RokRoland

Could someone summarize the test and the result in writing for those of us who are reading the forum but can not view the video? Thanks!

I am understanding this as "if SSTO blows up on re-entry, consider nosecone as part of payload and attach it with the shielded docking port". Because nosecone is payload, it is still SSTO. Kerbals on orbit need the nosecones for hats. Yes, hats. And to make snack cones.

With any atmospheric engine you need a good ascent profile in order to make orbit efficiently. I find that you should be making close to or exceeding 1000m/s with ramjets (I have experience with Whiplashes, don't know about your mod engine) before the speed starts to drop. At this point you should be pointing upward somewhere in the 20 to 40 degree angle region depending on design. In my book, if you are nowhere close to that, it is a matter of removing drag, removing weight, or adding more engine. It is not easy and after trying Rapiers, they almost feel like cheat mode as you won't necessarily need to put on more weight with dedicated non-atmospheric engines. The airbreathing engine thrust curve takes some getting used to. How fast is your machine if you level it out and run full bore with the turbojets at around 11-12km? Give it a shot with the Whiplashes too, as they may perform differently due to the dynamic effects of speed and air thickness. Edit: Some design considerations to minimize drag and weight would at first look to be get rid of some RCS ports, move to single central tail fin, experiment with removing one cargo section so you are not trying to bite too much at once, and see if you could somehow do without those draggy fuel ducts. Sometimes even minor modifications can help alleviate the drag and weight to get into that Whiplash sweet spot where you pick up speed really well.

Stayputnik goes great on my Science Trailer to give it control authority (brakes, lights) when the Rover isn't attached and scientists are in the lab, also helps toggle the landing legs to aid in docking. It's right there in the middle with lights attached.

I just found this guide and it appears extremely helpful and might help me move away from the "enough engine and booster to lift off at the verges of overheating due to acceleration" design philosophy, which necessitates launches that point up to 20 degrees away from directly up. Specifically, the points about SAS seem to be worth serious consideration. One thing I have been a bit baffled about is the shift of prograde when changing from surface velocity to orbital velocity. I suppose at this time the craft should be sufficiently far from atmosphere for attitude to matter much less. Then again I have a lot of experiments with spaceplanes which have good thrust in atmosphere, low thrust in vacuum and generally pretty bad drag characteristics so my thinking is probably skewed some, because I have had to consider whether to burn with the jets in vertical to get rid of drag, or horizontal to actually attain orbital speed, all the while micromanaging the shifting engine efficiency due to speed and altitude. Those experiences aren't based on gravity turns but consider the same relationship between aero forces versus thrust amount&direction and gravity. I am hoping this guide will help me (as others have noted above) to launch them more efficiently too. On a related note, I wish there was some kind of "Kerbal Wind Tunnel" mod, it could help you get rid of that "citation needed" part too.

Yes, there is a way that is easy for me at least. Right-click your fuel tank when building your craft. From there, you can remove LF or OX from the tank. However, for whatever reason the adjustment seems to be stepped, so if you have several tanks the smallest one has the best granularity. Based on your remaining LF at orbit, reduce it as appropriate. Anyway, I decided to build a SSTO based on a rover which had the transport experience Rapid Unplanned Disassembly at an apoapsis of 65 km. Jeb climbed into the rover and made it down safely. The Kerbal Steering Board mandated this platform to be used for all future SSTO efforts. It's a long story and I may write up about it later in the K-Prize thread, however here it is in a few poor quality pictures (the third picture features the Rover the SSTO is based on along with detachable Science Trailer roving about the Mun). The Ben Rover Go-Jetter 4c features two Whiplashes, a Terrier and a Twitch and orbits quite simply by pointing nose at 45 degrees, then after switching to rockets following prograde, and finally by thrusting towards apoapsis prograde at 70k+. It also lands in one piece and can be equipped with a jettisonable no-walk system for Val, which means she can directly EVA to the command chair, has a 70% chance of not damaging the ship and 95% survival rate for the pilot - a fair trade-off for saving a few paces! Cargo? It lifts a Kerbal. Mission accomplished! One notable drawback of the platform has been the symmetry of girders forming the base has been replaced by manual precision engineering measurements due to faulty building aids. Some pilots have complained about the tendency of the plane to pull slightly left. The pilots have been told they have been equipped with controls designed to compensate this issue, namely "yaw".

I think the post is a good introduction, but for the newbie and in order to understand rocketry, more glossing over the concepts of "Thrust" and specifically "ISP" in a more structured way would be a great benefit. In elaboration, "how fast fuel comes out the back" does absolutely nothing to describe the concept of ISP. However the next sentence does, but you could include an example which states that an engine with an ISP of 400 uses only half the fuel to produce the same thrust as an engine with the ISP of 200. Additionally you do mention ISP in atmosphere and ISP in vacuum but what these mean in practice are not elaborated on. And, even though thrust is a basic concept, dismissing it as "self-explanatory" may not be the most helpful way to approach a tutorial. I think that by adding more information on these topics would truly help the newbie to understand how to choose rocket engines.

After reading the initial question, then the answers, and then the original question again, I am unsure what you're actually asking. Whether you're asking "how to determine the correct separation in order to launch reliably", or "how to calculate how far away the target should be". Despite referring to calculation in the last paragraph, I do believe you're actually trying to find a method that will give you the correct time to launch on a reliable basis. Also, the method does not need to be mathematical but it should not be a "guess then correct until you hit it"-method. The following method should give you the right point of reference to your launch with just a single attempt used for experimentation: Line up your launch and wait until your space station is exactly overhead KSC, or whatever the closest point of separation is. At this time, launch your SSTO to the identical 100x100 orbit. No, you will not reach the space station this time. However, carry on and achieve the orbit with no regard to the space station. Let the space station orbit around once. Once the space station again passes exactly overhead KSC, note the distance of KSC to your SSTO. Let time pass, bring your already-orbiting SSTO down if need be, and line up another launch. Once the distance of KSC and space station is what you noted down in the previous step (outlined in bold font), launch your SSTO, and this time rendezvous with the space station in a coordinated fashion. With this solution, you can keep on using your distance to target method as you currently are, without giving thought to orbital periods or mess about with maneuver nodes. Finally, if you are having trouble eyeballing the distance of your reference SSTO to KSC at the proper time, jot down the distance between the SSTO and space station, put a satellite with sufficient delta-v to correct for position the identical distance in front of your space station on the identical orbit, and use the satellite for launch reference instead. All in all it does sound like a bit of work considering that just one second delay in start will throw you off by over 2 km, but hey, this sounds like a very Kerbal way of doing things, so thumbs up, don't give up and why Hohmann if you can eyeball it?

I've a craft where the first stage consists of a Twin Boar plus 4 additional orange tanks worth of fuel and 6 kickbacks. Even with 2 radiators and one deployable little radiator one the Twin Boar heats up enough to explode unless I throttle back. I never seem to read about anyone else using that engine, but I have good use for it in my career mode. The biggest downside is it seems to be very overheat-prone.

[quote name='Ozzallos'] Pretty much works as advertised. I used the Rockomax to clip the Seperatrons in and hung the heat shield off of it, so it pulls double duty. Face the seperator the right way (note the arrow) and you blow off the ablator once it's usefulness has expired, exposing your final deceleration stage. I call clipping fair in this case because the separator is preserved after use and nominally empty space. 12 Seperatrons are what it took to bring a minimally equipped Mk1-2 capsule from 150ms to zero, and trust me when I say your timing has to be dead on. You've got a four second burn window to do it and about the only advice I can give is you need to be seeing texture on the ground before you pull the trigger--the splotchy stuff before actual grass blades. Even if you pull it off successfully, anything on the outside of your capsule is likely to get trashed. I'm going to say this is landing on hardmode without some sort of radar altimeter to trigger the burn. Unless you land in the same spot at the same altitude, terrain will vary and so will the textures that you use for terminal reference. As a final note, the Rockomax screws up the flight characteristics of the pod. Landings were handled with SAS set to retrograde. All in all, it kinda reminds me of the old cowboy days of Kerbal without a lot of the flight assist, so kinda fun... And potentially a bad way to end a mission. [/QUOTE] Don't all pods with control have the radar altimeter measurement available in IVA mode? If the margin is 4 seconds, surely the readout from that meter has to be sufficient. Furthermore, mod-wise, I think Kerbal Engineer Redux provides a ground altitude readout if you plop in the engineering module (or have an engineer onboard) so this could also be used if landing from IVA without a parachute is too much to stomach :) First post by the way, hello dear forum-goers.