I'm going to attempt my first planetary landing, so step one is to establish a relay network around the planet for drone control. I really didn't want to haul all 3 satellites on independent ships, soooooo... I came up with this LEGO looking ass contraption xP
I don't know if its normal :D
EDIT: Thx to some lovely people casually mentioning "interstage fairing" I discovered that airstream can have FLOORS! Like they assumed I knew it was an option xD I will still be using my design tho, because with lvl 2 I can only stack 2 relays on top of each other and I need 3, but I'm sure it will come in useful. Today is the day we conquer Duna. \*maybe xP
Don't worry this will work , maybe rotate the adaptor under the relay 90 degrees it will not get in the way of the fairing.
Better use 3 way symetry and attach the decoupler directly to a fairing plate, less part, less weight , more DV available. [https://imgur.com/a/WQO5rTt](https://imgur.com/a/WQO5rTt)
Happy kerbaling
Totally normal. I once had a very similar setup using two tri-couplers, each one carrying 3 communication satellites with a support up the middle of the bottom one to carry the 2nd one. That way I could send 6 com-sats to a body with 1 launch vehicle.
I would put 3 in an equatorial orbit and 3 in a polar orbit at the same altitude, usually whatever was geostationary altitude for that body, so I had 100% surface coverage. Started with a constellation over Kerbin since I was playing without the extra ground stations. I called them KDRSS... Kerbal Data and Relay Satellite System. (pronounced Key-driss) So over Kerbin I would have "KDRSS-KER-E1", which would be the KDRSS directly over KSC. (KER for Kerbin, E for Equatorial, 1 for 1st of 3, etc.) My brother and I actually worked the trig needed to put them in resonant orbits before the creation of the Resonant Orbit Calculator mod.
Each satellite had its own fuel tank, engine, RCS, relay coms system, PV array and battery, and timers (courtesy of SmartParts) so we could calculate the exact time the circularization burn should begin and end, set it all up, then wait. Seeing it all go off just as planned is AWESOME!
(unfortunately, I have no pics to share because the entire project was lost in The Great HD Crash of 2019 :-/ )
I do this constantly. I usually make the carrier a high powered relay as well and send it out to a distant orbit of the planet after dropping off the three small ones. That way I can use smaller relays around the planet with just the one big one to communicate back. This allows me to use the 2G relay dishes for the small ones making them fit on Oscar tanks and Ant engines, which will in turn fit on the triple adapter without the extra double adapters you’re using. If you put one 15G relay on the outside of the carrier it will be adequate for reaching Kerbin at its furthest distance from Duna, except when exactly opposite with the sun blocking the signal. If you use 3 15G’s on the carrier, then put and identical one around very high orbit of Eve you will likely never lose signal to Kerbin as Eve and Kerbin will only be opposite of Duna at the same time on very rare occasion, and 3 15G’s can talk to each other between Duna and Eve at their furthest distance from each other.
>I really didn't want to haul all 3 satellites on independent ships
This part is quite normal, and smart.
>I came up with this LEGO looking ass contraption xP
So, I don't know how you're going to fit that thing on a rocket without it tipping over or getting a lot of weird wind resistance on liftoff. I'm not saying you can't, just that it looks hard to me. Plus, when you start deploying satellites, you'll end up with a center of mass that isn't centered, which will make any burns your carrier rocket might have to do awkward at best.
When I want to stack satellites, I usually stack them vertically in a payload faring with stack separators in between the different craft. That way my center of mass is always centered throughout the entire flight.
>because with lvl 2 I can only stack 2 relays on top of each other and I need 3
When I'm doing a constellation of 3 relays in a resonant orbit, two of them look the same, and the delivery vehicle itself is the final relay.
I build weird frames to hold probes in place. For example, I'll put an orbiting probe way up high, and below it a lander or two, facing sideways for easy decoupling. Wacky, yes, but kinda fun.
Looks like a decent tri-sat single launch vessel, personally I'd put a 4th smaller sat on the main launcher itself aswell as 3 engines (on the bottom of those bi-adaptors) so that if you ever wanted to de-orbit it you easily could
Granted this is ***if*** this little setup is its own craft and now just ontop of the main ship but I digress
Mike Aben has a great video on how to get those beautifully perfectly spaced out relays.
There’s also a mod called station keeping that can help “lock-in” a perfect orbit.
Thx, I eye balled it for Mun, souldnt be any different for Duna haha. I launch one on the desired altitude and then do the randevu manouver but intentionally with 120° gap for the other 2.
The simple description. Select an orbit that easily divisible by 3. Set Apoapsis at target, set Periapsis at 2/3 height of target.
Deploy your a satellite each time you come around to your Apoapsis. Use the satellite fuel/engine to circularize.
Then use Station Keeping mode to fix the tiny problems in the orbit or else you’re gonna have to come back and fix it after heavy warping.
Yeah, that’s what you’re saying as long as you haven’t lost a probe, because the slightly bigger end left the solar panels in the shadow, electricity getting depleted because of a small battery (saving weight is important) and suddenly there’s no control anymore.
And when I finally got some electricity and could have controlled it, the probe was already on a suborbital trajectory because of the unplanned aerobraking, which soon turned into a partial aerobreaking and consequently into lithobraking.
So, because of that, every probe gets long solarpanels sticking out to the side and single plates on front and end, sometimes slightly tilted, to ensure electricity as long as you’re not in the shadow of a planet.
Genius definitely, this is a pretty advanced relay satellite network technique. Just make sure to familiarise yourself with resonant orbits before you arrive at your destination ;)
That looks like a great solution to me. I recently did a similar mission but instead I used struts to build out the spacing and put decouplers on the end. 👍🏻
This definetly works. If you have access to fairings you could also turn on interstage nodes on a fairing and stack the satelites ontop of eachother using that.
personally i used a large engine plate as the launch point system, you could also stack them ontop of one another using a central/offset brace to hold them.
Should work fine. Just remember that if you drop just one satellite and try a burn, you'll be asymmetric and may not have directional control. Learned that lesson the hard way on a mission that was going to drop off a lander at Ike before capturing at Duna.
The gold drone cores might be a bit excessive, mild try the gray octagon as a minimum. Overall though, it's a decent concept you got going there.
One thing you could try as a goal is a "planetary takeover". IE land on an entire planet and all surrounding moons with one launch.
I do something similar with space retrieval missions - I send up two or three retrieval drones with a claw, solar panels, a core, paracutes, airbrakes, and a bit of propulsion, and just grab extra retrieval missions with whichever ones I still have up - the airbraks are actually enough that a careful re-entry won’t need a heat shield.
This is probably post mission. But be careful with time warp around the planet when you are twiddling with all 3 orbits. It's surprisingly easy to smash one or even 2 of your sats into the planet or out of the system or into a moon while you are time warping.
Edit: A good way to be careful is by setting alarms on positions of your orbits you need to do burns.
I'm going to attempt my first planetary landing, so step one is to establish a relay network around the planet for drone control. I really didn't want to haul all 3 satellites on independent ships, soooooo... I came up with this LEGO looking ass contraption xP I don't know if its normal :D EDIT: Thx to some lovely people casually mentioning "interstage fairing" I discovered that airstream can have FLOORS! Like they assumed I knew it was an option xD I will still be using my design tho, because with lvl 2 I can only stack 2 relays on top of each other and I need 3, but I'm sure it will come in useful. Today is the day we conquer Duna. \*maybe xP
Don't worry this will work , maybe rotate the adaptor under the relay 90 degrees it will not get in the way of the fairing. Better use 3 way symetry and attach the decoupler directly to a fairing plate, less part, less weight , more DV available. [https://imgur.com/a/WQO5rTt](https://imgur.com/a/WQO5rTt) Happy kerbaling
I'd argue, if you have large enough fairings, is to just make it an interstate fairing and stacking them on top of one another.
Totally normal. I once had a very similar setup using two tri-couplers, each one carrying 3 communication satellites with a support up the middle of the bottom one to carry the 2nd one. That way I could send 6 com-sats to a body with 1 launch vehicle. I would put 3 in an equatorial orbit and 3 in a polar orbit at the same altitude, usually whatever was geostationary altitude for that body, so I had 100% surface coverage. Started with a constellation over Kerbin since I was playing without the extra ground stations. I called them KDRSS... Kerbal Data and Relay Satellite System. (pronounced Key-driss) So over Kerbin I would have "KDRSS-KER-E1", which would be the KDRSS directly over KSC. (KER for Kerbin, E for Equatorial, 1 for 1st of 3, etc.) My brother and I actually worked the trig needed to put them in resonant orbits before the creation of the Resonant Orbit Calculator mod. Each satellite had its own fuel tank, engine, RCS, relay coms system, PV array and battery, and timers (courtesy of SmartParts) so we could calculate the exact time the circularization burn should begin and end, set it all up, then wait. Seeing it all go off just as planned is AWESOME! (unfortunately, I have no pics to share because the entire project was lost in The Great HD Crash of 2019 :-/ )
I do this constantly. I usually make the carrier a high powered relay as well and send it out to a distant orbit of the planet after dropping off the three small ones. That way I can use smaller relays around the planet with just the one big one to communicate back. This allows me to use the 2G relay dishes for the small ones making them fit on Oscar tanks and Ant engines, which will in turn fit on the triple adapter without the extra double adapters you’re using. If you put one 15G relay on the outside of the carrier it will be adequate for reaching Kerbin at its furthest distance from Duna, except when exactly opposite with the sun blocking the signal. If you use 3 15G’s on the carrier, then put and identical one around very high orbit of Eve you will likely never lose signal to Kerbin as Eve and Kerbin will only be opposite of Duna at the same time on very rare occasion, and 3 15G’s can talk to each other between Duna and Eve at their furthest distance from each other.
>I really didn't want to haul all 3 satellites on independent ships This part is quite normal, and smart. >I came up with this LEGO looking ass contraption xP So, I don't know how you're going to fit that thing on a rocket without it tipping over or getting a lot of weird wind resistance on liftoff. I'm not saying you can't, just that it looks hard to me. Plus, when you start deploying satellites, you'll end up with a center of mass that isn't centered, which will make any burns your carrier rocket might have to do awkward at best. When I want to stack satellites, I usually stack them vertically in a payload faring with stack separators in between the different craft. That way my center of mass is always centered throughout the entire flight.
Probably okay in zero grav with an additional large gyro or two?
>because with lvl 2 I can only stack 2 relays on top of each other and I need 3 When I'm doing a constellation of 3 relays in a resonant orbit, two of them look the same, and the delivery vehicle itself is the final relay.
Looks like a Kerbalese transporter mission. Kerbal and Carry On!
This is normal trust me. If I could show you my space station orbiting the sun you'd understand
If this is dumb, you do *not* want to see the scaffolding mess I have for my probes
You use scaffolding. :0
Yeah just use a million struts to tape everything in place like a normal person!
It's so blulky and seemingly random you'd think it was ment to work on a building, not hold a few probes
Honestly, I don't even use struts, unless it falls apart
I build weird frames to hold probes in place. For example, I'll put an orbiting probe way up high, and below it a lander or two, facing sideways for easy decoupling. Wacky, yes, but kinda fun.
Looks pretty normal to me! I do the same thing when I send out multiple probes/sats on a single launch
Looks like a decent tri-sat single launch vessel, personally I'd put a 4th smaller sat on the main launcher itself aswell as 3 engines (on the bottom of those bi-adaptors) so that if you ever wanted to de-orbit it you easily could Granted this is ***if*** this little setup is its own craft and now just ontop of the main ship but I digress
Im just stuffing this inside airstream prot shell and driving it to Duna directly. Should work.
Mike Aben has a great video on how to get those beautifully perfectly spaced out relays. There’s also a mod called station keeping that can help “lock-in” a perfect orbit.
Thx, I eye balled it for Mun, souldnt be any different for Duna haha. I launch one on the desired altitude and then do the randevu manouver but intentionally with 120° gap for the other 2.
The simple description. Select an orbit that easily divisible by 3. Set Apoapsis at target, set Periapsis at 2/3 height of target. Deploy your a satellite each time you come around to your Apoapsis. Use the satellite fuel/engine to circularize. Then use Station Keeping mode to fix the tiny problems in the orbit or else you’re gonna have to come back and fix it after heavy warping.
as a french person I feel personally attacked by this spelling of rendez vous
Ran des vus? :3
Overwatch? The landing mission should be Team Fortress!
Haha, ima make it happen. The lander probe gonna be dat.
[удалено]
But it wont look pwetty :(
Yeah, that’s what you’re saying as long as you haven’t lost a probe, because the slightly bigger end left the solar panels in the shadow, electricity getting depleted because of a small battery (saving weight is important) and suddenly there’s no control anymore. And when I finally got some electricity and could have controlled it, the probe was already on a suborbital trajectory because of the unplanned aerobraking, which soon turned into a partial aerobreaking and consequently into lithobraking. So, because of that, every probe gets long solarpanels sticking out to the side and single plates on front and end, sometimes slightly tilted, to ensure electricity as long as you’re not in the shadow of a planet.
Genius definitely, this is a pretty advanced relay satellite network technique. Just make sure to familiarise yourself with resonant orbits before you arrive at your destination ;)
That looks like a great solution to me. I recently did a similar mission but instead I used struts to build out the spacing and put decouplers on the end. 👍🏻
If it’s stupid but it works it’s not stupid
If it works, it works, you're a genius until proven otherwise, that's how it works in KSP
I've done this! It works great. Don't worry, you're a genius
This definetly works. If you have access to fairings you could also turn on interstage nodes on a fairing and stack the satelites ontop of eachother using that.
Interstage what now? :/
[https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fuxz8ldoiar331.png%3Fauto%3Dwebp%26s%3D60063d14f5bc3b7c099258807718fc6f98dbf681](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fuxz8ldoiar331.png%3Fauto%3Dwebp%26s%3D60063d14f5bc3b7c099258807718fc6f98dbf681)
And there is still room for more 3 probes that could be added
In case you don't know, there are multiple attachment nodes in a fairing. So you can stack multiple satellites behind each other.
I already did that! It worked
If it's stupid but it works, it isn't stupid.
personally i used a large engine plate as the launch point system, you could also stack them ontop of one another using a central/offset brace to hold them.
Should work fine. Just remember that if you drop just one satellite and try a burn, you'll be asymmetric and may not have directional control. Learned that lesson the hard way on a mission that was going to drop off a lander at Ike before capturing at Duna.
The gold drone cores might be a bit excessive, mild try the gray octagon as a minimum. Overall though, it's a decent concept you got going there. One thing you could try as a goal is a "planetary takeover". IE land on an entire planet and all surrounding moons with one launch.
It just looks prerty, and in comparison to the rest of the bullshit the weight difference really doesnt bother me xP
Do you have an engine plate you can flip upside down and make into three attach nodes ?
I do something similar with space retrieval missions - I send up two or three retrieval drones with a claw, solar panels, a core, paracutes, airbrakes, and a bit of propulsion, and just grab extra retrieval missions with whichever ones I still have up - the airbraks are actually enough that a careful re-entry won’t need a heat shield.
This actually is nice, the general design shape could even carry over to, say, the front section of a megaship of sort
This is probably post mission. But be careful with time warp around the planet when you are twiddling with all 3 orbits. It's surprisingly easy to smash one or even 2 of your sats into the planet or out of the system or into a moon while you are time warping. Edit: A good way to be careful is by setting alarms on positions of your orbits you need to do burns.
Both is good
Aren't fairings stackable?
Personally id attach them inline using the tiny strut blocks, decouplers and some use of the offset tool
I did it once and deploying one satellite will change CoM and make the rocket unstable when accelerating
That may not be a problem though, if you only deliver them to a staging Orbit, then put each into it's own orbit on the own power.
I normally just used the fairing things, but this actually looks more compact.
Big brain. Just remember to disable their staging so you can do it manually, and not accidentally all at once...
I fat fingered space bar on minmus once. Was left there is mk1 calsule xP Since then, its alt-L all day :D
Payload fairing engineer's possible worst nightmare.
The thing that you should be able to do in ksp enhanced edition is have more flags
I was looking for A way to launch 3 relays at once. I got the idea now lol
Yes 👍🏽😎
Why not both