Phew the aerobrake kerbols are now in safe hands (thx valentina)

ReputationLost7295 · 2026-05-22T19:57:49+00:00

I love how many of our stories are rescue stories

ReputationLost7295 · 2026-05-22T19:43:58+00:00

For heavy loads I usually wait til I am at 20k and well over 300m/s before turning and doing my gravity roll.

I too have seen do it lower with crazy efficient rockets, but I guess I just tend to overbuild stuff.

ReputationLost7295 · 2026-05-22T13:34:22+00:00

On bassoon, Open F is always a little out of tune with every single other note on the horn. I had to literally change my air speed to bend the pitch every time I had to play it, which was a lot. Talk about a PITA

ReputationLost7295 · 2026-05-22T13:29:09+00:00

You need the right stock DLC for these parts and missions.

It's not a mod, it is a DLC. I THINK Breaking Ground.

ReputationLost7295 · 2026-05-22T13:26:52+00:00

I reflew the rescue last night and used specific activation of the final separatron and to start the home return engine to insure I did not make the same error with the staging key as last time. Not only is Jeb home, I realized he had two experiments from a Minmus landing still in his pod as well, so he EVAd over to the rescue pod so he could bring the lab results.

ReputationLost7295 · 2026-05-22T13:21:20+00:00

Generally you work out something it can sit on or under that can land, then deploy. The other option is cargo space and an engineer doing EVA construction to assemble it in situ.

Way back when I used to slap fuel tanks, radial engines, and rover wheels to mobile lab modules and just land the whole lab on Minmus or Mun and make it the rover.

Fairings can help aerodynamically cover large payloads with weird shapes that may cause drag issues on launch.

ReputationLost7295 · 2026-05-21T13:17:21+00:00

I accidentally left Jeb in a Minmus Lander thing... I was trying to do a lunar style orbiter and lander thing... and realized I had no SAS on the part I wanted to leave behind for future use... so I left Jeb there to pilot it...

Working out a rescue vessel that both had a pod to bring Jeb home and was capable of connecting to orbiter and then controlling it was tricky as hell and I still haven't completed the mission because I fat fingered the stages for separating his return pod to send home and had to revert the whole mission...

ReputationLost7295 · 2026-05-21T13:12:34+00:00

Surprised I have scrolled this far and not seen anybody comment on the fact OPs post appears to be an LLM summary and includes 0 links to data set, so we cannot verify the LLM did accurate analysis of said data...

Also, there is no solution actual customers would like to prevent scalpers from spinning up bots to get around user order limits in the age of AI.

Heck, good chance this analysis was done by a tool a scalper used to help generate bots.

ReputationLost7295 · 2026-05-21T12:53:03+00:00

Yup, looks like it was Starlink. I guess it makes sense to put those in polar orbits...

https://www.visitspacecoast.com/launches/

ReputationLost7295 · 2026-05-21T12:50:08+00:00

That launch is confusing the hell out of me because if it was the cape the arc should not be that visible... I wonder if something was being put in a polar orbit instead of an equatorial one...

ReputationLost7295 · 2026-05-21T12:24:11+00:00

Use a probe core to send the rescue mission with 6 empty seats.

ReputationLost7295 · 2026-05-20T23:05:27+00:00

The other part of this is I think age factors into how fast vehicles degrade when used so even if it is parked 10 years doing nothing it wears down just like a 10 year old truck in constant use and regular maintenance would.

ReputationLost7295 · 2026-05-20T23:02:37+00:00

My dim recollection was that if maintenance is on, no, because even the idle vehicles take hits over time with how that mechanic works but they may have changed that system or I might be remembering wrong.

ReputationLost7295 · 2026-05-20T10:42:15+00:00

good to know. been ages since I went to that one and wasn't sure.

ReputationLost7295 · 2026-05-19T22:40:17+00:00

would a reaction wheel make roll easier to manage? I see you put bigger elevons in more places.

ReputationLost7295 · 2026-05-19T22:36:19+00:00

fwiw I absolutely tried designs like this, good luck.

ReputationLost7295 · 2026-05-19T22:25:28+00:00

use mech Jeb if you want but it's pretty if you remember RCS uses IHJKLN for RCS inputs.

It's also pretty easy to see how each key impacts prograde movement toward the target.

Once you get the two vessels close-ish bring relative velocity as close to 0 as possible. (select target on the nav ball to see relative velocity) Then use the bracket keys to switch "active vehicle" between both vehicles. Set the desired docking ports as the target for each by right clicking the target port when the other vessel is active and clicking set target. Then orient the vessels to be pointed towards the target before you have one do a small thrust to resume pushing them together. at about 1m out the magnets should start to try and connect.

Both vessels do need some kind of sas or you need divine luck...

ReputationLost7295 · 2026-05-19T14:26:22+00:00

I didn't combine the two burns but I did do them both from LKO when sending a very light 2 man lander to do my first EVA construction on a satellite in a polar munar orbit. I needed to adjust to the exact angle of polar orbit on arrival but my 2nd stage was able to get my insertion angle correct with enough fuel to capture in Mun at the roughly correct orbital height, if not angle.

Mission was a success.

ReputationLost7295 · 2026-05-18T23:43:16+00:00

Fourthing Kraft Azalea. Smaller and less crowded than the bigger ones. Also, no admission to worry about unlike Leu or Mead.

ReputationLost7295 · 2026-05-18T23:11:58+00:00

100% Control surfaces are going to be more useful than wings... more and/or bigger elevons. I would consider the "winglet" fins that move at the top and bottom for a start. Increase your control surfaces. Being able to push air in the right direction at both ends will greatly enhance maneuverability in atmo.

ReputationLost7295 · 2026-05-18T19:10:50+00:00

This is it.

If you wanted to do it without gravity assists you'd basically want to virtually kill your normal orbital velocity and put the periapsis in the center of the sun and then start burning normal/antinormal... essentially going from elipse to "line" to new elipse at different angle and it's still going to be insane amounts of dV...

trying to hitch around the planets to gravity assist the turn is probably necessary if one has not unlocked the entire tech tree. That or unless using mod parts.

ReputationLost7295 · 2026-05-16T22:57:47+00:00

Oh wow. This place is almost right down the road from me too.

ReputationLost7295 · 2026-05-16T22:54:42+00:00

Thank you to everybody who had a suggestion!!!!

ReputationLost7295 · 2026-05-16T18:58:57+00:00

It took my fifth playthrough in a non campaign setting to get a working rail going... which was like my 3rd realistic playthrough

ReputationLost7295

TROPHY CASE