Closest Encounter With Space Junk

[Brabbit1987]

I was building a space station and launched a few things into orbit about in the same orbit as my station so I can dock them. I was thinking to myself, maybe I should move them. Then was like naaa, what are the chances XD.

A couple hours later when I am trying to dock a portion to my space station, something comes out of no where and just smashes right through all my work at ridiculous speeds. It was one of the pieces I had not docked yet. Since then, I always launch to different orbits before going to my space station.

BTW, when I fail, I fail. I don't use the save function.

[draeath]

Reading this... I've decided that I will not put my refueling station inside my typical parking orbit

Come to think of it that would be helpful anyway, for phasing purposes.

[DChurchill]

I can honestly say I have never had any close encounters with space debris.

I see what you did there.

[Landge]

I had disconnected the lander from the orbiter while in orbit over Laythe. While I was in timewarp, waiting to line up and deorbit to the landing site, the 2 parts of the ship (lander and orbiter) started getting closer together until they started passing through each other. I was pinching my seat waiting for both to explode. Once they were clear of each other. I turned timewarp off. Panic was averted. That was a close call.

[RocketPilot573]

I remember back in .16 (when I have TONS of debris) I flew a ship into a retrograde orbit for the first time. Oh boy...

[draeath]

I remember back in .16 (when I have TONS of debris) I flew a ship into a retrograde orbit for the first time. Oh boy...

[mellojoe]

I had a 4-probe satellite ship thing that I used to drop multiple probes around celestial bodies. For example, the whole craft would go to Jool, put 4 satellites into differing orbits (FOR SCIENCE!) and then return home.

I've done that dumb thing where I deployed a satellite, switched to control it to orient it, and drove it right back into the mothership. d'oh

I've also done that dumb thing where I deployed a satellite, situated it where I wanted it, fired up the mothership to move to the next orbit, and smashed right into the satellite. d'oh

Lesson learned: Look the way the ship is pointing before you accelerate.

[generalmiller]

I had the universe tell me no with space debris. I had been recreating all the Apollo missions from test flights to the actual ones with a fairly decent facsimile to a Saturn V using NovaPunch, KW, and Lionhead's MEM (but not the CSM as the engine texture bugs me so I used KW for the CSM). So all the staging and functionality was as close to real as I could make it. Anyway Apollo's 11 and 12 went off without a hitch and I figured since the game doesn't have random failures I'll make Apollo 13 the successful landing it should have been.

After the Trans Munar Injection and undocking of the MM from the S-IVB I deployed toe solar panels on the CSM and MM and went on my merry way to the Mun. I didn't time accelerate because I wanted to go play some other games with my friends so I alt tabbed and went and played Borderlands 2. Anyway a couple hours later we were just sitting their BS'ing on skype when I heard an explosion. We had already stopped playing Borderlands so I was wondering where it came from when I realized I still had KSP running (I had long ago turned the music off so I could listen to my stuff while playing, but I had left all the other sounds on.) I quickly tabbed back in and saw much to my horror chunks of solar panel floating about and a whole lot of nothing where the CSM's SPS was supposed to be.

Fortunately ever since learning how to do a free return trajectory I have always used it just in case something went wrong and without the power requirements like the real CSM it wasn't as harrowing as the real thing and I managed to get the crew back safe. I wasn't sure it was debris at first but after checking the tracking station I noticed one of the spent stages from my earlier surveyor lander missions was missing and since I use the same type of rockets for certain missions in this case an Atlas II the debris should have been there. So some how in the vastness of space I got hit by something I launched to the in game equivalent of years ago. And it was just my luck it would be the one I named 13.

Edited July 23, 2013 by generalmiller
Easier Reading

[Tw1]

-big snip-

And it was just my luck it would be the one I named 13.

Did you take screen shots? Maybe you could post it in the Apollo thread as an Apollo 13 recreation

BTW, that is a big chunk of text. I suggest putting it into paragraphs next time for easy reading.

[magnemoe]

I had a 4-probe satellite ship thing that I used to drop multiple probes around celestial bodies. For example, the whole craft would go to Jool, put 4 satellites into differing orbits (FOR SCIENCE!) and then return home.

I've done that dumb thing where I deployed a satellite, switched to control it to orient it, and drove it right back into the mothership. d'oh

I've also done that dumb thing where I deployed a satellite, situated it where I wanted it, fired up the mothership to move to the next orbit, and smashed right into the satellite. d'oh

Lesson learned: Look the way the ship is pointing before you accelerate.

Yes, might also think about the direction you decouple.

Also then matching orbits, the 0.3Km marker is where your orbits cross, not necessarily the closest encounter.

You can also be hit by parts you drop yourself. Remember I was taking an base to Gilly. As it was fuel left in the boosters I kept them as drop tanks for the nuclear rocket, then they run dry I pressed space and the seperatrons rotated them arount the center of mass or the mainsail engines, and smashed into the back of the ship destroying all the nuclear engines.

[generalmiller]

Did you take screen shots? Maybe you could post it in the Apollo thread as an Apollo 13 recreation

BTW, that is a big chunk of text. I suggest putting it into paragraphs next time for easy reading.

Unfortunately I didn't think of that at the time. I have plenty of pictures from the other Apollo missions but after the first couple launches I focused on taking pics after arriving on the Mun and Minmus. And after the explosion I was too focused on making sure that nothing else went wrong and that the unfortunate crew would actually make it back alive.

[NeoMorph]

I had an impact that scared the crap out of me. I had a satellite on a polar orbit at 75K that I had forgotten about... I was just doing a docking manoeuvre with my interplanetary train (on an equatorial orbit) when that darned sat came and nicked the side of the lander, flinging it on a wierd orbit.... Totally trashed the satellite too. But it was the bang that made me jump as I had my headphones on and was drifting off to sleep... Was only when I realised the polar sat was missing that I realised what had hit what.

Edited July 23, 2013 by NeoMorph

[zarakon]

I actually tried to set up collisions once by launching a bunch of excessively wide objects into the same altitude orbit with Mechjeb, half of them normal and half retrograde.

Even with autopilot, the small differences in their final orbits meant they ended up fairly far apart from each other. Then even if two did end up on a collision course, the large distance they move with each physics timestep means that they would be far more likely to just jump through/past each other than actually collide.

I'm pretty surprised to see this many stories of accidental collisions when I couldn't even make it happen deliberately

[SpacemanSpiffy]

I had a mysterious accident that I have since written off as a space junk impact. Unlikely I know but I can't explain it any other way.

I was attempting to get one of my spaceplanes into orbit, got up to ~65km then I saw something whiz by and clip one of my wings, sending said craft into a flat spin. The object was small and at the same approximate altitude that some of my rocket stages are jettisoned so I'm guessing it was a decoupler... didn't think something that small could impart that much momentum.

Anyways, needless to say the mission was aborted but I was able to recover from the spin and brought her down not too far from KSC. If that truly was a space junk impact it was a one-in-a-million shot methinks! Too bad I couldn't get it on tape, but then again it would be like catching lightning on film (without very slow shutter speeds of course)

[benjiful9000]

[closed]

Edited July 4, 2021 by benjiful9000

[Pugspaceprogram]

I put 2 satellites in equal but opposite orbits... FOR SCIENCE!!!

I also had problems with a mass relay... It's an infinitely long story.

[TheSaint]

I was performing a rendezvous between a lander and a capsule in Duna orbit last night and had the lander whiz right by. The lowest distance I saw on the HUD was 20m, and there was at least 100m/s velocity difference at the time. That would have been ugly.

[Travisfv]

I had left over fuel in my orbital injection stage. Inused it to rendezvous with my station then separated... Not realizing That decoupling it would change its orbit a bit. It ended up passing within 300 meters of my station. I immediately built a ship with some structural bits made makeshift middle, got myself within 25 meters, and blew it up.

[Jason Cox]

My closest encounter with space junk? I had dumped my third stage booster post-TLI burn and continued my journey onwards to the Mün whereupon I fired my CSM's engine to enter orbit... only to have my third stage booster smack right into the capsule a few seconds later.

Let that be a lesson to you... Always perform a course correction burn mid-point between Kerbin and the Mün so that your booster is on a different orbital path than you are.

[draeath]

Refuel in LKO and you can take your booster with you

(launched proble into LKO, first stage and boosters expended. refueled, off to Mun! Did my thing, and had enough fuel to get to Minmus! I still haven't dropped the transit stage, it has a tiny bit of fuel left in it!)

Edited July 23, 2013 by draeath
stupid typo

[SargeRho]

A spent booster stage smacked my space station in half.

[cloudx]

I once had a spent fuel tank that was used on one of my interplanetary return missions scream by my orbital station at around 5,000 m/s. It missed it by 50 / 60 meters.

[Bigulp]

I have a ring of debris in LKO, its visible as you leave or return from the mun and of course I have to pass through it every launch. Its been growing. Another time I had a rogue eva kerbal who used up all his monopropellent take out an entire solar array on a station. Just smashed it to pieces. He survived to orbit for another day.

[19spacepug]

I would not call this a close encounter but I was trying to make a single stage to orbit spaceship in the demo it worked but at a cost I now have 2 stages heading out of the kerbin system and might end up going around the sun or hit the mun. Right now its about in a large orbit thats going to slingshot it around kerbin its going to be a long time before it becomes a danger but I am thinking about making a sun station so I might have to make the station hard enough to withstand a inpact. The station will be one big ship due to me only having the demo. the ssto spaceship kerbal pilot landed safely in the ocean.

[CoriW]

You know, if I ever have 2 ships collide or get hit by a piece of space junk, I'm going to consider it luck. Because that would be the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in KSP, nothing like seeing something get hit by something else at several km/s... BOOM!