L.I.S.A. - replica mission (vanilla 0.22 - 100% selfmade vehicles)

[Urben]

Well hello there! Greetings from germany! (6am here, oh wat)

This is my first project I wanna share with you guys!

Why? Because it could be also the first one which could succeed!

Okay its not that bad, Ive already did some awesome stuff like... uhm...

...a moon lander... two successfull dockings... a extremly low kerbal orbiter...

Oh and Ive made a rocket with 8 Landers + one rover for Eve! It worked well but... the ladder of the rover was missing somewhere on the way.

The only Kerbal died at the attempt to get back into the rover... BUT THATS ANOTHER STORY

So whats L.I.S.A.?

LISA is the attempt to measure gravitational waves for the first time in human kerbins history.

Check out the wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_Interferometer_Space_Antenna

Because NASA will not continiue with LISA, I will! Hell yeah.

So what do we need...

-> three satellites: check! One of them:

-> a trajectory for them at whichs way the triangle will never alter: what I dont even!

Srsly I cant imagine a way to do that. Not with the abilities KSP can give me.

Okay we need to... modify the concept. All we need to do is to connect the three satellites, to make them one huge triangle! 100% good idea I guess...

Sounds easy. Did I told you how Ive kinda lost pretty much every Kerbal at my missions? Good thing Ill use computers this time.

Soo... Some days later, lemme show you the rocket!

The carrier rocket worked well last time (Eve, ive mentioned), so it will do a good job this time, too!

There are three nuclear engines for forming the orbit, between them the three satellites, above them 12 girders, each of them made of 3 long

massive girder things, dockingports and high-quality duct-tape! They will form the 3x~50m (or more? how long are these things?!) edges of the triangle.

>activate SAS

> 100% trust

> activate jet engines

> wait for 100kN Jet trust

> GO!

Reached the circular 1M orbit. Time to set off the first satellite and bring it into position...

Oh Ive forgot something I need to get rid of the construction on the very top of the girders.

They are useful for stability at the start, but need to go now.

Im sure the debris will be no big deal... I guess Im sure?

Time for the redocking... Good thing is I dont need to aim very well, it will hit one of them anyway!

YES! first docking! ... Too bad Ive lost 1/2 of my RCS for doing so. I need to be veeeery economical now.

Cause I have to do that 11 times again. And it will get harder and harder!

No to mention this maneuver took about 1 hour IRL.

for this edge I have to connect 4 girdermodules in a row. So lets undock the first one with the satellite:

Aaand set the position of the satellite... Hrrgn..

HHNGNGGRR

AW OKAY OKAY I need a break... lost some RCS for nothing again, its getting critical.

Maybe I had tried to connect the satellite to the next girder, not the whole f**** girderbattery to the satellite!

Okay thats it for now. Ill let you guys know how it went. Maybe it will be a big pile of junk once my RCS ran out.

Or Ill send a RCS fuelship to it... Hmmmm Ill keep that in mind for the next time.

Cya guys! 8)

[Urben]

AAAAND UPDATE!

Ive decided to refill some of the RCS. Same carrier rocket.

It took awhile to get to the girdercarrier, but Ive made it. Docking sucessfull.

Deactivated it's RCS ports and the engine. After refilling the mission can continiue!

I had to catch up the satellite, were about 50km. Did the docking Ive messed up last time.

Okay enough for now. Quite sucessfull I'd say.

[bgraves]

This is actually really cool. Nice job.

[Urben]

Here comes the update!

Ive continiued to build one of the three triangle edges. At the end I was connecting the second satellit to the construction.

The job was done without any complipications.

Looking at the construction ive put days into now, Ive realised there is a big design mistake!

It looks like I will DEFINITELY need autonomic satellites. Like the one I have now, plus RCS.

And RCS is something I didnt planned.

Why do I need it? Well look at the last Picture.

If you look closely, you will see the two connected satellites dont have the same angle.

If I disconnect one of them to fix that, I have a almost 0% chance to redock it. And exactly 0% doing it correctly.

SO WHAT TO DO?

Ive just asked my engineers. They told me I could put jetpacks on the satellites and they started laughing.

I just said "Do that." Starring in shock they leaved after a moment of silence.

Now let me show what they came up with: A carrier for three jetpacks.

First target: the triangle construction. Goal: connect two jetpacks.

It wasnt quite easy. There was no big problem or something, I just acted quite stupid at doing so.

But I did it. Next target is the bordercarrier.

So thats what we did until now. Maybe I wont need the third jetpack. Maybe we nevere needed more than one.

But as long we dont have to pay the bill, I will take as many jetpacks I want!

Oh and yes the jetpacks are looking stupid. Blame my engineers. Good thing I will get rid of them once I dont need them anymore.

The jetpacks or my engineers you ask? Both of them.

By the way its good to see the three docking ports are all in use again.

I will stick ports on every possible surface the next missions, you just cant have enough of them!

Especially if you dont have a 100% working concept...

See ya later!

Edited October 21, 2013 by Urben

[Urben]

AND Update:

After connecting two jetpacks to the construction and the rest to the builder, Ive continiued my work on the triangle.

It began easy, bit by bit the edges got their form. After putting every girder I had to the construction,

Ive undocked one of the satellites. Next step was to put the last satellit to the construction, and onto the last jetpack.

Now I have to bring the two big parts together. In the right angle. And what can I say...

I HATE THIS MISSION! If I ever said something different, I was wrong.

Argh! Ever tried to fly a ionpowered, mass-asymetrical wiener through the orbit? 2 hours long? It horrible!!

All Ive managed to do is reconnect it in a completly wrong angle. I have plenty of RCS left,

but I cant say it will be enough for sure. I can only hope it.

Note to myself: next time design the jetpacks to the center of mass WITH the girders!!

And well, the most expensive "e" was made in outerspace. Why cant I mess it up to something like "Coca Cola"?

I might get money for that! Or get sued for the same amount of money... Okay a "e" is fine, too.

Later!

Edited October 21, 2013 by Urben

[Torham234]

This looks like a very impressive megaconstruction. Great job!