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

[lajoswinkler]

There was a huge issue with the propulsion unit. For some reason it would start rotating and shaking like a dog when it comes out of water. It was completely unusable, so I've redesigned it (slightly larger lateral tanks). 4 instead of 5 rows of them now, with more space in between. Seems stable.

[DMSP]

This is going to be so good!

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There was a huge issue with the propulsion unit. For some reason it would start rotating and shaking like a dog when it comes out of water. It was completely unusable, so I've redesigned it (slightly larger lateral tanks). 4 instead of 5 rows of them now, with more space in between. Seems stable.

Phew!

That would have been bad if it happened half way through the mission!

[lajoswinkler]

Indeed it would.

Here's the blueprinty image.

Almost 14 km/s inside in this configuration. Could be close to 15 in the end. We'll see.

[VASMIR]

Dang, can you bring GERTY back on this one?

[lajoswinkler]

I've tried, I can't. Raster Prop Monitor used to cycle through all of the cameras, even if they weren't installed, and that allowed for the "no signal" image to be used. Now it cycles through the available cameras only, so I don't know how to show Gerty anymore...

[Red Dwarf]

I thought you just edited him into the screenshots or something... Shouldn't be too hard to paste him in there.

[lajoswinkler]

I'd have to skew the image precisely, which is a pain in the ass.

[VASMIR]

How does your computer not die?

[lajoswinkler]

Why would it die? I don't get it.

[VASMIR]

That is a huge ship, and it is flying to a planet in a huge mod pack. That should eat up quite a bit of RAM.

[Sharkman Briton]

Laptop scrub here, so I shouldn't be talking.

He's probably got some crazy PC with god knows how much Ram.

[lajoswinkler]

Laptop with 8 GB of RAM. Current amount of mods is 333 MB.

[VASMIR]

Name the lander Tali.

[DMSP]

Name the lander Tali.

It's name is Siren now...

Anyway, how's the ship looking?

[GabrielG.A.B.Fonseca]

How's it going over there? Any progress?

[lajoswinkler]

It's ready in orbit, been there ever since it was assembled. I just don't have the will to actually start it.

[lajoswinkler]

OK, mission has officially started.

The third stage gave around 250 m/s push at almost 2.6 m/s². It took a while because my current framerate, for unknown reasons, is less than 2. Yes, it's that bad.

Here are some screenshots.

There's a camera right above the engines.

Jettisoning the third stage. The ship is now free.

View from almost 600 km apoapsis generated by the burn. Radiators are deployed now.

Next - painful series of burns at periapsis to reach the second cosmic speed.

[Rath]

Have fun!

[VASMIR]

Damn.

[Sharkman Briton]

Yeah!!!!! I cant wait!

[Seshins]

yessssss!!!!! so glad you've started. Ive been checking this thread pretty much every day. love your work.

[DMSP]

Can't wait!

Let's go to Neidon!

[lajoswinkler]

Thanks for the support. Makes thinking about the mission and screenshots a lot easier in low framerate when you know someone likes it.

[lajoswinkler]

For some reason, framerate went up to around 10 fps so the pain was not that prominent.

First nuclear thermal engine burn. Three LV-NB engines burning give quite a show.

As much as the ship is huge and everything, it's really a tiny speck compared to Kerbin.

The crew could monitor the exhaust plume because of that handy camera at the back of the ship. Special rad-hardened camera.

As expected, sideways engines were a bit hotter because they have only three radiators each, but none of them ever reached more than 60% of the failure temperature. I'll call that a success. Thermal insulators, heatsinks and radiators from Heat Management work excellently.

Only one set of tanks got dumped.

Acceleration started with 0.65 and finished at 0.71 m/s². It took three burns to finally get Mun's attention. It helped to reduce the delta v expense by a bit more than 50 m/s and it put the ship on a trajectory that would result in contraction of the orbit around Kerbol. That will help with burning towards Neidon, although I have no idea by how much. Probably not significantly, but everything helps, and as always in KSP, some eyeballing is a part of the fun.

We still didn't breach second cosmic speed, but Mun is closing in to help with it.

[GabrielG.A.B.Fonseca]

Nice! I love slingshots.