Modded 64k Career game UPDATE Year2 Day36 (09/05/2017)

[Shania_L]

Day 381-382, Kerbin Low Orbit

Spoiler

 

Billy-Bobdo, Jedke and Orgun have been spending the majority of the high orbit portion of their orbit arguing complaining ignoring working diligently with KSC mission control about the upcoming atmospheric breaking phase of the mission. Previous attempts at using the atmosphere have been limited to single direct entry missions such as the first Manned Mun return capsule and Verity robotic probes, attempts to break to orbit have been made with Medea, later Mun returns and Medusa ... we do not speak of Medusa. (The crew has been re-assigned to other tasks, hence the Lilith project)

Lilith II is currently on a 137,700 x 64 km orbit (15 Day period) with 9 days of Life support aboard for the 3 Kerbals, to circularise to a 500km orbit for easy intercepts with Pandora would take 2,250Dv, Lilith has 351.

The majority of Liliths structure is built from heat resistant (aircraft) parts. Unfortunately some rather important parts are not, namely the nose mounted docking port and the procedural fuel tanks which the engines are mounted to. Not to mention the single antenna which cannot be retracted as Lilith is a robotic craft, even if any of the 3 Kerbals aboard was a pilot (they are not) the crew cabin has no controls for them to operate, losing the antenna or probe core would render the craft inoperable. Then ofcourse Lilith is not an aircraft so possesses no aerodynamic flight controls, and will be entirely relying upon reaction wheels to maintain attitude.. on limited battery life ... on the dark side of Kerbin .... it never rains but it pours huh?

The safest method for this breaking manoeuvre would be to make many shallow passes reducing velocity gradually each time, our Kerbals however insist they have a rather pressing need to eat and enter the atmosphere with Liliths nose raised to 60 degrees belly on towards a 64Km Pe (64k scale Kerbin has a 91Km atmosphere)

A few interesting numbers, 8,460m/sec orbital, is equivalent to Mach 26 or 17,600mph.

The steep 60 degree angle of nose up can only be maintained by reaction wheels designed for vacuum operation for a while before aerodynamic forces reduce it to 20 degrees.

Despite the danger almost 3G has been achieved and despite some extreme temperatures, the docking port reached 1189/1300, nothing exploded! Lilith has managed to lose the best part of 720m/sec and drastically lowered its Ap, 62x13,160km (~5H period)

**SPOILER**

Some simulations had been run by KSC prior to attempting this and most didn't end so well, strange non-symmetrical heating effects irregardless of craft orientation had the port engine pod heating more than starboard.

Image actually from 2nd pass hence lower Ap, but heating effects and temperatures still high.

Orgun inspects the damage after a simulated pass, methinks this might cause a little thrust imbalance.

No reverts were made because of human error, all "simulations" were decided beforehand, and reverted even if a good outcome was achieved.

**/SPOILER**

Deciding that having survived a first pass through the atmosphere making a second must be easier, Liliths Pe is not raised instead it is left at the 62km it had dropped to during the first breaking.

Orgun goes EVA to inspect the unshielded engine mounts following their first baptism of fire, they have yet more to endure and their survival is critical.

Recalculating the fuel requirements following the first pass, Lilith is still required to lose 1,514m/sec to drop its Ap to 500km. The second atmospheric dive achieves 800m/sec.

55x3,410km, (2H period), the battered crew prepare themselves for a third dive into the atmosphere to lose the last remaining 690m/sec. This time however they raise the Pe out slightly to 68km.

With this pass being considerably slower Lilith is able to perform some err un-usual attitude changes to control its breaking. On previous passes Liliths nose is held high to promote lift and to keep the craft away from the denser air lower down, this is true on the third pass right up until Pe is passed.

By completely inverting the craft Lilith can maintain its protected face into the airflow yet also proceed nose down to prolong exposure to thicker air, it also raises the Pe behind us reducing the fuel requirements of raising it later. Lilith exits the atmosphere with a final orbit of 602x76km.

150Dv is burnt at Ap to raise Pe to 501Km. 199m/sec remain. 602x501km orbit, Lilith is capable of intercepting Pandora alone, however it would take a lot of orbits with such a small Period difference. The Lifesupport would probably run out first.

 

Day 382-383, Kerbin Low Orbit

Ascender V refills its fuel stocks from Pandora before undocking, crewless, on its rescue/recovery mission. ~1,050m/sec Dv

Lilith meanwhile increases its Ap to 755km to reduce the number of orbits required to intercept Pandora, 50Dv cuts it down to ~3Days. It still has 5D lifesupport so the crew are not yet worried.

Ascender V burns 190Dv to intercept Lilith in only 4 orbits (~3.5Hours)

Day 384, LKO

Spoiler

 

Ascender V intercepts Lilith II, once docked the combined craft now has 415m/sec Dv, plenty to match and dock with Pandora.

The crew has the opportunity to take Ascender straight back to Kerbin now, however Liliths Dv capacity is very tight for an assured Pandora intercept, plus it has no RCS fuel (Ascender is pure Arozene/NTO for main+RCS, Lilith uses UDMH/NTO for RCS and KeroLox for main engines). As it will add less than 2 days to their mission time the crew stay on and use Ascenders excess Dv capacity to ensure Lilith gets to Pandora safely.

 

Day 386, LKO

Spoiler

 

Ascender / Lilith arrive at Pandora.

Shortly after arriving Orgun, Jedke and Billy Bobdo transfer to Ascender with their 12 science reports from Moros and depart for their re-entry window.

Over shooting KSC by quite some distance the crew lands just off the coast of an archipelago, "forgetting" to activate their locator beacon the 3 manage to enjoy a few days peace lounging on the tropical beaches before the search parties discover them.

225 Science recovered (337 converted to Funds).
7,100 Funds recovered from capsule, + 3,104 Funds from converted Science.
No crew XP gains.

Lilith fully operational, Pandora has sufficient stocks to completely re-fuel.

 

 

Edited June 22, 2016 by Shania_L

[Shania_L]

Day 388, KSC

Spoiler

 

Sat upon the launchpad is the first of 3 reasons why the space program is currently one launch failure away from bankruptcy.

The Centus division has gone all out, a commercial contract offering massive payout has been accepted. To complete it will require a monster of a mission to achieve, actually the contract specifies 2 monsters with identical capabilities. To make the system actually viable and worth doing will require a third as well. Thus the Centus VII Keostationary relay satellite was born. Christened -Kh, -Ki and -Kj they will be launched consecutively over the next few days.

With a final payload mass of around 12,500kg (mainly due to requiring 6x long range dishes massing 1,000kg each) needing to be boosted to an accurate Keostationary orbit of 15,144km, the only viable option is the HoundDog IV as a launcher and to use its upper stage as the KSO transfer stage.

With an actual payload to LKO rating of 30,000kg HDIV is not exactly responsive in low atmosphere with only 12,500kg inside the fairing. Getting the nose down and keeping it down prove difficult resulting in a higher than intended parking orbit of 201x203km.

The core stage is able to perform the vast portion of the acceleration to orbit, with the orbital stage retaining a little over 1,400Dv once parked in a secure 200km orbit. 28,034kg including part fuelled orbital stage.

The burn from 200km to 15,144km will take 1,700m/sec, this will drain the transfer stage entirely and leave the circularisation burn to Centus' onboard supply. The transfer stage successfully fires its retros at its 8,800km Ap and drops its Pe back into the atmosphere for destructive re-entry. A condition of the contract is that one of the Centus relays is directly overhead the KSC, it is decided that the first relay may as well be that one and its ascent burn is timed to coincide with this.

 

Day 389, High Kerbin Orbit

Spoiler

 

Arriving in position, Centus VII performs its 1,125m/sec circularising burn using 4x 21KN UDMH/NTO motors. (~3minutes)

A minor manufacturing issue results in one of the radial UDMH/NTO fuel tanks being launched empty (game doesnt like re-positioning radial parts once they have RealFuels contents loaded, you either get infinite volume or nothing) Even without this issue though Centus is effectively stranded once it has reached its final position, 253m/s Dv remaining in the tanks isn't enough for much at all.

Centus VII-Kh sits directly over the KSC in a 15,145 x 15,136 km orbit which results in an orbital period of 12 hours +/- 0.1 seconds.

Mission cost, 315,421 - 2x 18,600 Funds recovered from side boosters.

 

Day 390, KSC

Spoiler

 

Following a 10 hour renovation of the launchpad, apparently a 350+ tonne rocket makes quite a mess when you launch it, the second Centus VII is ready for liftoff.

Following a similar ascent profile to -Kh, the -Ki is kept under closer supervision during the gravity turn and manages to attain a lower parking orbit 160x162km. 29,334kg to LKO, with a little over 1,550Dv still in the orbital stage.

1,715m/sec burn to 15,144km leaves the orbital stage to coast up to 11,000km for its retro burn. Usually burns on the dark side of Kerbin are bad for photography, however the mass of funky lights affixed to the Centus VII makes for pretty pictures even without natural light sources!

Arriving at its operating altitude Centus can circularise on its internal fuel supply (all 4 tanks were filled this time) however 400m/sec is still far from enough for any further manoeuvring.

With all of its antenna extended and dishes deployed Centus VII-Kh and -Ki connect to each other and begin the 7 day testing process required by the contract.

Centus VII consists of two separate 'ends' both wrapped in fixed position solar panels, joined by a simple skeletal structure which simply provides room for the mounting of the large dishes. The upper portion contains reaction control wheels, batteries and the probe core, the lower is mostly a large hypergolic fuel tank, and some more batteries.

From the top we have;
3x AIES Comntech Omega-2g deployable Dish, 384Gm max range, targeted at Eve, Moho and Duna.
3x AIES Comntech CL-1 deployable wide angle Dish, 57.6Mm max range, targeted at Kerbin and the other two Centus VIIs
3x AIES Comntech EXP-VR-2T deployable omni Antenna, 19.2Mm non targeting area of effect connections.
6x AIES Comntech-1, long range fixed Dish, 6.72Tm, targeted at Dres, Jool, Eeloo (not sure why the contract specifies this moon of Sarnus rather than the planet itself) and then the additional targets not specified by the contract are Urlum, Neidon and Plock.
4x Comns DTS-M1, deployable short range Dish, 320Mm, targeting Mun and Minmus, one reserved for active craft and one remaining deactivated.

Once the contract is complete, these may be re-targeted to more useful planets, or specific craft, but for the next 7 days this network will be calibrated.

Centus VII-Kj will be launched in a day or two once the launchpad has been cleaned up again, although not strictly required for the contract it will be required to provide unbroken contact with any interplanetary target.

Mission cost, 315,653 (extra 1,200 for putting fuel in the 4th radial tank) - 2x 18,600 Funds recovered from side boosters.

Once this network is established some of the earlier Centus II, III and V relays could be retired, or moved into direct mission support roles.

 

 

Edited July 11, 2016 by Shania_L

[Gauga159]

On 6/23/2016 at 0:48 AM, Shania_L said:

requiring 6x long range dishes massing 1,000kg each

What? Six Tons for Comms? Blastphemy!

[Shania_L]

On 10/07/2016 at 1:39 PM, Gauga159 said:

What? Six Tons for Comms? Blastphemy!

Yup, the big dishes are 1,000kg each then you can add onto that the mass of the other dishes so its more than 6 tonnes total for comns.

Day 392, KSC

Spoiler

 

The final Centus VII relay is to be lifted today, 'Kj' will complete the circle and provide 100% round the clock cover (outbound anyway) to every major body in the Kerbol system.

The lift profile was pretty similar to the previous two so I'll not go into great detail. Initial parking orbit of 160x171km slightly more efficient than the previous launch so retains 1,650Dv in the HDIV upper stage (29,921kg total) Only 70m/sec required from Centus' own tanks to complete the Ap raising to 15,144km. Upper stage successfully de-orbits on its retros.

507m/sec remain aboard Centus after circularising, 13,117kg. Engines shut down and dishes targeted, awaiting the completion of sufficient calibration before contract payout.

View of all dish links in orange, Mun and Minmus in opposition both with full networks, Moros just to the left of Kerbol The single connection going off on its own is to one of the two Duna probes, none of the 3 interplanetary probes are far enough away yet that their communication cones permanently cover receivers around Kerbin.

Mission cost 315,653 Funds - 2x18,600 recovered from boosters

Total project installation cost for 3 relays = 835,127 Funds

Also on day 392,
Contract complete, Long term Magnometric/RPWS survey of Mun. Verity VI-Mu completed 180 Days surveying the magnetic field around Mun from its highly inclined and elliptical orbit. 100,000 Funds

Partial contract completion, Keo-Stationary alignment above KSC for the first Centus VII relay, 4 days positional calibration complete. 525,121 Funds, 9 Science, 112 Reputation

These two payments couldn't have come at a better time, KSC bank account had hit 20,000 Funds

 

Day 394, KSC

Spoiler

 

Fairly standard launch of a HoundDog Ic carrying a Hector III lifesupport resupply vessel to Pandora.

With a minor attitude issue on ascent the parking orbit attained is a slightly wonky 150x225km. Hector is released to burn the 113Dv required to intercept Pandora leaving HDIc with 1,300 to return to Kerbin.

Hector successfully docks, resupplying both Pandora and Lilith II with 80Days of supplies, its job done it immediately leaves and retro burns for a destructive re-entry.

The HoundDog Ic booster burns all of its fuel to begin its own entry, its large volume and low mass allow it to survive very steep entries.

After realising that trial and error was leading to a fairly close landing this time controllers try to guide the final stages of the descent by keeping the nose high and trying to eek out enough range before the drogue chutes opened.

Despite losing two of the tail fins to aerodynamic forces, we managed about as close a landing as you would want, nervous Kerbals on lunch break keep one eye on the fallout shelter in case the main chute fails to open.

It did.

I wasn't worried, were you worried? no .. I knew it would be just fine!!

With touchdown actually on KSC property it managed to override whatever glitch has been causing every recovery to be 6,300km and 54%. This one recovered at 98%.

Total mission cost, 48,440 - 2x944 (boosters) - 29,476 (core stage) = 17,076 Funds.

 

Day 397, KSC

Spoiler

 

With money back in the bank again Mortimer (Finance) has green lit the launch of another Lunic III variant. a+b was a twin lander mission to Minmus, c was an over sized single lander also for Minmus, this flight will be a dual experimental propulsion lander package d+e to Mun.

A fairly unusual sight these days the HoundDog II has mostly been superseded by larger lifters, but for Lunic IIId/e its capacity is perfect.

Lifting up to the standard parking orbit 149x151km, boosters dropped for recovery, fairings decoupled and core stage burned out the upper stage completes to orbit. Due to the nature of the propulsion on these landers they require oversized solar panels, this caused a problem during fairing separation when one of the two panels on the upper lander was destroyed by a collision with the fairing.

The HDII upper stage retains 2,348Dv, 2,271 m/sec are required for Mun intercept so the stage is used for the entire burn and is left on a collision course with Mun, Lunic III adjusts its trajectory to encounter Mun with a 30Km Pe.

Lunic III is the first craft to carry the new Gravimetric scanner, so the Mun escape burn is delayed by one complete orbit of Kerbin to allow it to record data from all equatorial biomes which is transmitted home.

Also on Day 397, contract complete, 7 days of Calibration and Alignment checking completed for the Centus VII 'everything relays'
945,414 Funds, 30 Science, 150 Reputation.

This payout actually results in the project turning a profit of some 110,287 Funds ... very unusual for an infrastructure project!

 

Day 398, Mun Transfer Orbit

Lunic III transfer stage makes a minor course adjustment of some 88m/sec to arrive at Mun over its North pole for a polar rather than equatorial capture orbit. Every Mun lander to date has landed within 10 degrees of the equator, its time we went a bit further afield. Transfer stage retains some 2,250Dv after this burn.

Day 400, Mun

Spoiler

 

HDII upper stage from Lunic III arrives at Mun before its payload, using all of its remaining fuel and its de-orbiting retros it increases its velocity to abuse the velocity squared component and maximise impact energy.

Striking the ground in the NorthWest Crater at 2,589 m/sec the 665kg empty stage releases 2.23 GJ of energy. Although not the largest impact so far (so no new Bang-o-Meter science) the Flash-o-Meter aboard Verity VII-Mu certainly saw it resulting in 62.5 Science.

Contract complete, Science from Mun orbit. 89,093 funds, 1 Science, 269 Reputation.

Following shortly behind is the Lunic III d/e probe itself, however fortunately it does not plow straight into the Mun it skips over the North pole where a 700m/sec burn circularises it into a 30km orbit at 88degrees inclination

Once Lunic emerges into the sunlight again on the Kerbin side of Mun the first lander (Lunic IIId) is released giving us the first proper look at the lander in its entirety.

A very basic lander carrying only 3 main instruments, Gravimetric sensor, Seismic sensor and a Temperature probe, the probe core can also take readings itself, all of which are fully transmittable for 100%. The main purpose of this lander though is an engine test it carries a Bi-Modal arcjet engine, one of these was previously tested on a sub-orbital flight many days ago, back then though we couldn't store any of the Xenon gas it uses as propellent.

This motor has a number of benefits, both motor and fuel are lightweight, there is no cryogenic fuel boiloff, a high ISP of 2400 and the motor is quite small. The tradeoff for these benefits is a low thrust of 3KN and a high electrical demand of 8EC per second at full thrust. This is where the loss of one of the two solar panels may become an issue, its one remaining panel is only rated to 4.5 EC per second even when its pointed directly at the sun, and with limited battery capacity (~350) it will not be possible to run the engine at full thrust for very long.

Lunic IIId lander has 3,107 Dv aboard on its own, approx 1,500 will be needed for the initial landing so multiple biome hops should be doable.

Putting down in the Polar crater Lunic IIId runs all its experiments and sends 197.8 Science back to KSC.

Retaining 1,335Dv in its tanks more fuel was needed for an non-efficient landing profile to compensate for only being able to run the engine at 48% thrust (less than 1.5KN) this necessitated the nose to be kept above retrograde to prevent significant vertical speed being built up which I wouldn't have been able to get rid of at lower altitudes.

Contract complete, Science from Mun Surface. 136,280 Funds, 1 Science, 381 Reputation.

Transfer stage and Lunic IIIe remain in polar orbit, collecting gravimetric readings from all the biomes.

Mission cost 107,782 - 2x 820 recovered from boosters.

 

 

Edited July 21, 2016 by Shania_L

[Shania_L]

So I finally got around to lobotomising my PC, new brain time!

However that meant this weekend was primerially spent putting everything back where it belonged. I made sure my KSP save was safe before formatting (3 seperate backups!!) and I have been able to run it on the new hardware, better single core power should speedup some of the low orbit and high part count lag ... and shadows!!!!

But for now ... 172 compulsary updates .. 3/4 Gb

[Shania_L]

There are still a few issues, (arn't there always?) but on the whole the revamp has been completed. Alas no shadows yet, seems OpenGl is still the better performing option .. But in the good news section I am getting significantly better frame rates (almost 1:1 time on launches even of HDIV as opposed to the 5:1 I had been getting) I am having to get used to rockets which respond soo much faster to my inputs and having significantly less time to react to "friskyness" I even see the MET clock in green now!!

 

Day 401, Low Mun Orbit

Spoiler

 

Lunic III orbiter, still with the '-e' lander attached performs a ~500Dv burn over the Muns North pole to rotate its orbital plane so as to retain line-of-sight to Kerbol for its entire orbit (it also skips a chunk of boring terrain with no new biomes to scan) The gravimetric scanner is paying its fare by returning 55 Science for each low orbit biome and 44 for each biome in high orbit. ~1,800m/sec remain aboard the transfer stage.

This bonanza of science allows the R&D boys to unlock our first 1,000 point tech node, "Specialised Electrics" or it will unlock in 16D.
KCT upgrade point spent accelerating build rate of VAB queue #3 to 1.5, all 3 queues now run at same rate.

 

Day 402, KSC

Spoiler

 

Today sees the launch of a HoundDog IV carrying a new vessel bearing an old name, Medea II. There had been a Medea II built shortly after the first crewed landings on Mun, however in light of increased launcher capabilities it was deemed irrelivent. Today we bring the name back on an entirely new design!

Medea II is designed as fully re-usable (yup we have heard that before!) tug for cargo deliveries between LKO and Mun/Minmus. Design document states capacity to haul 20,000kg from LKO to Mun and retain sufficient Dv to return unladen to LKO on a single fuelling.

Slightly wonky ascent profile results in 111x135km 'parking' orbit with little more than vapour remaining in HDIV upper stage. Setting new total mass to orbit record of 32,225kg, the Medea II tug is pre-docked to a half-fuelled 'dumb' KeroLox tanker.

Final act of the HDIV upper stage is to burn the 133m/sec burn to intercept with Pandora before it is de-coupled and allowed to retroburn for a destructive reentry. Leaving Medea to check its own velocity and dock (~170Dv).

Abandoning conventional propulsion systems which would require massive tankage volumes, the KSC has turned to the efficient and reliable LV-Nc Atomic Rocket motors, eight of them to be accurate, burning pure liquified methane they manage a respectable 27.5KN each at an ISP of 622, for a total craft thrust output of 220.4KN. The ~9,000 litres of Methane is kept liquified by two large active chilling radiators. The dumb payload is attached by means of the newly developed senior (2.5m) docking ports, this allows Medea to deliver and return for additional and varied payloads.

Docking to Pandora, Medea requisitions the stations entire KeroLox supply (any not already syphoned by Lilith anyway) and still has room to spare, KSC predicted this and already has a Hector supply ship in production.

Mission cost, 267,630 Funds, 2x 18,600 recovered.

 

Day 402, Pandora

Spoiler

 

Rather unsurprisingly the 5 crew aboard Pandora are less than enthusiastic about the 8 nuclear reactors which have just docked to their fragile floating home in the sky.

Aling, Lemlie, Bartlorf and Dersey pile aboard Lilith and undock on the next orbit around Kerbin, Podley as the most experianced (and who claimed he was distracted when everyone else called shotgun) is left aboardPandora to supervise the resupply of Medea.

Lilith II, with full fuel tanks is a little over 15.5 tonnes and has 4,700Dv but with only 94KN thrust its 2,160m/sec Mun intercept burn takes a little over 6 minutes, encounter in 3Days.

 

Day 404, KSC

Spoiler

 

HoundDog III launch with Hector II fuel tanker bound for Pandora. 160km parking orbit, standard Pandora approach profile. The HDIII upper stage retains sufficient fuel to put Hector onto an intercept trajectory before it is commanded to self immolate in Kerbins atmosphere.

Hector II has had a minor mid-life update to keep up with new advancements, it has switched its 4x OX solar panels with a pair of lighter massing yet more efficient replacements, it has also gained a new probe core in addition to having its motors upgraded to lvl6 (RealFuels).

6.75tonnes arrives at Pandora less than 2hrs after liftoff comprising 4,500 liters LOx, 1,500 Kerosene, 500 Methane in addition to its own KeroLox fuel and UDMH/NTO RCS, the vast majority of which dissapears straight into Medeas own payload tanks.

Mission cost, 99,669 Funds 0 recovery.

 

Day 404, Pandora

Spoiler

 

With both its payload and its own tanks fully topped off Medea slowly backs away from Pandora.

8,930litres Methane, 6,400 Kerosene and 11,150 Liquified Oxygen cause Medea to mass in at 40,532kg and gains the dubious record of being the heaviest vessel in history (Pandora has reached ~88,000kg at times but is incapable of changing its own orbit so I dont consider it a vessel)

Despite its bulk, Medea is still capable of producing a TtW ratio of 0.71 and has 3,233Dv available to it.

After manuvering away on RCS and allowing enough time to drift so that powering up the NTRs do not irradiate Podly (too much) Medea lines itself up for its own 2,160m/sec Mun transfer burn.

Medea will arrive at Mun approx 2 days after Lilith.

 

 

Edited August 6, 2016 by Shania_L

[GarrisonChisholm]

You know, I have to say that if I could buy yours or Cat's episodes as a comic in the store with glossy pictures, I'd gladly pay $5 a pop.  I love the conversation getting inside the workings of the program, and the rationale for certain missions and decisions.  Bravo!

You know though, it would be cool to see your mutual level of detail invoked every now and then in a build, going through things in the VAB and evaluating pros-and-cons of different design decisions.  That kind of revealed, internal discussion would be cool.  ^.^

Or to have your "spies" evaluate a design of the other party... 

(apologies for being away so long and failing to support your creative efforts!)

Edited July 22, 2016 by GarrisonChisholm

[Shania_L]

On 23/07/2016 at 0:29 AM, GarrisonChisholm said:

Snipped

Thanks for the kind words, I'm sure I speak for Catastrophic as well when I say it does mean a lot to have people appreciate our work. As I said way way back in the first post, maintaining this thread was initially a way of keeping myself honest and not continually restarting games (or cheating), I fully expected it to sink into obscurity never again to see the light of day. Having all you guys, those who comment and those who just read, is keeping me at it ... 18 months later ...

As for a comic... I did try some characterisations a while back in a few posts, however it just didnt work very well I'm not really a fiction writer or an artist and my work certainly wouldnt be able to stand against Forgotten Space Program, 'The Kraken Trilogy' or Kuzzter/Parkaboys comics. I am an engineer so I write reports, facts and details with a complete lack of a human/kerbal edge.

A look into the build process is an interesting idea, it would only realisticly be my own designs though, getting any Ussari craft to load into my game would be a nightmare of mismatched game versions and modlists.
Be warned though, once you take a look behind the curtain you may never see things the same way again!!

In other news, shadows!! ..... and the occasional BSOD

[CatastrophicFailure]

I keep forgetting to come back to this post! 

On 7/25/2016 at 0:20 PM, Shania_L said:

I'm sure I speak for Catastrophic as well when I say it does mean a lot to have people appreciate our work

Quite. 

On 7/25/2016 at 0:20 PM, Shania_L said:

In other news, shadows!!

Incredible what a difference this makes in the whole feel of things, isn't it?

On 7/25/2016 at 0:20 PM, Shania_L said:

...with a complete lack of a human/kerbal edge.

I would say the rather incomplete lack of human/Kerbal edge is among what keeps folks coming back here.

On 7/25/2016 at 0:20 PM, Shania_L said:

A look into the build process is an interesting idea, it would only realisticly be my own designs though, getting any Ussari craft to load into my game would be a nightmare of mismatched game versions and modlists.
Be warned though, once you take a look behind the curtain you may never see things the same way again!!

I've been racking my brain over how to actually do this. Our games are so different, I don't think I could load your .craft's either. Could possibly work with swapping whole game folders, but that's iffy. Mine's nearly 20 gigs, and I got corrupted saves just copying it to a different hard drive. The saves themselves might be more resilient if copied separately, but it would certainly demand some sort of hardware exchange.

 

 

[Shania_L]

2 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

I've been racking my brain over how to actually do this. Our games are so different, I don't think I could load your .craft's either. Could possibly work with swapping whole game folders, but that's iffy. Mine's nearly 20 gigs, and I got corrupted saves just copying it to a different hard drive. The saves themselves might be more resilient if copied separately, but it would certainly demand some sort of hardware exchange.

If there was an easy way to bring 0.90 vessels / progress into a 1.1.3 KSP game then I would be very interested to hear it !!

I dont think even a fully stock craft could be ported from my game to yours and still be expected to operate correctly, what with all the base game changes, heat being the big one. Then you add to that the multitude of updates to mods, many of which have renamed, massively rebalenced or outright discontinued parts, then it becomes a task of going through the persistence file part by part and applying changes .... just nope.

Your KSP folder is 20Gb? wow, mine is a little under 6Gb, the persistence file itself is 9.6Mb.

[CatastrophicFailure]

9 hours ago, Shania_L said:

If there was an easy way to bring 0.90 vessels / progress into a 1.1.3 KSP game then I would be very interested to hear it !!

I dont think even a fully stock craft could be ported from my game to yours and still be expected to operate correctly, what with all the base game changes, heat being the big one. Then you add to that the multitude of updates to mods, many of which have renamed, massively rebalenced or outright discontinued parts, then it becomes a task of going through the persistence file part by part and applying changes .... just nope.

Your KSP folder is 20Gb? wow, mine is a little under 6Gb, the persistence file itself is 9.6Mb.

1.1.3? Oy, I wish! I'm still in 1.0.5 on USP. My game file is just shy of 19 gig, about 2.5 of which is screenshots, persistence is 17 mb, with the 64bit hack I'm running around 6 gigs at launch and single-digit framerates. I'm continually amazed it runs at all, it would probably make an unfamiliar computer reject it like a bad transplant.

[GarrisonChisholm]

On 7/30/2016 at 1:01 AM, CatastrophicFailure said:

I've been racking my brain over how to actually do this. Our games are so different, I don't think I could load your .craft's either. Could possibly work with swapping whole game folders, but that's iffy. Mine's nearly 20 gigs, and I got corrupted saves just copying it to a different hard drive. The saves themselves might be more resilient if copied separately, but it would certainly demand some sort of hardware exchange.

 

 

Actually, it may be functionally a non-starter, because even, say, Ussari analyzing surveillance photos of Shania's craft would be based on the presumption that the time-lines are similar, even if we permitted ourselves the fantasy that the two states could co-exist while never appearing in the other's story; no Appolo/Soyuz from the two programs could ever occur.

I think my thought was based upon the potential for fun and insight on the mere interaction of the voices and hardware of the two programs.  They cannot really coexist however, so the entertainment value of the two will likely need to be entirely separate...

[CatastrophicFailure]

Apollo/Soyuz hmmm... 

But seriously, she puts so much detail into all her reports and design explanations, I wonder what more could be gleaned from dissecting the rockets. I think maybe most of the interesting stuff is in here already, minus the reverts and cuss words that lead to it. 

Edited August 5, 2016 by CatastrophicFailure

[Shania_L]

On 05/08/2016 at 0:30 AM, GarrisonChisholm said:

Snip...

Timelines would be a problem if we were considering a direct comparison and/or integration of games, Catastrophic is something like 4 1/2 years into his save whilst i'm just coming up to the end of my 1st year, this is mainly due to settings in KCT drastically increasing his buildtimes, and my reluctance to use timewarp ...

I will look into getting a vessel build incorperated into my reports, the next few vessels are obviously already designed and in the production queue so without going back over my steps to 'fake' a design process it will have to be on launches after that.

On 05/08/2016 at 6:56 AM, CatastrophicFailure said:

Snip ...

Witnessing the design process could be advantagious to someone looking at moving into an upscaled universe, although this is somewhat mitigated by my outdated game version. Stock games you would tend to build a new lifter for each unique payload you want launched, I have done 112 launches on essentially 4 lifter designs. This is a reversal somewhat of the standard design process whereby I design the payload to fit the rocket, working with the payload capacity that existing lifters provide.

I deny all knowlege of any cuss words used, no matter how loud they were!

Speaking of cuss words, you will notice some of todays pictures contain shadows, and some dont...

Day 404, LKO

Spoiler

 

Imagry of Medea leaving LKO was unavailable for the last report, despite the darkness I think its quite a good looking shot, so yeah gratuitous picture for the sake of it.

 

Day 405, Mun

Spoiler

 

Lilith II enters Mun SOI, performing a minor burn immediately to match inclinations with Pandora Mun Station and then a more serious 610m/sec capture burn resulting in a 392x26km orbit giving an intercept in around 3/4 of an orbit.

In the meantime Engineer Aling keeps a watchful eye on the 3 scientists (Lemlie, Bartlorf and Dersey) as they stretch their legs, it might only be a small moon but can still be quite easy to get lost.

A nice gentle docking in the dark is assisted by the light incorperated into the forward docking port, Lilith retains some 1,845Dv, sufficient to escape Mun orbit (900m/sec) but could do with topping up to avoid having to aerobrake back at Kerbin (2000-2500m/sec)

Liliths forward fuel tank requires that all Kerbals go EVA to transfer into the spacious accomodation of Pandora Mun Station, 2x hitchhiker and a cupola allow the 4 kerbals to get some personal space. Aling uses the EVA to strip the travel gear off the stations exterior, RCS fuel + ports, antenna and mounting brackets are all mounted to Lilith for eventual disposal at high velocity into the Mun.

(The lights in the cupola still dont work even with a Kerbal inside, good job they brought candles)

 

Day 406, Mun

Lunic IIIe lander, still attached to its transfer stage has been diligently recording gravity scans of all the Muns biomes from its slightly inclined polar orbit, small burn performed to increase Ap to 210km to allow collection of high orbit scans.

Day 407, Mun

Spoiler

 

Medea II arrives in Mun SOI, capture burn at Pe of 552m/sec resulting in 23x717km orbit intercept with Pandora Mun Station in 3/4 orbit. 501Dv remain.

With both Lilith and Decender III already docked Medea is forced to use the only remaining standard docking port, the expansion port in the stations base.

Medeas payload was sized at 20,000kg, this is sufficient for 3 refuellings of Decender III, however some of the Kerolox mix was diverted to increase Liliths supply to 3,000Dv. We should still get 2 return trips and one one way landing, volenteers for flight 3 please?

 

Day 408, Pandora Mun

Spoiler

 

With its tanks fully topped off, Scientists Lemlie and Dersey are accompanied by Engineer Aling Kerman into the Decender III as it departs Pandora Mun, leaving Dersey alone and unattended at the controls of 44 tonnes of space station and 8 atomic rocket motors.

Decender III is powered by 3 AIES MODC Kerolox motors (the KSCs favourite small motor) packing 3,800Dv and ~63KN it carries 3 kerbals in separate cockpits (reducing the chances of triple fatalities in rollover scenarios by 33%) as well as 3x detachable KAS canisters on the roof. Decender III, apparently the designers really took the 'III' part to heart.

Landing on a very dull slope on the edge of the East Farside Crater Aling immediately sets about assembling the science equipment stored in the KAS canisters, whilst Dersey and Lemlie try to work out the flag. 2,282Dv remain.

(Designers note, the ladders did not incline inwards like that when I built it, they are KAS attachable so if it annoys me too much I'll get Aling to move them)

Contract complete, Flag on the Mun, 87,339 Funds, 545 Reputation.

Due to there being no KAS attachable control core the pipe is required for any control, this makes the solar panels and batteries redundant as it is then powered from Decender, but it looks cooler anyeway

After finding absolutely nothing of interest anywhere nearby the crew get bored and want to return to Pandora before it has even completed a single orbit. Convinced to wait at least until Pandora is nearby they reattach the (now empty) KAS canisters to the roof for disposal whilst Decender is sub-orbital.

Liftoff! (For some reason the launchpad ignition smoke clouds are triggered like has never happened on any Mun'ar ascent previously)

Returning to Pandora with 700Dv still in its tanks leaves hope that some, very short, surface relocations might be possible o future landings.

This system only requires fuel and whichever science equipment required to be delivered for an entire Mun landing mission, if the crew are lifted from Kerbin aboard a Lilith I it is also a reusable capsule for re-entry, all hardware is reusable.

All broadcastable science was transmitted from the surface, surface sample and goo results are transferred to Lilith for return to Kerbin. Decender is refuelled and ready to go again.

 

 

Edited August 23, 2016 by Shania_L

[CatastrophicFailure]

On 8/6/2016 at 11:58 AM, Shania_L said:

I have done 112 launches...

 

Did you keep track of that "by hand", as it were?

On 8/6/2016 at 11:58 AM, Shania_L said:

This is a reversal somewhat of the standard design process whereby I design the payload to fit the rocket, working with the payload capacity that existing lifters provide.

Upscaled universes certainly tend to favor this. Getting ANYTHING into orbit even for an experienced player is a challenge. I've used the same basic design for 90% of my own program, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" is definitely a common theme here. 

On 8/6/2016 at 11:58 AM, Shania_L said:

Dat Kerbinrise, doe! 

On 8/6/2016 at 11:58 AM, Shania_L said:

For some reason the launchpad ignition smoke clouds are triggered like has never happened on any Mun'ar ascent previously

You just landed in the really dirty part. 

[CSE]

On 06/08/2016 at 7:58 PM, Shania_L said:

Imagry of Medea leaving LKO was unavailable for the last report, despite the darkness I think its quite a good looking shot, so yeah gratuitous picture for the sake of it.

Fully justified,it's a nice shot. The light level's just right to be dark but not obscure.

[CSE]

8 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Upscaled universes certainly tend to favor this. Getting ANYTHING into orbit even for an experienced player is a challenge. I've used the same basic design for 90% of my own program, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" is definitely a common theme here.

It's the combination of upscale planets and Kerbal Construction Time. I didn't appreciate, until I started following the two of you's mission reports, just how far KCT would go towards making a space program coherent - my own 6.4x program was just a mess of unrelated oddball things. Plus none of my probes ever arrived at other planets, because I could never resist the lure of one more launch and so my game clock progressed really slowly. So, thank you both.

[Shania_L]

21 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Did you keep track of that "by hand", as it were?

I keep notes on my missions in an actual real physical notebook, with a pen and everything! I have a tally chart of launches by launcher (admittedly started about halfway through for one of the quarterly reviews, but I backtracked to day 1)

22 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

You just landed in the really dirty part. 

Remind me to send up a cleaning crew at some point!

13 hours ago, CSE said:

Plus none of my probes ever arrived at other planets, because I could never resist the lure of one more launch and so my game clock progressed really slowly.

Yeah ... I know all about that, the number of Eve and Duna probes that were deleted from existence by version updates or rendered obsolete long before they ever arrived.

[Shania_L]

As I spent most of last week doing things other than progressing my timeline .. (No Mans Sky) I shall instead make this episode mostly about what I have been doing in KSP recently, designing missions.

But first..

Day 408, Low Mun Orbit

Spoiler

 

With Decender III back at Pandora the crew are eager to go again and see if they can find something of interest on the Mun. Completely refilling its fuel stocks from Medeas payload Decender leaves Pandora with the same crew as before, Bartlorf has become quite at home in one of the hitchhiker cans and said he'd probably go down on the third mission.

Without its KAS containers Decenders total Dv budget increases to 4,050m/sec (the empty containers were jettisoned during the sub-orbital phase of its ascent).

Decender III sets down on co-ordinates supplied from the KSC archive, this particular spot in the Farside Crater became the focus for all of Kerbin back on Day 159 when Lunic Ia became the first mission to land on an alien world, 249 days later and it is still here. 2,310Dv remain, assuming 1,500-1,600 required for ascent and intercept with Pandora leaves 700 available for surface operations, enough for a short hop perhaps but not really a comfortable amount.

Lemlie is out first claiming rights as the highest ranking scientist to examine Lunic Ia and extract the stored data. 4x Sounding rocket experiments, Goo-can and Material bay data which had been stored since its landing are extracted and transfered to Decender III for return to Pandora and then Kerbin.

 

Day 409, Mun

Spoiler

 

As Kerbol sinks ever lower over the horizon the crew of Decender ensure they have collected everything they can from Lunic before switching its transponder to 'de-commissioned' and powering it down. By the time Pandora is in position for intercept Kerbol has fully sunk below the horizon and Decenders ascent takes place in twilight.

It would seem that this area of Mun is just as poorly maintained as the last landing site, I will have to have words with the janitor.
Or it could simply be that the launch smoke is responding to power levels of motors, all my previous ascents have utilised multiple 4KN hypergolic motors, Decender III has 3x 21KN KeroLox motors.

It is fully dark by the time Decender arrives at Pandora, but between the blackness of space and the dark greyness of Mun it is a fairly simple task to aim for the glowing ball of turquoise and green that is Pandora.

 

Day 409, VAB Technical Office, KSC

Spoiler

 

With all of the missions the KSC has performed over the last year of operations, there is actually one fairly standard mission which as of yet has not been performed. The robotic Mun sample return mission, rendered a little obsolete these days by virtue of multiple Kerballed landings, however we are in need of a sample of Karbonite. Karbonite has been extracted and studied in-situ previously but none has ever been returned to Kerbin and due to its highly explosive nature most Kerbals refuse to share a capsule with it.

Enter Lunic V, Mun sample return mission, in addition to extracting and returning a Karbonite sample, this mission will perform a full suite of surface analysis experiments within the Muns Highlands crater biome. The small size and relative sparcity of this biome will require an accurate and slightly off-equatorial landing.

The starting point for any journey is having a map, for space travel this map will plot the dV requirements of each phase. Ascent to orbit, transfer to target orbit, capture at target, etc

Lunic V dV map;

Ascent to Kerbin orbit, 8,000m/sec. This could technically be 7,500 but I fly manually so cannot gaurentee a perfect trajectory.
Transfer from LKO to Mun intercept, 2,250m/sec.
Capture at Mun (30km), 700m/sec.
De-orbit + Landing, orbital velocity at 30km is roughly 1,400m/sec so call it 1,600m/sec.
Ascent from Mun to LMO, 1,600m/sec. No atmosphere so ascent/decent practically identical.
Mun excape/Kerbin transfer, 900m/sec.
Kerbin capture/decent and landing, 8,500dV, or aerobrake and parachute, see air does have a use!

So this means our rocket needs to pack 15,050dV, plus a heatshield and parachute and thats before you actually add anything useful to the mission. This is why you keep the payload as small and efficient as possible, getting 250kg to 15KdV is a lot easier than 2,000kg (hint its not 8x harder, its worse!)

We have 4 launch vehicles available to perform this mission, giving us 4 possible target masses for our payload, 900kg, 5,000kg, 10,000kg and 30,000kg. A HDI at 900kg is hardly practical and using a HDIV at 30t is wasteful so we have a choice between 5t and 10t. If we can keep this mission under 5t it will be something of a miracle so chances are we will be aiming at a 10t HDIII lifter.

Designing the entire mission backwards each stage becomes the payload for the stage before it.

Our lifter incorporates 2.5 stages, a boosted core and upper stage, we intend our payload to then add a transfer stage with a 2 stage lander atop that and finally the return package itself giving us 5 stages in total.

So here is our Lunic V return 'vehicle', hopefully all of this (except the solar panels) will be recovered.

Simply a cylindrical procedural battery wrapped in science and topped off with a probecore and RCU. The best part of 50,000 Funds make this 253kg count for 1/3 the cost of the entire mission.

That isnt going anywhere on its own, so we need to add our Mun ascent/decent vehicle.

Although I called this a 2 stage lander, it isnt really, its more of a 1.5 stage lander. Rather than 6 identical radial tanks there are 2 sets of three, one with a larger diameter than the other.

Each radial tank has its own 2KN Aerozine/NTO LV-1 motor, the central core is a 'penguin' solid payload assist motor. The three larger diameter tanks carry the landing legs and are crossfed into the smaller diameter tanks and will be jettissoned once empty. The smaller diameter tanks carry additional science equipment (with fully broadcastable results) and are only discarded with the SPAM once it is burnt out. This stage performs not only the Mun de-orbit, landing and ascent but the Kerbin return transfer as well. 4,100dV according to our map, we have designed this stage to have 5,400m/sec giving us the ability to reject an initial landing site and/or try to hit the right biome. 3,055kg, 75 parts and ~64,000 Funds so far.

Now we need a stage to get us from a 150km Low Kerbin orbit to the 30Km Mun orbit, enter the transfer stage.

Nothing fancy here at all, only 4 parts but it has added 220% to our mass.

A Coxwain 124KN motor will convert 6,000Litres of KeroLox fuel into 3,457m/sec. This will cover us not only for the 2,250m/sec Kerbin escape but for the 700m/sec Mun capture as well. Any additional fuel will be used to initiate the de-orbit burn and hopefully get this stage on a sub-orbital trajectory.

Simply getting our 253kg probe from LKO to the Mun surface and back is taking a 9,642kg craft, but wait! we havent got to LKO yet!

At a smidge under 10t we are in the perfect mass category for a HoundDog III lifter.

Mission package complete, 145,629kg, 134 parts and 151,372 Funds to get 253kg of science equipment and a Karbonite sample, this Karbonite stuff had better be damn useful!

Final vaccum rated dV of 17,287m/sec (will never get this much due to atmosphere losses)

This design overview has mainly concerned itself with mass and dV requirements, however there is also comminications, power generation/storage and cryogenic concerns which have been delt with.

HoundDog III (actually the entire HoundDog range) covers any communications and power requirements right up to payload separation through incorperated batteries, motor alternators and an antenna located in the cavity in the fairing base. The cryogenic oxygen in the core stage and Hydrogen/Oxygen in the upper stage is kept in insulated tanks, hydrogen boilooff is accounted for by manually loading excess hydrogen than required. (barely 10l)
Just prior to payload separation Lunics own antenna and solar panels are deployed, these are on the return payload and thus the same set is used for every stage, lacking the range to communicate from Mun to Kerbin Lunics short range antenna relies on the pre-existing Mun/Kerbin Networks of relay satellites.

Stats for nerds (Pure vaccum values)

(With atmospheric thrust reduction taken into account, the liftof TtW is a fairly lively (for me) 1.487:1)

So yeah, there is far more detail than you ever wanted to know about a mission which hasnt even been flown yet!

Other missions in development include 2 craft for the new Loki division, Helmdar V, and additions to both Pandora stations.

 

 

Edited August 31, 2016 by Shania_L

[GarrisonChisholm]

@Shania_L *TOTALLY* loved this one.  I swear, I must be a total engineer wannabee at heart.  Thanks for doing this!  Very enjoyable, and a very cool insight into your process!

 

gc the Condemned (swamped by work such that good hobby pursuit time at work has been lost- how unreasonable!)

[CatastrophicFailure]

Great write-up on your build process. Why go with a solid motor, tho, where weight is such a concern?

[Shania_L]

12 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Great write-up on your build process. Why go with a solid motor, tho, where weight is such a concern?

Well ...... err the initial design concept was to use the solid motor for a "point at Kerbin and light it" style return direct from the Mun'ar surface, however I was unable to get the required dV no matter how small I made the return capsule. I ended up building a much enlarged set of radial tanks around it which allowed me a larger return capsule as well, and in the process it turns out that the LV-1s will actually have sufficient dV to complete the mission without use of the SPAM at all. So in truth its kinda there mostly as a structural element which everything else attaches to. Total mission mass became less of an issue once I resigned myself to the fact it would never fit within the 5,000kg HDII category, the 10,000kg capacity of a HDIII was a much easier target to stay within.

I will use it probably during Mun'r ascent or Mun'r escape depending just where the radial drop tanks get jettissoned, once those go I am down to 6KN thrust and a 900dV escape burn could take a very long time, If however I end up with loads of fuel and I'm part way through the escape burn before the radials run dry then I'll save the SPAM for killing orbital velocity prior to Kerbin re-entry. With it being centrally mounted I am not tied to firing it at any particular point in the mission, or lighting it at all for that matter, just need to warn the Cermians if I decide to let it re-enter still fully fuelled ... or maybe not.

So yeah, its an anacharism from an early design, which survives purely due to the number of items attached to it which make it more trouble than its worth to remove, plus I should get some crazy numbers on the G meter when I light it up

[CatastrophicFailure]

Ah so. You have truly embraced the zen of MOAR BOOSTERZ!. 

"I don't really need this booster but it'd be MOAR of a pain to remove it so I'll bring it along just in case."

[Shania_L]

Back to a regular style report for this 'week' however the Technical Department will be making a comeback in later episodes, currently however the new Loki division craft are certainly living up to their name ....

Day 410, KSC

Spoiler

 

With a crew now inhabiting Pandora Mun station it is about time we got them working for their keep. In addition to providing orbital laboratory facilities the imaginitivly named "Pandora Mun Lab extension" craft will house tanks for UDMH/NTO and a large battery for making sure all those things scientists like can still go 'beep' right through the night.

As we will be using the upper stage of HoundDog IV as the transfer stage to Mun, our payload mass is far below the 30t standard. This causes difficulties during ascent in getting the rocket to lie down early enough, resulting in a parking orbit of 164km rather than the 150km standard.

With 3,444m/sec remaining in the upper stage we have plenty of dV for not only the 2,270m/sec Mun transfer but the expected ~700m/sec capture burn as well.

2D 4Hr transfer to Mun.

Mission cost 234,745 - 2x 17,981. Slightly reduced recovery due to deletion of aerodynamic fins from boosters. (Turns out you dont really need them)

 

Day 412, Mun Orbit

Crossing into Mun SOI Pandora Mun Lab makes a minor 75m/sec inclination change to reduce the 21 degrees it had gained during Kerbin ascent. This burn doesnt remove the inclination entirely it just lines up the Pe to be in a position where we can match with Pandora easier.

2 Hrs later .... at Pe a 551m/sec burn captures to an elliptical orbit and eliminates the remaining inclination. The 1,092x30km orbit will result in an intercept with Pandora Mun in exactly 1 orbit. With 473m/sec remaining in the tank, HydroLox boiloff has hardly had an effect at all, it is an insulated tank but it has been in orbit now for 3 days and has lost no more than single figure litres of fuel.

Day 413, Mun Orbit

Spoiler

 

Pandora Mun Lab intercepts Pandora Mun Station, with 275m/sec remaining in the HDIV upper/transfer stage it is decided to temporarily dock the entire stack to Liliths tail port, this will allow scavaging of excess LOx and the 250 litres of Methane packed into the transfer stage which has no docking ability of its own.

Of course in this configuration the station is far from stable, the reaction wheels in the central core are fighting those in the newly arrived stack and flexing the structure.

With the fuel transferred over Aling takes the oppertunity for a little housekeeping, the travel kit which had been stripped off of the station core and attached to Lilith for disposal could be more easially disposed of on the HDIV transfer stage.

The transfer stage is decoupled from the laboratory and fires its retros to put itself onto a sub-orbital trajectory.

1,742kg transfer stage impacting the Muns East Farside Crater at 1,470m/sec produces 1.89GJ energy and a completed contract for an impact greater than 288MJ. 213,499 Funds, 12 Science, 6 Reputation.

As a final part of housekeeping, Medea undocks taking the now empty fuel tank with it, burning until sub-orbital it releases the tank and then burns again to re-catch Pandora. Medea docks to the recently vacated senior port on the Laboratory, Lab and Medea then relocate together to the lower port on the station core where Aling secures the Lab in position with KAS struts.

The addition of this module grants the station a pair of senior docking ports, a nessesity for operating Medea II, the lab itself can house 4 additional Kerbals (main station can now house 13) and comes with 90 units of Lifeupport.

Meanwhile, the empty fuel tank de-orbited by Medea impacts into the Farside crater, lighter and slower than the HDIV transfer stage its 678MJ isnt going to earn anything from Lunic IIb's Bang-o-meter, however Verity VII's Flash-o-meter did observe the explosion and transmitted 62.5 Science back to KSC.

 

Day 413 (still), High Mun Orbit

Spoiler

 

Lunic IIIe has spent the last 13 Days in a polar orbit cataloging gravity scans from each one of Muns biomes in both high and low orbit, with 55 science from each low orbit and 44 for a high orbit reading over 15 biomes Lunic has transmitted home some 1,485 Science. With all the readings taken its now time for the second of the twin landers to set down, the transfer stage still has a decent amount of fuel remaining (1,533m/sec) so it performs 90% of the decelleration and aiming to put the lander down on the Northern edge of the Northwest Crater.

Running dry during the final stages of decent the transfer stage is dropped and the probe fires up its own Arcjet motor, unlike its sister 'd' probe the 'e' has retained both of its solar panels allowing full thrust to be used continiously providing Kerbol is visible.

With only the final stages of landing remaining Lunic IIIe manages to put down on the surface with 2,764m/sec remaining, as it turns out the full 3KN thrust is significantly over powered for such a lightweight probe and a 1:1 TtW ratio hover is possible on only ~20% thrust making delicate landings a touch skittery. Never-the-less in addition the the North West Crater, landings were made in Midlands Craters and Northern Basin biomes. the remaining 323m/sec are insufficient to reach any other geological areas.

Gravity , Seismic and Temperature scans were performed at each location and along with probe reports, all beamed back to KSC.

The first lander, Lunic IIId still retains sufficient fuel for another biome hop (probably, its in the middle of Polar Crater and a long way from anywhere else) however it is currently enduring the Mun'r night and with such a small battery and power hungry engine flying in the dark is pretty much impossible.

 

 

Edited September 6, 2016 by Shania_L

[Shania_L]

Day 414, KSC

With positive reports concerning the habitation module coming in from the 4 crew stationed at Pandora Mun Station, Podley all alone aboard Pandora in LKO has managed to convince the KSC that he the Kerbin Station, should have at least equivilent levels of luxuary scientific equipment and etc !

Enter the Pandora Habitation Expansion, launched atop a HDIII its design is strikingly similar to that of the core module of Pandora Mun (don't tell Podley but this was the working prototype we have re-purposed)

We managed to squeeze a senior docking port onto one side by offsetting the two standard ports around the other side, we also stripped off the wrap-around solar panels to give better visibility out of the windows, because you can always eat your beanz cold, but you can't ever see through metal.

With all motors upgraded to level 6 (Real Fuels) HDIII manages to push 13,071kg into a circular 160km orbit, including the part fuelled upper stage.

After a standard ascent to Pandora taking around 3/4 of an orbit, the new hab module has to wait a few km away from the station whilst Podley finishes releasing all of the KAS struts between the existing core and fuel tank modules. This hab module will take the place of the fuel tank entirely which will be retired due to a high part count, debatable structural integrity and out dated fuel storage (Aerozine/NTO was stored for the LV-909 on the Ascender V, I more often now use the KeroLox fuelled Lilith, or Methane powered Medea craft).

With the fuel tank module itself possessing no probe core, the still docked Hector tanker is used to pull it clear and hold it under control whilst the new Hab module decouples from the HDIII upper stage and docks itself to the newly vacated vertical port. The HDIII upper stage (with attached docking port for just this occasion) then docks to the fuel module. Podley makes an extended EVA to strip the travel kit off the new module and attach it to the HDIII stage.

Hector evacuates as much useful fuel from both parts before returning to Pandora, 13.5tonnes of HDIII/fuel tank burn retrograde for disposal by destructive re-entry. Have no fear citizens of Kerbin ~6,000 litres of Aerozine/NTO will be dispersed across such a wide area you will hardly notice it! .... Citizens are reminded not to attempt to taste this particular rainbow.

Podleys third EVA of the day is a relatively short one, to reattach the KAS struts removed earlier and lock the new Hab module in place. Opening the interior hatch Podley can now choose from 8 purpose built berths rather than sleeping under the desk in a laboratory, there is also the vast windows to view Kerbin in the Cupola module and storage capacity for an additional 80 days worth of life support. The senior docking port also opens up further expansion possibilities for heavier modules.

Mission cost 115,064 Funds 0 recovery (but it was worth it to stop Podleys moaning... for now)

 

Day 415, KSC

The very next day as soon as the apprentices had finished sweeping the launchpad (yet) another HoundDog III blasts off carrying a mission which has already generated a name for itself, Lunic V.

With the whole world watching the controllers proceed to fluff the ascent they have flown perfectly so many times before, climbing too steeply resulted in reaching Ap long before orbital velocity was achieved, once the velocity deficit was corrected the final parking orbit was a messy 141x183km.

The 580m/sec remaining in HDIII's upper stage is used to kickstart the 2,260m/sec Mun transfer burn. Achieving a targetted 30Km Mun Pe in 2D 4H with 1,770dV remaining. We are ahead of budget on dV by about 900m/sec and this will only push further and further into the mission each time we come in under budget, at this rate there will be a lot of un-used fuel.

Day 418, Mun orbit

Lunic V arrives at its 30km Mun'r Pe and the transfer stage performs the 702m/sec capture burn. Our inclination however is a little too shallow and we will never overfly our intended biome, a further 150m/sec is expended to push us up to a 6 degree angle.

916m/sec remain aboard the transfer stage and this is used as a 'crasher stage' to initiate the decent for landing. Once again being ahead of budget causes us to use less than expected from the landers own fuel stocks.

Another issue with what is effectively a 2 stage decent system is the drastic change in available thrust halfway (2/3 in this case) through the process. The transfer stages Coxwain motor puts out 124KN, the Lunic Vs 6x LV-1s put out 2KN each, this forces a less efficient decent profile as you cannot afford to allow vertical speed to build up early on as you wont have the thrust later on the reduce it again.

With approximately 2/3 of the landing performed by the crasher stage (916m/sec) the lander itself only had to use ~510dV to put itself down gently onto the Highlands Crater biome of Mun. 856m/sec remain in drop tanks.

Deploying the Karbonite drill a 3 litre sample is collected, it appears Karbonitre is heavy as it reduced our dV total by 16m/sec. Meanwhile all of the science experiments are sciencing and transmits home 292 science, Goo, Materials bay and 4xSR results are stored for return to Kerbin.

Contract parameters complete, Seismic scan of Highland craters, 15,250 Funds, 22 Science, 40 Reputation
Hydrogen Scan of Highlands Craters 17,723 Funds, 6 Science, 47 Reputation.

With plenty of fuel still remaining aboard, it is decided to make an attempt at a second biome, the Farside Crater is pretty close and has not been touched by most of the equipment Lunic V carries so there is plenty of science to be done. Lifting off from the Highland Craters on 6x LV-1 motors we set down in the Farside Crater on only 3 as the drop tanks run dry during our decent, however the empty tanks must be retained despite their deadweight because not only do they carry some of the science kit, but the landing legs also!

Slightly less science to be had here as we are actually only 25km from the Lunic Ia lander which was visited by the Pandora Mun crew only a few days ago so the basic instruments it carried have already been recorded, Lunic V however carries much more modern science that simply didnt exist when Ia was launched. 231 Science broadcast home, additional results stored for return to Kerbin.

Day 418-419, Mun Surface

Having already used part of the 'ascent' fuel budget completing the second landing, the Lunic V mission is now if anything slightly behind on its dV budget. The combination of the SPAM motor and the remaining fuel for the LV-1s apparently contain 2,695m/sec, ditching the drop tanks ASAP should buy us a little more but its a lot closer now than it was. KSC makes the decision to use the SPAM for Mun'r ascent, having already lost most of its mass, the ascent is the only part of the mission remaining where the full burn of the motor could be used.

Rather than having the full scenery singeing 20KN of thrust, the SPAM was heavilly de-tuned before launch to a more sedate 6.6KN (only a touch more than the 6.3KNs the LV-1s can produce) With a little assistence from the LV-1s a low Mun orbit is achieved. Being slightly over eager with the early jettissoning of the drop tanks, 2 of them managed to survive their impact with the surface resulting in surface debris being left behind. Circular 25km orbit achieved with 1,160m/sec remaining in the tanks.

Rather than find out the hard way if any Mun'r mountains manage to reach up this high we are in the fortuitous position to begin the 700m/sec Kerbin transfer burn almost immediately. (Not the 900 I was expecting, so we are ahead of budget again!)

Targetting a 51Km Kerbin Pe Lunic has a little under 460m/sec to adjust or slow down prior to hitting atmo in 2D 5Hrs.

Day 421, Kerbin

Lunic V burns all of its remaining dV as Kerbin approaches rapidly, ditching the now spent return stage (visible in background) the re-entry package lines up its heatshield with the oncoming atmosphere.

Despite retracting its antenna, the reduced 3.2Mm range is still sufficient to contact low orbit comn relays and retain full contact with Lunic right through re-entry.

Coming into the atmosphere fairly steeply, Lunic endures at least 9Gs and heating spikes at over 1,100 degrees, but the rapid loss of velocity causes these extremes to be short lived and only 10 of the 50kg ablator is used.

Ditching its heatshield once the harsh conditions are over, the only damage was the expected loss of the highly exposed solar panels, the twin chutes open only around 3km from the surface and lower the return capsule with its load of precious science (and the expencive instruments too)

Touchdown just inland from the Northern Coastline in a SouthWestern region of the Allied Provinces of Cerimia.

144 Science recovered (216 converted to funds)

Contract parameters complete, Materials study of Highlands Craters, 18,575 Funds, 31 Science, 49 Reputation
Mystery Goo Observation in Muns Highland Craters, 16,473 Funds, 13 Science, 44 Reputation

Contract completion all parts of contract. Surface study of Highlands Craters
72,240 Funds, 165 reputation.

Mission cost 150,870 - 28,944 recovery of probe.
Income from contract 140,261
Total mission cost profit = 18,335 Funds.

1,000 science spent unlocking Nanolathing node on techtree (15D 4H)
KCT upgrade applied to science earned per buildunit, now 3.5 Sci per 86,400 BP (was 3.0)