Launching Hundreds of Satellites into Orbit for Science

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Have you ever looked at curb and thought, "Man, I wish there are hundreds of satellites in space debris covering low curbon orbit." No? Well, too bad, because that's what we're doing today.

[00:00:08]We'll be launching massive rockets full of satellites into orbit, stranding several Kerbals in space, and even skydiving. Yeah, I don't really know how that last one ended up happening. All right, let's do this. All right, back in uh back in KSB. It's been too long. I mean, well, not that long, but long enough. Anyway, look at this beautiful, beautiful planet. But it would just be so much better with like a ton of pollution around it. If I can still easily make out everything on this planet. Uh, we failed. I actually don't know exactly what I'm going to do for this, but I first I kind of want to just figure out what I want to actually send into orbit. I feel like I want to just do a bunch of little like just little tiny objects. Like I could do individual probes. That would just be a lot harder than let's say just taking uh these guys little what are these R for dumpling external tanks. I mean like just throwing like a ton of those around would be super easy. Even just take out all the fuel. I mean you could launch this pretty far here. You know, let me see how how tiny of a probe can I make.

[00:01:10]I mean this guy is pretty small actually. How big is that compared to this? Uh I mean it's definitely bigger.

[00:01:17]I mean what if we take that that already has uh oh wait unmounted. Oh, you could just have a B. Wait, way, way, this might be perfect. I don't think we need an antenna on here because we'll probably be in low orbit. But honestly, if we just take a solar panel, I don't know what's what's a like the smallest.

[00:01:34]Okay, not that. I I don't know which ones are going to be good for this. Uh oh, wait. This could work. Just like take a couple of these. I mean, there I say we've done it. And they don't need to be retractable. So, alternatively, we could just do static solar panels, and that would probably be more efficient.

[00:01:54]However, I think I just really like the look of having uh just a bunch of these little bug like things in space. All right, here we go. That's my probe.

[00:02:02]We're done. Now, what's the best way to attach this? I'm going to spend a minute and try to create a optimized little storage bay for them. something where we can have them all in and then launch them out once we're in orbit. This will just take a minute.

[00:02:21]All right, I think I've got the main thing done. So, this is I believe 30 of these probes. As you can see, they're they're in this nice little fairing. So, uh you know, from the outside, nice and concealed. And then come in here. And actually, if I just pop that off for now. We've just got so many of them.

[00:02:38]Also, I should probably go ahead and make a little action group for all these uh because otherwise I'm going to have to manually extend every single solar panel uh as I switch to each probe. And uh I'm not doing that. Anyway, we got the Did that reset my fairing? I Okay, hold on. Give me Give me a second. Okay, all fixed. So, uh what I have to do now is um basically to build the rest of the rocket. Uh this actually I might need quite a bit of power to get this into orbit.

[00:03:27]All right. So, uh, before I even launch this or explain what I did, I'm realizing the probes are actually really light. And this is actually almost certainly insanely overkill. probably should have thought about that beforehand, but uh you know, I just just um don't worry about it. Anyway, so uh what I did here, I actually I dug deep into my memory of when I played this game years ago and actually tried to do it like kind of efficiently. What we've got here is we have six boosters on the outside, one in the center there. We fire them all at the same time. And then we've got these uh fuel pipes going from here to here to here and then back in the same boom boom boom back into the main body. What that means is it should take from this one first. Like it'll empty this one out first. Then it'll empty this one, this one, and then the center one. And do the same for the three on this side. Then I've set it up so we have the decoupler stage in groups of two corresponding to how the uh fuel will be used up. So basically, we'll be firing all seven boosters at the same time. And then as soon as this one and this one run out of fuel, we detach them, saving on weight, obviously, and then we move to the next pair and the next pair, and then finally back to the center, which will be full on fuel at that point. If I remember correctly, that's like the most efficient way of doing this. So, uh, yeah, I Oh, wait.

[00:04:45]Let me make sure I have a curb in here.

[00:04:47]Okay, we do. Got Jebidiah, Bill, and Bob. They're going to make the world a better place. All right. So, time to make a uh well in orbit. Surely this doesn't go wrong.

[00:05:00]Did the Oh, I have to I forgot. I actually have to put the thrust up.

[00:05:04]These are not solid fuel boosters. Okay.

[00:05:06]And go.

[00:05:11]Okay. So, this was 100% overkill. Um we do not need to be going up this fast.

[00:05:17]All right. Uh let me just try to do a like a gravity turn here. This is This is so overkill. Well, you know what? I'm just making sure I have enough fuel.

[00:05:24]Anyway, you can see on the left, we can see when those run out. So, right about now, we detach those and we are now running on four thrusters plus the one in the middle. Let me actually throttle down a bit. Uh both to save on fuel and also because I could barely hear myself over these engines. Uh I think I want to go for an orbit of let's say a nice solid 100,000 m. Feel like that's a good orbit. Also probably tilt over more.

[00:05:47]This is We don't need to worry about being efficient. Look at all this thrust. Oh. Oh, and we did it. Okay, so that will be uh that'll be it. And now I'm actually going to use the maneuver nodes. Uh I I totally forgot about these. Uh very very useful. Just use these to make a nice circular orbit. I mean, I guess I didn't really need the maneuver nodes for previous videos, but I I can't believe I for I completely forgot about uh that feature. Now we can just wait for where it says node and tminus that time. Wait for that to get down to half of the burn time and go. Then get rid of those. And now you can see we are we're on our way to a nice circular orbit.

[00:06:34]All right. And we're good. We've now got a nice orbit. And honestly, okay. Uh what I'm going to do real quick because I really should have uh detached these boosters. um where I should attached them before we made an orbit so we can drop them into the uh into carbon. Then again, we are trying to pollute the not the atmosphere, but the space up here.

[00:06:53]So, I don't know. We want to pollute it with our satellites. Not with not with these boosters. I'm just going to do a quick little burn this way until there we go. Till we're in the atmosphere.

[00:07:02]Take those off. As you see, those will come right below the atmosphere and start burning up in there. Now, I can just flip back around and uh boost back to make an orbit. Oh, also while we're here, we can um go ahead and deploy that since there's really no aerodynamics to worry about. All right. Now, yeah, we we have so much fuel. All right. Well, anyway, now for the uh the fun part. I wonder if I should detach these like one at a time here. You know what? Going to make a quick save and then uh let's just see what happens if I detach every single one at the same time.

[00:07:37]Oh, actually, yeah, that makes sense. Uh, yeah. You know what? I'm going to go back to the quick save. I I should be doing these in stages. That way, they're a little more offset. Give me a moment to set these up. All right, perfect.

[00:07:50]Now, one, let's go to these. Extend them all here. For this next one, I'll turn the turn the ship a little and then fire them off. Extend all the solar panels.

[00:08:00]And uh yeah. Wait, they did not all extend. What? What happened? What? Why are these not ext Oh, wait a second. We are out of electricity. Oh, wait. I think I was supposed to put these in like hibernation mode or something.

[00:08:12]Yeah, that's that's on me. Well, they're just kind of dead. Oops. Are all of these dead? They're all dead. Okay.

[00:08:20]Wait. Oh, wait. Wait. Some of them are alive. Okay. You know what? Uh, I'm going to do this. We're just going to start firing them off.

[00:08:26]Okay. Well, the Oh, look at that. Now, before I return, I'm going to time warp and see how much these spread out.

[00:08:37]We'll change up the orbit a little for the next one. But anyway, for this next part, we head back to the surface.

[00:08:47]Wait, you know what? I bet we could just land with this. I do have a parachute and heat shield on this, but we don't need it here. I'm just going to use a little more fuel and kind of just see if I can direct it over to the uh KSC. Oh, yeah. Professional Kerbal Space Program player right here.

[00:09:06]Oh, a little too much. Oh. Oh, I'm time warping. I Okay, this is this is a little harder than I thought it would be. Oh, and there goes Arthane.

[00:09:16]Okay, parachute. Parachute.

[00:09:26]Um, uh, what if I revert back to the quicksave? All right, here's what I'm going to do. Going to point up like this. And I believe if I start burning here, yeah, it'll just turn our orbit.

[00:09:38]So, we're going to do this.

[00:09:46]Perfect. So, now Oh. Oh, wait. I should have waited even longer. Look at that.

[00:09:51]Wait, wait. This is This is so good.

[00:09:54]Okay, wait a second. I should have decoupled them all individually. This might take a minute, but it'll be worth it.

[00:10:06]Okay, that is uh it's a lot of stages.

[00:10:09]Now, we quickly rotate to face normal.

[00:10:12]Just like that. And now go.

[00:10:23]Okay.

[00:10:24]Oh, that's more like it. Oh, this is Oh, look at that. Wait, look at that. Like uh thing that forms because they're being launched like at different um at different angles relative to our rocket, you know, since they're like around it.

[00:10:37]We create a little like sinosoidal wave here. And then we, you know, we get this. Wait, this is actually this is just so cool. just making cool like mathematical patterns with sometimes I forget how Kerbal space program is literally just I mean it's just orbital physics it's not that complicated it's just this is just like physics and stuff anyway um back to back to carbon that's enough actual science we're here to pollute low low carbon orbit not make cool things we're here to ruin the life of everybody down below actually I guess you wouldn't really notice because this is what 30 satellites in orbit right now we have I mean we have Like there's a ton of satellites in orbit on Earth. You just never notice. You know what? Let me check real quick. It's like hundreds probably thousand. Approximately 15,000 according to the little AI overview, which is I mean I guess take that with a grain of salt. But yeah, basically there are a lot. You would just never notice because satellites are tiny and Earth is big. Or in this case, satellites are tiny and Kurban is big.

[00:11:37]Anyway, back down we go.

[00:11:48]Oh man, that's unfortunate. I guess we're getting some new Kerbals. All right, so I'm going to do a little something and make some uh action groups to toggle the hibernation here so that they're not running out of electricity. And then I'm going to go in here and uh just kind of extend these so that we've got just just every individual decoupler.

[00:12:16]All right. Well, that took a minute.

[00:12:18]Next up, I'm going to go ahead and just kind of uh drop our boosters down to four because we uh we do not need six.

[00:12:25]We had more fuel than I knew what to do with. All right, let's do this. I think what I'm going to do here is I'm going to do a bit more of a tilted orbit, but maybe tilt the other way. I don't know.

[00:12:36]We'll see how it goes. Play by ear.

[00:12:41]Oh, and I totally forgot to detach those. Okay. Well, that was horribly inefficient, but it is what it is. Oh, okay. I Yeah, I I'm just I'm just going to revert. That was such an abysmal launch. I was not paying attention. Let me do this right this time.

[00:13:03]Uh, so real quick, even though we're only at four boosters, this is still just way too much fuel. Um, in fact, this feels even worse than last time.

[00:13:12]You know what? Better safe than sorry.

[00:13:14]It's fine. Wait, why are these out of Don't tell me. Oh, I didn't put them into hibernate. Third time's the charm.

[00:13:28]How did it run out of charge? It's in hibernation. What?

[00:13:33]Unbelievable. Okay, wait a second. I think I see what's happening here. Um I This is I did not think I'd be running into this many issues. Let me Let me fix a couple things and then we'll be right back.

[00:13:53]Okay, I believe I have fixed all of the issues. And uh we are now ready to do this. Still got lots of satellites in orbit. Now, let's do this. My game froze. It just does that sometimes. I still don't know why. Just Just give it a second. There we go. I added a uh a big old battery there as well as some reaction wheels which should aid in our well just everything. Oh, I'm tipping over. Oh, stop. Stop. Stop.

[00:14:25]It's okay. This is why we have all this fuel. We We turn around. We can Okay, this is hopeless. I How How am I messing up an orbit with a rocket that has probably enough fuel to get to Duna and honestly probably even further? This is Is it possible to be this bad at the game? Well, clearly it is.

[00:14:56]And I'm doing this one. You look at me again.

[00:15:07]I just I'm still standing. We just stand.

[00:15:35]>> All right, let's do this.

[00:15:40]Okay. Uh, some of them have Okay. Some of them have shattered. Uh, however, uh, we we we it's fine. Okay. Uh, oh no. Oh no. I I disconnected that. Uh, I now just have to wait for this to run out of fuel because Well, I could kind of rock off of it maybe, but I really need to wait until we Uh-oh.

[00:16:05]Oh, it's not re-entering. Oh. Oh, we're so done. Oh, we're so Oh, no. Oh, this is really Oh, okay. We might have to have some Kerbals get out and push. Uh, well, on the bright side, we've got all these. Ah, look at that. Now, we're getting some good orbits. Okay, so we're in what some might refer to as a bit of a predicament. Uh, yeah. To make a long story short for this one, I spent way too long making repeated attempts to have Kerbles get out and use their little jetpacks to push the capsule so it could hopefully re-enter the atmosphere. While doing that, I managed to lose track of the amount of fuel they had two times in a row, leading to two separate Kerbals getting stranded with no jetpack fuel. Just left to kind of flood off into space forever. And then I just kind of had the last Kerbal um use his jetpack just on himself to get back into the atmosphere without the capsule, which he was able to do. Um but then he he kind of Well, I'll just let it play out. Oh boy. So, we are officially on our way to uh crashing into the Well, I thought it would at least take a little while for that to happen. Anyway, oh boy. It is just It's just miserable back here. Also, this is the first time I've seen a thunderstorm at night with this mod. You know what I say? Uh I'd say this is optimal uh rocket launching weather. All right. What a great time to launch a rocket.

[00:17:47]Oh, look at that shot coming up right as the sun is uh cresting over Kurban's horizon. All right. Well, uh I've got got myself a little I don't know what you would call this orbit, but we've got an orbit. Uh now it's time to start releasing the things.

[00:18:05]All right, and that's last of all.

[00:18:08]We almost have the entirety of Kurban covered. All right, let me go over and uh extend all these solar panels. So, let's do this properly this time and actually get back to uh to Kurban rather than stranding ourselves. I don't I don't really want to do that. All right, little bit of thrust and uh there we go.

[00:18:26]We are now it's we're going to reenter on the dark side. Whatever.

[00:18:35]Okay. Um, I don't know if we're going to slow down in time. Oh, it did. I Wait, was this our first successful Oh, wait.

[00:18:44]Okay, this was actually the first successful um re-entry.

[00:18:49]Oh, well, you know, the re-entry wasn't the goal here. It was whatever this is. Oh, how did it still Oh, well. Uh, zero successful re-entries. You know what? I think if we head to the tracking station real quick, I think one more good launch to cover this little uh these little quadrants or these wouldn't be quadrants, the these little sections. And I I honestly I think our mission will be done.

[00:19:27]Oh no, no, no, no, no. Oh, hello.

[00:20:01]All right, it uh it is that time. So now we can start firing them off.

[00:20:11]No, I I did it again. I did it again.

[00:20:14]Oh, we're Oh, no. Okay. Well, this is um this is highly unfortunate. Uh I'm really trying to like Okay. Uh, I have once again managed to get this stuck in orbit. But on the bright side, uh, we we did this.

[00:20:31]Um, yeah. Well, sorry, guys. Uh, you're going to be stuck in orbit for a little while. All right, let's take a look at our tracking station.

[00:20:42]And, uh, yeah, we've got we've got a few like dead zones in here. And we've got whatever this is going on out here. Uh I they are just going to be stuck out there forever. But uh oh well. Overall here if I can if I time warp this.

[00:20:58]They're just having a great time. Hey, wait a second. I just realized. So we get all these green lines to where they uh have connections to. And obviously they can all connect over here to the space center. However, there are also several other hotspots. I think there might actually be other uh other little research stations out there that are hidden on the map currently. So, you know what? If we uh if we have this knowledge, why not actually put it to use rather than just uh putting a bunch of junk in space. Now, uh let me make a quick little uh plane so we can travel around and uh explore those areas.

[00:21:40]All right. Uh, pretty good. All right, go.

[00:21:47]Uh-oh.

[00:21:49]Um, I may have blown up our engine somehow.

[00:21:54]Well, um, this uh this isn't great.

[00:21:59]All right, round two.

[00:22:22]What? They blew up again. How did Okay, I'm going to do this right this time.

[00:22:27]You see, using modern technology, uh, we can we can go ahead and just kind of kind of move it over. Thanks to uh the vessel mover mod, we can just kind of set it down. Is this cheating? I bet maybe. However, I don't Oh, I I meant to place this further up. Hold on. Hold on.

[00:22:48]Get it. Get it back in the air. Whoa. I didn't I didn't Whoa. Oh, wait. Wait.

[00:22:53]What part of carpon is this? I've never been here. Look, there's a Oh, there's a little satellite dish there. Wait, hold on. I want to go check that out. I just want to do a little flyby. Also, wow, this is this is so cool here. Look at these clouds. I Okay, this thing has awful controls. I I genuinely cannot control this. Okay, yeah, this is this is rough. Wait, you know what?

[00:23:19]Don't mind that. There we go. That's a big satellite dish. I kind of kind of want to see if I just This is four times speed.

[00:23:28]Give him a second.

[00:23:35]Why am I even walking him over? We've already used this. I just want to just want to bring him over here. Okay, now I want to see if Jedi can go skydiving.

[00:23:42]This looks like a good spot. Go.

[00:23:46]Oh, boy.

[00:23:48]Okay. Um, can I can I deploy? Actually, uh, you know what? Let me let me let me deploy his parachute. Oh, he's going to hit the All right. He no longer has a parachute.

[00:24:11]Oh, yeah. This is Well, that uh Huh.

[00:24:32]Eat people.