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Carry a payload to LKO, you may only use 3 Skipper engines on your first stage. Max payload wins. you wouldn't believe how hard it is to balance this out between TWR and DeltaV. You may have an empty fuel tank on your payload to drain leftovers from your last stage before detaching it. You may not use fuel from your payload to get into orbit. (Imagine the fuel crossfeed between payload and last stage works only in one direction, only into the payload) There are 2 (3) Categories: -Asparagus -Non asparagus (-Delta IV Heavy Style: Non-asparagus and modular, wich means the boosters and core-stage are identical and you have to throttle down the core engine during ascend to save fuel.) This main goal of this challenge is to determine how beneficial asparagus staging actually is. For this reason, please try to participate in both categories asparagus and non-asparagus. pictures would be great, but simple stats are ok as well: -Launch mass -Payload mass (must be seperated from the core-stage) -Booster configuration Leaderboard: Non asparagus 1. @Martian Emigrant: 32.79 t, modular core/booster and upper stage. I hope I got this right from the pictures, but it looks like he simply build a single first stage with 3 Skippers that burned out simultaneously. 2. Me: 31.867 t, modular core/booster, no upper stage, throttle control on the core 3. @MarvinKitFox: 27.1 t, throttle control on the core, no pictures Asparagus: 1. Me: 34.196 t, modular core/booster, no upper stage 2. @MarvinKitFox: 31.1 t 3. @Martian Emigrant: 30.36t, modular core/booster and upper stage. Extremely low TWR after booster sep lead to a shallow launch profile with presumably lots of drag losses.