What did you do in KSP1 today?

[andruszkow]

Well, this.

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From the opposite site post sunset, after the Nuclear lander was stripped (KAS) from power panels and RCS tanks, and ultimately, sent off to go to blow up. Return vehicle arrives in 8 days.

[RobotsAndSpaceships]

Today I into spaced.

[Capt-Coulson]

Continuing my RSS/RO saga after work today, I launched an ATV to the newly-christened ESS (European Space Station) in order to prepare the environment for a 3 month stay by a 3-man crew - both the longest, and largest manned RSS/RO mission by me to date. The next launch will see a crew dock with the station, which consists of two modules ('Astartes' and 'Gwinevear') providing modest accommodation and research space. The mission is for the crew to analyse the effects of long term snack deprivation, and perform structural work to secure the core modules (removal or RCS ports and addition of struts). Later, more living space will be launched, and secured by the same crew. This mission also sees the inaugural flight of the 'Leonardo II' CTV.

Below we see the ATV coming in for docking:

And the docked assembly, which boosted itself using the ATV on-board systems to the final orbital height of 240x240km (from 200x200km). This is to make rendezvous easier, at a minor trade-off of efficiency at launch.

[Louella]

Today, I have been making money and science through aeroplane surveys of Kerbin. I now have a two seat aeroplane capable of a fair long distance flight, and of making ground surveys, through having parachutes on it, so if the landing zone is a bit small, I can parachute the plane in. The 2nd crewman is an engineer, so he can repack the chutes, so if there's room to take off, we can go survey other zones.

And then, I got a parts test contract, to test a Kerbodyne KR-2L rocket engine on a sub orbital trajectory. The funds advance was 226k funds and completion reward was 695k funds, and I did it with a 65k test ship, most of which survived to be recovered !

So I really made a big profit today

[FlyingPete]

Tinkering with spaceplanes using the Mk2 parts. Unusually for me I was able to get a single turbojet operational past 40km altitude. I think the final orbit was about 100km x 45km before it finally gave up. Slight nudge with the four radial engines made a stable orbit Just need some development to include a crew cabin or cargo bay and I've got a good reusable transfer vehicle which can rendezvous with a station.

[numerobis]

Today I pitched a startup.

Yesterday, though, I played KSP, and flew the Virgin K on its in maiden flight*. Some minor issues were noted regarding the power subsystem (e.g. the lack thereof). Book your ticket now, starting at just 1,000 roots per seat for a suborbital trip -- a steal for any self-regarding business tycoon!

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Described here. The challenge was to use a nerfed turbojet that only has thrust starting at 300 m/s. I decided to up the challenge by making it a Mk3 plane with just two engines, given the thread where people were showing off their Mk3-based planes with dozens of engines.

*: pay no attention to the debris fields around the runway. Those weren't maiden flights.

Edited January 5, 2015 by numerobis

[Dr-Drunk]

I built this today:

And right now I'm working on setting up an orbital power plant using KSP interstellar. I'm also still working on setting up the satellite network to go allong with that for the beamed power and I still need to design a reliable SSTO to ferry crew to and from space. Anyone have any SSTO designs that work with FAR?

[xiziz]

So after the first sucessful payload delivery via a suborbital flight I unlocked some new parts, designed a munprobe intending to complete the exploration contract and a polar orbit contract, 3500dV ought to be enough for the transfer, getting into correct orbit and landing.

Wanted to try a droptank for the jetfuel, mostly to fill the last tank with an additional fill of LFO. Came to 28.2t on the runway, the basic jet engine can barely lift it and I had to use the lip to get it airborne, dropped the L-tank at 10km and ignited the rockets(This is basicly a glorified, return capable rocket, considering the grunt of the work is done by the 2x Mark 55s). Got into a nice 75x95km orbit with about 100dV to spare, opened my payload doors and behold, the payload tanks were dry. After some dividing i kept a miniscule amount to deorbit the aircraft and pumped the rest into the payload, got 2000dV there, so the munar landing was scrubbed.

Because of the very little fuel left to deorbit, I ended up overshooting KSC by two continents but just managed to turn her around and land in the dusk, very close at becoming a night landing in the hilly highlands.

Then off to fly the payload into a polar orbit around mun, contract completed with 100dV to spare. Pretty hairy doing it without conics, but I got there alright. And did the entire mission without reverts/quickloads which makes me happy.

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[ROXunreal]

Made a ton of money by testing a KR 1x2 in orbit. Up to now the most profitable contracts I completed were about 60,000 roots, this one gave me 460,000, along with the advance and what I had saved up, enough to upgrade my launch pad from level 2 to level 3 and my mission control, tracking station and astronaut complex to level 2. It wasn't even that hard to get it into orbit, as I could use more than one, and thus used two more for takeoff.

I also put my first two satellites in orbit.

The first one was also the first satellite I ever put in a geostationary orbit.

The second one, after researching some more tech, was an exercise in miniaturization.

I finally have enough tech to attempt a Mun orbit and landing. I did it a few times in science mode, never in career.

[kinnison]

As I am waiting for my First Duna mission to enter SOI. I had two first today.

1. Did a polar Holman transfer from Kerbin to the Mun, with a "Fine print" probe that did not have enough fuel to de-orbit. But it was high enough to do the tranfer and crash (eventually) into the mun.

2. Did a Suicide burn landing on Minmus, with my Kethane miner, first time i did it without circularizing my orbit after SOI capture

[Ph34rb0t]

Kerbmini 8, my last flight of the program (bar any MOL-alike future stuff). Before docking.

And disorganized tumbling, err...tethered stationkeeping.

(NASA thought it was an ultimately pointless exercise on the real thing, so it's perfect for KSP.)

Would be better if the ends of the cables were positioned exactly along the longitudinal axis of the spcecraft though.

And unlike the real thing, I can just haul myself back towards the Kergena, redock and stabilize the whole thing again.

- Edit:

Why didn't I pack a gravioli detector into the Kergena?

I mean, this was supposed to be an artificial gravity experiment after all...

Edited January 6, 2015 by Ph34rb0t

[Liowen]

I spent sometime today trying to build a transfer stage for the Smig, but I have hit a snag. My original idea was to have it dock to a transfer "engine pod" and have those engines fire in the same direction as the normal engines, but this would throw the center of thrust below the COM which could be bad (I think?). Then I tried one right on the docking port but had to tilt the transfer engine a bit to line up the COT, but now I think if I move the docking port back to under the SSTO's COM it "SHOULD" make everything just fine (again I think so anyways). Here are two shots of what I am considering for tugs, these are only prototypes right now until I know how much fuel and such I will need.

Tug one:

Tug two:

This is for a Laythe attempt so any idea are welcomed, the SSTO gets into orbit very easy so it is mainly the tug I am having trouble with. Maybe it I just dock to a big fuel cell I can transfer on the Rockomax engines alone??

[cantab]

The second design, though ugly, will work well. The first would have problems when the fuel starts draining.

[Liowen]

The second design, though ugly, will work well. The first would have problems when the fuel starts draining.

Yeah that is what I was thinking too. This is just a place holder design right now, but to use that design the docking port needs to be moved back (not a big deal). The first design though uses two out board engines draining from center out, I thought that would keep it semi stable. Hmm things to think about while I sleep thanks .

[Commissar]

does about 50 m/s on land and in water

[Landge]

I'm continuing to build up my Jool expedition fleet. Two launches into Kerbin orbit were required to assemble this craft.

I literally had to "thread the needle", maneuvering the Transfer Stage in between the 4 massive Tylo descent stages, in order to dock with the lander.

The ship is designed to transport a crew, that can land and return, to/from each of Jool's moons with the exception of Laythe.

In Laythe orbit she will rendezvous with a spaceplane that will transport them to/from their planetside base.

The first stop will be to Tylo, where the lander will shed the main descent stage during the majority of the way down.

The final landing/ascent stage will be shed during takeoff. Once back in orbit she can then visit the rest of the moons.

I did run "simulated" landings on Tylo to help in the design of the craft. Capable of carrying 3 or more kerbals, with a Hitchhiker Module, to Tylo and return them to orbit.

Edited January 6, 2015 by Landge

[TokiTech]

Hmm.. Let's just say i'm bad at wheel balancing.. Payload delivery was.. sort of a success..

[MGCJerry]

Completely deleted all traces of KSP (games, ships, copies, etc) and reinstalled.

Created a Karbonite mining base on Kerbin to test.

Problem was I wanted to move the whole test operation off KSC's grounds, so I launched the mostly empty storage unit under its own power, and landed with parachutes 5KM away from KSC. This created a new problem. The 2 mining vehicles, and mobile refiner are still on KSC grounds. Instead of driving them one at a time, Mission Control ordered a Crawler Transporter to carry them at once. All 69 tons of empty goodness. The front of the crawler has 6 Karbonite legs to pickup the front end so the rear ramp touches the ground. Once loaded, the legs are pulled up and its all mobile.

So, the 2 (19 ton) drillers, and the (15 ton) refiner were loaded up with the parking brakes set, and driven the 5KM to the test site on the crawler...

Was about a 9 minute total drive, and climbing the hills were fun, had to zig-zag, but couldn't use the brakes on the way down. In the end, all vehicles made it nicely to the new test location without incident.

[P.Lumumba]

Finally got the money for the last upgrade of the R&D facility.

I'm sure there is no place left on Minimus where the temperature or seismic activity is still to be checked.

And if there is, there will be a surface outpost close enough for someone to walk over there and check...

[DBT85]

I just launched my first ever Remote Tech ComSat into orbit. Shortly followed by the second because the first failed!

A small launcher with a couple of cans of mono, probe core, battery, SAS and RCS thrusters with about 4000 m/s dV just in the satellite from the mono.

ComSat 1 launch was going well but I lost contact with KSC just before orbit had been achieved. I immediately launched ComSat 2 in a vein attempt to establish contact before hope was lost but it was too late, however ComSat 2 did make orbit before losing comms thanks to a much steeper launch profile.

At a 1000km orbit with 0.000 eccentricity and 0.46 inclination. Still just over half the mono left.

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Edited January 6, 2015 by DBT85

[Yukon0009]

Realised my 202-ton lifter couldnt lift my 450-ton Orion ship, so I gave it 30 strap-on SRBS.

It got to Duna.

[capi3101]

Spent the evening installing Active Texture Management and DDSLoader. Took two hours to fire up KSP and it only caused my box to meltdown once - both of which are apparently normal for ATM on the first runthrough. The game doesn't look as bad as I thought it would, but it still doesn't look as polished as it did with LoadOnDemand. Still hopeful for an upgrade to that mod in the near future. Meantime, I can finally join y'all in the fun of 0.90. So far that's involved a run around KSC in an hourglass (to unlock early science) and about a half-dozen parts testing missions. Making money in the new version has proven quite difficult but I do have Stayputniks and batteries unlocked at this point, so I'm hopeful that I can finally complete a contract to test a Mk-55 engine in orbit. Going to have to review my guidelines for SSR boosters - and start practicing them, it looks like. The money's too scarce to be shedding off most of a rocket just getting it into orbit...

[MartGonzo]

Took my hyper efficient spaceplane for a free return trajectory round the moon, for the first time I actually managed to get into space using only the turbojet with just 47m/s burn at Ap to circularize.

Then watched all my linear RCS ports burn up reentry despite three aerobraking passes

anyone know how to add heat shielding to small parts?

[[email protected]]

Took my hyper efficient spaceplane for a free return trajectory round the moon, for the first time I actually managed to get into space using only the turbojet with just 47m/s burn at Ap to circularize.

Then watched all my linear RCS ports burn up reentry despite three aerobraking passes

anyone know how to add heat shielding to small parts?

I've had a similar issue with some of my spaceplanes. With planes I've found its best to drop in and circularize to around a 60 km periapsis, circle around and drop the apoapsis to about 50. That way you take a nice, long, slow drop into the atmosphere. With some masterful flying you should be able to drop your speed low enough to prevent reentry heating those delicate parts. It requires a bit more fuel...or a more creative build to shield your parts.

[MartGonzo]

I've had a similar issue with some of my spaceplanes. With planes I've found its best to drop in and circularize to around a 60 km periapsis, circle around and drop the apoapsis to about 50. That way you take a nice, long, slow drop into the atmosphere. With some masterful flying you should be able to drop your speed low enough to prevent reentry heating those delicate parts. It requires a bit more fuel...or a more creative build to shield your parts.

Thanks, I'll definitely take your advice, I never considered circularizing within the atmosphere.

But I have my suspicions there's something odd about the linear 7 rcs port though as it's always those ones that burn up, the other multidirectional ports don't burn up despite being more prominent.