did you use any electric motors for this one? Why all the wings? Without air breathing engines I'm surprised wings help.

I don't know @QF9E's exact design, but wings can let you start building up horizontal velocity while having a TWR < 1.  For example, you can get to orbit from mountaintops on Kerbin using ion engines (granted, with staging), but you need wings to get the required lift while accelerating.

Edited June 5, 2022 by EpicSpaceTroll139

[N_Danger]

The first Munner landing was conducted,

Starting with the pre-positioning of the lander.

 

Spoiler

Start of the trans-Munner injection burn.

Coast phase

 

Waiting for the crew.

Jeb and Val head up next.

Coast phase after the trans-injection burn.

After docking Val heads to the lander.

Spoiler

"You got good gear down."

"Touch down. Engine off. Mission Control the Keagle had landed!"

The first selfie on the Mun.

 

 

And Val plants a flag.

Spoiler

Val heads back.

She EVA's over to the Kemini SM after docking.

And the crew heads back to Kerbin

And time to get ready for re-entry

And a good chute to end the mission.

[QF9E]

6 hours ago, Krazy1 said:

What KSP version? Did you use any electric motors for this one? Why all the wings? Without air breathing engines I'm surprised wings help.

That's from the current version, 1.12.3. It uses 16 propellers driven by electric motors (they're inside the payload bays in front of the NERV engines) to get out of the lower atmosphere. The wings are there for precisely the reason @EpicSpaceTroll139 provides: wings have a lift over drag ratio substantially greater than 1, which implies you can get airborne with engines that have TWR substantially lower than 1. The reason being that lift counteracts gravity but thrust only has to be greater than drag.

For reference, the forces acting on an airplane in flight. As you can see, lift counteracts the force af gravity while thrust counteracts drag.

My craft (which, incidentally, has a mass of 320 tons) cannot ascend at much more than about 15 degrees above the horizontal at Eve sea level under prop power.

Moreover, Eve has a much denser atmosphere than Kerbin, so a wing will generate a lot more lift on Eve than on Kerbin. In fact, this craft is only barely able to fly in Kerbin's atmosphere.

The Big-S delta wing (and the Big-S wing strake even more so) also have internal fuel tanks, so you're saving on fuel tanks as well. Both these wings have the same ratio of mass to wing area (and hence lift) as most other wings in the game, so the added fuel tanks have effectively zero mass.

Edited June 5, 2022 by QF9E

[N_Danger]

A quick mission to Duna today.

Spoiler

Solid Booster separation

 

Second stage ignition

Followed by fairing deploy

Coast phase after trans-Duna burn.

Less than a minute to capture burn. targeting an AP about 450 KM on the way to an about 450 x 450 KM orbit for the Multi-Spectral scanner. And some science is gotten too!

The capture burn is finished up.

 

And after circularizing around Duna, we start scanning.