KSP Weekly: The Moon Race

Welcome to KSP Weekly! On Monday an exciting contest was unveiled by Airbus Space at the International Astronautical Congress in Bremen, Germany, promising to develop technologies for a trip to the moon in 2024. The European Space Agency, the Mexican Space Agency, Airbus, Blue Origin and Vinci Construction are supporting this competition which aspires to incite a new private-sector moon race.



The contest, appropriately called “The Moon Race,” is a global initiative that aims to boost Moon exploration and enable the demonstration of key technologies required for its sustainable exploration, as well as foster global entrepreneurship.

Not much has been revealed, but according to its website participants will be able to sign up in 2019, with prototypes due in 2020 and technology development – including a test in a lunar-like environment – targeted for some time in 2021, setting the stage for a Moon mission in 2024. Teams will have the chance to apply for parallel technology streams in manufacturing, energy, resources and biology.

The project’s organizers say more will be revealed next year, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the historic Apollo 11 moon landing. We are certainly excited to see what comes out from this initiative, and we hope that their goals are achieved and that these efforts help to bring us closer to becoming a multi-planetary species.

[Development news start here]

Kerbal Space Program 1.5: Dressed for Success is around the corner and this week we wrapped up some of the final elements within this update. For instance, after compiling all the feedback shared by our beloved community, we have made some adjustments to the helmets of the new EVA/IVA Space Suits, and we’d like to show them to you. Here are couple of gifs for you to fully appreciate the new suit in different environments: EVA in Space and EVA at the KSC.



Click here to see the high-res image.



We have been listening and taking note from the feedback you have provided us with, so check out these updated parts, too!

Click here to see the high-res image.



Click here to see the high-res image.



The team also completed the revamp of the Probodobodyne Stayputnik Command Module. Needless to say, this part is influenced by the Sputnik satellite, and as such we wanted to make some adjustments to make this part look closer to its analogue. To achieve this and as with all the other parts we’ve revamped for this update, the specular, normal and diffuse maps have been redone from scratch. This is also one of the parts that benefits the most from the new shader, but an image speaks a thousand words, so take a look for yourself. Click here to see a gif with the new Stayputnik in motion.



Click here to see the high-res image.



Bug fixing was included in this week’s agenda and among this final sweep, we implemented an auto spring/damper to the wheel suspension system in order to diminish involuntary bouncing. We also adjusted the wheel friction and suspension parameters to tackle this problem. We expect that this will improve the behavior of the wheels and legs in the game.

We also want to take this opportunity to talk about our plans on future updates to the game. With the intention to continue advancing KSP and give our players exciting new content and features to look forward to, as well as to improve our processes, from 1.5 onward we will deliver updates approximately every 3 months. These quarterly updates will keep offering exciting new content that will improve our players’ game experience. We are also working hard to limit the impact on mods in various ways, and by providing regular updates we hope to give the modding community a better idea on development timings.

Finally, we want to let you know that this is going to be the last KSP Weekly in its current format, but don’t you worry! This doesn’t mean that we will stop giving you development news; on the contrary, the reason we’re doing this is to reinvent the way we give updates to our fans. We want to provide you with more relevant, substantial and focused updates about everything that happens within the KSP HQ. The idea here is quality instead of quantity. The new development news format will be called “KSP Loading…” and will be a newsletter that compiles all the current developments of KSP intermittently between each update. We will however share small bits of day-to-day developments more casually throughout our social media channels - e.g. screenshots, short videos, and Devblog posts among other cool things. Let us know if you’d like us to keep sharing news and interesting facts about space, and we’ll find a spot for such posts as well.

[KSP Vault]

Let’s hold a minute of silence for all the Kerbals that met their maker when Call Me Kevin decided to make his own space agency.



On the other side of the skill spectrum, ShadowZone sent a 300,000kg statue to Eeloo. This might be one of the most impressive feats we’ve witness in KSP. If you haven’t, don’t miss it, you won’t be disappointed…



Have you seen cool KSP-related content that you consider worth highlighting? Share it with us and help us give content creators more exposure. :)



Remember that you can also share and download missions on Curse, KerbalX, the KSP Forum and the KSP Steam Workshop.

That’s it for this week. Be sure to join us on our official forums, and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and Facebook. Stay tuned for more exciting and upcoming news and development updates!





Happy launchings!





*Information Source: