What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Ruthgar]

Played KSP while I was at 36 thousand feet.

[Red Iron Crown]

Played KSP while I was at 36 thousand feet.

The Mile High Explosions Club. More fun than it sounds.

[General Rarity]

Took off with my very reusable SSTO...

One solar panel broke when the crane lifted the sat into the cargo bay...

Landed!

Then, on the next flight:

Debris hit me and reset the tweak scale on my plane.

[Megalodon 720]

I didn't do this today I done it yesterday but here goes...

I reached the speed of light.

[NecroBones]

Escape burn toward Moho.

The turbojet on the nose of the lander is due to a contract.

[TrooperCooper]

Installed the B9 Aerospace mod and trying it out for the first time.

Created an SSTO tanker plane with it that will refuel my space stations for cheap. The M3 Myrmidon is able to lift me about 3.5k units of fuel plus oxydizer into space.

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[GeneralMDBK]

Did some messing around with career mode for a bit before work.

[Mister Kerman]

Failed at Transposition

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transposition,_docking,_and_extraction

Can anyone spot anything wrong with this staging?

4.

-Poodle engine on bottom of lander

-Decouple launch tower

-Launch tower

3.

-CM/SM engine

-Decouple lander

2.

-Ascent stage engine

-Decouple Ascent stage from bottom portion of lander

1.

-Decouple CM from SM

0.

-Activate CM parachutes

When I'm in space and activate stage 3, the lander becomes space junk. I can put a kerbal into it, but there's no response from controls whatsoever. I can't even activate my RCS thrusters. Any tips? If not my Apollo mission is kaput!

EDIT: I took the delivery system entirely out of the picture since any stages happening before these 5 is basically irrelevant. Also I had a shield around my lander with radial decouplers to open it when I activated stage 3. They don't decouple upon activating the stage, but I can do it from inside the lander. Plus I can't manually start the engine either, but I can use my docking port to "undock" from the rockomax decoupler. That's pretty well all the relevant info I can give, unless a possible dead battery on the lander is the problem. I didn't check that, but the poodle has an alternator so i don't think that's the problem unless the battery being entirely dead can produce a situation like this.

Reading my docking port comment to myself gave me a good idea to attach the docking port directly to my SM engine instead of having a decoupler. Also I just realized all of the engines on my rocket had alternators so the battery couldn't possibly have been dead. Any help?

Edited August 1, 2014 by Mister Kerman

[soulsource]

The battery explanation sounds reasonable to me.

I've been playing a bit with the mods mentioned in my previous post. In career mode the KIDS preset "FAR -> Real Life" is very difficult to play, especially when combined with a strict no reverting policy, because the money that can be earned with a rocket barely makes up the costs, and early in career one cannot build reusable ships that manage to go to orbit. A single failed mission can make you test stuff on the launchpad for months... For that reason I decided to stick to the "FAR -> Stock KSP" preset, since it more closely matches the spaceship costs, the contracts were designed for.

With this setting I started a new career mode save, and up to now I did get some science from KSC, disassembled a rocket due to aerodynamic breakdown (pilot survived), reached orbit, rescued a stranded Kerbal from LKO (I got quite a shock when TAC said, that he doesn't have any oxygen, but luckily in the latest TAC version this means still 2 hours to live), messed up the staging of a rocket so it didn't get very high (pilot survived), did a flight test of an engine and orbital tests of an engine and an SRB.

Sadly all of this didn't bring much science points, but I'm now finally in a situation that would allow me to land on the Mun, yet one or two more tech tree nodes would be great to be able to do more science and to strut the rocket...

Btw: Astronomers visual pack is awesome, and the radial decoupler bug of 0.24.2 is a huge pain (I'm using the "fix" of Alias72 now, but it's still not perfect).

[Fizwalker]

For the first time, I have built a workable spaceplane.... Though it's still a little hard to control. With some refinement, I figure I can make it more stable and a tool to learn more about these things.

[Jouni]

I played a bit with an idea for the engine module for my next big interplanetary ship.

I'm still not sure if I want to use RCS in the ship and where I'll put the heat shield.

[TrooperCooper]

I'm still not sure (...) where I'll put the heat shield.

At the rear end of course. So you can use it like a parachute for aero-braking, no?

[JebNeedsHelp]

I finally landed a Kerbal on one of Jool's moons. I actually landed him on two, in fact. I landed him on Pol with enough fuel that I thought I'd try for Bop, and I just happened to score a near-perfect encounter inside one orbit. There's no way he'd make it anywhere else, though. I was pretty proud of myself.

Now, since I made a two-moon landing out at Jool, I tried something closer to home that I'd never done. I took a lander to Mun, left with enough fuel to head to Minmus, left there and returned to Kerbin. Seems weird that I'd skipped that for so long, but I'd been working on scoring science points so that never came up. (I'm still on .23.5)

[Camacan]

I intercepted an incoming asteroid with a very low periapsis.

Hmm, four minutes to rendezvous and lock on before entering the atmosphere.

We're on! Now I assume this asteroid will areobrake but get back to orbit. I mean it has Kerbin exit velocity.

Or not. Maybe we should be leaving soon.

There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!

We're both still intact. Chance to sample an asteroid in the desert biome.

Edited August 2, 2014 by Camacan

[LordCorwin]

Mi first Duna landing, although I've spent much more fuel than expected. Anyway, lot of science back home. :-)

[Edit] And finally I've been able to come back to Kerbin, although it costed me 9 years. Throwing 2 legs gave me an additional 1200 m/s :-)

Edited August 2, 2014 by LordCorwin

[TrooperCooper]

A series of re-entry tests of the Myrmidon tanker SSTO revealed some minor design flaws...

So the imperial engineers went back to the drawingboard and came up with this:

The new Myrmidon version features additional tail fins for better low speed / low alt yaw controls, an improved fuel flow system, an extended front wing for increased lift and, most importantly, a set of heavy air brakes at the rear end for speed control during descend.

On the first test-run, the ascend was easy and soon the tanker docked with the IKSS next to the older sattelite carrier.

While the fuel cargo was transferred into the stations depots, the view of the complex set into perspective how big this plane really is...

Shortly afterwards the descend began and the brakes instantly demonstrated their value. Their massive drag and a shallow approach resulted in no re-entry effects at all. And they also allowed me to pretty much pinpoint the descend to come down near the KSC.

The actual landing approach is still kinda messy. While low speed lift and controls overall got improved with this version, it is still very floppy. I need a very strong pitch authority during the descend. But that makes it difficult to keep the nose where its supposed to be during the landing approach, even in precision control mode. Prolly still needs a little more balancing...

Nontheless, it came down in one piece and is ready for the next run.

[Jouni]

I continued testing modules for my Jool expedition. The mission is shaping up as a Jool-5 with a separate lander and 2-3 designated kerbals for each of the moons. Today I did flight tests for the rocket that will deliver Pol and Bop landers and heat shields to the ship.

I also flew one of the landers to Minmus to check that they work as they should. The landers are flat, so that they can be docked radially to the main ship, while still being protected by its heat shields.

[Concentric]

A bit of messing around, and a couple of easy contracts. Landed tests, flag-planting, transmissions and an orbital rescue.

First, I attempted to make a VTOL aircraft and land on the helipad. VTO - check! L - not check! Managed to get it to take off vertically, and land horizontally on the runway, and also take off horizontally - but I struggled to perform vertical landing, and ended up smashing into the VAB roof.

Had Jeb climb down the side ladders, mostly falling and grabbing - managed to somehow clip him into the VAB. He could walk out through a wall, but not back in, so I reverted to do something else.

Then, I managed to destroy a probe core through atmospheric (I think) heating, in stock KSP. Yeah, I was surprised, too. Just take an Okto, strap 24 separatrons to it, and activate them all at once. The Okto is not damaged by exhaust, but explodes due to overheating - is it a speed issue or the engine heat? Well, adding a ballast mass beneath prevented the Okto from being destroyed, so I think it's probably the speed.

When the probe core explodes, there are 24 other pieces of debris: the empty separatrons. With a little tweaking of trim before launch, I managed to cause this cluster to hit the R&D complex and explode.

Next up, Bicycle Races. I got a test contract for the RAPIER again, and decided to build a cheaper, payload-less spaceplane to perform rescue missions. I also added ion engines and lots of monopropellant - perhaps it could dock, dump fuel and transfer to Laythe, or something, I thought. Once in orbit I did a delta-V calculation: not even 1km/s, with fuel and monopropellant levels as they were. I didn't check against fuel-dumping, though. Still, I think more xenon would be needed for a SSTL spaceplane.

The RAPIER test was "landed at Kerbin", so I stage-activated it. The reason I said "Bicycle" earlier, is because I decided to use only two gear bays. The VTOHL earlier was actually a unicycle, by this reckoning.

I had a rescue mission contract, so the cockpit was empty. I wasn't particularly efficient in my ascent profile, particularly as I was initially going for a 100km orbit, then burned straight down when out of the atmosphere to bring the apoapse to 80km instead of 100km. If I'd thought beforehand, there'd be a fuel saving there.

Get in, Jonvey.

Managed to descend much better on the second attempt - the first time, I deorbited immediately, used up all the fuel and had to turn around over the ocean. Got back to KSC, but lost control and crashed, so I reloaded to orbit. Of course, the second time I was a little short, but as I still had fuel, I could fly the rest of the way.

And a night landing. The descent wasn't as nice as I'd have liked, but an intact flyback runway landing is something I only recently became capable of doing, so I'll take it. Of course, I now have lost access to the RAPIER again - so I took this plane, replaced the RAPIER with a turbojet and the R-10-xenon-ion engine bits on the nacelles with an Oscar-B and 48-7S on each side. Had to fix the fuel-flow for that, but hey, it's fine. I'll probably want to come up with a name - it's under SpacePlaneA at the moment.

Edited August 2, 2014 by Concentric

[micha]

My first kerballed Mun mission had two objectives:

Primary: Explore Mun

Secondary: Deploy comms satellite into Munar orbit

Bill Kerman was chosen as the first Kerbal to (hopefully) set foot on the Mun.

The secondary objective is due to AntennaRange. So instead of putting long-range antenna on all crafts, suitable relay satellites are launched. Unfortunately in their haste to prepare for the first Mun Shot, Mission Control forgot about this when launching the Munar scanning satellites a few days earlier. Hence no detailed surface data about the Mun has been beamed back. Well, at least Bill should be able to pick it up once he is in range, and choose an appropriate landing spot.

The launch and transfer to the Mun went according to plan. A deep-space inspection showed no faults halfway to Mun, and the insertion burn on the dark side was similarly flawless. It seems nothing can go wrong on this endeavour! Due to the different mission profiles, this is also where the comms satellite was decoupled to allow it to enter a higher orbit.

Bill chose a large crater on the sunlit hemisphere as a suitable first landing site. Final descent and touch-down were also right on target, and a flag to commemorate Jebediah (who sadly died while attemping a landing in a test plane last week) was erected. After a minute of silence, Bill went ahead and deployed various science instruments.

Unfortunately part-way through, communications with Mission Control became spotty and finally petered out completely. It appears that Mission Control was being greedy and had decided to use the remaining fuel of the transfer stage to place the comms satellite into its orbit, presumably in order to save the satellites' fuel for later orbital corrections. Hence the most likely scenario is that because the satellite fairing had not been jettisoned, the solar panels were not deployed, and now the satellite is dead to all commands. Well, maybe Bill has the time and initiative (and enough dv) to check on the satellite on the way back to Kerbin.. until then, all we can do is hope that he is ok!

[UPDATE]

After Bill completed a few short excursions from the inaugural Mun landing site, he crossed his fingers and fired up the engine, which, thankfully, sputtered back into life, lifting his capsule, now heavy with Mun rocks, back off the surface and into a low Mun orbit. From there, carefully calculating his Delta-V margins, he decided to have a go at repairing the defunct comms satellite, which was on a highly elliptical and slightly inclined orbit. Nevertheless, a few burns later, he was on an intercept! There's a reason he was the first to the Mun.

After intercept, Bill EVA'd over to the satellite and tried to pry off part of the fairing, but no luck. His space-suit was also too bulky to squeeze inside to see if he could trigger the eject mechanism from inside. Dejected, Bill returned to his capsule. But as he approached his fragile home of the last few days, he had an idea! A quick rest and refill of his suit later saw him venturing back out into the cold black void.

Luckily his capsule was still the old model, with various external components, including some battery packs! One of these he disconnected, and carried over to the comms satellite. A short while later he had it connected up to the satellite systems, which slowly flickered back into life. Now it was a simple case of reprogramming the satellite systems to eject the side which covered the solar panel and deploy the panel. Unfortunately Bill neglected to retreat to a safe distance, and when he hit "go" the ejected fairing careened straight into him. Luckily Kerbal spacesuits are made of strong stuff! Despite being a bit woozy, Bill saw with satisfaction that his plan had worked and that the satellite was fully operational again - just in time for sunrise!

The remainder of Bills outing to the Mun was mundane in comparison. He returned to his capsule and watched the satellite perform its first orbital burn, then fired up his engine in turn for the long return to Kerbin. The return trajectory was carefully calculated to perform an aero-brake in Kerbins atmosphere as there was insufficient fuel left for orbital insertion. Soon he was approaching Kerbin, the welcoming blue-white orb hanging tantalisingly close in space . The upper atmosphere gripped him and Bill ejected the last, and lower, stage of his craft, leaving a small capsule for the final fiery plunge through the atmosphere, carrying its precious cargo of science. And Bill. He was coming in hot and fast over the daylit side and soon splashed gently down in the ocean to be picked up by the recovery crews.

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Edited August 3, 2014 by micha

[Kasuha]

Tested my first 'low tech' SSTO plane in contracts game. It was rather unstable in the air but I was still able to get it to orbit and back to runway.

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[Dat_Spacewaffle]

played ksp while listening to "Autobots Reunite" by Steve Jablonsky. aparently Flying planes had never been more awesome.

[Mister Kerman]

I was tied down onto a prison cell bunk by my cell mate Kerbal Space Program, beaten to a pulp, and given 10 rough ROUGH inches 5 seperate times trying to use the VAB to asparagus stage my monstrous Apollo mission. No mercy. I need therapy and physio, and I'll never look at KSP the same way again. I'm never building large complicated things ever again. At least not 500 parts large.

KSP simply could not stop duplicating branches of my asparagus stages. I'd have them all neatly done up, perfectly in fact, then check back after adding parachutes (the last step) and there'd be a duplicate branch inside of one of the other ones. I don't know why KSP decides to consistently do this, but it was enough to utterly defeat me. I give up on this specific run at an Apollo style mission.

I still want to do things Apollo style, but I'm not going to put so much emphasis on making it a replica of the real thing.

[Esme]

Had a nice moment the other day when I stupidly got a Kerbal stranded in orbit early in a game. Except... hmmn.. still have the last stage attached, and the periapsis is only 70.1 km, and I still have a decent amount of electricity left.. - so I started spinning the whole shebang, then detached the capsule just as it was swinging down toward Kerbin. It now had a 68km periapsis, and several orbits and much high-altitude aerobraking later, landed safely. Made me grin!

[Robotengineer]

I had some fun...

Also played career, went to Vall and did a rover contract.

[SHaFT7]

I was tied down onto a prison cell bunk by my cell mate Kerbal Space Program, beaten to a pulp, and given 10 rough ROUGH inches 5 seperate times trying to use the VAB to asparagus stage my monstrous Apollo mission. No mercy. I need therapy and physio, and I'll never look at KSP the same way again. I'm never building large complicated things ever again. At least not 500 parts large.

KSP simply could not stop duplicating branches of my asparagus stages. I'd have them all neatly done up, perfectly in fact, then check back after adding parachutes (the last step) and there'd be a duplicate branch inside of one of the other ones. I don't know why KSP decides to consistently do this, but it was enough to utterly defeat me. I give up on this specific run at an Apollo style mission.

I still want to do things Apollo style, but I'm not going to put so much emphasis on making it a replica of the real thing.

If you try to symmetry parts that already have symmetry, this happens, and it permanently corrupts the craft.

Edited August 3, 2014 by SHaFT7