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

[kunok]

4 hours ago, Geschosskopf said:

Pacman?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_(film)

[Cydonian Monk]

8 hours ago, lajoswinkler said:

It's Kerty!

Voiced by none other than Kevin Kerman. Or is it Spacey Kerman? 

I've always wondered if there were female versions of Gerty in the Moon universe voiced by Drew Barrymore....

[lajoswinkler]

360 days into the mission, Kaos 3 is crossing Sarnusian orbit. Kerbol is quiet, all systems nominal.

[Geschosskopf]

7 hours ago, lajoswinkler said:

360 days into the mission, Kaos 3 is crossing Sarnusian orbit. Kerbol is quiet, all systems nominal.

That's really moving!  I hope it can stop

 

[lajoswinkler]

3 hours ago, Geschosskopf said:

That's really moving!  I hope it can stop

 

No, it has 20 m/s left and it was designed as a flyby mission. I'm hoping for it to skim both Plock and Karen, possibly one more satellite, too, but chances for a good alignment drop sharply with the increasing number of bodies.

[lajoswinkler]

One year, 325 days, Kaos 3 is crossing the orbit of Urlum more than 250 million km from Kerbol which is already pretty dim. Everything is nominal.

[lajoswinkler]

I've got two good news and two bad news.

 

Good news #1 - Beros and Kyx are installed and function properly.

Good news #2 - Kaos 3 is crossing Neidon's orbit after 3 years and 135 days.

 

Bad news: Kaos 3 has two RTG units, both of which are now at 50% capacity because they're apparently breaking down. Also, probe's ion engine has suffered damage and is now 400% overheating. It shouldn't pose a problem.

Bad news #2: I can't plan any trajectory with Karen, Beros nor Kyx, regardless of them being present or not. I presume it's a Sigma Binary issue because the barycenter is being orbited now.

Maybe it will work once the probe is in the sphere of influence.

Edited July 9, 2016 by lajoswinkler

[Geschosskopf]

3 hours ago, lajoswinkler said:

Bad news: Kaos 3 has two RTG units, both of which are now at 50% capacity because they're apparently breaking down. Also, probe's ion engine has suffered damage and is now 400% overheating. It shouldn't pose a problem.

Wow.  That sort of failure rate is troubling when you think of the mothership....

[lajoswinkler]

11 hours ago, Geschosskopf said:

Wow.  That sort of failure rate is troubling when you think of the mothership....

Indeed, it is troubling. If a lateral LV-NB engine craps up, that means adjusting the thrust levels to a lower setting to achieve balance again. TWR will fall below 0.04.

If a nuclear reactor craps up, the ship loses its primary energy source and the mission fails, unless Kerbin is near.

Redundancy. Kron 6 needs it.

[lajoswinkler]

A test run of Kron 6 will soon enter low Kerbin orbit. It's lacking the laboratory, greenhouse and the propulsion unit.

Mortimer agreed to this only because he was promised that this will be used for the actual mission if it doesn't break down.

 

Mission banners: a, b, c, d, e

Edited September 20, 2016 by lajoswinkler

[Geschosskopf]

7 hours ago, lajoswinkler said:

Indeed, it is troubling

Might have to keep some engineers awake the whole trip to fix things

 

[kunok]

And a new signature

[lajoswinkler]

49 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

Might have to keep some engineers awake the whole trip to fix things

 

They will eat everything on the ship and go mad, so no.

Bill will have to periodically wake up (I need to pack more glykerol) and repair stuff, but that's ok.

Kron 6 has launched.

Spoiler

 

The rocket behaved perfectly, even without turning on the Vernor RCS engines.

Spoiler

 

Two liquid fuel boosters separated cleanly.

Spoiler

 

And so did the first stage...

Spoiler

 

and the fairings.

Spoiler

 

The ship is now a bit higher than 165 km in an equatorial orbit. Centrifuge is deployed and doing a test spin. There is still the last, unfired stage attached to the ship because the ship will have to chase the propulsion unit and not the opposite.

Energy is delivered by the two solar panels. Nobody is onboard except Kerty who carefully monitors the situation.

[lajoswinkler]

@tygoo7 You've been the closest with your estimate for the reentry speed of Kron 5, so now you have the opportunity to give a name to the lander which will visit Plock, Karen, Beros and Kyx.

 

Valentina and Jebediah are waiting and the lander is packed with goodies.

[max_creative]

4 minutes ago, lajoswinkler said:

Valentina and Jebediah are waiting and the lander is packed with goodies.

YEAH!!! WHOO PLOCK!!! WHOO KRON!!! WHOO @lajoswinkler!!!

[Cydonian Monk]

Now that's a sharp looking lander.

There's a part of me that really wants to start using a mod that respects the rate of decay of the radioacives in the RTGs.... and then there's a part of me that doesn't know what the rate of decay of blutonium is anyway, and says "Bah, don't bother." Kerbalism is a very appealing mod, especially with the MTBF part failure mechanic that DangIt! had. Maybe someday... just not today.

[lajoswinkler]

8 hours ago, Cydonian Monk said:

Now that's a sharp looking lander.

There's a part of me that really wants to start using a mod that respects the rate of decay of the radioacives in the RTGs.... and then there's a part of me that doesn't know what the rate of decay of blutonium is anyway, and says "Bah, don't bother." Kerbalism is a very appealing mod, especially with the MTBF part failure mechanic that DangIt! had. Maybe someday... just not today.

Actually, NFE does have a config file or something that decays the blutonium... It's silly that RTG unit could fail, because it has no moving parts and nothing particularly sensitive. It's just a lump of radioactive ceramic that releases heat that flows over simple modules which generate electrical tension.

I'll look into this because I want that decay, again.

[lajoswinkler]

The still unnamed lander (I'm waiting, @tygoo7 ) has been launched and has been docked to the ship.

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

 

There is still a spend first stage floating next to Kron 6 and it will remain there for some time.

Spoiler

 

Spoiler

 

The centrifuge module has been tested and shut down for the time being.

Spoiler

 

[Cydonian Monk]

2 hours ago, lajoswinkler said:

Actually, NFE does have a config file or something that decays the blutonium...

That might explain something weird I saw this weekend.... Hmm.

2 hours ago, lajoswinkler said:

It's silly that RTG unit could fail, because it has no moving parts and nothing particularly sensitive.

In terms of RTG part failures, I'd think it possible peripheral parts could fail - particularly electrical terminals (breaking due to thermal stress or oxidizing(?)/reacting to other metals poorly) or sustaining micrometeorite damage, etc. So I wouldn't think of it so much as the RTG failing as I would the RTG's connection to the ship failing. 

[lajoswinkler]

4 hours ago, Cydonian Monk said:

That might explain something weird I saw this weekend.... Hmm.

In terms of RTG part failures, I'd think it possible peripheral parts could fail - particularly electrical terminals (breaking due to thermal stress or oxidizing(?)/reacting to other metals poorly) or sustaining micrometeorite damage, etc. So I wouldn't think of it so much as the RTG failing as I would the RTG's connection to the ship failing. 

Oxidation is out of the question in vacuum. The only thing that comes to my mind is stuff like tin whiskers, but it's something you avoid by just not using tin solder.

 

On the subject of Kaos 3, its has entered Plock's sphere of influence. Here's the first image of the system.

It's not much, but that lower left thingy is Karen.

 

This is the flyby plan of the probe. I've spent around 4 m/s to arrange this.

 

If you think 4 km is too low, let me know ASAP. There is still plenty of fuel left for an adjustment.

[TheSaint]

I think we need video of this. 

[tygoo7]

I shall name it the "Knugen" lander after the almighty king of Sweden.

[lajoswinkler]

8 hours ago, TheSaint said:

I think we need video of this. 

I will try to make a GIF out of it. I hope I will. LOL

 

8 hours ago, tygoo7 said:

I shall name it the "Knugen" lander after the almighty king of Sweden.

Excellent choice. Knugen it is.

[lajoswinkler]

mildly bad news - one of Kaos 3 probe's RTG units has further broken down and now works at 25% capacity, and the other one is at 50%. It's not a big issue, but it illustrates the kind of problems which occur in less than five years in deep space with Kerbalism. Probe core is still functioning fine. Sadly, Hullcam cameras are not operational because the mod hasn't been updated so if anyone knows a decent replacement, let me know.

[Cydonian Monk]

 

Quote

Sadly, Hullcam cameras are not operational because the mod hasn't been updated so if anyone knows a decent replacement, let me know.

I've been using the following patch. Might be some small issues, but none that break the cameras that I've encountered. It definitely fixes the "Hey, where'd my camera focus go?" bug that was present in the 1.1-pre-release version of Hullcam.

 

Edited July 12, 2016 by Cydonian Monk