Avo4Dayz

So turns out the other two craft files had mechjeb installed. Here is a link to KerbalX and also to Imgur for the lot. The Krafts on KerbalX do not have any modded parts installed https://kerbalx.com/Avo4Dayz/FlyBack https://kerbalx.com/Avo4Dayz/medium-fly-back-booster https://kerbalx.com/Avo4Dayz/375-fb https://imgur.com/gallery/RmgQRJW

Yeah of course images and kerbalX would be good. Just easy to share link from where I backed up haha

Anyone interested in playing with flyback boosters I have shared a link to stock ones which I have made. They are designed to be able to lift adequate payloads to a parking orbit with equatorial apoapsis of 125km. Then your payload will circularise or you can use an upper stage to do this (taking out of your payload fraction). From there you circularise your payload before switching back to the booster and performing a course correction burn if necessary and then ignite the panther engines to extend your range back to the runway. The Twin Boar variant is great for small satelites. The variant built off the plane tanks can easily lift the Mark 2 capsule to space using a poodle kicker stage and plenty Delta-V to reach your station. the 3.75m variant has be glide tested only, but I figured larger payload options might be useful. I do recommend SRBs for larger paylaods to reserve some Delta-V for high altitude trajectory corrections. Very much interested on people's opinions on the crafts or if they have made fly backs of their own. https://kerbalx.com/Avo4Dayz/FlyBackhttps://kerbalx.com/Avo4Dayz/medium-fly-back-boosterhttps://kerbalx.com/Avo4Dayz/375-fbhttps://imgur.com/gallery/RmgQRJW

Tried the SSTU custom tank and bring "rocket parts" in that? Added in a fuel line from pod to tank and adds up now thanks

I'm not sure if this is a 1.5 bug or just a general thing. However I have noticed the 3 lander command pods when paired with the lander tank have more Delta-V without additional fuel attached to the command module itself. Is this as intended? https://imgur.com/gallery/emynY6t I am aware it reduces parts when setting up Apollo styled ascent/decent stages of a module. But I would imagine the fuel in the tank should outweigh the mass of the tank itself in regards to delta-v?

There was an economy to orbit (payload mass/cost) that was in version 1.2.X. This was my entry for that https://imgur.com/a/W6vyW I do have another link with Ascent profiles etc. But does this qualify? I suppose I could refly the whole test again to prove function in current version of Kerbal. But as it was a fully stock challenge I assume it'll perform much the same. Craft file: https://www.dropbox.com/s/z9dyuajr9jlg5ku/strato7.craft?dl=0

I was hoping to put in a request to modify landing legs to have a minimum and maximum deployment range. Like how cargo bays can have a max deploy limit, but for both min and max.

Anyone try to build recoverable fairings yet? I have.... I flew one on top of my stock falcon 9 design, running 9 Rellant engines Initially built in VAB, turns out created heaps of lift causing instability issues of rocket.... So then I put my fairing in a fairing so I could test just the fairing coming home. https://imgur.com/gallery/1e6sl I went on to design Fairing 2.0 which flew waay better, but I am not sure if I feel the points awarded for just this bit are worth it.

Apologies if in the wrong area for this. i was wondering two things. Why don't the landing legs have deploy limit options? Additionally, I attempted to add a line into the landing gear cfg, but it appears it made no difference. So where would I add this it if possible at all? Also would it be possible to add in a min as well as a max deployment.

Didn't realise they were considering ditching the smaller fairing. Also to my understanding the plan is for the BE-3U to be used for the optional third stage (if that even ever comes into reality as well). Being the same engine used on the New Shepard but with an extendable nozzle, so perhaps worth considering when the New Shepard is in development for the mod. But given the only the New Shepard and BE4 exists so far the rest is a bit of a guess haha. Side note your Vulcan is an awesome development to!

Love your work @Superpenguin160, I know you have many things in works but was wondering about the following: - 3 Stage New Glenn addition - The alternate small fairing for New Glenn (Yes the SSTU fairing with PBR could achieve this also, but still) Just curious if these were considered and/or thought of?

I did read, just was always confused on definition of asparagus staging given I saw soo many just using drop tanks haha... Besides I usually specialise in SSTO VTVL rockets.... Hoping some of that can work here to. I used a single twin boar (plus 2 orange tanks) to lift 19t and return the rocket back, so maybe 3 skippers can lift 20-25 t (non returnable)..building now

Attach fuel lines from outside tanks back to the centre tank. This results in full throttle the whole time and the core stage has full fuel at the moment the strap ons are jettisoned. (Same was Space X plans for falcon heavy and I imagine Delta Heavy would do this to, but not certain)

FMRS was to test the theory to see if it was even worth bothering with. Might give it a go later on at some point depends on if it de spawns half of the craft due to physics limits, might trial sometime. Lots of bad weather at the moment so nothing better to do anyway

Yeah as stated wasn't a submission but more a tria of theory and something to do. Hoping it inspires others to make something new in attempts of getting cheaper lifts without just refining the same designs using different engines and fuels

Copied from the new economy challenge but sharing here for peoples notifications So this isn't an official entry, but something people should look into. I built an Air-To-Orbit design to see if it had merit in an economy challenge. I may make a proper documented attempt later if I get bored but initial tests were very interesting I achieved 4.575 t to 72km Pe on only 1,099 funds of liquid fuel and rocket fuel. The plane portion used 400 units and the rocket uses one of the large 1.25 tanks and one of the smalls. This set up equates to 240 f/t. But to achieve a proper attempt I would need to make a few changes. taking out a small portion of the payload to fit some parachutes or landing legs. This landed at adequate speed, but as I assumed it would never work it I didn't attach legs or chutes to the return rocket. Doing so would drop payload mass approximately 300kg. This changes cost to 258.5 f/t I used mechjeb to orbit the rocket once it was moving and do my initial deorbit burn and FMRS which does a weird quick save hack to allow you to jump back and land early stages of rockets for recovery (not sure if counts funds in career or just for sake of doing space x styled flights). In this set up the hardest part of the entire flight is turning the plane around, it is extremely stable if kept in a straight line. As mentioned not an official entry as I am sure there isn't enough proof that it works. HOWEVER I have attached a craft file for people to play with. Main reason for sharing was to see if other people can come up with more Air-To-Orbit designs. craft file: https://www.dropbox.com/s/z9dyuajr9jlg5ku/strato7.craft?dl=0

So this isn't an official entry, but something people should look into. I built an Air-To-Orbit design to see if it had merit in an economy challenge. I may make a proper documented attempt later if I get bored but initial tests were very interesting I achieved 4.575 t to 72km Pe on only 1,099 funds of liquid fuel and rocket fuel. The plane portion used 400 units and the rocket uses one of the large 1.25 tanks and one of the smalls. This set up equates to 240 f/t. But to achieve a proper attempt I would need to make a few changes. taking out a small portion of the payload to fit some parachutes or landing legs. This landed at adequate speed, but as I assumed it would never work it I didn't attach legs or chutes to the return rocket. Doing so would drop payload mass approximately 300kg. This changes cost to 258.5 f/t I used mechjeb to orbit the rocket once it was moving and do my initial deorbit burn and FMRS which does a weird quick save hack to allow you to jump back and land early stages of rockets for recovery (not sure if counts funds in career or just for sake of doing space x styled flights). In this set up the hardest part of the entire flight is turning the plane around, it is extremely stable if kept in a straight line. As mentioned not an official entry as I am sure there isn't enough proof that it works. HOWEVER I have attached a craft file for people to play with. Main reason for sharing was to see if other people can come up with more Air-To-Orbit designs. craft file: https://www.dropbox.com/s/z9dyuajr9jlg5ku/strato7.craft?dl=0

Thanks! Good to see you're back again. Well I just meant that since I have made a core design with different config options... though for what we are doing really all i would be interested in is the standard and short variant (short glides better as lift to weight ratio is better) but I can make do with just the one design. (Y) I do play with mods, but not in challenges. When I built this shuttle I lucked onto a design where weight never shifts from empty to full in both payload or fuel, which is nice. BUT! Some reason I struggle to launch it without a full cargo bay... so the STS-1b will be easy.. I designed it for maximum load...not minimum also haha Now that I know I qualify, I will progress on with the others.

If you put in a bit more time to attach parachutes and have it land in the water even all the way up to approximately 88km from Kerbin gets you 94% recovery cost..worth a shot if interesting in run at challenge. The 2% is hardly worth it for how efficient it already is.

most deffinitely would lift larger amount to LKO.. would be interesting how cost effective to

I think the point of LKO is just to make it easy to reach allowing for many different designs. You could start an economy challenge for mimmus or Duna or even Jool. But this would result in designs getting more and more a like. An easier goal results in new innovative ideas that in the long run can change the deep space game to. Still fascinating design!

So my final submission for this thread. After testing the above reusable lifter for the two larger satellites with intentions to combine it with lifting the small satellites on disposable launchers I made a discovery, the cost of the reusable lifter wasn't as good as disposable solid rockets for this challenge. This surprised me. I later developed a way to launch all satellites into space using the kickback solid rocket and finalised the climb/orbit circularisation using their own fuel tanks. I could do this with no reaction wheel if so chosen but in the video you'll see I had one installed on the smaller satellite as was too painful to manoeuvre without it. I only uploaded the launch for one of each sized satellite as seemed all that was necessary to prove flight. https://youtu.be/5GD6IvPzekM I then realised (after making and starting video upload) there was a cheaper probe core that could do the job. Coincidentally it also had a reaction wheel built it. On my smaller satellite it cut costs by 1500-1600, it did also gain an insignificant amount of mass (10kg). I also tested using the thumper for the RA-2 satellites (required adding a second fuel tank) although cheaper than a kickback this cut the price on the smaller satellites a further 260ish per launch. But oddly required fins to keep it stable My new rockets vs old http://imgur.com/a/jRz0B On my larger satellites it cut costs close to 1600 again (probe core 450 vs 2250) Original mission plan using Butterfly 1 for small sats and reusable Butterfly 2 for larger resulted in approx 92000 funds after recovery cost reduction of Butterfly 2 Plan 2 costs 72,572 to launch to desired orbits with disposable solid boosters Plan 2 with cheaper probe core and using thumpers instead of kickbacks costs 57,724 funds to desired individual orbits on disposable solid rockets. Note that in all the ships the greatest cost was the satellite at 3700 (RA-2) and 5,200 (RA-15) on it's own

My first attempt at building a proper shuttle Passed the first mission after testing it... however it launches far better when the cargo bay is full.... Need to get that thrust balance better when it flies empty. Hoping it qualifies for the challenge, let me know your thoughts! http://imgur.com/gallery/2wy6k Here's an additional gallery on the dev of my shuttle and how I went from trying to build a shuttle that always resulted in a death spiral and ended up with a standardised design with spinoffs. Would using a mix of these count towards using a "core shuttle design for all missions" badge? http://imgur.com/a/0ksvx

So! I think we need a leaderboard for this challenge.... I have two proposed mission plans to show everyone. I haven't filmed flight yet, however have tested my craft and proven a method that can lift it all for under 70,000 funds. My first thought was as per the last post of lifting everything in one rocket, but this is unfeasible due to soo many different inclinations of orbit. Then I planned for two vessels, one to lift each little sat and a separate one to lift the two larger sats together.. This achieved the goal, however I eventually found my best solution came from a fully disposable plan as per the description in the images. Will the OP accept me proving my flights by just lifting one large sat and one small sat to show that the rocket designs work? Instead of 6 (+2 for the RA15s) separate launchers filmed that all look roughly the same in profile given same orbital heights? http://imgur.com/gallery/A7m7t I tested Butterfly 2 out and the running cost is 25k after recovery (recovered 50k funds after doing my best ever rocket return landing to date)

Yeah I think it can be good enough to get to orbit purely with the kickback... for it's original purpose it had the Thrust turned down to about 49% and 300 units of fuel removed so it could make the transition without much thought put in. For the other challenge I initially made one large booster to carry all 8 required sats up to orbit then let them disperse... so was just using the same satellite subassembly Having trouble piloting it well enough to get it to sustainable orbit myself though.