Lightest Eve Lander

[raygundan]

Have you guys ever thought of removing the monopropellant from the crew capsule? It would reduce the weight by a little I imagine...

I'm guessing most of the high-scoring entries do this-- I know mine did. It makes a HUGE difference. It's still worth pointing out, though, particularly if people haven't played in a while and are used to (or have a ship from) an older version. The new lander can actually weighs more by default than the old one, but the only difference is the monopropellant it carries. If you remove it, the can weighs the same .6 it always has. Often this is the difference between a ship that "used to work in 21" and working just fine now. Thanks for pointing it out-- if I'd seen your post a while ago, it would have saved me quite a bit of time discovering it on my own!

[mr_yogurt]

Can I hyperedit my craft to Eve? I'm too lazy to take it there the normal way.

[Red Iron Crown]

Can I hyperedit my craft to Eve? I'm too lazy to take it there the normal way.

I did. The challenge is about landing and ascent, transfer is not part of it.

[astrobond]

Hi All

Not in the challenge, because of using Kethane, but for the fun, I made a 5.366 Tons Lander to ascent Eve Orbit from 19m to 120km !

Here is the link to the YouTube Video :

And the link to the "Kethane Mini Eve Lander.craft"

Fly safe

Edited November 7, 2014 by astrobond

[woot]

Has anyone successfully landed on Eve and returned to orbit in 1.02? The designs in this thread don't seem likely to work, so I'd be interested to see anyone's updated designs. I thought I had a good one but it's not working out so far.

[RocketBlam]

I'd be curious to see this done in 1.0x + also. I don't even know what D/V you would need with the new aerodynamics.

[selfish_meme]

A few people have done it, the dv requirements are much lower only 7500 m/s but it has to be aerodynamic and the Kerbals need to be protected going down and up. Most landers are over 100t and people are landing them empty and using ISRU. I have a prototype of a sub 80t lander full that I am working the kinks out of. The Kerbin launch weight is only about 300t so far which may balloon out a bit as there is some interplanetary dv to add.

[Rath]

Well here is my submission... however it is not that efficient like yours Red Iron Crown, will try to optimize it.

Also i was not able yet to get the capsule into orbit, it seems that a few 100 dV always are missing. I have to try to optimize ascend path....

Another thing is i did not include any possibility for a walk so there are no ladders.

Mass at EVE landing and liftoff: 65.9t

Craft File

http://www.rizla.at/ksp/2014-04-12_00046.jpg

I suggest that you attach all of the landing stuff(parachutes-landing legs-little drop tanks) to decouplers and ditch them as you lift off

[Jodo42]

Not an entry so much as an excuse to get some other posts in this thread and see what others have done.

Can get a kerbal to orbit from 1000m+ touchdowns. With the EVA pack it can probably do sea level.

I made a chart of various engine performance statistics for Eve, if anyone's interested.

If you want to continue this challenge you'll probably need to redo the rules. Infiniglide is no longer a thing, ascents can take much less than 8700m/s, and Eve's atmosphere ends at 90km now. Maybe a new thread is in order?

Edited June 24, 2015 by Jodo42

[RocketBlam]

After I have done it, I may start a new challenge. I need to know myself what kind of D/V is required, etc.

[Foxster]

Its still about dV but a huge thing now is streamlining.

Example: I built two near-identical Eve lifters, one with a Mk1 Lander Can and one with a Mk1 Command pod, both with appropriate nose cones. Common sense says that the former is going to be easier to get to orbit as it it weighs 0.22t less. Not so, it has more drag and it's nose cone is heavier, this overrides the weight advantage and actually makes it harder to get to orbit.

This makes it hard to design. You can use MJ or Engineer Redux to show the dV but that's only half the story now. You can build something with dV to spare but if it's more pancake-like it will never reach orbit. And there is nothing in either of those tools to tell you that.

The best Eve lifters now are sticks. Sure, you get more dV in theory with bits stuck on the side but they won't reach orbit. A compromise is to make sure that the bits stuck on the side are skinny. For instance, here's a sea level to 100km orbit capable lander/lifter. It beats all on the leaderboard from pre-1.0 and can almost certainly be slimmed a lot, especially if launched from a mountain top...

There's another design compromise not obvious from the picture. There's a LV-T45 engine in the middle of there. It would be better with another Aerospike but they have no bottom attachment point. So, its fine as long as you hyperedit your craft into orbit - otherwise you need something to mount this all to.

Edited July 6, 2015 by Foxster

[KerikBalm]

So, I started a new challenge, since a lot has changed (1.0) since this one came out, hyperedit to surface not allowed, launch above 1000 m not allowed.

I'm told your design comes in at 74 tons, which is lighter than mine (~90 tons)

However, a few improvements are obvious...

#1, the lv-T45, you can replace that with an aerospike, then use a structural pylon decoupler thing + some I beams to add an attachement node to the front. Thats how I got mine to orbit (once I had the attachment node, it went in my giant SSTO, and then I had mant struts going from the SSTO to the payload, it worked, and mine is heavier than yours)

#2) Shock cone intakes produce less drag (at least, thats what I saw in another thread) and weigh 1/3 of what an advanced nose cone does.

Capping all your FL-T800s with them should improve things a bit.

I'm not sure if a Shock cone instead of a nose cone on top of a lander can changes the result for which is better, the pod or the can...

[Foxster]

I did pretty much what you say above a little while ago. My latest Eve lifter looks like this...

It does have the aerospikes all round now, having clipped one into the centre position. Also used shock cones now too.

I've been building this as a total science craft. It includes a science rover, an MPL and the ability for a Kerbal to take all the science to orbit for collection and return to Kerbin.

[clems]

On KSP 1.8.1 I created this 7.5 t thing that launches a single Kerbal from Eve sea level to 100 km orbit.

It is from stock parts only, but obviously uses electric motors and propeller blades to ascend to 30+ km before lighting the single rocket engine (aerospike) that uses a somewhat innovative vertical asparagus staging (8 stages with two donut tanks each).

It furthermore uses MechJeb as autopilot and KOS for airspeed dependend heli blade pitch control.

It does not comply to the rules of this competition because it is a lawn chair design.

I like it nevertheless and want to share the concept of it ;-)

[James Kerman]

Welcome to the forum @clems, that looks like a really great design. This is quite an old thread and robotic parts were not around when it was created so you could start a new challenge with your own rules and see what other members can come up with.