I present to you all Ike, brought to you by the everlasting UKSR:
Spoiler:
So I had an earlier prototype for a Duna lander parked in orbit doing nothing. Since it used a Poodle engine, I knew that even with the extra fuel this lander carried that it had no chance of returning from Duna due to the lower ISP of the Poodle wrt Nervas. However, I realized that with the lower gravity and lack of atmosphere that Ike has, it just might be able to make a round trip there. So I sent it off towards Duna.
Spoiler:
This polar orbit caused me a lot of headaches. What was especially frustrating is that my initial orbit around Duna was polar and I corrected it, but still wound up on a polar orbit around Ike.
Spoiler:
This was my first landing attempt and I came in very shallow. This is a terrible idea for an airless planet as it leaves you with hard-to-kill sideways velocity. My successful landing involved dropping straight down on Ike. This was still very difficult to pull off as Ike is chock full of mountains and valleys so it is very hard to know what angle you need to be heading until you are right above the surface.
Spoiler:
I landed near the North pole of Ike, consequently, Duna never rises over the horizon. So I don't have any pretty pictures of a Duna rising or anything. I took this screenshot to use as proof that I am indeed on Ike and not some random moon.
Spoiler:
And here I am, safe and sound.
I do not know if I have enough fuel to return to Kerbin, but I will try tomorrow.
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an earlier landing attempt where I came in at a shallow angle.jpg
You could stack lots of fins around the engines too, but it will only help so much. You still won't be able to get orbital velocity without overheating.
Go to Duna first if you want to be able to get back. It's also much less challenging overall.
Well, I managed to get to Eve (couldn't get an encounter with Duna in 3 tries). "Get" is the right word, because in the end I didn't even have any fuel left to select a proper landing site - just parachuted down into one of Eve's oceans (what do they consist of, anyway?).
And I ripped my command pod off, so I couldn't even test my engine thrust before touchdown.
Yes, it was just a structural failure between pod and decoupler and I still had a parachute on the pod. All crewmembers well, one even went out to swim a bit.
Patience! I just got the game a few days ago, but figuring out all the stuff about design and handling is a lot of fun.
Within a day or two you are ready for inter planetary flight.
The KRK, third nation on Duna and second to return if there's enough fuel to get this thing back into orbit!
If there is enough fuel, the KRK's next mission will be a rescue, with the additional goal of a flyby with Ike. If not, we will be landing at an undisclosed location.
EDIT: Turns out I couldn't get back into orbit. Plan B will continue.
The KRK, third nation on Duna and second to return if there's enough fuel to get this thing back into orbit!
If there is enough fuel, the KRK's next mission will be a rescue, with the additional goal of a flyby with Ike. If not, we will be landing at an undisclosed location.
EDIT: Turns out I couldn't get back into orbit. Plan B will continue.
Hey, once you've made it to the Mun, you've mastered most of the skills to go elsewhere. If you can get to Minmus and back, then you're really set to do incredible things. It packs in just about every manuever you will need to use in one mission.
Hello fellow cosmonauts. I have sad news that I would like to share with you all. I have been experimenting with possible setups for an Eve landing and return vehicle.
I have tried just about every combination of SRB's for an Eve ascent and I can tell you that this avenue of research is a dead end. There is no plausible combination of SRB's that will get you into orbit from the surface of Eve.
Initially, I used a ring of 8 small SRB's, both asparagus-staged and with all 8 firing and neither could boost you into orbit. So I stacked 2 and 3 stages of 8 small SRB boosters and this still didn't work.
Then I experimented with 8 of the large SRB's. Still no dice. So finally I added 8 small SRB's under 8 large ones like so:
Spoiler:
This combination just barely got the orbiter into space. However, to do so I had to use a lot of fuel from the main central tank itself to power the NERVA to get it into orbit. I suspect that with the higher gravity and the thicker and denser atmosphere of Eve that this setup will not work there at all.
At this point, adding anymore SRB's makes the entire thing very suspect as it will be impossible to get the whole stack into orbit Kerbin orbit before heading to Eve. It will also necessitate a booster with an enormous amounts of parts which will cause too much lag - and still probably won't work.
I will experiment with various liquid fueled ascent booster schemes, but I am not hopeful as this make for an extraordinaryly large Eve ascent stage and it will have difficulty getting into Kerbin orbit. I will report back with my findings.
However, I suspect that until orbital docking is implemented in .18 that an Eve landing and return mission is impossible without mods and hacks. It is possible a spaceplane could do the job but I have to build a successful spaceplane. Also, all of the videos I have seen that show an Eve ascent, both with rockets and spaceplanes, have all used mods and hacks.
I think it may be an impossible task at the moment.
Edit: This liquid fueled ascent stage failed as well.
Spoiler:
I could add more fuel tanks and that might help, but again you run into weight issues. I'll have to do math to see how much more or less this setup with another set of tanks weighs versus the giant SRB stack I posted above. Though I still don't think extra tanks will be enough.
Edit 2: The liquid fueled ascent stage will not get you to orbit even with 3 stacks of tanks. Maybe 4 will do it but I'm not going to try that since again, it's highly implausible that you could make a booster capable of lifting that to Kerbin orbit.
Edit 3: This big boy can get you an ok orbit. However, considering Eve has a thicker atmosphere, a denser atmospher and higher gravity, I still don't think it's enough. Plus, how do you get it into Kerbin orbit? I messed around with asparagus staging and the number of tanks and this was the winning combination:
Spoiler:
And it still isn't good enough.
Are we confident enough to say an Eve return can't be done yet?
______________________________
Important Announcement
The UKSR is proud to announce that the 3 Kerbils sent on a mission to Ike returned to Kerbin today and splashed down at 3:00pm after spending over 7 years in space.
Spoiler:
Since the lander was originally built for a Duna landing, the 3 parachutes were staged to deploy before the capsule separated from the lander. This meant that the parachutes had to be deployed in space in order to separate the lander. I was unsure if they would still work, but thankfully I still had one parachute left to spare on the top of the capsule. Fortunately, it was not needed as the parachutes operated spectacularly.
Spoiler:
Splashdown!
Spoiler:
They were out there a loooooooong time.
I can't believe I was able to get them back!
The best part of this mission for me is that I took a lander that I had left parked in orbit because I realized it couldn't get to Duna and back and still did something cool with it. It even had a bit of fuel to spare when it returned - and I considered using the fuel to go for a landing at the south pole, but decided against it out of caution.
It's really easy to escape from Ike's SOI and almost as easy to get out of Duna's SOI. The part of the return trip that took the most fuel were orbital corrections. I had to make several because everytime you engage timewarp your orbit drifts a bit for some stupid reason. Nonetheless, the Mun and Minmus never got in the way of my trajectory so making adjustments was actually easier on this mission than on the Duna return.
First I started a new campaign, but didn't anticipate that using the same name would not only reset the map, but also erase all my spacecrafts. Well, at least I now have a solid interplanetary rocket that doesn't lag me to death at launch and only needs 12 instead of 20 solid boosters to lift off...
Second, I made 6 tries (without quicksave, so each and every time a new liftoff) to get into orbit of Duna or Eve, but whatever I did, I wasn't able to get an encounter. No idea what I am doing wrong, so maybe my first interplanetary launch was just a lucky shot? Hum... Can anyone give me an advanced tutorial how to make an interplanetary encounter happen?
In my sadness, I decided to at least use my new rocket and bring 3 Kerbanauts to Mun and back again. Worked quite well, lots of fuel to spare, so I should be able to reach each and every planet within the system.
This is Sir GAGA from the nation of Terkardia, signing off for today with all the best wishes for your Kerbernauts!
First off, when you are in orbit, you need to start your burn on the right side of the planet.
In the picture below, the red arrow shows what side of Kerbin you need to be on to start a burn to get to a planet in an orbit further out than Kerbin (Duna, Jool). You need to place Kerbin between you and the sun.
To get toward a planet in an orbit closer in than Kerbin (Eve, Moho), then you need to be where the green arrow is. That is, you need to be between the sun and Kerbin.
Spoiler:
Red arrow shows what side of Kerbin you need to be on to get to Duna and Jool, green for Eve and Moho.
The next part you can do either while you are in a high orbit (>600km, where you can do a max timewarp) OR you can do it before you even take off. You have to make sure the planets are aligned before you start your burn.
On the website above, I do not pay much attention to the ejection angle it gives. For one, if you are traveling to a planet on an orbit closer to the sun than the one you are on, the ejection angle it will give you is based on the assumption that you will burn retrograde relative to the planets rotation to get into orbit. This is a waste of fuel, so I just ignore that part of it.
Here is an example of the alignment you need to get from Kerbin to Jool.
Spoiler:
I usually do not get into a high orbit and then align the planets. I usually warp to the alignment I need while my ship is on the launch pad and then when everything is aligned, I take off. I do not attempt to get into orbit, rather I just burn continuously and use all of the fuel in my booster to start me on my journey.
This means I save all of the fuel I would spend trying to correct my orbit around Kerbin and instead use it to put me directly on an encounter trajectory with the planet I want to go to.
Now after you have burned to place yourself on an encounter, mouse over the planet to figure out how far out your periapsis will be. You want to do burns as soon as you escape Kerbin's SoI and get on the encounter trajectory. The further you are from the target planet, the less you have to burn to change your course to get closer.
The frustrating thing is that from very far away it is really hard to tell what angle you will be taking when you pass the planet. Because of this, I cannot tell you that you need to burn in X direction to make your pass closer. Also, it's very hard to even see the angles your are approaching at until you are close to the planet.
I get my peroapsis closer by trial and error. I will point in a cardinal direction (straight up, straight down, 90, 180, 270, 0) and burn for a second to see if this gets my peroapsis closer or further. If it gets me further, I try another angle and I keep doing this until I find the direction that will get me closer.
You will almost certainly find that you will need to burn at two or more angles to get as close as you want. That is, when you burn at one angle it will get you closer up to a point and then get you further away. When it starts to do this, stop burning, find another angle and burn again. It's all trial and error at this stage of the game's build and you just have to be patient and use a light touch.
Here is a picture of the closest I could get my Jool encounter to come. Notice that in this picture I can kind of tell how I will be approaching the planet, but usually this is not the case.
Spoiler:
Now comes a frustrating part. You have just spent fuel, time and effort lining up a close encounter. Then you time warp and actually get onto the encounter trajectory. All of a sudden, your encounter peroapsis goes from 50km to 500km! This is very frustrating and I don't know why it does this. For example, compare the peroapsis I showed above to the one shown in the picture below. I did not make any burns between these screenshots, all that changed is that I got off of my sun centric orbit and began my encounter orbit. All of a sudden, I went from a peroapsis of a bit over 200,000km to a peroapsis of 3,000,000km.
Spoiler:
It's very frustrating but as I said, this can't be helped. Unfortunately, this means you will have to spend a lot of fuel to correct this since now you are much closer to the planet. Oh well, there's nothing to be done about it. You may also notice that even before you get onto your encounter trajectory, but after you have time warped a bit, your peroapsis may have moved on it's own. My advice is to correct it as far out as possible. Time warp in brief spurts and then stop it to make sure you are still on course before you've gone too far off in the wrong direction.
When you are on your encounter trajectory, start burning to move your peroapsis closer to the planet. Again, I can't tell you what angle to burn at, it's trial and error. Do not try and slow down yet to get into orbit, you just want to move the peroapsis over for now (note: Moving your peroapsis may involve burning retrograde and thus slowing down. This is ok and you should go ahead and burn to move the orbit over, just don't burn retro only to slow down yet).
Here is a picture where I had moved my peroapsis close enough to Jool that it put me on an encounter trajectory with Laythe after I went around Jool. This is what I was hoping for because I was impatient - I wanted to get to Laythe ASAP. Usually it's much more efficient to get an orbit around a planet first before trying to switch to an orbit around a moon.
Spoiler:
I paid for this innefficiency in my case because when I went around Jool it gave me a lot of velocity from gravity that I then had to cancel out to orbit around Laythe. I ended up quickloading and getting into orbit around Jool and then switching to Laythe orbit as my initial attempt cost me too much fuel.
Wait until you are closer to your peroapsis to burn retro, slow down and achieve orbit. With NERVA engines you are going to want to start your burn a bit before your peroapsis because they have such low thrust that if you wait for peroapsis you might not slow down enough in time. Again, it's trial and error and don't be afraid to use quicksaves and quickloads.
Here is a screenshot I took after I had achieved Jool orbit and then burned to get into a Laythe encounter trajectory. This took much less fuel than my earlier attempt to slingshot round Jool and go straight to Laythe.
Spoiler:
This put me in a polar orbit. If you are at an inclined angle while in orbit, you can burn at right angles to your prograde direction to move the inclination up or down. So if your prograde is right on the 90 degree line, burning at 0 or 180 will move your inclination up or down.
I did not do that in this case because it didn't matter much which direction my orbit was in, the land is evenly scattered around on Laythe so no particular inclination is really best IMO
This next picture is from my first failed attempt at landing on Laythe. Although I failed, I attached it to show how difficult it is trying to get a landing spot here. Laythe is a water world with small, snaky continents. Trying to deorbit and hit one of the continents is complicated by the fact that Laythe has a decently thick atmosphere so that you will slow down on descent and wind up falling short of your projected landing spot.
Spoiler:
I thought that this would allow me to land on this small island. Unfortunately, I slowed down enough due to the atmosphere that I landed about 5km short of the island in the ocean. So I quickloaded and tried again.
Note, if you don't care about precision landings then this will never be a problem. Only Kerbin and Laythe have big enough oceans that it can be easy to miss land entirely. Eve has small lakes, but hitting land won't be an issue. Now, if you do care about precision landing, well, it's hard to do on a planet with an atmosphere and you'll have to ask someone else how to do it.
Here is a random cool picuter I took in Laythe orbit:
Now landing on a planet with an atmosphere can be tricky. While you can use parachutes, on planets with thinish atmospheres, (Laythe, Moho, Duna) you need to make sure that you are burning retrograde as you fall to slow you down to below 100m/s before your parachutes open around 500m off the ground (more or less depending on how high up the ground below you is from sea level).
If you are coming in faster than 100m/s when they fully deploy, they will tear apart your lander.
Eve and Kerbin have atmospheres that will slow you down quite a bit on their own before you use parachutes, but still, keep an eye on your speed gauge.
I accidentally overwrote a really cool pic I had. I was coming into a polar landing on Laythe and I was going to overshoot an island by about a kilometer. So I started burning hard while my drogue shoots were deployed and I just barely managed to get my lander over dry ground before the main chutes deployed. Unfortunately, I was going too fast and the chutes tore apart my lander as you can see here:
Spoiler:
I almost reloaded after this but decided against it. This was always inteded to be a one-way mission to Laythe that I would send a rescue party to get after .18 releases. So reloading was pointless since I made it to dry land and I didn't have the fuel to get back to orbit anyways.
Now if you are going to return from a moon, it's important that you burn to get off the moon and inject yourself into an orbit around the planet of the moon before you head off for Kerbin. If you try and go straight from a moon to Kerbin, the gravity of the planet will throw off your trajectory and it is hard to pull off.
Once you are in orbit around the parent planet, it's pretty easy. First, make sure the alignments are in order. Then, wait to get on the right side of the sun to do your burn. Remember, put your ship between the sun and your planet to get to a planet in an orbit closer to the sun than the one you are at and put the planet between you and the sun to get to a planet that is further from the sun than the one you're at.
That's pretty much all there is too it.
Any questions?
And yes, this does mean that the UKSR has Kerbonauts on Laythe!!!
Spoiler:
Just a normal day, chilling at the beach. On another planet. You know, no big deal you capitalist dogs.
Well I made it out to Gilly and I have an collision set.
It's much trickier to land here than I thought it would be. Gilly is an asteroid and not really a proper moon. As such, you pretty much have to collide with it as encounters are almost impossible to get and there is hardly any room to play around with a peroapsis or apoapsis within it's tiny SoI.
It's really, really difficult to land on this thing because trying to slow down enough throws your orbit far enough away from Gilly that you miss it entirely. Will try again tommorrow after a miserable crash and an hour wasted trying to set up the initial encounter.
Plus, the game has been freezing up on me so damn much.
Edit:
Made it to Gilly. I approached it like I did Minmus by doing a retrograde orbit and lining up a collision. However, I had to use a ton of fuel to get my speed down to 2m/s at my peroapsis as I passed it to get an orbit. Orbital velocity is around 30m/s.
The landing wasn't that difficult other than the fact that the gravity is so low it took forever to fall. Also, the terrain is extremely hilly so it's hard to stay flat - your lander wants to roll over. This isn't much of a problem though because you can use SAS to roll your lander even when it's on the ground and get it upright again.
I went looking for what I thought was an easter egg but apparently there are none. Currently, I'm having trouble getting my Kerbonauts back in the lander because even when they are at the hatch the command 'enter vehicle' doesn't pop up.
I don't want to leave them stranded there, but I may have to. Not sure if I'll have the fuel to come back though. I'll find out some other time.
Spoiler:
The second image shows my lander standing on one leg. It was stable until I sent a Kerbal on EVA and then it tipped over. However, the SAS force is enough to roll you back upright without damage.
Spoiler:
It's hard to tell in this pic but that orbit is actually the orbit of one of my Kerbals. The EVA pack is more than enough to get you into orbit. You can't really walk on Gilly because every step sends you flying. Also, pretty much every forward or upward thrust of your EVA pack will send you into orbit so you have to be careful.
Spoiler:
Here's a random pic of my Kerbols having fun on EVA. It's actually a lot of fun flying in the low gravity. I just wish I could get them back in the capsule to refill their EVA packs or to leave.
I performed another rescue today, this time towards Minmus.
Minmus is a darn tricky moon to land on; its elevation means you have a hard time finding a safe landing zone. My first craft to Minmus landed on a hill, and toppled over, trapping the pilot on it.
My rescue craft found a more suitable landing zone, though it wasn't nearly as close as I would have liked it to be.
The rescue was a success though! Our scientists are working on the next rug of the ladder: a combined Mun-Minmus landing expedition.
I adjusted my low orbit to hang just over the crash site. Then, on the swoop around, I fire my engines to bring the craft to a null speed and allow gravity to take over. It takes a ton more fuel to line up the orbit to swing this way, but that's what the rescue mission is all about!
I adjusted my low orbit to hang just over the crash site. Then, on the swoop around, I fire my engines to bring the craft to a null speed and allow gravity to take over. It takes a ton more fuel to line up the orbit to swing this way, but that's what the rescue mission is all about!
I know what you mean about using a lot of fuel. This kind of sounds like how I had to approach Gilly (though I wasn't aiming for any spot, it's gravity is so low you practically have to kill all velocity just to orbit). In fact, that part took more fuel than getting to Eve I think.
Yeah, dropping in for precision landings is definitely the best way (and the easiest, if you have adequate fuel), particularly on Minmus. A bit harder to do on the Mün proper, since it has much stronger gravity.
I had to end most of the missions I was going to use for rescues because the game got so unstable. With all of the debri floating around, it's still unstable but doing a bit better.
0.18 is just about finished, probably will be released within a week.
Here's our official "What's new" for 0.18:
* Docking
Connecting vessels together is now possible! Build space stations, surface bases, or assemble huge spacecraft in orbit.
* Flight Planning
Getting to other planets and moons just got a lot simpler. Place maneuvers along your orbit to create a flight plan, and then just follow the guidance cues. No need to figure out angles or hold a protractor to the screen!
* Improved Map UI
New map icons show close approaches, intersections with other orbits, and a lot more, so you can focus on getting where you want to go, instead of worrying about how to get there.
* New Vessel Types and Vessel Renaming
Building a station? You can now rename and set your vessel as one of several new types, so it'll show on the map with the appropriate icon and name.
* Automatic Fairings
Rockets now look like proper rockets! Several parts now have automatic fairings that pop up whenever something is stacked below them, and then jettison away during flight.
* Much Improved Models and Textures
Many of the old parts have been completely redone, with carefully constructed meshes and hand painted textures, to give KSP a new look.
* A slew of new part types
Solar Panels, Docking ports, Batteries, Trusses, Ion Engines, Lights, Side-Mounted Parachutes, Crew Cabins, new Science Parts, and a heap more!
* Unmanned Probes
New unmanned pods for building probes and unmanned missions, plus a huge amount of new probe parts.
* Action Groups
A new way to control your ships! Instead of having everything done through staging, you can assign parts to groups that are controlled with a keypress. Set up Abort systems, or rig up complex contraptions. Or just let the game handle it automatically.
* New Input Modes
No need to have two hands on the keyboard and a third one on the mouse anymore. New input modes make for much more ergonomic controls, and it's all remappable!
* Two new celestial bodies
New places to explore, with interesting and varied terrain.
* New Resources System
Watching fuel drain has never been so much fun! New resources allow for completely new possibilities. Energy, Fuel, Oxidizer and other resources now flow through your ship. Manage them as you fly, and pump them across parts.
* Electricity
More power to the Kerbals! Many new functional electrical parts added, like Solar Panels, Batteries, and even a Nuclear Reactor!
* Lights
Landing on the nightside just got a lot less deadly, with new landing and floodlight parts.
* Functional Air Intakes
Turbines now properly require air to run, and Intakes can provide it for them, as long as there is an atmosphere around you.
* Music
KSP now has its own soundtrack, featuring many cool tracks, from smooth jazzy tunes to build ships by, to wondrous spacy themes as you explore the solar system.
* Much improved planets
Kerbin looks a lot better now, with hand-built terrain features. Moho and Eve also got major overhauls, and many others have also been improved.
* Performance Tweaks
New terrain optimizations and a system to prevent lag by slowing the simulation make for a significant improvement in performance.
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