You Will Not Go To Space Today - Post your fails here!

[Freshmeat]

@flatbear: Yep, same here.

Personally, I lost a new space program yesterday, on kerbal date y01d003. Tried to do crew reports above areas from orbit with 18t rockets, but the inclination was to high for the dV. Val gets stuck in orbit. Then I send out Jeb to get funds so I can upgrade tracking station to maneuver nodes and crew facilities? to EVA, so I actually stand a chance of rescuing Val. Extra space for two tourists, gets to of four crew reports before it is time to head back. During reentry I notice a lot of wobble and batteries draining quickly, so I turn off SAS. Immediatly the capsule starts to tumble, SAS retrograde was the only thing keeping it from flipping forwards. I frantically try to reorient the craft, or failing that to keep the tumble to heat different parts of the craft, but at some 30km the capsule disintegrates, leaving nothing but a wiff of smoke.

Having lost both pilots of the program, the board of directors decide to shut down the illustrious Kerbal Space Program and return to improving agriculture. The efforts of of the Kerman family will be remembered as the time Kerbalkind pushed to far....

 

 

 

 

Well, until I get around to fire up a new start one of these evenings.

[Kuansenhama]

Forgot to add a decoupler between the tug and the cupola. It's monday...

EDIT: I go to try again and I got the staging wrong.

Edited May 2, 2016 by Kuansenhama

[CatastrophicFailure]

Aerodynamic dis-assemblies lead to some very impressive debris clouds...

 

It's rainin' rocketshipparts! Halleluja it's rainin' rocketshipparts! Amen!

CЯДP, ЯЦЙ!

[Alkem]

...how big was that and where was it headed? 

[DChurchill]

On 2/18/2016 at 2:20 AM, Stewcumber said:

edit- stiched together version

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/13203382/OCUK/Feb/PpfeUq6.webm

Still haven't learned...

I was gonna say that if the solar panel survived, then no harm no foul, but then I watched the webm. I'm going to have to call you for a foul.

On 12/26/2015 at 3:35 AM, Randazzo said:

Early testing stages for the STS challenge are off to a good start.

 

Heard in the KSP engineer conference room the next day: "But on the plus side: we won't be able to build another one."

Edited May 4, 2016 by DChurchill

[CatastrophicFailure]

21 hours ago, Alkem said:

...how big was that and where was it headed? 

328 tonnes, few hundred parts, 6 frames per second... and going nowhere except all around the space center still 

[Kuansenhama]

No Pics, but Bill, Bob and Jeb burned up coming home from the mun today. Hard career is brutal. Down to one orange-suit already, but there's always rescue contracts.

[RandomUser]

I had not one fail.  But two fails in one mission!  How awesome right?  I finally built a craft cable of going to Jool, and to have delta-V to spare!  I flew it all the way their, and even circularized my orbit around Jool with around 3,800 m/s left of delta-V!  How nice the Nuclear engines are. 

So all sounds just fine, what went wrong?  Well, unfortunately I made the mistake of not paying attention to which direction I orbited in. 

What is wrong with that though?  Well, if I want my lander module to work like a satellite to Jool, then it's fine.  Unfortunately I wanted to use my landing module for landing on Laythe.  However, went you orbit in the exact opposite direction of your target, you end up getting encounters on around 7,000 m/s.  Meaning I couldn't get into orbit without using all of my Delta-V, and burning for over an hour.  That is a bit of a problem. 

Then it struck me.  Can I get to Eeloo?  Put a maneuver here, prograde there, etc.  Yes, I can got to Eeloo!  So I go to Eeloo, get into orbit, and land even! 

Now all to do is plant a flag and take a screenshot!  How hard can that be?  Well, needless to say, it can be very hard when you're blocking the hatch.  Worst part is I was blocking it with an RCS port that in no way would hold the door down, because it was both smaller than the hatch and near the middle of it.  So there I was, on Eeloo, not even able to step outside of my landing module. 

After which I just cheated and used whack a kerbal to smash the RCS port.  Slightly cheating, but after all that, might as well. 

[max_creative]

Thinking I could get a giant payload on a giant rocket to orbit and forgetting the fairing and struts. The explosion was massive, the entire ksc got blown up (ok fine about 90%. Most of the runway survived), Mort had seizures for munths, and the debris got as far as 8 km away. IMPRACTICALITY BIG ROCKETS FTW!!!

[suicidejunkie]

KSC-tracking: Altitude 70km, speed 1900m/s, MunarSurfaceRescueOne is looking good.

Valentina: Third stage burnout.  Cutting throttle for transfer stage separation.

KSC-telemetry: Confirmed multiple stage separation.

Valentina: Odd. I'm not getting thrust from the transfer engine; throttle is non-responsive.

KSC-engineering: Recommend RC on the terrier for manual start.

Valentina: No go on right click override, KSC.

KSC-tracking: Chase camera seems to be getting a bit too close.  Repositioning.

KSC-engineering: Ooooh.  I see.  Ooops, sorry about that.

KSC-engineering: Recommend RC on the ascent stage terrier for manual start and LKO insertion.

Valentina: 

[ferrer]

My first manned Minmus landing since I started playing KSP again a couple of weeks ago.

That's one small step for...

Oh.

[DChurchill]

On 5/2/2016 at 2:58 AM, flatbear said:

not today, actually was my first mun landing a while back.  pretty sure everyone's first mun landing ends like this

 

Any KSP'er worth his salt will have a screenie very much like that one.

[DasValdez]

Err, I think this counts? Strongback too strong...

 

Edited May 13, 2016 by DasValdez

[suicidejunkie]

16 hours ago, DChurchill said:

Any KSP'er worth his salt will have a screenie very much like that one.

Heck, every one (five in total) of my science mun landers in my current career save looked like that, because I didn't bother to redesign it.

Instead I used a different trick each time to get them back off the surface; between rolling over a flag for a bounce, using KAS to move the landing gear to the nose, rolling it off a cliff, and exploding the engine before sending a rockomax rescue bus... it kept things interesting

[Guest]

Testing the latest iteration of a launcher I've been using for years.

You'd think I'd know by now not to physics warp during liftoff. Still, I managed to not break it!

Edited May 14, 2016 by Guest

[Itsdavyjones]

  Sooo, i released my heatshield early......

Sooo, i released the heatshield early..... bad idea.

[Mjp1050]

Why, hello, Physics. How's your day been?

 

Oh, surely it can't have been all that bad.

 

OK, well, it's been nice talking with you! Bye!

Edited May 17, 2016 by Mjp1050

[Sereneti]

On 2.5.2016 at 8:58 AM, flatbear said:

not today, actually was my first mun landing a while back.  pretty sure everyone's first mun landing ends like this

 

my first moon-landing was a drone, because _this_

[Curveball Anders]

39 minutes ago, Sereneti said:

my first moon-landing was a drone, because _this_

My second was a drone but provided seating for two.

Because my first moon-landing carried two Kerbonauts, and they got stuck when their lander fell over

[suicidejunkie]

4 hours ago, Curveball Anders said:

My second was a drone but provided seating for two.

Because my first moon-landing carried two Kerbonauts, and they got stuck when their lander fell over

When you have two kerbals, have one board, and one stand nearby.

Roll the lander towards the outside kerbal and ramp it off their helmet to get it back vertical.

The pilot can then hold with SAS while the second kerbal boards

[Sereneti]

My first landing on minmus...
i had tried to "land on the dark side" without light...

the drone had an impackt of 120m/s ...
a little to much for the landing gear...

( i like drones... i kann destroy them without bad feelings...)

[max_creative]

http://i.imgur.com/SN9MoUn.jpg 

i don't think it's supposed to do that... (Yay I got a pic!)

[Spaceception]

13 minutes ago, max_creative said:

http://i.imgur.com/SN9MoUn.jpg 

i don't think it's supposed to do that... (Yay I got a pic!)

Your Kerbal's are happy1

[ImmaStegosaurus!]

I done goofed up. This SLS_replica_thing was a bit more powerful than I expected.


Edit, I flew just up. Does this count as direct ascent?

 

Edited July 21, 2016 by ImmaStegosaurus!

[Readerty2007]

I'm in early career- just learned how to orbit reliably. I badly needed funds to upgrade things (VAB caps at 30 parts, no flight planning or patched conics for moonshots), so I was delighted to find a satellite contract well within my technological reach. Easy money!

Ha.

Ha. Ha.

Ha.

The job was for Maxo Construction, so I called the satellite the Maxollite. As per my usual strategy, I constructed the probe, mounted it atop fuel tanks and an engine, and then attached four solid fuel boosters via radial decouplers. In short, I had a probe that had more than enough dV to reach even the near Munar orbit required.

Given the nature of this thread, some of you may have guessed what happened to Maxollite I. The takeoff was perfect. Smiling, I watched my rocket climb. About 18 km up, the boosters cut out. Spacebar. Fireball. Gasps.

There were some red faces back at the VAB. Rather than welding the boosters to the decouplers, a misclick had welded them to the neighboring fuel tank. 

Naturally, satellites don't come with installed parachutes. Maxollite I hit at over 200 m/s.

 

That alone would be worth the post, but wait- there's more.

Maxollite II was much more carefully made. Every system was checked and rechecked before launch. The boosters were on the decouplers. The solar panels were exposed. The battery was big enough to last the night. There was plenty of SAS. So much sass....

Once again, the launch was perfect. Smiling, I watched my rocket climb. Grinning, I watched the boosters peel away and plummet to their doom. Maxollite II easily made orbit. After an orbit, I began to adjust course for Maxo's request orbit. All was going well.

Sunlight was gleaming on Maxollite II. Timewarp was humming along in the green. I nodded. It was time. Slash. Maxollite II dropped out of warp. Z. Nothing. Z? Still nothing. 

What could be wrong? Maxollite II had more than 200 fuel left in its tanks, twice what it needed to modify its orbit. Didn't it? I checked the consumables. Yes.... but.... the batteries were flat.

Now, as you recall, I had foreseen this possibility. I had a 200 unit battery and two solar panels. The probe was in full view of the sun. Yet the battery was flat.

I actually groaned when I figured it out. Maxollite II had 2 solar panels. I'm early game, so they don't track yet. I also mounted them using symmetry. So they were oriented 180° apart. 

The sun was at 90°.