Science leads to wonderful things (PIC HEAVY)

[Dave Kerbin]

Without science I would never have had the motivation and the resulting satisfaction from setting this up for the first time:

It's my 5th mission, a flyby of the Mun to gather science. In sandbox I would never have a reason to do anything less then entering stable orbit.

I've started a fresh career game, using the same personal rules as I used in the sandbox but with a few new ones. The biggest change is that I now play for keeps - no reverts. So far I've just been throwing together rockets without any math, I will probably get back to using an Excel spreadsheet soon, as a Mun landing is coming up and I'll want to bring my Kerman home.

Personal Rules

-Stock, all manual flying (with the exception of graphical mods like Universe Replacer if I ever install it)

-No pancake shaped spaceships on the launchpad. They need to look vaguely flight worthy

-No chairs used on anything that travels above 5km

-No RTGs near Kerbals or science equipment (in practice they normally go unused)

-No running nuclear engines in the atmosphere

-No running nuclear engines with living Kerbals onboard (they'll need to use conventional engines)

-Extra living space for long term voyages

-No intake abuse

New Rules for Career Mode

-No reverts except for physics glitches

-No spamming of experiments to get science

-No tech tree spoilers

*Mission 1*

-Low altitude launch and recovery

Engineering Observations

-Solid boosters can melt boosters below them after a few seconds, but rockets can't

Science Observations

-Jeb observes water near KSC

Outcome

-Jeb flies to about 5km and returns safely with his water observations

-This 'water' leads to the discovery of decouplers, mystery goo containers, and more fuel tanks. Somehow

*Mission 2*

-First Orbital Mission, failed recovery

Engineering Observations

-Solid boosters placed too close radially will overheat

-Even without the solid boosters 3 T400 tanks can get suborbital and 1 more can do orbit

Science Observations*

-The highlands can be seen from space

-Goo forms into clumps

-Jeb can move in space

Outcome

-Jeb orbits Kerbin and performs EVA

-Jeb returns. In an effort to save the goo data the pod is not detached from the service module which houses them.

-The parachute rips and Jeb crashes into the ground. Jeb is dead

-*No observations are returned to KSC

*Mission 3*

-First successful orbital mission and recovery by Bill

Engineering Observations

-Engines radially spaced out induce lots and lots of spin

-The 3x T400 suborbital stage still fixes everything

-Moving the goo containers to the pod improves survivability

Science Observations

-Water can be seen from space

-Goo in the upper atmosphere freezes

-Goo in space forms into clumps

-Bill can float in space

Outcome

-Bill returns safely

-Data from safe return leads to discovery of 'Survivability'. Now have better orbital engines, landing gear and new parachutes.

*Mission 4*

-Failed Mun flyby by Lemgun

Engineering Observations

-Radial engine design is getting worse instead of better. Unable to reach altitude.

-New orbiting engine can be used for somewhat soft landing without parachute

-Pilot Lemgun Kerman, chosen for his off the chart courage...and stupidity...to make this dangerous Mun flyby proves to be a capable pilot after his launch stage fails, lands without using his parachute. This does however confirm he is stupid, for not using the parachute.

Science Observations

-Lemgun can see his house. Since there are no other buildings for hundreds of miles he must mean the astronaut complex. Scientists are not impressed by his discovery.

-Goo doesn't do much at low altitude

-Apparently there is something to learn from a parachute that didn't deploy

Outcome

-Lemgun Kerman recieves bonus in gold coins for heroic landing. Does not realize they are chocolates.

-Kerbal scientists choose to invest research into Stability for future missions, inventing the radial decouplier, nose cone and winglet

-General Rocketry is also pursued, creating engines with thrust vectoring and more solid boosters

*Mission 5*

-Mun flyby by Bob

Engineering Observations

-Radial design is much improved. Radial decouplers and large solid boosters lead to excellent craft

-Bob plots a fantastic free return for a 240km pass over the Mun. Huge fuel reserve left over

Science

-Bob makes observations for a possible Mun landing site

-Bob takes a look around outside and jets around above the Mun

-Apparently a rocket that has flown over the Mun is valuable

Outcome

-Most successful flight yet. Ship performed beyond expectations.

-Big science gain, to be invested in more Science Tech, to allow for a new experiment module to be sent up with power and transmission capabilities

*Mission 6*

Orbital science mission

*Mission 7*

Recovery test mission

*Mission 8*

MUN LANDING

Mission 9

Probe test mission

Mission 10

Biome exploration (failed)

Mission 11

Return to the Mun

Mission 12

Biome Explorer Retry

Mission 13

Make something up for Bill

Mission 14

Mun Canyon

Mission 15

Eve Unmanned Exploration

- Phase 1, Launch

- Phase 2, Arrival and Landing

- Phase 3, Gilly NEW

Mission 16

Deep Space Radiation EVA

Mission 17

Minmus, and Duna systems proving

Mission 18

Crew Ship Test / Mun Landing Themepark ride

Mission 19

Gravity Survey

Mission 20 NEW

Manned Duna and Ike Expedition

Edited December 21, 2013 by Dave Kerbin

[Dave Kerbin]

Oh dear. Jeb has already come back from the dead. I may need to adjust my self imposed rules to account for this rapid recovery of orange suits. Or is there some way to modify your save game to make an orange suit 'permanently' dead (is there a time value indicating how long they wait before returning, that I could set to 9999 or something?)

[UndefinedM]

Darn, i barely managed to get a craft to do some orbits with 5 launches and you already went to the mun and back. I'm envyous!

(also, keep writing mission reports, lol)

[SteevyT]

Without science, I never would have thought to EVA while re-entering Kerbin atmosphere. Got something like 25 SCIENCE for that one.

[Daman453]

MOAR! I love the missions, do more!

[Galacticruler]

Oh dear. Jeb has already come back from the dead. I may need to adjust my self imposed rules to account for this rapid recovery of orange suits. Or is there some way to modify your save game to make an orange suit 'permanently' dead (is there a time value indicating how long they wait before returning, that I could set to 9999 or something?)

go to your persistance file and set MissingCrewsRespawn to False

[Dave Kerbin]

go to your persistance file and set MissingCrewsRespawn to False

Thank you! Now I have to go and 'fix' Jeb back to being dead.

*Mission 6*

-Orbital science mission, partial success by Bill

Engineering Observations

-Rocket design from mission 5 is still good, pod extended with science module 'Science Jr'. Scientists insist it is not just a children's chemistry set.

-Batteries and two types of transmitters added to service module for comparison purposes.

-Bill couldn't figure out how to transmit with the fold out dish, everything went through the little antenna. Wiring may be at fault.

-Impact resistance of Science Jr. lower then expected. Maybe those radial parachutes have a use after all.

Science Observations

-Science Jr. reveals...that things float in microgravity.*

-Bill chooses a highly eliptical orbit, doesn't quite get the poles. He flies over a cool island but only sees clouds, and Kerbin scientists already heard enough about those.

-To make up for it he raises his AP to 70,000km, just short of breaking Kerbin's SOI.

-After 4 days of travel and from the very edge of Kerbin's SOI Bill calls up KSC, "Crew Reporting In, From Space!"

Outcome

-After ejecting the service module the Command Pod and Science Jr. module descend on parachute at 6.9m/s. Touchdown causes the science module to burst into flames.

-*Due to the loss of the science 'experiments' and lack of an EVA on this mission only Bill's verbal reports are of any real importance. Less then 10 science gained.

[Dave Kerbin]

*Mission 7*

-Recovery test mission, partial success by Lemgun

Engineering Observations

-To improve recovery of samples several designs where included in a new suborbital ship

-The pod+science bay where give 2 radial chutes

-A seperate detaching science bay with chutes was added

-The service module gained mystery goo containers and it's own recovery chutes

-All 3 systems worked

-The service module still came down pretty fast, it may not be safe to attach a science module there

-The pod came down upside down at 3.8m/s

-The lone science module came down even slower, giving time for Lemgun to get out and meet it

-After recovering Lemgun and returning to the landing site, the lone science module exploded, cause unknown

-The pod was recovered, and after telling crews to check for debris it was also possible to recover the science in the service module too

Science observations

-Lemgun reports that some of the science experiments seem to be judging him for performing them while still on the launchpad

-Lemgun sees some nice beaches, those waves look inviting

-Some of the science experiments have been broken by the vibrations of launch. The colors they make are interesting.

-Goo giggles

-There is dirt on Kerbin

-Lemgun is not sure a space suit was needed for EVA work on Kerbin

Outcome

-Seperate science return and coordinated landing possible

-Explosive property of science module still a danger

[Dave Kerbin]

*Mission 8*

MUN LANDING

Engineering Observations

The Kerbal Space Program has a new recruit, Geofmin Kerman, the smartest Kerman ever. He's got this thing called 'math' that he claims will get him to the Mun and back safely. The launch numbers seem really fuzzy, but he says that's because the values change based on altitude, so he just picked a conservative number and used that.

Geofmin has worked with the engineers to design this:

Launch went well, the solid boosters wanted to go off course a bit but where kept under control. Future missions might seek some kind of stability control for this stage.

The liquid booster stage worked beyond expectations, having enough fuel left to perform over half of the orbital stablization burn leaving 459L of liquid fuel of remaining, 150% of the calculated mission requirements.

Geofmin has a go for a mission to the Mun.

With so much extra fuel the orbit stage can be used not just to get into stable Mun orbit, but to provide most of the fuel for the descent. With this exta fuel Geofmin is able to make a full deorbit burn for a precise landing on a nice flat looking plain, eject the orbit stage and then use the landing stage to maintain a slow descent speed which was very useful since the landing site was at 4000m and could have resulted in a crash if he had been going faster. The last 200m are flown at a stable 4.6m/s. On the 10th day, on the 10th hour and just past the 10th minute Geofmin softly touches down on the Munar surface.

On the return trip aerobraking at 35km reduces the AP to 975km. However Geofmin has plans to try and ensure a landing on solid ground (water risks damage to the experiments) and sees an opportunity to land near KSC. This won't be easy, as there is only a small zone between the coast and the mountains. There are both the effects of the atmosphere and the rotation of the planet to take into consideration and no one at KSC has much experience with this.

Things don't go perfectly, and even with some attempted course correction in the atmosphere the landing zone lines up with the mountains west of KSC, at night no less. The high altitude of the landing site means the service module will need to be seperated and chutes opened early to ensure a soft landing, which does carry some risk that the service module might drift too far and become lost. The service modules legs are extended to improve its chances of a soft landing. After tense minutes the service module is observed touching down and it doesn't seem to go rolling away, so the ground must be reasonably flat. 17 seconds later the command pod with it's fragile science module joins it. There is a bit of roll as it find its footing on the mountain side but fortunately there is no tumble down a cliff.

Science Observations

The Mun is really beat up with craters, a cold gray surface.

Landing inside a crater might be a good option.

Goo is less dense on the Mun

The science module has Mun dust all over it. They'll never be able to get it all cleaned out.

The darker midlands surface seems to be made up of basaltic rock

That dust is getting everywhere

The goo feels right at home just above the Mun's surface. This is the second time the goo has displayed sentient like thought. Since Kerbals are green and seem to only require sunlight to live, could they be evolved from algae; Is the goo (which is labeled a biological sample and so I assume algae or something similar) like sending up a chimp?

Kerbin is very round.

Kerbin's mountains seem smaller from high up.

Outcome

Geofmin is the first Kerman to visit the Mun on the 8th mission of the KSP.

Over 400 science is transmitted and returned on this mission.

Kerbal engineers look forward to what else 'math' can do.

Tip: If you create a 'return capsule' like I have for landing samples seperate from your command pod there are three things to remember:

-Unless you have advanced enough to include a probe core you'll lose control once it seperates. Make sure parachute deployment is in the same stage as the decoupler. You may also want to flip your craft so that it can lift away instead of the chutes pulling it back into your ship

-To land safely all packages must stay within 2.xkm of your active ship. Plan to open the chutes close together and close to the ground to avoid drift and descent speed differences.

-To recover the capsules go to the observatory and click the debris icon at the top (left most icon, the only one not highlighted). Select the correct 'debris' and click recover (recover here works the same as in the field, but eliminates the chance of sudden explosion)

Edit: Science used so far to unlock some stuff I find to be of use

-Advanced Rocketry - T800 Fuel Tank

-Electrics - Solar Power, Lights

-Flight Control - Sputnik core

-General Construction - Structs, Launch Clamps, Tri-adapter

-Fuel Systems - RCS, Fuel Lines

Edited October 17, 2013 by Dave Kerbin

[vetrox]

Its really interesting to see how your 8th mission orbiter and transfer stage up, looks almost identical to mine (and alot of others too)

I must have picked the most efficient design

Note, that exact design will get you to minmus surface and back

[Dave Kerbin]

Mission 9 was just a simple probe test mission and test of the new fuel lines. Nothing really interesting happened so I ended the mission with a safe return after only 20 minutes. I may make a further Kerbin survey mission that sends up a mothership carrying multiple simple drop pods, each one with a probe core, science experiment, parachute and sepratron to deorbit and study a different area on Kerbin. I may also do a manned polar expedition before returning to the Mun and later going to Minmus and beyond.

[Dave Kerbin]

Mission 10 was intended as a biome exploration mission to discover more about Kerbin.

The ship carried with it 4 surface probes that could be detached and land at different destinations on Kerbin to take temperature readings, expose goo and use the science lab. Finally the manned module would make a polar landing to perform EVA and science there. I couldn't design the probes exactly as I wanted them - the radial attachment point for science Jr. is fixed so it is facing the wrong way (I needed it to face outward). As a result the parachutes couldn't be attached to the sides without blocking the science bay, so they had to go on the nose cone which looks a little silly. The Goo containers have an impact rating of 12, making them good landing legs. The light, along with antenna and thermometer not only help explore, they also provide the required weight balance to the decoupler. Weight balance is important since the probe deorbits with a pair of sepratrons. If the center of mass was even slightly off the center of thrust the craft could tumble instead of deorbit.

The first problem started right on the launch pad. Bob was next on the rotation, which was of particular importance since he was bumped to make space for the new guy Geofmin and his famous Mun landing. But somehow Bill got into the capsule.

Launch seemed to go ok, but the second booster stage developed a problem, it initially didn't provide enough thrust to maintain momentum. This has happened before but never for this long. The lost thrust pretty much ruined the mission at this point but Bill pressed on. As the orbital stage struggled to make up for lost delta-v Bill reordered his staging to eject two of the probes, hoping the loss of 2.2 tons of mass would help. It was still not enough. Unfortunately he burned through almost all his fuel before he gave in, which provided just enough to make his orbit pass over the pole, the target of the manned landing.

At this point Bill, still head strong, attempted to reverse course so that he could hit the pole. He first restaged so that the 2 remaining probes solid boosters could be fired in aid of the manned ship, then ejected the probes to minimize mass before restarting the main engine and burning the last of its fuel. The results fell far short of what was needed and Bill coasted over the pole and made his descent to some common grasslands.

Bill is now 2 for 3 in the mission failure department. The only thing he has succeeded in so far is replicating Jeb's mission but with a working parachute.

Maybe I should let Bob fly a mission to the Mun to make it up to him while Geofmin works on a standard and reliable booster system aimed at putting 10 tons into orbit safely and Lemgun can be the one trusted to test it.

Kerbonaut Status after 10 missions

Geofmin - Genius rocket designer

Bob - Master navigator

Lemgun - Idiot savant pilot

Jeb - Dead

Bill - Breaks every new toy he gets. Recommended for mission to measure Suns temperature

Edited October 18, 2013 by Dave Kerbin

[Dave Kerbin]

Mission 11

Return to the Mun

With Bill having stolen Bob's position on #10 I decided to make it up to him by making the next flight a Mun return while the launch issues with the biome survey mission where worked out.

With advances in Kerbal technology some changes where made to the Mun rocket, now the Mun 2. With Geofmin working on the biome craft the engineers didn't alter too much, ultimately removing about 0.5t of mass thanks to some improvements in efficiency. Notable changes include fuel lines on the second stage, allowing for fuel tanks to be moved from the 3rd stage center to the 2nd stage outer. Many fuel tanks where replaced with the new larger T800 tanks. Launch clamps also improved safety on the pad while solar panels provided a source of renewable power. Bob would be able to do a lot more talking on this mission. A store bought thermometer is added when Bob asks for new science instruments, since he doesn't want to just duplicate Geofmin's mission.

There where still some minor stability concerns with the solid booster stage. The solid boosters where observed swaying back and forth during flight. A set of the new structs might fix that. The 2nd and 3rd stage performed well, no issues with the improved fuel system which allowed half a ton of fuel to be removed from the orbital stage.

Orbit goes normally and off to the Mun. It's routine now.

Bob has no trouble getting in Mun orbit and starts to pick out a landing site.

Bob chooses an interesting crater formation and begins his descent.

There, Bob is on the Mun and is happy.

Most of the science is routine, though Bob is able to find some interesting rocks and take a temperature reading.

The return is a bit odd. Bob exits the Mun's SOI, however the exit arrives at a point before the AP in his Kerbin orbit. As a result a short time later he briefly re-enters the Mun's SOI. After he makes his re-entry burn the shifted AP brings him into the Mun's SOI for a third time.

Return is direct with no aerobraking required, however from over 1000km out Bob was off in his calculations causing him to only slightly overshoot KSC for a water landing.

A slight mishap also occurs during seperation. The service module, which falls faster, glances the command module as it passes. Fortunately there is no damage and both set down.

Science is recovered from both modules.

Overall Bob flew a good flight and proved that Mun trips can be routine. I'll want a little more science equipment before a third mission is sent. The biome mission is probably ready by now.

[Dave Kerbin]

Mission 12

Biome Explorer Retry

Geofmin was in charge of fixing the biome explorer's launch system. As it turns out he just took the Mun 2 launch system and added the struts that had been discussed. He calls this a 'subassembly'. The struts certainly fixed the solid booster stability issues and a polar course was entered with staging proceeding as on previous Mun launches. The first issue came with the orbital booster. It was known in advance that this would have more delta-v then needed, and would likely need to be cut off and dropped before stable orbit was achieved to prevent it from becoming space junk.

However what was not anticipated was the thrust issue. The LV-909 just didn't have enough power to get into stable orbit fast enough. Since the ship itself carried over 1000m/s of delta-v Geofmin decided to shutdown and dump the orbital booster ASAP, slightly increasing the thrust to weight. It was still not enough but with some changes in the direction of thrust it managed to put the PE at 52km, enough that the ship could easily coast through one orbit without significant degradation. A burn was planned at the AP, but due to a continuing manuveur the planned node was altered and when executed sent the ship in the wrong direction, lowering PE to 40km instead of raising it. More fuel had to be expended to bring PE back up to 70km, leaving too little fuel left to circularize. This left the explorer with an elliptical path with a small window during each orbit in which to deorbit. In theory any almost any point on the planet can be reached, but it could take a day of waiting for it to line up.

With the situation accepted Geofmin got down to the task of landing each of his 4 biome exploration pods. Each pod is a self contained science lab designed to deorbit and study a Kerbin biome. Power for the probes descent is provided by a battery, though while connected to the mothership all batteries are recharged by the ships solar panels. Once all 4 probes have been landed the mothership, which contains its own science equipment in addition to Geofmin, are slated to make a polar landing to study the ice.

The first pod is released and after lining up with it's intended drop zone, using a maneuver node keyed to 114m/s, its one time solid boosters are fired.

After the long delay from Bill's failed mission, where he ejected or burned up all the pods without using even one, everyone had forgotten that the pods had to be fired backwards - the boosters are pointed 'up' with relation to the pod's control system. As a result the first pod was ejected in a permanent orbit, to run out of power in less then 2 hours. What science could be done in orbit and transmitted on the batteries charge was done, it had never been designed to transmit data from every instrument, just send temperature and pressure readings on the way day. Pod number 2 is able to deorbit, but overshoots its target landing zone, the desert, thanks in part to the difficulties imposed by the elliptical orbit. It lands in the grasslands north of the desert (on the continent with the big impact crater) earning about 20 science.

Pod 3 is released but some time is spent waiting for the orbit to line up a landing zone. Belatedly it is realized that the pod is running on internal power and the landing zone is changed to the intended target of pod 4, the water. This returns some interesting results for 30 science. As the mothership's potential deorbit zone begins to pass into night, an attempt is made to make a long shot at its edge, tossing the final pod over the polar caps toward a mountain range. However this low altitude pass proves too much resistance and it lands near the edge of the polar region. 30 more science is returned.

Finally the polar landing is begun. With limited fuel and a poor orbital profile a lot of guesswork goes into the burn. Fortunately things turn out well and the pod lands close to the pole. Despite repeating some of the experiments from pod 4 30 science is returned.

Ultimately the mission is a partial success with over 100 science returned. Not a lot, but enough to keep things moving. If the Mun launch is to be reused the orbit booster will probably need an engine refit to help it push heavier cargo into orbit rather then being used as a long burn transit stage for a Mun lander. Also even with Gamma Correction turned on Afterburner is is still recording really dark images that can't be corrected in post-process because MJPEG has already discarded anything it deems too dark to see in the name of compression.

[Dave Kerbin]

Mission 13

Make something up for Bill

In theory mission 13 would be Lemgun's and likely a Mun mission since he hasn't gone, but slight changes in the flight rotation have been tolerated up until now in the name of mission success. At the same time Bill is also up for a mission before the rotation is begun again and he probably wants to go to the Mun and mess that up. I have no desire to waste an expensive Mun rocket for Bill to screw up lucky #13 so in light of the positive results from Pod #3 of the just completed biome mission I've created a special followup just for Bill, since there was one instrument that Pod #3 didn't carry.

This mission will take all of Bill's considerable skill to complete. He might even die, we hope.

After a long journey Bill manages to complete his task, to collect a surface sample of 'water' for the KSP.

[Andersenman]

Very entertaining to read, not to mention educational. Thanks!

[Dave Kerbin]

Mission 14

Mun Canyon

Lemgun is my only kerbonaut who has not flown to the Mun, and he is next in the rotation. Geofmin's flight to the Mun passed over what looked like a canyon near the equator just as he was getting ready to descend. It could be a dangerous target, but the potential for science in an exposed portion of the Mun are too good to pass up and I know the one pilot whose uncanny skill with a stick I can trust to do it safely, Mr. Lemgun Kerman.

Archived image from Mission 8, with unnamed canyon like formation to the right of crater. Lemgun to the right of archived image.

Launch is using the Mun 2.5 platform; The Mun 2 lander placed onto the Mun 2.5 booster stage with it's stabilizing strut enhancement. The launch is perfect, this platform has been tested and tuned to perform well.

I never get tired of this part though.

A minor glitch comes up with Munar insertion. Lemgun is a stick man but barely literate, the navball and the position of the dials in the cockpit are the only thing he understands. Numbers are just funny marks to him and books taste funny. Not entirely understanding what the Est. Burn Time in the mission plan meant he just kept on the throttle until he saw the green thing start to refill and stopped to ask mission control why it was doing that.

Bob was called in and after reviewing the situation got on the line and told Lemgun he just needed to turn around and then burn for a few more seconds. Bob reviewed the telemetry and concluded that he was back on course for the Mun at the correct encounter altitude, but that due to the delay he was now in line to pass on the other side of the Mun - orbiting opposite its rotation. Bob didn't think this was a problem for landing and that on take off he could just fly into the correct orbit, but it posed a danger if Lemgun didn't make his orbital burn at the Mun. Without any input the spacecraft would fly past and be ejected from Kerbin's SOI instead of simply coming back on a high elliptical orbit.

Upon arrival at the Mun one other small problem presented itself. The intended landing zone, the canyon, had just passed into the dark side of the Mun. Landing there was going to be a challenge in the light and impossible in the dark. An alternate landing high above the equator was planned and it was passed onto Lemgun

The new landing posed it's own challenges. Unlike previous landings which enjoyed the very large safety margin afforded by using the orbital stage for a long deorbit burn followed by using the landers engine for a slow controlled and mostly vertical descent, this landing used the orbit engine for the orbit adjustment and only a minimal deorbit burn. While the lander could have begun slowing down immediately (it was designed with enough fuel to make a deorbit and landing from 30km, then ascend and return to Kerbin with a few drops to spare) this would have wasted fuel and resulted in a landing closer to the equator. Instead a 'suicide burn' was selected. A suicide burn is a landing in which the ship descends in free fall for most of the trip, then suddenly goes into full engine burn close to the ground with the hopes of killing all the velocity at once and leaving little time for gravity to add any back before touchdown. If the burn is started too early fuel will be wasted because a second burn will be needed to cancel out the velocity accumulated during the second period of free fall. If the burn is started too late the kerbonaut goes splat.

That would be the last of the Mun seen from outside the ship until touchdown. The rest of the descent is handled from the cockpit view, the only place with the instruments needed to pull off this landing.

Lemgun knows no fear as he makes his burn, rapidly slowing down. The needle stops its advancement just after passing 200m when less then 10 seconds earlier it had been at 1km. A few more puffs are used to set the ship down gently. Posing for the camera is not one of Lemgun's strong points though and his one speech is cut short.

Take off is straightforward. With mind of the limited fuel a low 10km orbit is set by taking off, immediately turning 45 degrees and then burning till a 10km AP is achieved. Bob helps time the circulation burn. Return is easy with the safety reserve (14L) still in the tank. Full aerobraking is used so that we don't need to burn any fuel or come around for another orbit, though once again we overshoot KSC and land in the ocean east of it.

The service module issue encountered in mission 11, Bob's trip to the Mun, repeats itself with more severe consequences. Aftering ejecting the service module with its own chutes and then releasing the command modules chutes the service module catches up and this time strikes the command module quite hard, momentarly locking them together until the chutes fully deploy. The impact is strong enough to break the engine off the service module. Thankfully the science container was not damaged in the accident. A new landing procedure is needed to fix this problem.

The command pod and damaged service module settle down less then a meter apart. The LV-909 engine has been lost thanks to its rapid impact with the water.

The mission is otherwise a success, returning 371 science. We will have to wait for a later window to explore the canyon. While this mission didn't have too many shots hampered by gamma issues I have continued to work the problem. The latest version of Afterburner is now installed which can use XVid for encoding. I've configured it to record with enough quality to match MJPEG. Framerate doesn't seem to suffer much and my brightness tests (by observing the lost biome pod on the night side of Kerbin) are showing improvement.

[Dave Kerbin]

(Day 13)

Mission 15 - Phase 1

Eve Unmanned Exploration

Note: This is the first mission captured with XVid encoding. This provides better gamma and uses 1/5 the disk space (2GB/hour instead of 10GB), though scanning is slow and compression artifacts might be present in the frames presented. Let me know if you think the image quality has been reduced from previous reports. The launch window information was obtained with KSP Launch Window Planner, though I can really only make use of the date, travel time and delta-v numbers. The node angles themselves are figured out by feel in game.

While there are plans for more exploration in Kerbin's sphere of influence, including trips to Minmus (my Kerbals are looking to develop a ship with a crew of 3 with more fuel, to allow for a longer mission involving multiple 'hops' around Minmus instead of sending a several seperate ships for static landings), there has been a lot of desire to get out find out about the other planets. Since the engineers don't have experience with larger ships yet, and no orbital infrastructure has been built for refueling it would need to have a reasonable delta-v cost.

Duna and Eve are obvious choices since they are close to Kerbin and have an atmosphere in which to brake, cutting almost half the fuel cost. Both have immediate non-optimal (but far from worst case) launch windows requiring about 1700m/s to eject, however Eve became the prime choice for a number of reasons:

-Transit time to Eve would be almost half that of Duna (40 days vs 77). In fact a probe could reach Eve about a week before the prime launch window to Duna opened, providing useful engineering data on interplanetary travel ahead of the launch of a potential manned Duna mission.

-Eve's thick atmosphere provides a bigger target for our first interplanetary aerobraking, increasing the likelyhood of a successful capture that is crucial to mission success.

-Due to the high gravity and thick atmosphere Eve will likely not be a target for a Kerbal landing for a long time. Any trip into Eve's atmosphere will be one way.

-Most of the probes instruments are useful only for atmospheric study, with nothing for geologic examination. Eve's thick atmosphere promises a wealth of scientific information if measured at all levels.

The Eve Explorer is based on several existing designs with only one truely new component. Since most of it has been tested to some degree in real world conditions the changes for success are high.

The launch is a base is a standard Mun launcher. The one major difference is that instead of mounting the ship on top of the orbital/transit stage, the ship replaces it. Due to the dimensions of the ship this required that an additional structural fuselage be added to lift it above the 4 launch boosters (you can see it between the T800 tank and the decoupler). Rather then a full T800 a smaller T400 was used for the central body of the ship with the same LV-909 engine. Fuel was extended with a pair of T400 drop tanks. These where mounted at the same level as a pair of Mk2 biome exploration pods. The launchers radial boosters where also reconfigured from onion staging to asparagus to make up for a 1 ton increase in weight being carried by that stage (11 tons vs 10 tons).

The 2 pods are based on the same design as the biome explorer from mission 12 but with a few enhancements. The parachute system and nose cone have now been dramatically improved by the new MK16-XL parachute which replaces all the previous elements with a single lower drag part. The instrument panel seen on the right was reconfigured to better match the weight distribution of the decoupler plate it is meant to mirror. And the most important change was the addition of omni-directional solar panels with which to recharge the battery and allow data transmission. These should provide maximum power during the daytime hours if the pod can land upright. Since a water landing is intended for one pod the panels are also tilted to ensure that even on its side there should be either one or two periods each day in which the batteries can recharge for transmission. The pod underwent a low altitude drop test at KSC to validate the new parachute design against the specs from the old one, it performed exactly as expected and will replace the old design in any future missions.

The top of the ship contains a 3rd and final probe. With 2000m/s of delta-v this is the Gilly Grasshopper. It is intended to fly to the captured asteroid in Eve orbit and make several hops around the surface. Like the atmospheric probe it uses Goo Containers as landing legs to protect its Rockomax 48-7S engine from damage. It carries other scientific instruments including Science Jr, and has batteries and solar panels for transmission and charging. The drive section of the ship (the T400 tank and LV-909 engine) also contains 4 more solar panels. These are angled to face the rear of the ship, to ensure that it does not lose solar tracking while in deep space (since all the probe panels are biased toward a forward oriention). A docking port is used instead of a decoupler - we don't have tiny decouplers yet and the big one looks silly when used with a tiny engine. The docking port fits together more pleasingly, weighs the same and could be used in future to help deorbit the drive section, should a cleanup crew ever visit Eve.

Because the mission will take over 40 days to complete, most of it drifting in deep space, it has been divided into 3 phases between which mission control can be devoted to other flights.

Phase 1:

-Ship is launched into Kerbin orbit

-Course to Eve intercept is computed

-Ejection burn is made, drop tanks are ejected roughly half way through, leaving them in Kerbin orbit

-Upon exiting Kerbin's SOI science readings are taken and transmitted back. This should be quick since all 3 probes can have their solar arrays pointed at the sun and there are 3 antennas available.

-Course correction burn is made to either correct or improve Eve intercept

-Ship is placed into optimum orientation (north/south) to maintain solar tracking during transit

Phase 2 (possibly repeated)

-Ship is oriented toward sun for optimum power

-Deep space science readings are taken and transmitted.

-Ship is placed back into transit orientation

Phase 3

-Ship enters Eve's SOI

-Course correction burn is made to place PE at desired altitude, currently 70km but subject to recalculation during transit

-Readings are taken and transmitted while in high Eve orbit

-Ship aerobrakes. Readings are taken and stored at lowest pass into atmosphere

-Orbital burn is made to obtain stable Eve orbit

-Readings are taken and transmitted in low Eve orbit

-First pod is released, targeted at land

-Pod begins descent. At 50-60km (depending on previous aerobrake pass) readings are taken on all instruments, Science Jr. readings are transmitted immediately using power from battery reserve

-Pod continues descent. At 15km readings are taken using the redundent instruments, except for Science Jr. which is ready for reuse after transmitting

-Pod lands on solid ground (if all went according to plan)

-If required pod waits for daylight to charge batteries, begins transmitting all stored descent data as solar power allows

-Pod takes full set of readings at ground level, transmits

-Second pod is released, targeted at water (unless first pod hit water, or first pod encountered unusual readings that merit followup study)

-Pod follows same plan as the first, except that the descent readings are taken at 30km and 5km

-Same plan once landed, the descent readings are transmitted followed by ground readings being taken and transmitted

-Ship in orbit now plots Gilly intercept

-Delta-V from drive section is used until exhausted, then it is abandoned and Grasshopper continues the burn alone

-Grasshopper enters high orbit of Gilly and takes readings, transmits them to Kerbin

-Grasshopper lowers orbit to continue study

-Grasshopper lands and studies the surface

(hopefully gets landing right the first time, in low gravity there is a chance it might slowly tip if there is any horizontal momentum left over and become stuck. Procedure if Grasshopper is tipping is to burn hard and lift off for another attempt)

-Using remaining fuel Grasshopper performs as many suborbital hops as possible to study surface of Gilly

Phase 1 report

Launch occurs at 2 minutes to midnight on Day 12. The asparagus staging slightly reduced the stability of the launch vehicle, resulting in a roll tendancy until all 4 radial boosters where discarded.

However the intended efficiency of the asparagus staging was realized, with fuel burned to achieve orbit essentially identical to past launches with 10 tons instead of 11. The course to Eve is computed the old fashioned way - create a maneuver node and push it around until the encouter is achieved. Since inclination was not lined up at either end the burn required both prograde and anti-normal burn to create a course that would connect with Eve. Unlike a Minmus or orbital docking encounter the time to reach the descending node for a dedicated burn was far from trivial and would have added weeks to the mission. The final course involved a 6 minute burn.

I knew before I started that the ejection of the drop tanks would alter the timing of the burn, since my T/W would suddenly increase. Given the length of the burn and distance to travel I didn't bother calculating any corrections for this, since a correction burn was expected and planned anyway. The actual burn revealed an odd bias, with the ship seeming to slowly nose up requiring a correction every minute. Once the drop tanks where removed the bias disappeared, though I can't tell if it was them or the weight change simply gave the overworked probe reaction wheels less to keep balanced. After the burn tracking showed an Eve near encounter at 380,000km, though that would be easily fixed in the course correction.

After 10 hours of flight the explorer reached the edge of Kerbin's SOI, where a region of high radiation was detected. This area looks promising for a manned mission. Course correction is plotted, requiring another 38m/s. After burn the tracking station places final encounter at 15,000km in 38 days - day 51.

Goodbye Kerbin, we won't meet again.

[Dave Kerbin]

Mission 16

Deep Space Radiation EVA

The radiation fields outside of Kerbin's SOI merit some hands on study. This is a risky mission - apart from the radiation hazards the ship will need to leave Kerbin orbit and enter orbit around the sun. If it can't make it back to Kerbin orbit the pilot will be waiting a long time. The ship is given plenty of fuel and a new light weight command pod is used with the new parachute system. Since if things go well the mission should have plenty of fuel on return to Kerbin the scientists have asked if another attempt can be made to land in the Kerbin desert and collect a soil sample on return.

Outside of the regular science objectives the KSP needs to start expanding. If the planned move to 3 man pods (critical for future long term missions) is to be done the program will need a larger pool of kerbanauts, at least 6 in order to allow rotation and provide a rest break between missions. Since this was a simple yet dangerous mission it seemed perfect for a new recruit, or Bill. The pool of applicants was examined and Tomvin Kerman was welcomed to the program. He will pilot Deep Space 1 which has an advanced command pod with new innovations like a ladder. The rest of the ship is a simple design with 2 drop tanks and science instruments. The launch vehicle will as always be the Mun rocket, though it is starting to show its age. The Minmus landing program, in switching to a 3 kerbal crew, will also need to introduce a new standard launch system for heavier loads.

Once in orbit the new command pod has an impressive view. We burn for deep space, a trip that will take 4 days to complete. It looks like everything is going right.

Tomvin Kerman is in deep space, farther then any kerbal before him. There is some confusion over where to plant the flag.

Tomvin reboards his ship and figures out how he will get home.

According to this he is going to fly straight into Kerbin, and that's not what we want. But a software glitch seems to be preventing him from making any maneuver nodes*. So some visual landmarks are found to help orient the ship, after which it is rotated by 90 degrees to allow for a polar orientation burn (the direction with the least number of question marks).

This gets us back to a PE of 83km on a polar orbit. Upon reaching Kerbin against we even out the orbit and begin looking for that desert. This proves a little difficult, because it is on the night side and the orbit is straddling the dawn and dusk landing zones. After a few hours it seems like the desert is about to come into view so we begin deorbiting.

Unfortunately things don't go entirely as planned. An area assumed to be one big desert, as viewed just before dawn, turned out to be partially grassland. But it wouldn't have mattered, since the new pod design suffered one small malfunction that prevented any soil sample experiment - it tipped over onto the hatch right after landing.

*For some reason nodes couldn't be placed anymore, and the EVA/IVA buttons wouldn't appear when mousing over the Tomvin's portrait. After getting into stable approach I exited back to KSC and then returned to the ship through the tracking station which seemed to fix it.

[spiritplumber]

This thread is good and you should feel good.

[Dave Kerbin]

Duna Mission Planning

A manned Duna mission is planned once the data from Eve is recieved. Before that can happen there are a few technologies that need to be developed. Kerbal scientists think they are are the verge of a breakthrough in engine design, making a thruster that is nuclear. Obviously it wouldn't be a good idea to be around this engine while it is firing, at least until some kind of protection is developed, but it is still useful. Another engineering task is the development of a new heavy lifter capable of getting 30 tons onto a near orbital path, now in the early testing phase. Our largest engine, the Skipper, is still having some T/W issues but these seem like they can be worked out (one prototype did get the test article into orbit, but at a poor T/W and with too much delta-v left over).

The design parameters for the lifter from the fact that a Kerbal crew transport using existing non-nuclear engines will weigh about 28.5t (this ship has already been designed and just needs to be built). As safety is important and my program doesn't have any means of attaching large parts beyond our basic docking port the crew transport needs to be one ship.

Our launch window will be coming up after day 50. If everything is ready a pair of ships will head out to Duna, reach it and perform science, and then return within a week before Duna sets and the delta-v cost becomes too great, forcing the crew to wait several months at Duna for a window.

I've designed a mission outline based on the requirements; 1 sheet listing the ship designs required, and a 20 slide flight plan

http://imgur.com/a/wxQeU

I've also started designing some of the ships. The crew ship is considered complete unless last minute changes are demanded. It features a 3 man pod for launch and return as well as living space for the long voyage (a ladder aids movement between the two). It is a clean and simple design, since it is intended only for the purpose of carrying the crew in comfort and safety and transmitting some crew reports.

Ideas are still being pitched for an Ike lander, from which a general weight has been determined.

No plans exist yet for the Duna lander, which leaves its weight an complete guess. The cargo ship has begun to take form though is still under heavy work (lighting needs to be installed in several places), and may need more fuel depending on if the Duna lander goes over budget. It is designed to launch on the 30t lifter with mass to spare, after which it is loaded in orbit with fuel and the 2 landers. Unlike the smooth and friendly crew ship the cargo ship is pure function over form. Here it is both unloaded and with a full fuel set. The 3 radial tanks are burned to get to Duna, while the top and bottom tank are used to refuel the crew ship. Some of the other fuel is used for the Duna lander's refuel while the rest is enough to bring it home. Not seen are the 3 science pods (same as the ones on the Ike lander) that will be attached under the nose cones. The engines seen at the moment are placeholders for the nuclear engines still in development.

A refueler has also been prototyped, based on the current shape of the fuel pods. I don't have any images saved but it is basically a thin rocket with 4 RCS thrusters at each ends. 2 fuel pods are then strapped onto the sides. The dual set of RCS thrusters are balanced so that the ship can reorient and fly 'sideways' during docking, without the RCS translation controls leading to rotation.

At the moment I consider the 30t lifter to be the most important project. I'll be looking to get it working and then use it to launch a Mun or Minmus mission that uses the same science pod design as the Duna mission (the prototype Ike lander might even be used) to test usage and recovery of the science pods.

[RockyTV]

Nice reports! It makes me feel inspired to play KSP!

By the way, I'd like to suggest you to add sepratrons in the service module while landing on Kerbin, placed with the side up to the service's module left, because it can change the course of the pod to the side you've placed them.

Oh and, about the pictures, try pressing F2 then F1 in Kerbal Space Program, they will come up in high-res!

[Dave Kerbin]

Another option that I haven't yet explored yet is using a single lander for both the Ike and Duna landings. It would use the same pair detachable science pods, so that it could exchange them with the cargo ship between two missions. The advantages would be fewer structural questions about the cargo ship and less weight to carry. Since the Ike lander is carrying a lot of delta-v anyway (2500m/s) that could be translated into a Duna lander with some structural changes, possibly more T/W, and parachutes.

[Dave Kerbin]

I'm still working on combined Duna+Ike lander designs, complicated by a desire to now carry 3 science pods to gather every possible bit of data during the trip. Parachute stress tests haven't been promising and I'm leaning toward trying to build a ship that lands on pure thrust though that means a lot of fuel (though so far it has only just got to the amount of lander fuel already budgeted for the cargo ship).

On a more productive front the 30t lifter problem has mostly solved itself. I've been using the Kerbal design method to try lifting a 30t dummy payload without much success. I got it up once with plenty of each delta-v but the flight was not good with serious T/W problems. Structural stability became more and more of a problem until I literally had a lifter that would drop a solid booster or 2 before I had even lifted off.

The solution, as always, was just math. Only 2 minutes was needed in Excel to come up with a starting point for a lifter design that worked immediately. I completely threw out any delta-v equations and instead focused on T/W entirely. Assuming that I could build a lifter with 5 skipper engines without losing structural integrity, and assuming a staging that dropped 2 engines at a time, what was the approximate amount of fuel that could be carried at each stage while maintaining delta-v. Working backwards from the final stage (1 engine) was just a matter of plugging in some fuel tank numbers until T/W was above 1 (for the bigger stages I actually went for a little higher then 1 for air resistance).

About the only real revelation this made was just how small I should make the center stack. Previously there had been 2 stages for the center stack.

The only small hicup is that after the first stage is released the second stage struggles for about 10 seconds to get enough power - instead of speeding up it is losing about 0.5m/s. I could make some further refinements to the fuel levels to fix this but due to how stable it flies I'm reluctant to do that. Give that I have enough thrust I could also reduce the overall fuel by adding more staging - each stack of 3 fuel tanks could become a single tank with 2 tanks (or rather less) tanks attached radially so they can be dumped and reduce weight. But again that would increase complexity and reduce stability. The heaviest payload this is likely to carry for the Duna mission is the 28.5t crew module which will have a crew in it at the time. I can't afford to have a lifter with a lot of stability question marks.

On the total delta-v I could actually take the payload all the way to orbit with 400 fuel left, enough to circularize and then deorbit the last lifter stage. For that I'll need to figure out a stategy for attaching a probe core, since I don't have the large core (or even the regular radial) core yet, just some of the small ones. I will most likely build a tiny symetrical radial attachment for more then one probe core, that way I can get one pointing in the right direction for navigation.

[RockyTV]

EDIT: nvm... Just realised what was wrong :C

Nice anyways, keep up with this!

Edited October 26, 2013 by RockyTV