Gaming The Kerbal Space Program - Version 1.2.x

[Pablo49]

Preparing for a large trip to Duna. I have been avoiding going to Duna on this save, because I didn't want to go there just to unlock more tech.

So, we have here a reusable interplanetary tug. In this screenshot it has attached to it two mobile base modules and their deorbiting tug. Next assembly mission is the actual lander with a small rover. Lander will bring a handful of Kerbals to the surface then leave most there with the base modules and rover, dock with the tug in orbit and return to Kerbal for refueling and then send out more equipment to Duna.

Stack is currently sitting at 153 tons. Powered by 16 nuclear engines, which look super awesome when all firing.

 

[C3PO]

It might be worth considering doing it "Indian Style" Using fewer engines (to save weight) and several periapsis kicks instead of a single large burn, is more efficient.
But it doesn't look as cool. :lol:

 

[Pablo49]

It might be worth considering doing it "Indian Style" Using fewer engines (to save weight) and several periapsis kicks instead of a single large burn, is more efficient.
But it doesn't look as cool. :lol:

There's no kill like overkill.

Edit: Mission complete

Leaving Kerbin. All dem engines, yo.


After the whole stack got into orbit, the base modules deorbited first. Here they just dropped their tug, separated and then deployed parachutes.

whoops camera.

Here are the modules landed and setup for the arriving Kerbals.


Kodak moment with our explorers. The four in the rover will drive off to the base that landed kinda far away (whoops!), the other two will return to Kerbin.


The settlers make it to the base and setup shop.


Leaving Duna.


And reentry. Mission complete.


Unfortunately I landed on a steep hillside and fell over and broke off one of my science labs. Oh well. Still pulled in 810 science for that mission. Also the large tug thing is accidentally in a retrograde orbit, I didn't realize my approach was wrong until after I quicksaved too close to Kerbin to do anything about it, A handful of other pics are on my steam, too, I cut out redundant stuff here.

 

[N_Molson]

... and Liftoff of the Kertan III-C, bringing the 15 tons KerbScience Module to the KSS !

Orbital insertion successful. Now chasing the KSS.

Upper stage jettisonned. Rendez-vous achieved, looks like we are going for a night docking.

But the bright Kerbal engineers have invented... LIGHTS !! Almost there.

We have hard-dock and capture ! First pic from the Kupola :

The KSS in all it's glory. 67 tons, 282 parts. The KerScience Lab is located on the Nadir port. 7 Kerbals on board. I need to send another unkerballed 3-Kerbals capsule, and there will be room for everyone in case of contingency evacuation. A "Gravity" scenario isn't impossible there. The KSS is on the Equatorial Orbit that is beginning to be seriously crowded with various debris. A messy hi-velocity collision could be fun.

Only mod used : KW Rocketry, for the fairings only (can't live without them).

 

[orb]

The KSS is on the Equatorial Orbit that is beginning to be seriously crowded with various debris. A messy hi-velocity collision could be fun.

That's why I usually put a remote control on the last rocket stage for orbital station building with some fuel reserve for deorbiting it, or if it's mission to other bodies then I crash the Kerbin departure stage on the surface of the target moon/planet, and then the return stage on Kerbin's surface.

Only mod used : KW Rocketry, for the fairings only (can't live without them).

I prefer procedural fairings mod for that better. They scale automatically with the size of the payload.

 

[N_Molson]

That's why I usually put a remote control on the last rocket stage for orbital station building with some fuel reserve for deorbiting it

Usually I did, too. But I decided to go careless (like in the real world) and see how far I can push this attitude.

 

[Pablo49]

A "Gravity" scenario isn't impossible there. The KSS is on the Equatorial Orbit that is beginning to be seriously crowded with various debris. A messy hi-velocity collision could be fun.

My interplanetary stage thing is sitting in a roughly equatorial retrograde orbit around the same altitude as a bunch of prograde debris. Part of me wants an accident to happen.

 

[Linguofreak]

Flew a Munar surface mission with two one-man landers, which landed about 2.5 km apart. The first thing to go wrong on the mission was that Jeb got cloned and ended up flying both spacecraft.

The next problem was that mission control made oversights in planning, and the landing site was in darkness by the time Jeb 2 landed. Though he managed to land at a safe speed, the stress of the night landing distracted him and he didn't land level, which, combined with the terrain, caused the lander to tip over. This being the demo, with no 2 person capsules available, there was much panic at mission control, and it was assumed that Jeb 2 would be stranded on the Mun forever.

Fortunately, scientists at the Kerbal Hadron Collider made a serendipitous discovery: a significant amount of information about the state of the universe is stored in what the research team described as "blocks of ASCII text" (seemingly a particle physics term, no one outside of the KHC staff knows what it means). Kerman Bosons produced at the KHC can somehow be captured and used to manipulate these "blocks of text". Within a few minutes, KHC staff were able to cause Jeb 2's lander to abruptly assume the upright orientation of Jeb 1's lander. When asked how they had accomplished this, the scientists spewed forth a torrent of unintelligible scientific jargon, in which the terms "Control Sea" and "Control Vee" occured with some frequency.

The rest of the mission proceeded more or less without a hitch. The Kerbonauts EVA'd and used their jetpacks to fly to each other's landing sites and exchange ships. Jeb 2 got a bit lost flying to Jeb 1's ship, but managed to make it with fuel to spare. Mission Control said very little publicly about the incident, making only the cryptic remark "In trying to access the menu, confusion with the Orbiter keymap caused the transponders of the two landers to be turned off, necessitating that Jeb 2 fly a wildly guesstimated bearing until the cause of the transponder malfunction could be determined and corrected". No one outside of Mission Control seems to know what an "Orbiter keymap" is.

 

[N_Molson]

Jeb's private jet. (too) Fast, compact, manoeuvrable. Here caught at 1200 m/s +.

 

[Fabri91]

Reaching Moho is HARD.

Underestimated the delta-v needed to capture an orbit, which turns out to be, in the best-case scenario, about 5000 m/s. Add to this the at least 2500 needed to depart from LKO...

Let's just say that what was originally planned as a lander plus rover turned out to be just an orbiter, while the transfer stage plus rover zipped by Moho in solar orbit.

 

[N_Molson]

I've launched my first kerballed mission ever to Duna. I know, I'm not quick This is a sort of recon mission, with the reasonable objective of achieving Duna orbit, stay there and collect scientific data until a return window to Kerbin opens. Fully chemical, I haven't invested into nuclear technology yet. No, it's not Jeb, Bill & Bob, though the selected Kerbonauts already have the experience of munar missions. The "Orange Three" are staying in reserve for a future, more ambitious landing on Duna. Nuclear technology will be required to go to Eve or Jool, which currently are the long-term objectives.

760 tons on the pad ! 6 (boosted) Mainsail LRBs around 1 Mainsail core, crossfeeded so it acts as a second stage.

Yes, it flies !!

Good KLO insertion. The core stage of the launcher can be seen far behind, the orange tank attached to the vessel is full at this point. The upper stage is powered by 2 LVT-30 engines, which have a very good thrust/weight/ISP ratio. The return stage is powered by a single LV-909 engine, to minimize dead mass and maximize ISP.

24 hours after the Trans-Duna-Injection. Out of Kerbin SOI, in deep space. Crew transfers to the more comfortable Hitchiker module, as they have 60 days of probably uneventful interplanetary travel to kill.

 

[Cairan]

In 0.22, I did the following missions in this order so far:

- KEO observations and suborbital hops biome sampling missions
- Munar flyby
- Minmus landing and sample return
- Twin long term single Kerbal missions landing on Duna and Ike, awaiting a resupply ship on the next Kerbin - Duna window
- Munar sample returns from various biomes
- Moho low altitude probe flyby

Planned:

- Eve expedition, with aerocapture and aerobraking for a Gilly orbiter and lander and an Eve orbiter and lander
- Jool expedition, with my Kerbal Interstellar flagship, Discovery One, for antimatter magnetospheric mining and orbital observations of all satellites
- Duna resupply mission and scientific outpost

 

[Fabri91]

Done! I just added 4 fuel tanks on the cruise stage, and that did the trick. I could even use a bit of its fuel to deorbit over Moho.

 

[wingnut]

Reaching Moho is HARD.

Thanks to Arrowstar's KSPTOT I was able to reach Moho relatively cheap with a flyby of Eve with a low-tech vehicle on conventional liquid fuel engines:

---------------------------------------------
Departure Date = Year 9, Day 124 12:49:12.133
                      (262961352.133 sec UT)
Flyby Date =     Year 9, Day 174 21:08:19.045
                      (267311299.045 sec UT)
Arrival Date =   Year 9, Day 200 04:40:57.513
                      (269498457.513 sec UT)
					  
Burn Information to Depart Kerbin
---------------------------------------------
Total Delta-V =              1.51151 km/s
Prograde Delta-V =           847.65292 m/s
Radial Delta-V =             0.00008 m/s
Orbit Normal Delta-V =       1251.46075 m/s
---------------------
Departure True Anomaly =     157.64347 deg
Departure Time Past Peri. =  1047.61710 sec
Departure Time Before Peri. = 1344.75701 sec
---------------------------------------------
Burn Information to Depart Eve
---------------------------------------------
Total Delta-V =              0.21086 km/s
Prograde Delta-V =           210.86046 m/s
Radial Delta-V =             -0.00008 m/s
Orbit Normal Delta-V =       0.00000 m/s
---------------------
Departure True Anomaly =     0.00000 deg
Departure Time Past Peri. =  0.00000 sec
Departure Time Before Peri. = 0.00000 sec

This is a picture of the vehicle on the launchpad:

 

[Pablo49]

Good KLO insertion. The core stage of the launcher can be seen far behind, the orange tank attached to the vessel is full at this point. The upper stage is powered by 2 LVT-30 engines, which have a very good thrust/weight/ISP ratio. The return stage is powered by a single LV-909 engine, to minimize dead mass and maximize ISP.

How did you get bi-adapter to attach to your stack inline? When I made my nuclear engine block, I launched it upside down on its booster because I couldn't find a way to get the quad-adapter to attach.

 

[N_Molson]

How did you get bi-adapter to attach to your stack inline?

I've been testing this and it seems to work properly for 2 engines only. Well, it depends of the engines, as the problem comes from the fairings separation.

The construction process is always the same, regardless of the number of engines :

Now with 3 or 4 engines we get this problem at separation :

Everything is fine, good separation.

No go ! Kerbin we are no-go !

While with the 2 engines version :

Good separation again. For some reason the separation rings will explode right after. No consequence.

Good fairings separation and ignition !

Now of course we are heavily underpowered, a second stage with a Skipper engine and a pair of boosters would have done the trick, I think.

Perfectly safe atomic landing. Keep away, radiation hazard.

Uhh situation is perfectly under control. Crew is safe in the radiations-shielded capsule. We only have a mini-Chernobyl situation.

 

[Pablo49]

Thanks for the amusing tutorial! That was how I tried to get 4 engines attached with the same "welp, there went that" consequences. I didn't think that would have worked with two. Neat-o!

 

[Hielor]

The confusing part for me is--how did you get the quad-adapter to switch to a tri-adapter on the launchpad? :lol:

 

[Izack]

I think part of that problem could be the LV-N panels colliding with the engines on jettison. They come away with quite some force.

 

[N_Molson]

I think part of that problem could be the LV-N panels colliding with the engines on jettison. They come away with quite some force.

It is, and entirely. So I found a way to overcome this with the tri-adapter :

- Place the engines one by one using the x1 mode (not x3 symetry, it ruins the idea).

- Rotate two engines by 30° inwards. Each Shift-Q/E rotates a part by 5°, so tap 6 times.

- Rotate the third engine by 90° (press Q or E).

That way, the engine fairings have enough clearance when separating and don't hit the engines.

I tried to rotate the 4 engines from 45° with the quad-adapter but that doesn't work, not enough clearance.

Still, there IS a solution to get 4 inline LVNs. A bit tricky, but it works :

- Add 1x 2.5 meter bi-adapter, then 2 others 1.25 meters bi-adapters on it. Also proceed in singleton mode.

- Activate the engines by opposite pairs. That way it limits the force applied on the whole system. The flexibility of the assembly can handle it.

- There is, however, a drawback : some panels may stay stucked in the center of the stack. The bad thing about this is that it "forces" the engines outwards, in an irregular fashion. As a result I had a significant rotational spin that the SAS couldn't handle. Maybe try with more SAS modules or RCS. Still, the spacecraft was flyable and I lacked only 100 m/s of Dv to achieve orbit.