Colossus Interplanetary Ship

[Technical Ben]

After the multiple successes of reconfigurable probe ships, I've decided to send my first "Manned" craft to Duna.

Named "Colossus" due to it's size, it should be able to change and adapt to a mission as required.

It has room for 7 Kerbals, but the first mission is taking only 3. The drive section has it's own command module, so can double up as a small lunar lander or an emergency return craft. Small "command pods" are docked on the side that can pick up "service modules" for parachutes, rockets and other resources. 1 tiny rover and 3 small probes are available for external maintenance or dropping off in orbit for permanent coms.

Built in orbit just before the 0.20 release, the docking was not upgraded to "large" connectors, but it does fly rather well with no wobble.

Managed to attach a couple of seated pods too for some powered EVAs. I'm experimenting with ion based maneuvering there, as I tend to burn through a lot of RCS in docking and reconfiguring the craft. So if the little pods work on ion drives, I might try a stock ion RCS setup of some sort for Collosus 2.0.

Edited May 23, 2013 by Technical Ben

[senoiurkabls]

Oh good lord that is amazing

[Technical Ben]

Picked up some fuel from the Luna orbital station. Well, after testing the drive unit for "Lander" mode.

The rover ("Catfish") is not part of this mission. It was just the target I was practicing landing near (With mechjeb, so totally automatic, soz ). Got to within 500m so quite happy.

Ah, the lander is now back at the orbiter. So will dock (manually, don't trust Mechjeb for that!) Should have 1 extra large fuel tank, and refill the half empty large one. Might be overkill for the fuel, but it means I'm not tied down to location choices.

[TheAndrewTaco]

That ship looks awesome, good luck on your mission

[Technical Ben]

This is the layout for the final burn.

Will drop the end tank quick, as it's almost empty (used it to deliver the other tank). The burn to the Mun was 4 mins or so (800dv). A burn for a planet should take a good half hour at a guess. Lol.

[Technical Ben]

Well, some successes, some failures.

First, the breaking in the atmosphere of Eve... Um, yeah, the Kerbals aimed for Eve, not Duna, but back to the mission... The aerobreaking in Eve resulted in wobbly spagetti, so a change to the ships design was made in orbit.

Before and after. As you can see, it flies like an arrow now.

They could land on Eve, they brought parachutes, but there is nothing return with. So as the probes have been sent autonomously previously, it's nothing by an orbital sight seeing exercise for now. Well, apart from testing the heat shielding. So, perhaps a trip to Gilly?

Well not quite. That's the parting shot. The Kerbals did well to fly up to the moon, but both it's low gravity and their retro aproach (orbiting the wrong way) meant a landing would use up all the avaliable fuel. So instead, just another sight seeing tour. Hopefully the approach to Moho will go better...

... who are we kidding!?

Edited May 25, 2013 by Technical Ben

[Technical Ben]

So we orbit Moho at 200km. Guslin decides he is going on his own to land on Moho in a tiny lander. But after the initial burn realizes he does not have enough fuel to land, let alone return from Moho! So he tails it back to the orbiter. The team devise "Plan B". They must take the drive section closer. Leaving Lenry in the orbiter at 200km, Lemry and Guslin take the drive section. Approaching at around 20km, Guslin will pilot the tiny single seated lander on Moho.

But things did not go according to Plan B. The lander still does not have enough fuel, even at this close range!

So to help Guslin feel better, Lemry agrees to drop him off ON Moho. They make a successful landing in the drive section.

Yep, that's Guslins little lander, that had to land about all of 50 foot (Kerbal feet at that!) onto Moho. Thankfully his big brothers are looking out for him. Only one last problem... who is looking out for big brother? Yep, we ran out of fuel again.

So stuck in orbit around Moho, the orbiter at 200km and the engine section at 40km, we await an automated resupply. Along with the fuel comes "Colossus Mark 2" "Colossus Prototype Mark 0.3" (Might have "fixed" the broken prototype), just in case anything else goes wrong...

Edited May 25, 2013 by Technical Ben

[Technical Ben]

Well, the rescue craft ran out of fuel too! It had just enough for a careful rendezvous with the orbiter though. The Colossus V2 is on the way now with hopefully at least 1 fuel tank worth of fuel.

[Technical Ben]

Managed to return them in the Collosus 1, turns out they dropped the Collusus 0.5 and 2 in Sol orbit... think I might bill them for that!

Not to worry, the new project "Titan" is being constructed.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/36206-Titan-Huge-%28but-under-150-parts%29-interstellat-craft?p=456499#post456499

[Wjolcz]

this looks pretty similar to my design. why dont you use the big docking ports like i did? its waaay better to connect big stuff that way

EDIT: oh man i really should start reading the text before posting anything >.<

Edited June 16, 2013 by Veeltch