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Kerbal Space Program Thread V1.0 - Lets capture that Asteroid

So, since it's 20 hours or so...


...until my Minmus transfer window, I decided to land my boosters.

I don't mind confessing that this took me several tries to a. get the range bracketed and b. avoid driving off the end of the runway. As such I only have one down for now. The other will come in the next update. :(

Anyhow!

Planning the deorbit burn. The wings give me a great deal of control over how much distance my reentry covers. It works out -- as planned -- that I can put my periapsis for the deorbit burn directly above KSC, and adjust my angle of attack to correct (somewhat) for different initial altitudes or burn timings. That provides a useful landmark for consistent entry profiles:


One of the things I did to ensure that the re-entry burns were consistent was to add a small tank of fuel that wasn't turned on during the ascent. It provides roughly 30m/s of deltaV:


Burn starts:

Hitting the atmosphere:

Through the uppermost atmosphere, the booster's reaction-wheel stabilizers, mostly used for torquing the full assembly around in orbit, are more than adequate to keep the booster's attitude locked. As the atmosphere thickens that's no longer the case, but in a post-stall angle-of-attack (as I am flying) the aerodynamic controls are not useful. So the booster carries an RCS system to provide extra control authority (and translation, if trim of the deorbit burn is required). The reentry visual effects are my cue to turn it on:

Peak thermal:

Navball switches to surface velocity:

Chosing when to pitch down into a low-drag glide configuration is a tricky bit of timing. Too soon and aggressive manouvering is needed to spill energy to avoid overshooting the runway, which can overstress the airframe; too late and the high-drag stall has burned so much energy that the booster drops short. Glide begins:

Approach:

Lining up:


Unfortunately at touchdown I was a little busy, so I don't have a picture of that. My next screenshot comes after I'd touched down, slowed down, and done a 180 by driving off the runway and back up and on to it.
Direction reversed:

Taxiing to hangar:

Parked:
 
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And booster 2 is down, slightly less than elegantly. Only bothered with one shot this time out since I get to show off its rough-field capability :V

Deorbit burn manouver. I put the apsis a bit further east of KSC this time because I have longer to the node than the last, and Kerbin will rotate slightly more:

Atmosphere:

Re-entry FX & RCS:


At this point I think I'm too high and too fast to hit KSC, so I pull my AoA higher and leave it there longer in a panic stop:



Unfortunately and as I realized as soon as I pulled out, I overdid things and was going to drop short. I delayed it as long as I could, but this is where I wound up having to land:


Fortunately, I built this sucker to have rough-field landing capabilities (it has enough wing I can actually safely water-land it, too); it has a wide and long wheelbase and fairly high ground clearance. Touchdown was simple:


Still having decent momentum and being so close to KSC, I decided to go cross-country; here's I am crossing the last ridge before the KSC plain:


Picking my way between the KSC buildings:

Parked:
 
Alrighty, with that out of the way, here's the trip to Minmus:

Prepping for the burn: activating engines and lining up on the node:


Burning:


Main engine burn complete:


Trimmed by RCS:


Rotated to catch the Sun:


About to enter Minmus's Sphere of Influence:


Planning the injection into Minmus orbit:


Burn T-0:

Minmus orbit achieved:


Next, I undock my hood-ornament satellite to go look for ore. :)
 
So, a critical part of this mission is mining rock and turning it into fuel for the next stage. As such, I need to be able to find it, so I'm carrying along a fully capable orbital resource scanning satellite. However, scanning for stuff requires polar orbits... and as you can see above, I'm not in one. So it's time to do some orbital manouvering with the satellite; the main stack just barely has enough fuel to land and I can't afford to waste any of it. Leaving the satellite in space will help with that. Fortunately, since the satellite is built to perform orbit manouvering over Eve, it is massively overbuilt for Minmus.

Undocking:


Planning the plane change manouver:


Burn begins:


Of note: This particular kind of plane-change manouver puts my periapsis well below ground level before it recovers, and I'm executing it with an ion engine. I like to live dangerously :V


Almost there; periapsis is recovering:


Burn complete:


Unfortunately at this point I discover I'm orbiting too low for the scanner; it requires a minimum periapsis of 25km, and mine is under 20km. So I need to raise my altitude before I scan.


Scanning orbit achieved:


Scan complete:

Scan results, cutoff at 50% to show ideal landing zones:


My ideal landing zone is the lower purple blotch. It's dead on the equator and on the Minmus flats, which are pool-table level, and has one of the highest concentrations of ore on the moon. Unfortunately the slight inclination of the main vessel's orbit means I need either a plane change manouver -- which will cost me fuel I am rationing tightly at this point -- or to wait an annoyingly long time for Minmus to rotate it under my orbital path.

I'll probably spend the fuel. Waiting in low time-warps sucks. :(
 
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do an angled deorbit burn. it's a little tricky but Minmus is forgiving enough that it's not too hard.
essentially, it's perfectly possible to land within 20 degrees or so of any given orbit without significant extra DeltaV through appropriately angled high deorbiting burns, if you need an example Mechjeb's landing guidance module uses these a lot, which is how I learned the trick.
 
Mechanis said:
do an angled deorbit burn. it's a little tricky but Minmus is forgiving enough that it's not too hard.
essentially, it's perfectly possible to land within 20 degrees or so of any given orbit without significant extra DeltaV through appropriately angled high deorbiting burns, if you need an example Mechjeb's landing guidance module uses these a lot, which is how I learned the trick.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I don't need an example; ultimately that's more or less what I did, since I was constrained by the high hills in front of the approach. Ideally I would've done a combined plane-change/minor deorbit burn at one node as my landing zone approached the other, but waiting for that would've taken a bunch of time, so I just did it:

Landing sequence:
First pass at planning the deorbit burn:

Refined and about to execute:

Post-burn (overburned a little, didn't bother correcting it):

Lining up for the planned braking manouver:

Cleared the hills and out over the flats:

Braking burn completed; terminal descent on RCS thrusters:

Touchdown:


Landing location viewed from resource scan satellite:

Landed... with 4m/s of deltaV left in the stage:


... good thing I ditched the satellite in orbit :V
 
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Next up, unpacking the rovers, starting up the ISRU, and generally goofing about:

ISRU & rover deployment:
ISRU startup:


Deploying Rover 1:


Rover 1 lighting up the flag:


Deploying Rover 2:


Rover 2 lighting up the rover bays:


Rovers parked:


Rover 1 with drivers:


Rover 2 with driver:


Steady-state ISRU:

Goofing about:
Rover 1 top speed:


El... li... ot...:


Eddie the Eagle:

...nailed it:

Parked back at base:


Now I simply need to plunder Minmus for it's riches refill my tanks. Once I'm fully stocked, it'll be time to leave this place behind :D
 
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Righto, fuelled up and packed to go:

Fuelled up, and extra ore jettisoned. The slight empty spaces are from the wings (which can act as liquid fuel tanks, but I have no use for that), from a set of small tanks on the ISRU assembly (which don't need to have fuel while it's attached to the main ship), and, for monopropellant, because I don't need to fuel up the command pod all the way:


Parking Rover 2:

Rover 2 parked:


Parking Rover 1:

Rover 1 parked:
 
I made a booboo...
Lovely lander inbound on duna, heatshield prepared, airbrakes deployed and parachute ready. Go team!

Yeah! Then, uh...
What did you people do!
It's actually still a functional surface laboratory, with a set of solar panels and all the experiments kept neatly inside the service bay. It just... broke a little.
 
Much soviet.

Very Science.

Wow.



(went to: Mun, Minmus orbit. Final Toll: 7361 Science. I may need to tone down the rewards now that I'm getting enough Science Things to fill up my service bays.)

(also, a quick refueling and the service module will be ready to go be a relay sat)
 
more stuffs:


Pooka Scout plane

and:

on the pad




Liftoff! (not shown: the 17 times I flubbed the gravity turn and had a 'wrong end pointing to space' problem)

In orbit, sensors deployed. Tasty, tasty Science.


Capsule reentry- Now With Working Heatshield!

Drogue chute deployment at 10,000 meters

Main chute deployment at 2500m

about 500m above waterlevel, drifting at a nice, sedate 8m/s

Splashdown.
 
You know, I've discovered something neato: Two command pods with a structural section between them (e.g. the Mk1 structural fuselage) can in fact reenter, from orbit, and splash down safely. Without the use of wings, heatshields, or parachutes. :D

Gotta watch the therms on re-entry, though.
 
foamy said:
You know, I've discovered something neato: Two command pods with a structural section between them (e.g. the Mk1 structural fuselage) can in fact reenter, from orbit, and splash down safely. Without the use of wings, heatshields, or parachutes. :D

Gotta watch the therms on re-entry, though.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Yeah, this new version really made hosting easier to deal with. I was testing sandbox and was able to rebuild a plane with no wings, only airbreaks that run off a double rapier engine that can go stupid fast in atmosphere now without burning up!
 


Pure stock, and it goes to orbit too. Because sometimes, you just need to launch an entire mining rig using a SSTO... (It wieghs 32 tons!)
 
just a little something I've been working on:

the Ill-fated MK-I, which suffered several mishaps with its launch vehicle, finally managed orbit, and subsequently discovered that someone forgot to bolt on the the ordered RCS thrusters. Milov Kermin bravely volunteered to be left in orbit until a rescue could be arranged, pending the development of a grapping claw that does not compromise the pressure hull. Kervo Kermin and Mikal Kerman successfully splashed down some hours later.


The MK-II successfully docked with Korvos Station, a long-term research and construction station.


With power brought online and the station fully pressurized, mission commander Gulman Kerman inflates the station's construction dock.

Engineer Gulby Kerman conducts a short EVA to inflate the station's workshop modules.

Everything looks good so far...

Both workshops are now inflated. now to get the rest of the crew up here...
 
some more of "I fucking love Tantares":

Munar surveyor- I built two, burned one each to the Mun and Minmus. does Resource, Multi-spectral, and SAR scans, and has enough fuel to insert to either Minmus or the Mun, then fiddle with orbits for optimal scanning. I coulda tacked on the lowres radar (I'll likely do that for probes to the outer planets or a Duna mission) but didn't need it in this case.

also, I experimented with MOLE. Wet Labs are great, and the 'Big K' lets me get a three-seater pretty early.

Munar MOLE wetlab (currently full of fuel) with orbital science ring and return modulefor the 'Big K' three-seater (a K2 pod with a Backseat)


on approch...

with all experiments completed, the Return Module undocks from the lab and begins the trip back to kerbin.
After a successful reentry, the 'big K' command pod cruses to splashdown on it parachutes.
 
so I figured out this whole Kerbalx thing. I've put a couple arrangements that I end up using a lot up for my own use, but also threw up an updated version of the Pooka and a GOTTAGOFAST jet.

Pooka M2. stable AF, I got up to 7x timewarp before suffering RUD.


the Super Sparrow OTOH is a hypersonic single-seater jetplane. note that it's quite fliphappy, even on takeoff, but once you get it going in nice, straight lines it's SO SPEEDY.
and that's without turning on the afterburners.
note- attempting to change course at anything over half-throttle may result in losing a wing. it's a bit finicky.
 
more of me faffing about with planes instead of doing Science:

Perigine Nuclear Jet. radiation? heh, whatever.

or for those with a bit more caution:

Super Perigine jet *starts humming Top Gun theme*
 
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