Chaka Monkey - Closed Development Thread

[Tangle]

My main problem with using the Orion is that it weighs ~11 tons. Same thing with the Altair and its 21. Also, is there a patch for career mode?

Edited June 1, 2014 by Tangle

[YANFRET]

Showtime:

Transfer Orbit:

Edited June 1, 2014 by YANFRET

[Mecripp]

My main problem with using the Orion is that it weighs ~11 tons. Same thing with the Altair and its 21. Also, is there a patch for career mode?

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/64993-0-23-5-Chaka-Monkey-Exploration-Systems-%E2%80%A2-Alpha-5?p=1132394&viewfull=1#post1132394

[YANFRET]

Edited June 1, 2014 by YANFRET

[YANFRET]

Stage separation for return:

Edited June 1, 2014 by YANFRET

[landeTLS]

Looking really nice

[YANFRET]

Looking really nice

Thank you!

Edited June 1, 2014 by YANFRET

[landeTLS]

:D By the way your Structural Docking Rings look ultra menacing in Chaka's colours. We should add a "NO FINGERS â–º" warning sticker.

http://imageshack.com/a/img843/9310/d4jzr.jpg

http://imageshack.com/a/img835/7838/sniwy.jpg

http://imageshack.com/a/img839/5034/h1eg.jpg

http://imageshack.com/a/img839/1355/3tsd.jpg

http://imageshack.com/a/img835/8389/bnew.jpg

structural docking rings? I dont believe iwe released any parts yet

[YANFRET]

structural docking rings? I dont believe iwe released any parts yet

hahahahaha well at 2:00 AM I confused your screename with Talisar's. I will go edit that, Sorry!

It's like a brain puzzle when I see TLS I think Ta Li Sar haha

Edited June 1, 2014 by YANFRET

[YANFRET]

MTV Stage 1 Launch:

This is the heaviest stage of the MTV. The Monkey Launch System Large Upper Stage had 38 m/s remaining after circularization, although my flight path was not optimized since this was the first attempt. It reached the target 162km orbit however with some tweaks we should be able to get that up to 200.

Edited June 10, 2014 by YANFRET

[Mecripp]

What No landing Pic's LOL or did you forget the chutes ?

[YANFRET]

What No landing Pic's LOL or did you forget the chutes ?

Great question well that flight was orbital only to test the vehicle. The Orion pod is there for return to earth entry only.

New Structural Docking Ring Texture:

[Mecripp]

Very nice do they have lights on them too ?

[ndiver]

Hi Yanfret, i tried for the first time this week-end your CM Alpha 5. I'm each time impressed by the quality of the package.

I've a small question concerning the Munar x2: i noticed that the two elements (rover + lander or lander + lander) are in opposite direction.

How do you manage the landing ? When do you separate them from each other and make a 180° turn for the lower lander ? At each of my trials i crashed one of the two elements ...

Edit: as i did not had access to the web this week-end i couldn't see the pictures on the first post. I start to understand: each element land independently from low munar orbit ?

Edited June 2, 2014 by ndiver

[YANFRET]

Very nice do they have lights on them too ?

Yea! Talisar included "docking alignment lights" for us and they're pretty neat. I'm going to improve the emissive soon and then you can see.

Hi Yanfret, i tried for the first time this week-end your CM Alpha 5. I'm each time impressed by the quality of the package.

I've a small question concerning the Munar x2: i noticed that the two elements (rover + lander or lander + lander) are in opposite direction.

How do you manage the landing ? When do you separate them from each other and make a 180° turn for the lower lander ? At each of my trials i crashed one of the two elements ...

Edit: as i did not had access to the web this week-end i couldn't see the pictures on the first post. I start to understand: each element land independently from low munar orbit ?

Thanks! Yep you got it. Its a little tricky in terms of knowing what to do and when I'l grant you that. I want to improve that Munar 2x system in the future as well.

Edited June 2, 2014 by YANFRET

[ndiver]

I noticed that there is fairly enough delta-v in the third stage (the one that pushes both lander and rover together) for a munar landing.

Would it be an heresy to include 4 legs to this stage and allow it to land to drop part by part the lander and rover ? It implies that the rover would not need its own stage to land.

[YANFRET]

I noticed that there is fairly enough delta-v in the third stage (the one that pushes both lander and rover together) for a munar landing.

Would it be an heresy to include 4 legs to this stage and allow it to land to drop part by part the lander and rover ? It implies that the rover would not need its own stage to land.

I get where you're coming from certainly.

Yeah it would be heresy I think. Although, if you are clever and quick with the mouse you can use the 3rd stage to de orbit one or more Munar 2x pieces and have surplus delta on the surface instead, perhaps for polar landings or moving the base around to find a nicer spot on the surface after landing. However, the reason for the third stage having so much extra delta is because It's purpose in life is to throw huge payloads at Duna and assemble the Monkey Transfer Vehicle in low orbit. In fact, it is specifically tuned to have just enough power to lift the heaviest stage of the MTV into orbit.

We also have an even more powerful and efficient upper stage under development which would in theory allow MTV pieces to be assembled above 600km circular and at an inclination optimized for Duna transfer, allowing even shorter transfer times to Duna, perhaps in the range of 50 days. The purpose of high speed Duna transfer is to reduce radiation exposure.

So to summarize; the purpose of the Chaka Munar systems is to test hardware designed for Duna. To soak up as much of the surplus delta as possible within the available fairing size, I had the idea of doubling up the landers for Munar operation, and the Munar 2x system was born. However, there is still a huge amount of extra delta for Munar operations, but it's more important to me to get as much testing of the Duna hardware as possible at the Mun.

Have you tried using it to put the rover and rover support habitat on an asteroid or Minmus? I've been wanting to try that however I haven't had the time. One issue could be the low mass of the rover in lower gravity. Since the rover like everything else is designed for Duna, it's way too light for even Munar operations. Perhaps in the future we make a version where the rover has extra mass.

Great question!

Edited June 2, 2014 by YANFRET

[ndiver]

Ok, thanks for the explanations

For the leg proposition, I tried the 3rd stage landing: it felt on the side

To explain a bit, i just tried CMES this week-end, i started to have problems with my laptop and KSP few days before the release of the 0.23.5 (my screen was strangely blinking, possibly an overheating of the graphic card) and just installed the 0.23.5 last Friday after driver update (good surprise, no blinking !), including CMES

I noticed the rover is a bit too light for the Mun, but as i was focusing on the landing, i did not tried all its driving possibilities.

I will try following your recommendations of two steps landing now

Unfortunately we still can't in KSP manage properly several operations in parallel (as multiple landing).

[YANFRET]

Ok, thanks for the explanations

For the leg proposition, I tried the 3rd stage landing: it felt on the side

To explain a bit, i just tried CMES this week-end, i started to have problems with my laptop and KSP few days before the release of the 0.23.5 (my screen was strangely blinking, possibly an overheating of the graphic card) and just installed the 0.23.5 last Friday after driver update (good surprise, no blinking !), including CMES

I noticed the rover is a bit too light for the Mun, but as i was focusing on the landing, i did not tried all its driving possibilities.

I will try following your recommendations of two steps landing now

Unfortunately we still can't in KSP manage properly several operations in parallel (as multiple landing).

Once all the Duna - specification parts are ready and you guys try landing the Chaka payloads there, the extra delta margins will seem perilously thin haha

Other than craft assembly and testing, the main hold up for Duna landing is that our brand new and shiney inflatable heat shield is not ready yet.

[icemonkey]

This look amazing, and this might have been asked before (I can't be bothered to look through 50+ pages ), but does the heat shield include DRE support?

[YANFRET]

This look amazing, and this might have been asked before (I can't be bothered to look through 50+ pages ), but does the heat shield include DRE support?

The heat shield we are licensing for Monkey Exploration is a retextured and modified version of the Planets Corporation Inflatalbe Heatshield designed for KSP .19 - which originally included DRE so I assume I can answer yes however I have not tested it with the latest version.

[CaptainCrunch]

YANFRET!

Just want you to know that I have an entirely separate copy of KSP dedicated to just your mods. Love the work you're doing.

[YANFRET]

YANFRET!

Just want you to know that I have an entirely separate copy of KSP dedicated to just your mods. Love the work you're doing.

So do I hahaha

Thank you very much

[ndiver]

Made quite a lot of tests yesterday evening.

1) impossible to put 4 legs to the 3rd stage: the engine is too long !

2) the rover is undrivable on the Mun, it will be even worse on Minmus. I think the problem comes from the wheels (too powerful ?), but not really sure.

3) there is IMHO a problem with the orientation of the lower lander.

Either this lander should be orientated in the other direction, either adding a small probe core to the 3rd stage is necessary if we consider the use of MechJeb. Impossible to land on the Mun in another way than in manual mode (MechJeb has a problem with the orientation of the lander in opposite direction to the engine, so technically MechJeb does exactly the opposite of what is requested).

The lander has not enough delta-v to land on the Mun by himself from low orbit (~25km, it was missing 100 m/s at each trial). It took me nearly 20 trials to find out how to not crash and land where i wanted

4) how do we use the docking ports of the rover and lander ?

As a conclusion, the landing of the pod in my small village (the base is built with KSO) next to one of the anomalies on the Mun

Edited June 3, 2014 by ndiver

[Deathsoul097]

Made quite a lot of tests yesterday evening.

1) impossible to put 4 legs to the 3rd stage: the engine is too long !

2) the rover is undrivable on the Mun, it will be even worse on Minmus. I think the problem comes from the wheels (too powerful ?), but not really sure.

3) there is IMHO a problem with the orientation of the lower lander.

Either this lander should be orientated in the other direction, either adding a small probe core to the 3rd stage is necessary if we consider the use of MechJeb. Impossible to land on the Mun in another way than in manual mode (MechJeb has a problem with the orientation of the lander in opposite direction to the engine, so technically MechJeb does exactly the opposite of what is requested).

The lander has not enough delta-v to land on the Mun by himself from low orbit (~25km, it was missing 100 m/s at each trial). It took me nearly 20 trials to find out how to not crash and land where i wanted

4) how do we use the docking ports of the rover and lander ?

As a conclusion, the landing of the pod in my small village (the base is built with KSO) next to one of the anomalies on the Mun

http://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2014/23/1401789074-screenshot121.png

Going to say you would want to use the upper stage as a crasher, like the Blok D for the LK lander. As for the rover being undriveable, try disabling motors on some of the wheels, or disabling steering. While these are designed for Duna, you would probably have a beter time if you mess around with those for a bit.