I keep forgetting electrical power

[lewisd]

I've had two missions recently that went a little bit off the rails because I've forgotten all about supplying electrical power to certain parts of the spacecraft.

The first one was my first Kerbed mission to Duna. I got Jeb into orbit around Duna, the decoupled his rover+lander from the return craft, and descended to the surface, enabling the SAS on the return craft before I left. The mission on the surface went almost to spec, except that Jeb rolled the rover, and had to walk back to the rocket. The liftoff went well, got into a stable orbit, and was a couple km from rendezvousing with the return craft. I switched to the return craft to point it's docking port towards Jeb... and couldn't. I hadn't given it any RTG or solar panels, and the SAS had drained the battery. Despite this, Jeb managed to dock, with fuel remaining, and got home in one piece.

You'd think that after that, I'd learn my lesson, but no, that's not the Kerbal way.

Last night, I started assembling a space station (using FusTek and Infernal Robotics parts) in keosynchronous orbit. I got my core module up there, *with* plenty of solar power, and some RTG for backup. Once it was in a nice stable orbit, I detached the rocket, turned back towards Kerbin to put a bit of distance between me and the station before my retrograde burn... and promptly ran out of power. So now it's in a very slightly eccentric orbit, that intersects with KSO, so it's only a matter of time before it blows back into the station, blowing Jeb and Bob to kingdom come. This means I'll have to accelerate my plans to get a tug up there.

Maybe it's time I printed out the checklist I've already made, and kept it beside my computer. With "electricity" highlighted.

[Odo]

I feel your pain.

About 40 minutes ago I was docking a huge module to my interplanetary ship (im assembling it in orbit)

It takes ages to get things into a rendevouz when the parts are so big, so I was relieved that I was finally crawling my way to the ship.

At about 60 meters away, I ran out of electricity, but I didnt revert the flight, instead I docked to the module with the rest of the ship XD

Which was not easy, considering its massive and when things are as massive as it is RCS doesnt help!

This is the first time I ran out of electricity in a loooong time because I always put those little nuclear generators on pretty much everything. One is all you need for all eternity.

Its such a tiny little weightless item and it is so overlooked, its like 0.1 for mass, yet no one ever uses them!

[nine_iron]

I did this for my first 20 odd missions, easily done.

Its such a tiny little weightless item and it is so overlooked, its like 0.1 for mass, yet no one ever uses them!

Kerbals love shiney things (like solar panels) and brightly coloured things (batteries with lights on). Not dull grey tubes with bits of metal on them.

Edited October 8, 2013 by nine_iron

[lewisd]

This is the first time I ran out of electricity in a loooong time because I always put those little nuclear generators on pretty much everything. One is all you need for all eternity.

Its such a tiny little weightless item and it is so overlooked, its like 0.1 for mass, yet no one ever uses them!

I've been making it a habit for a while to make sure I always have at least one of those on my vessel, but sometimes I forget what's a "vessel". For example, the station core I launched has two of them, but the "ship" I was returning to Kerbin didn't have one. The rover (that Jeb rolled, driving like an idiot) had one. Actually, if the crash hadn't destroyed it, I might have had enough SAS power to roll it back onto it's wheels, and saved Jeb the walk.

I need to remember to apply my checklist to all the stages that are standalone vessels.

[Dispatcher]

I try to be a little redundant with my general purpose ships. I'll have a battery in each section (not each stage), as well as nukes and small solar cells. Even though its more mass and drag, I have more than one of each simply for craft balance.

[Lojik]

Yep, I kept forgetting this as well, I have a sticky note on my monitor now that sais "ELECTRICAL POWER"

[Scotius]

Once i've sent a lander to the Mun, and only just before deorbiting burn realised that there is not a single source of power on the ship. I had only power in crew capsule. I could end the flight (it was before reversing), but instead i've built dedicated power module - a battery, two RTG's, four solar panels, two docking ports. Then i've sent it on a small, fast rocket and docked with the lander before it ran out of power It was a mad scramble, but it worked fine.

[lewisd]

dedicated power module - a battery, two RTG's, four solar panels, two docking ports.

I thought about sending up a dedicated power module like that to rescue the ship that's in the eccentric orbit, but I need a tug at the station anyway, so I'm going to try to kill two birds with one stone. That said... I'm not sure that any reasonable tug will be able to deorbit something from KSO, and return to the station, so on second thought... maybe the tug needs to take a dedicated power module to the stranded ship, and let it deal with deorbiting itself.

I thought engines provided electrical power when they were running, but I guess that's not the case? (The stranded ship's power was going down rapidly even while the engines were running.)

[lajoswinkler]

I remember having a probe around Vall which got stuck in one position after its batteries depleted in the shadow. The position was interesting because the light couldn't strike the panels. I had to wait almost 3/4 of Jool's year to finally see some light striking the panels.

[Scotius]

You just have to push periapsis of second ship into atmosphere. Then after each orbit it will go deeper and deeper, and finally it will lithobrake It will take only a bit of fuel when you brake at apoapsis. Immediately after the braking burn you can undock the tug, move a bit to the side and burn prograde to raise tug's periapsis above atmosphere.

[lewisd]

You just have to push periapsis of second ship into atmosphere. Then after each orbit it will go deeper and deeper, and finally it will lithobrake It will take only a bit of fuel when you brake at apoapsis. Immediately after the braking burn you can undock the tug, move a bit to the side and burn prograde to raise tug's periapsis above atmosphere.

Yeah, but according to the chart I'm looking at, you need 800m/s delta v to go from KSO to LKO, plus a bit more then to get into the atmosphere, and then another 800m/s to get the tug back into KSO. The bit to get the tug back is going to be less significant, since it only needs to move the mass of the tug, not the mass of the other vessel as well. I don't have KSP in front of me here to see what kind of vehicle that would take, or even check the mass of the vessel that needs to be deorbited. It's got 14 FL-T800s, 4 of which are empty, and 7 LV-N engines. Those would be the bulk of the weight, so some quick math works it out to about 63 tons. But, I can use the fuel in it's tanks for the deorbit maneuver, so it wouldn't actually take any fuel from my tug, in this scenario.

[Dispatcher]

I remember having a probe around Vall which got stuck in one position after its batteries depleted in the shadow. The position was interesting because the light couldn't strike the panels. I had to wait almost 3/4 of Jool's year to finally see some light striking the panels.

Ouch! That's why I've gone to the extreme of adding (massive) nukes.