Kron series (Kron 6 end of mission) - temporary halt of program

[lajoswinkler]

a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k

The plan is to send a more compact and sturdy ship without a centrifuge because last time it nearly broke in half and burned up during the aerobraking procedure.

It would have a tiny robotic rover that would come close to the unidentified object (kind of like Mission To Mars movie) before Kerbals go there by themselves. Safety first. LOL

The lander will be called Kerpernicus, as it was suggested by Kieve who won the "guess the reentry speed" contest.

I hope the propulsion will be an updated KSPX LN-NB engine, the first true nuclear 2.5 m engine now running on liquid fuel only.

DeepFreeze is abandoned, and I want to use TAC, but the trip to Urlum is so incredibly long that the Kerbals would all die. I'll probably send 4 of the orange suited ones.

CaptainKorhonen therefore suggested the SETI Greenhouse mod. It does not offer a self-sustaining environment, but it significantly lowers the onboard consumption, at the expense of space and delta v, which is fine as it's an experiment with realism.

If the mod doesn't require sunlight, Kron 4 will be possible.

Other ideas would be highly appreciated.

edit: sunlight is not needed and, for the time being, SETI Greenhouse will be part of the mission.

Here's the conceptual design. The actual ship will probably look a lot more different.

Edited August 19, 2015 by lajoswinkler

[lajoswinkler]

Still a heavy work in progress, of course.

I expect only 4 Kerbals on this mission: Jeb and Val as pilots, Bill the engineer and Bob the scientist.

I'm still waiting for the Near Future Electrical to update because I'm planning to use one of its reactors and radiators for power generation.

Edited May 14, 2015 by lajoswinkler

[lajoswinkler]

An experimental module has been set into low Kerbin orbit.

Here is Peggy Kerman doing the external checking of the module.

Two male, two female Kerbals will spend months on this vessel and test the life support system while the designers down at KSC are trying to design a ship to throw this thing all the way to Urlum.

[VASMIR]

You should try to do a Kron off-world colony.

[Zaddy23]

Still a heavy work in progress, of course.

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/28490282851865159/9658C30E1289BD134318E1B9EC2FCCBFB30CEFA8/

I expect only 4 Kerbals on this mission: Jeb and Val as pilots, Bill the engineer and Bob the scientist.

I'm still waiting for the Near Future Electrical to update because I'm planning to use one of its reactors and radiators for power generation.

What mod are those large crew cabins from? I need them!

EDIT: I just need a modlist in total, I'm finding it hard to find anything good that is already updated/working still.

[lajoswinkler]

You should try to do a Kron off-world colony.

Nice idea, but I don't use any mods that would offer an indefinitively long life support. Also, I don't want to leave Kerbals behind and doing two identical missions just to pick them up is not interesting to me. Kron missions are pretty tedious as I try not to leave anything in doubt. Once the ship is on its way, it's on its way.

I could try Duna or Mun in the future, we'll see.

What mod are those large crew cabins from? I need them!

EDIT: I just need a modlist in total, I'm finding it hard to find anything good that is already updated/working still.

Kron ships use 3.75 m modules from Taurus HCV mod. The purpose of these missions is to send a decent number of Kerbals in a relatively spacious and bulky ship to far reaches of the system.

Taurus HCV is already updated and I don't remember it ever causing any problems. It's a very stable mod.

As for the modlist, previous three ships have them all named throughout the thread. This one doesn't have it yet because it's a work in progress. I'm testing designs. So far TAC and SETI Greenhouses will play a major role, unless DeepFreeze is suddenly updated, which I doubt will happen anytime soon.

[lajoswinkler]

The Ministry Of No Better Things To Do has decided to send a propulsionless Kron 4 to low equatorial Kerbin orbit where it will be used for more testing because this year the budget had been significantly increased.

Reasons: success of the earlier mission and the fact a weird, shiny object has been spotted on Wal by automated landers few years earlier. Shiny objects are of great importance to the Kerbal species.

Kerbal scientists are still working on energy generation. Last mission used RTG units only, which almost turned into a disaster.

Active fission reactor will be used now.

The launch vehicle is currently being filled with fuels and the launch is scheduled for later this day. It is a two stage rocket with liquid fuel boosters with TWR approximately 1.3.

Edited May 17, 2015 by lajoswinkler

[lajoswinkler]

The ship has been launched into a circular equatorial orbit at 165 km.

Future crew has gathered on the roof of the Vehicle Assembly Building to watch the fireworks.

This test ship will serve as an experimental station, but one day it might be the very thing launched towards Urlum. It lacks propulsion and the only way to generate power is using solar panels.

[lajoswinkler]

Kron 4 will require an enormous heatshield, at least 8 m in diameter, so here's one of the Kerbal scientists examining the newly made one that just got shipped to KSC in pieces. It was assembled by some 50 Kerbals.

[VASMIR]

Are you in 1.02?

[Zaddy23]

That's quite a big heatshield, can't wait to see it in use!

[lajoswinkler]

Are you in 1.02?

Yes, this is 1.0.2.

I hope 1.0.3. won't break things, but if it does, all of the mods I'm using will take ages to update, so I'll probably stick with 1.0.2.

I'm gonna have to use Hyper Edit to place all those probe landers at Urlum's system back.

That's quite a big heatshield, can't wait to see it in use!

Yeah, me too. I'm designing the ship to be more bulky this time. There shouldn't be any problems.

[DMSP]

Wahoo!

Keep going!

[Hydrazine_Soup]

Did you steal the name from a news station?

 

Edited March 5, 2020 by Hydrazine_Soup

[lajoswinkler]

Yeah, I've noticed the station's name few days ago when I watched the famous Bubb Rubb and Lil Sis car whistles.

[DMSP]

Hah, cool coincidence!

How is the craft looking?

[lajoswinkler]

It's still being heavily designed, but now I'm concentrating on the power generation. There's one smaller fission reactor just above the LV-NB so that all the nasty particles are kept as far away as possible from the crew.

So far I've got 10800 m/s in current configuration. Leaving the science equipment module, main heatshield and lander behind, it should jump close to 12500 or more, but I'm still not satisfied.

[DMSP]

It's still being heavily designed, but now I'm concentrating on the power generation. There's one smaller fission reactor just above the LV-NB so that all the nasty particles are kept as far away as possible from the crew.

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/28491084202144671/687C5DD3E0D9E85F8F3B7CE531F42C080509F2F7/

So far I've got 10800 m/s in current configuration. Leaving the science equipment module, main heatshield and lander behind, it should jump close to 12500 or more, but I'm still not satisfied.

Alright, keep pushing!

You can build this ship!

[lajoswinkler]

So this might be the last significant design change of the ship.

There's the Kerpernicus lander on the top, two large ORIGAMI antennas on the side and a nuclear reactor on the bottom, taking up all of the heat generated by all three engines using heat pipes and expelling it by two large radiators. Hopefully this will allow all three of them to run at 100% continuously.

I'd still like to add a tiny robotic rover somewhere...

[xXIndestructibleEVAXx]

Why not radially attach two?

[lajoswinkler]

A rover would need its dedicated lander. The target is Wal, specifically the shiny thing on its ridge. I might design some sort of a suicide braking lander using a combination of sepratrons and ant engine (part count, ugh), and attach it radially, while on the other side a KAS/KIS toolbox would provide storage for lots of instruments and mass equilibrium.

[Sampa]

A rover would need its dedicated lander. The target is Wal, specifically the shiny thing on its ridge. I might design some sort of a suicide braking lander using a combination of sepratrons and ant engine (part count, ugh), and attach it radially, while on the other side a KAS/KIS toolbox would provide storage for lots of instruments and mass equilibrium.

What about the Chaka Monkey one?

[lajoswinkler]

It needs to be a custom made one. Mass is crucial, as well as part count.

[ElJugador]

Supplementary Music:

[VASMIR]

Was NFE updated to 1.02?