Have you ever had a non-intentional collision in orbit?

[PTNLemay]

I don't mean the kind where you set it all up with careful preamble or parts editing. Or accidentally bumping your astronaut into a solar panel, nor do I mean bumping your space station too hard as you're docking. I mean an honest-to-johnny incident with 2 orbiting things smashing into one another accidentally.

[Odo]

Ive been hit by space debris twice. Ive got over 600 pieces of debris all in an 80km x 80km orbit, which is my standard parking orbit, so its not TOO unlikely for me.

The first time was a trip to the mun, I wasnt doing a parking orbit instead just launching straight up at the right time, as I passed into the 80km range a piece of debris came whizzing by and smashed into my escape tower, ripping it off and adding to the debris. Luckily the escape tower wasnt vital and the mission was a success.

2nd time was I was deorbiting a capsule that was docked at my station, and about 30 seconds after my deorbit burn I was nailed by a decoupler which completely obliterated Jeb.

[Beowolf]

Once, using LazTek's Dragon2. They have detachable covers over the nose and solar panels, and I forgot to jettison them until I was stable in my orbit. My next flight was another Dragon2 and a docking attempt. Number two ran into one of the covers from number one during rendezvous. It wasn't a very high-energy collision, but it broke the extended solar panel it hit.

The crew and I were both proud!

[Captain Sierra]

I do everything I can to minimize debris after a few collisions including a chance rendezvous with a spent upper stage. It was in an eliptical after I brought it up to my low orbit station orbit (200km) for some random reason and it was in an eliptical after being dropped from the transfer burn probably to the Mun or somewhere higher. It came in with about 80m/s relative velocity and made a perfect station rendezvous. Needless to say it didn't end well.

[GamerMitch]

no i've never had so many things in orbit at once to collide.

[Nabiscovinco]

Seeing as I play without orbital debris on, not really.

HOWEVER, there was a crew transfer on a station which may or may not have resulted in about 20% of the solar panels to become disconnected from the station.

[Captain Sierra]

So far, I think I'm winning for most violent and catastrophic orbital impact.

[FlamedSteak]

At the peak of my 0.20 game I had a lot of debris in LKO. I would see junk regularly whizzing by but never had anything close to contact.

[togfox]

I had something wizz by at about 700m away. Completely unexpected and I had to look twice to ensure I was seeing correctly. 700m apart in counter orbits was unsettling - but thrilling!

[Apophis775]

I have a tendency to leave most of my debris up, and one of my launches to refuel my station's fuel tanks was hit by a half-empty fuel tank, causing a collision with the space station, resulting in the loss of the docking module, the refueling mission, 1 kerbal in a Cupula module that was lost, and 1 kerbal who I eventually abandoned as I couldn't meet up with him. Since then, I always put Escape Pods on my space stations, so that I can quickly switch it it (assuming it survives) to stabilize it's orbit and grab any Kerbals that survive. But, no impacts since then.

[Jordanpumah]

when using an escape pod, try and make it as sleek to the rest of your station as possible, if it isn't sticking out, you're good, for the most part, what I try to do, if I have the patience and determination, is put the escape pod inside it's own little box made out of those 2x2 panels and have it fly away violently when it's time to bounce.

my biggest collision was with my station getting hit with a rogue empty fuel tank, it was the long one with the black stripes, don't remember the name, amazingly, no kerbal life was lost, but a lot of work was, i mean, I COULD have just reverted back about five minutes and made an adjustment, but that was too cheaty for me. station got cut in three, one cut from the tank, and another one from my escape pod box, about 30 secs later (only had jeb on at the time, since I was about to bring a new crew of 8 men onboard, spooky, I know) but that save was lost, but I did send a few missions to go check out the wreckage, (the ship was armored to the teeth, even the engine had plates around it) it was amazingly eerie.

[Superfluous J]

The first time I tried docking, I crashed the orange tanks of my two ships together at somewhere near 70m/s. That is somewhere between a total accident and "bumping during docking"

It was assuredly non-intentional and very destructive

[Apophis775]

It's usually my second addition to the station. I usually go, Core, Habitation Module, Escape Pod, Fuel Tanks. Now however, I put my Space Station into a 175KM orbit, and nothing else goes there unless it's rendezvousing.

[Tommygun]

Yes, when I started out I always used 100Km as my parting orbit for everything and left the debris limit set to unlimited.

I had several collisions, usually on ascent, when my speed was lower than the debris I was rising up to.

I also did the retro burn thing too soon after dumping a stage. Over time you learn not to do this things and I have not had a collision sense.

[Dangerous_Beans]

i sent up a crew return shuttle to recover three Kerbals i accidentally launched with a rocket. unfortunately i was slow in starting to decelerate for rendezvous, and i managed to clip the Kerbals' vessel with my shuttle at about 100-150m/s relative velocity.

the Kerbal's ship broke in half, with the crew compartment tumbling off into space, but the kerbals' crew compartment and shuttle survived intact, so i was able to transfer Jeb et al and return them to Kerbin alive.

i'm really not used to my orbital rendezvous being that accurate.

[RSwordsman]

I never have unintentional collisions, as I immediately delete any debris that I leave up there from missions. Not for gameplay reasons though, as I'd love the realism. Does letting your debris pile up have any noticeable effect on the game's performance or disk space requirements?

[FlamedSteak]

I never have unintentional collisions, as I immediately delete any debris that I leave up there from missions. Not for gameplay reasons though, as I'd love the realism. Does letting your debris pile up have any noticeable effect on the game's performance or disk space requirements?

Nope, the engine only renders debris at a certain distance. It will track it's movement until it comes into view and then render it.

[Grizzlol]

The poll results are skewed because people do not understand the question. You should specify more clearly in the title and answer options.

Edited October 22, 2013 by Grizzlol

[SilverWarior]

Yes I had non-intentional colision!

And no it wasn't my craft being hit by debrie but instead my craft violently coliding with another one. How this happened?

After docking got introduced to KSP I sad lets try this. I sent my first craft into 200 km orbit without any problems.

When sending second one into orbit one of my winglets broke due to exhaust damage (silly design) soon after take off. This lead my rocket into uncontrolled spin but somehow I managed to recover and still make it into 100 km orbit.

So I decided lets use first craft and roundervouz with second one at 100km orbit. So I planned the navigational nodes and proceded with roundervouz. I managed to plan them to proximitx distance of 25 m (never got so close with node planning again).

But I failed to realize that my crafts are on oposites orbits.

So after I got realy close folowing navigational nodes I switch to normal view and try to find my other craft in space.

I keep loking around and then sudenly I see text about my other craft being about 10 km away.

I start reorienting my craft to do retroburn to slow down my approach speed.

But soon I realize that the distance between my current and my other craft is already less than 8 km.

So I think to myself I'm closing in verry fast. I better start doing my retroburn imediately.

After a bit of time at about 2 km of range I realize that I won't be able to slow down fast enough.

So I try to reoirient my rocket so that I would be able to change the course of my rocket and avoid posible colision.

But in all that panic I actually caused it becouse I burned into wrong direction. I should have left it as it was and I would just flown past by.

Despite this horrible catastrophy none of my kerbals got killed. It just took me another six or seven flights to rescue them.

Edited October 22, 2013 by SilverWarior
typos

[Char0093]

Why yes I have.I was Once Launching a Kethane Mining Mission into a Parking Orbit to Await a Tug Vessel.And on the Ascent to my 150 km Parking Orbit,I Smacked my Space Station which Sits at 100 km.I couldn't have hit this thing any better if I tried.Complete loss of the Mining Mission and the Space Station.No Casualties thankfully,as the Mining Vessel was unmanned and I didn't hit the Station's Crew Compartment.

Edited October 22, 2013 by Char0093

[Vonar]

I've had several orbital collisions. Mostly during docking exercises. Since I started fresh for 0.22 I haven't had any kessler syndrome symptoms yet, although in 0.20 I did have a pretty full 80-80 km parking orbit and encounters of less then 2 km were relatively common occasions. Of course my debris management has dramatically improved since 0.20, and most fuel tanks when they have large quantities of fuel left will find their way into future mission plans.

[SuperSquirrel51]

I remember in one of my old saves I accidently did something to a rocket adding about 20 debris into space, at a later launch, all I saw was 20 pieces of debris coming at the ship, the closest one was I think 1.6km away. It was scary and awesome at the same time.

[lazarus1024]

Once when I had max persistent debris at default when a spent boost ripped through my space station and once when I had it turned off when part of a refueling tug rammed a ship under construction.

The first one was absolutely random and the spend booster was probably going 800+ m/sec faster than the station as the orbits were radically different. It happened while I was EVA. Like something out of Gravity almost (not that I have seen the movie). It only clipped the station, but it basically tore it apart and left my Kerbal stranded. I did eventually send a rescue mission up for him.

The second was a spent booster. I ran out of fuel in it attempting to match orbits, so I had to use the tugs manuever engines to meet up. We'll, a dozen or so orbits later (saving fuel) it turned out that the spent booster ended up matching the orbit about 2 orbits after my rendezvous. It hit almost directly between my refueling tug and the interplanetary ship I was building.

No one was saved. That said, it was a much more gentle collsion, maybe only 40 or so m/sec difference in velocities.

[Kasuha]

I destroyed my space station two times when I was not careful on approach. But I never had collision with space junk because my tracking station always takes care of it.

[Hodo]

Wasn't paying attention. Ran into my space station around the Mun, took out 2 solar panels and one docking port as my ship slid down the side.

Then one of my Kethane satellites ran into its final stage about 1 week after it separated from it.