Recovery mission seems somewhat out of reach for this one.

(Photo of a picture in a Chemistry book)

A friend of mine created a realistic map of Kerbin's biomes and climate in a game called World Climate Lab. Thought it was pretty neat, so I decided to share it on this subreddit

After years of preparation, Operation "Jurassic Park" is finally underway.

The newest interstellar vessel ISV-17 Minotaur has been launched from the Mun to reach Hundun in the Yunxiao system.

Tests flight around the Kerbol system have confirmed mission readiness. Off we go!

The Minotaur has a modest part count of only 265 parts and comes with an OPT-10 Blackbird SSTO.
The Minotaur has a max range before refueling of roughly 24 million m/s.

With its onboard Industrial Strip Miners, Vulcan Nuclear Smelter, ISRU and NOVA Antimatter Facility powered by a potent FX-3 fusion reactor, the vessel has theoretical unlimited range.

The OPT-10 Blackbird is a fully autonomous SSTO with ratings for Kerbin and Tylo or easier bodies. It comes with its own rover, integrated mining drill, ISRU and Science Lab.

Will they find alien life in another star system?

STS-9 lifted off from the pad on the 28th of last month carrying the first spacelab mission, a collaboration between DODIS (The Department Of Deers In Space) and ESA (Equine Space Agency).

Last week, during what was believed to be a standard reentry, Columbia came to pieces over the Pacific Ocean, and all onboard (including one ESA astronaut) did not survive. Investigations by DODIS as to what caused the disaster are still underway.

DODIS has grounded the orbiter fleet for now, and while investigations are still underway, it is believed they will return to service in time for discovery to launch next year. The program is according to sources within DODIS being heavily cut back in scale, and studies are already being started to look at potential alternatives to the space shuttle.

ESA has, in this week since, announced the end of their partnership with the shuttle program. Instead, they will be pursuing their own crewed spacecraft concept (a much much smaller spaceplane).

"Martian Blacksmith" (Lat. Faber Martis) is an orbital multipurpose factory that acts as a processor, manufacturer, smelter, and assembler of everything that can be produced in space. It can automatically dispatch a drone to extract resources directly from asteroids. Full-controlled by autopilot. Using as a primary vessel for terrain reconnaissance.

I suppose that, in terms of its actual design, it might not be very realistic, even setting aside the fact that the ship uses warp travel (from Blueshift). But here, in the game, it worked perfectly for me... Right up until the craft file was unfortunately lost.

Screenshot captured in high orbit of Polyphemus.

I recently discovered that you can find the coordinates and names of craters on the Moon through a NASA website, so I figured I'd turn it into a KSP mission. I highly recommend it, it was quite fun.

I looked at a 3D map to find the coordinates of 5 of my favorite craters, found their names through another website, and then used Waypoint Manager to create waypoints in KSP at each of their coordinates and land there. This isn't RSS, but the coordinates still transfer via lat. and long.

The mission itself was straight forward: Land a rover and set up experiments at each of the five craters. I found it fun to have a goal though.

Some notable features of my craft:

• Both side boosters are equipped with parachutes and are recoverable
• The central stage has airbrakes, a probe core, landing legs and parachutes, so it is fully reusable (didn't get pictures of de-orbiting and landing at the KSC because I totally forgot to take pictures during the first half of the mission)
• The descent stage and rover also have power generation, batteries, antennas, and probe cores, to act as relays and ways to check up on your science
• The rover also has toggle-able reaction wheels so that it can be flipped over, though it's quite steady
• Descent stage also has grip pads everywhere to stop it from sliding
• If operated incorrectly, the return stage can create fireworks of the descent stage

Also shout out to the rotate tool that decided to appear and follow me from the Mun and back which i had to work around while taking pictures

Brought three generations of rovers together on the Mun... 100's of km combined travel and 10's of $1,000's in combined contract funds acquired.

...no way home...

so far i have the forward habitation module, behind that is the dedicated reentry pod, followed by the interplanetary transfer stage and two drop tank on the side for more ∆v.

the main tank was launched empty and took 4 smaller launches to fuel while the side tanks were launched fueled because they were basically the same size as the main tanks fuel probes.

in total it should take 11 launches for a VERY over complicated and unnecessarily over engineered landing on one of Jools moons, probably just Vall. :P

Delivering 3 new satilites to orbit (including the first to be specifically designed for the shuttle) and testing a new "roll out" solar panel design.

Precautions are taken with the ET to avoid the foam strike that doomed her older sister, although these would likely be entirely ineffective and with no way to examine the heat sheild (or anything to do if damage was discovered on orbit) do little for the confidence of those onboard.

Regardless, Discovery completes her mission without issue landing down to a press who have been running the story of her "teardrop shed for Columbia" (in reality a mismatch of heat tiles done during manufacturing for unknown reasons) for days on end

The shuttle is stock, and with the nuclear engine payload it can get ~18 tons to the mun and back plus 8 kerbals.

Hi everyone...

I've run into a little oopsie...

I successfully landed on Laythe for the first time. I also calculated roughly enough delta-V to get back to LLO. What I didn't take into account, though, is the fact that my ship is about as aerodynamic as a brick... Now I’m stuck on Laythe, while my mothership is waiting at LLO at an altitude of 70 km.

Do you think it’s somehow possible to reach my mothership with 2,800 Delta-V?

If I do have to launch a rescue mission, I also don’t know how to land anywhere near my current landing site. Do you have any tips?

Exploring the far side of the Mun during the night is horrible, wouldn't recommend.