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I was intrigued with Elon Musk's tweet about launching his Tesla Roadster to the "orbit of mars". I had RSS setup in KSP and decided to simulate such a launch using Shadowmage's SSTU mod to make a Falcon Heavy and a demo payload. I proved to myself that such a mission was possible. I made a video of the result using camera tools: Falcon Heavy Demo Mission Simulation in KSP. Can't wait for the real life launch!

Hello everyone! Today, we'll be making a new mod! And this time, I actually will make this mod, instead of immediately abandoning when I finish. This mod will feature SpaceX Grasshopper parts and in the future, other SpaceX parts. No non-SpaceX related parts here, unless people really want it. Huge credits to @SamBelanger for helping me make this mod (in the future): Download: Coming soon.

Not the practical mission but the artistic one. It does work but this video just shows it off and has the boosters landing close together. In reality they don't. I used smurf and upgraded vector engines to SSME details.

https://imgur.com/a/reLy1 Hi there! After a ton of work (5 months) because I didn't wanna look up a tutorial, I was able to powered land a Reusable Rocket, known as Ender Full Thrust (Ill upload the craft file, however it uses a lot of mods, so it might not work for you, MRS and Kerbal Reusability Expansion should be it, but I might have some other mods in it to.) So here is the mission report I lifted of from KSC, and because the thing sometimes tips in water, I headed to polar orbit. I deployed the satellite at around 40 KM, and flew it into orbit. I then had to switch back to the rocket, as it entered the atmosphere. I fired up 1 of the 5 engines, and slowed down. I only used 1 as it was honestly just more efficient. I ended up deploying the gear at around 5km, as the extra drag kept the thing from tipping over. I fired up all the engines, slowed down, and just about managed to land it. I probably hit ground at around 3-5 m/s, so I was lucky that the landing gear had some good suspension. I actually nearly tipped the thing, however the RCS fought back, and it ended up stable. And that's the mission report of the first ever successful flight of Ender Full Thrust.

This is my first post, and with the upcoming December Falcon Heavy launch, I decided to share the SpaceX Falcon Heavy replica I made. I couldn't get an image here, but here's the download: Falcon Heavy Download A few mods are required for it to work though: -Kerbal Reusability -Kerbal Engineer Redux -FMRS If anyone else wants to take a screenshot and upload it, that would be appreciated. Thanks!

Including Iridium Next, New Horizons, Haven-1 and soon many more! (Check roadmap for what is coming) Join me on Discord! (DEV talk only) Tundra Exploration pics: Tundra Technologies pics: Planned features Roadmap Known issues "No tank type named 'RR_CryoMLOX' exists" means you have RR but not CRP, or you have RR, CRP, and WBI classic stock, and the WBI feature isn't working right. Make sure you have RR 1.16! Required Mods Kerbal Reusability Expansion (For the F9 legs and grid fins) B9 Part Switch (For part switching) Module manager (For all your module manager needs) Recommended Mods FreeIVA (So you can fly around inside Rodan and Gaira-1 parts! Modular Launch Pads (For those awesome towers) Waterfall (For those amazing plumes) Smokescreen (Realplume NOT required!) Flight Manager for Reusable Stages (For landing your F9 first stage) Omega482's Stockalike Structures NTR (For your Ghidorah landing needs) Basic DeltaV - Basic Orbit by DMagic (For better understanding of how much fuel you have to land all your crafts safely back) Tundra's Space Center (To launch from LC-40!) Near Future Solar (For the Solar Panel plugin if you want full 180 degree tracking) Not supported Mods Atmospheric autopilot FAR (Version 7.0 looks to perform a lot better) Beta versions on GitHub A very special thanks to @Beale, @CobaltWolf and @Nertea for the help and advise they gave me to make something awesome. And @DiscoSlelge for creating those awesome patches! And a massive thanks to @ValiZockt, @Rock3tman_, @Nessus_, @JadeOfMaar, @Starwaster, @neistridlar, @SofieBrink and @Infinite Monkeys for the help they gave me making this mod perfect! Changelog: Any of the configs are distributed under CC-NC-SA-4.0 License. All Textures/models/plugins are distributed under All Right Reserved License. SootyShaderLoader is based on the custom shader importer by shadowmage and modyfied by DMagic with custom modules and settings.

The full post for you to enjoy and discuss, from here: http://toughsf.blogspot.com/2017/10/spacex-sfr-small-falcon-rocket.html Performance estimates revised: 24 tons expendable, 12-14 tons recoverable to LEO. The Small Falcon Rocket is a scaled down alternative to SpaceX's Big Falcon Spaceship that fits on top of existing Falcon 9 boosters. We will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of such a design. SpaceX's Big Rockets The BFR, or Big Falcon Rocket, is comprised of the Big Falcon Spaceship and the Big Falcon Rocket booster. It is a scaled down and simplified design based on the ITS, or Interplanetary Transport System. The BFR is a BIG rocket. The ITS was revealed in June 2016, although work on the design has begun in 2013 under the name 'Mars Colonial Transporter'. The ITS promised to deliver 300 tons of cargo to Low Earth Orbit, or up to 550 tons if reusability was ignored. It would have massed 10500 tons on the launchpad. The vehicle had a diameter of 12 meters and a height of 122 meters, making it one of the largest rockets ever plausibly considered. And the ITS was positively massive. The upper stage, called the Interplanetary Spaceship, was supposed to hold 1950 tons of propellant with a dry mass of 150 tons. Without a payload, the mass ratio was 14. The BFR replaced the ITS in September 2017. It is a smaller, more sensible design that SpaceX believes it can actually deliver in the next few years. The diameter is reduced to 9 meters and it will mass 4400 tons on the launchpad. Payload capacity is reduced to 150 tons. The upper stage BFS should have a dry mass of 75 tons, but Elon Musk states that this might rise to 85 tons due to development bloat and overruns. It holds 1100 tons of propellant, giving it a mass ratio of 13.9. It is important to note that despite being up to 78% smaller than the previous ITS design, the BFS stage maintains the same mass ratio. Why? Because we are now going to scale down the BFS again. Why go smaller? How big the BFR's booster would be compared to the Falcon 9 booster. Going big is the best way to reduce the cost per kilogram for sending payloads into orbit. SpaceX jumped from the Falcon 1 to the Falcon 9 because the larger rocket can deliver payloads much more cheaply into space. When first considering options on how to make travel to Mars affordable to the general population, SpaceX immediately came up with a gargantuan tower of rocket fuel over three and a half times larger than the Saturn V! A big rocket is also easier to develop. It is more forgiving of development bloat that increases mass over time as the designs are perfected. It has larger safety margins and room for many backups, such as multiple engines. However, bigger is not always better. The total development costs will be higher, as large components need large factories. It is much more difficult to test the components too, and a full testing regime of the completed rocket will require launching and even destroying a full-scale model many times. Remember the failed Falcon 9 booster landing attempts, and imagine them replaced with a vehicle eight times bigger. There is also the fact that the second sure-fire way to reducing launch costs is to have rapid turnover. This involves loading up rockets, sending payloads into space, recovering the rocket and refurbishing it for another launch in a very small time frame, measured in days or even hours. Rapid turnover and minimal refurbishment would allow the space launch industry to more closely resemble existing airline business models. The main benefit of this approach is that a small number of launch vehicles can handle a large volume of missions, critically reducing the initial cost of the vehicles and reducing the amortization rate. Even if SpaceX manages to develop rockets that liftoff and land several times without needing to go to a workshop, they'd still need to solve the issue that there just aren't enough payloads on the market that need to be lifted into space to fill the BFR, let alone the ITS. For example, even the BFR's 150 ton payload capacity can cover all of last year's payloads in about two or three launches. Three launches is far from sufficient. Elon Musk is betting that the space industry will be able to fill the BFR's cargo bays with new satellites and LEO payloads once the lowered cost per kg is offered to them... but there will be a long delay between the launch costs being reduced and the industry contracts appearing en masse. Cost per kg in orbit is only part of the picture. Waiting for more contracts to appear and bundling them together to use the most of a BFR's cargo capacity is not a good solution. It will force SpaceX to delay launches until the mass delivered to orbit reaches a profitable amount - launching BFRs nearly empty with the usual 2 to 5 ton satellite is surely wasteful and a loss for the company. The SFR The SFR, or Small Falcon Rocket, is a possible solution to the development costs, under-utilization and low expected launch rate of the BFR, or Big Falcon Rocket. The SFR is a scaled down Big Falcon Spaceship sitting on top of an existing Falcon 9 booster. It will carry a smaller payload to orbit, but will have a capacity SpaceX is sure to fill up. Existing Falcon 9 boosters can be mated to a fully reusable upper stage, drastically cutting down on development costs. We will now look at the details of the SFR's two stages. The upper stage is the only new part. It is a BFS scaled down to 3.7 meters diameter, using the same Raptor engines rated at 1900kN of thrust at 375 seconds of Isp. We will call it the SFS, or Small Falcon Spaceship. The Raptor engine. The SFS will be (9/3.7)^2: 5.9 times smaller than the BFS. The dry mass is expected to be only 85/5.9: 14.4 tons. It will be 19.7 meters long. Based on the mass ratios calculated above, the SFS will be able to hold 187.2 tons of propellant. An SFS with no cargo and full propellant tanks will therefore mass 201.6 tons and have a deltaV of ln(14)*375*9.81: 9708m/s. The Vacuum-optimized Raptor engine is quite large, with a nozzle opening 2.4 meters wide. It is unlikely that more than one such engine can be fitted under the SFS. It will provide enough thrust for an initial Thrust-to-Weight ratio of 0.96, which must be compared to the current second-stage initial TWRs of 0.8-0.9. For retro-propulsive landing, we will not be able to fit, or even need, the sea-level version of the Raptors. Instead, we will use two of the existing Merlin-1D engines with 420kN of sea-level thrust, but possibly with a lower pressure rating as the thrust generated makes them too powerful for landing. The alternative is the SuperDraco engines with 67kN of thrust and 235s sea-level Isp. Rocket engines in the Raptor + 2x Merlin configuration would represent 13.2% of the overall dry mass, or 8.1% if the Raptor + 4x SuperDraco configuration is used instead. The Raptor engines are assumed to have a TWR of over 200, so their mass should be lower than 969kg. There are no numbers on the SuperDraco's mass, but it should be at most 50kg. These ratios seem not too outrageous when compared to the 7% engine-mass-to-dry-mass ratio in the BFR's original design. Merlin-1D engines. The SFS's mass is based on the 85 ton figure for the BFR's dry mass, but this is a cautious estimate with room given for development bloat and mass budget overruns. The BFR's design on paper gives a dry mass of 75 tons instead. Using the on-paper mass, the SFS could have a dry mass as little as 12.7 tons. The SFR's booster is the Falcon 9 Block 4. The booster will mass 22.2 tons when empty, and can hold 410.9 tons of propellant. This gives it a mass ratio of 19.5. The nine Merlin 1D engines have a sea-level Isp of 282s and an vacuum Isp of 311s. Because the booster stage does not spend a long time at sea level and performs most of the burn at high altitudes with negligible air pressure, we will use 300s as a low-ball estimate of the average Isp. The true average might be a few seconds higher. Taken all together, the SFR will mass 634.7 tons on the launchpad without any payload in the SFS's cargo bays. It stands 89.7 meters tall. We will now calculate how much cargo it can lift into Low Earth Orbit in expendable or reusable mode, and where else it can go. Performance To achieve a Low Earth Orbit, we will set the deltaV requirement as 9400m/s. In reality, it could be achieved with as little as 9200m/s, but we want decent safety margins. Expendable mode is the easy part. It assumes every bit of propellant is consumed and the SFR's stages left dry. Using a multi-stage deltaV calculator and setting the Falcon 9 Block 4's Isp to 300s and the SFS's Isp to 375s, we work out that the booster provides 1899m/s of deltaV and the SFS provides 7488m/s for a total of 9388m/s with a payload of 13.7 tons. Recoverable mode is harder to calculate. The propellants cannot be completely used up: some must be kept in reserve to perform a retro-propulsive landing burn. BFR landing. A landing burn by the SFS requires that about 300m/s of deltaV be held in reserve. This represents 1.65 tons of propellant with Merlin-1Ds or 2 tons of propellant with the SuperDracos. The Falcon 9 booster needs to retain 15% of its propellant reserve to make an ocean landing. This gives it a deltaV of 3910m/s, which is largely enough to cancel most of its forwards velocity and make a very soft landing. However, holding back 61.6 tons of propellant means it boosts the SFS by much less. In recoverable mode, the SFR's cargo capacity drops to 9 tons. If the SFS follows the paper designs more closely and achieves a dry mass of 12.7 tons, it will have cargo capacities of 16.7 tons in expendable mode and 12 tons in recoverable mode. The SFS could achieve a deltaV of 2500m/s after launching on top of a recoverable Falcon 9 booster and without any payload. This is not enough to reach the Moon, so the range of missions the SFR can take payloads on is limited to Low Earth Orbit. Smaller rockets might solve the problem of having to crane down cargo from the top of a tower. However, if it is refuelled in orbit, then the entire Solar System is available. It can deliver 50 tons to Low Lunar Orbit (5km/s mission deltaV). It can send 35 tons to the Mars Low Orbit (5.7km/s mission deltaV) or 21 tons to Mars's surface (6.7km/s mission deltaV). Refueling the SFS will take between 16 and 20 tanker launches. With 14.4 tons of dry mass and a propellant capacity of 187.2 tons, the SFS has a maximal deltaV of 9.7km/s, enough theoretically to put itself far above Jupiter or even Saturn. Conclusions The SFS is a limited vehicle. It is restricted to Low Earth Orbits and can deliver payloads of 9 tons, up to 12 tons, at most. It is far from the multi-purpose machines the BFR or ITS promised to be. However, it is enough to dominate the medium lift launch market, as it is fully recoverable. The re-use of existing Falcon 9 boosters and the smaller number of Raptor engines (one per rocket) will drastically slash the development costs compared to something like the BFR. The smaller payloads are easy to fill, meaning every launch is profitable. Multiple launches promises rapid turnover and a maximization of the return on investment on the craft. With re-fueling, the SFS in orbit can complete missions that require it to send decent payloads to the Moon and Mars. With minor improvements and operating in fleets of multiple vehicles, it can even match the payload capacity of the BFR to various destinations. What do you think?

Shocked no one has done this yet...but glad, because I wanted to be the one to do it. I'm sure most of us have seen Elon Musk's 2017 IAC presentation, which raises the bar (even though that "bar" is somewhat smaller) tremendously over the 2016 version of BFR/ITS/MCT. If anyone hasn't had a chance to see it, I highly recommend checking it out: What's the challenge? Build the 2017 version of the BFR, of course. Specifically: Build a large two-stage fully-reusable launch system capable of propulsive landings on Duna, Kerbin, and the Mun. It must be capable of in-orbit propellant transfer and needs to be able to deliver substantial payload (at least 20 kerbals, or a fully-functioning autonomous ISRU unit) to Duna. No nukes, ions, jets, rolling landings, or parachutes. Tweakscale is the only allowed part mod for engines and tanks. Once you've demonstrated proof of concept with a single launch, subsequent launches (for refueling, etc.) may use the debug menu to get into orbit. You can also use Unbreakable Joints and No Crash Damage as long as your landings are under 5 m/s. The scoring system is designed so that the closer you make your version to the one revealed by Musk, the more points you get. I may add additional ways of earning points as the challenge progresses, but I'll try to keep it balanced. Scoring: Basic challenge (two-stage, reusable, propulsive landings on Duna, Kerbin, and the Mun): 5,000 points Booster executes RTLS: 200 points Dedicated propellant transfer ports in tail: 50 points Single-stage to Mun and back to Kerbin after Kerbin orbit refueling: 600 points Demonstrate single-stage return from Duna to Kerbin after Duna ISRU: 800 points Six engines on second stage: 60 points Thirty-one engines on first stage: 31 points No reaction wheels: 200 points No monoprop (Vernor engine RCS only): 175 points Booster lands in launch cradle: 650 points Delta wings on second stage: 85 points Dedicated crew vehicle, cargo vehicle, tanker: 400 points Ties are broken by total upper stage dry mass, the lighter, the better.

Taking a break from all my spaceplanes, I'm trying my hand at making a stock, recoverable two stage rocket. The booster stage has wings and will glide back to the space centre, before landing on parachutes. The upper stage also has stub wings (mainly to help it aim and slow down) and parachutes. The goal is to come up with something you can put on KerbalX and have the average joe just be able to fly it, without having to install mods or tweak physics range etc. As you can imagine, physics range is the bugbear. I keep finding one or other part of my rocket has gotten auto deleted before I can deal with the other. Each time i want to tweak separation altitude/ascent profile, means a complete redesign, moving propellant from one stage to the other then having to rebalance the aerodynamics so each component is stable on its own. If you guys can help with that, it will save a lot of time building iterations of this rocket. Attempt 1 My first iteration only had about 1000dv on the lower stage, but with 8 aerospikes the lower stage was pretty powerful (TWR 2.75) and launched steeply. Separation altitude was 20km and due to the steep ascent, the first stage didn't have a long glide to get back to the space centre. The upper stage had about 1900dv but only 0.5twr and i think i should have boosted that, in retrospect. The problem is, these engines only run for as long as i'm flying that vessel. They do take the upper stage's AP out of the atmosphere, but as i understand it, I have to switch back to the lower stage before it gets more than 2.5km away. EDIT - ok, it appears the non-focused stage is ok so long as it stays above 25km OR is within 2.5km of the flown vessel. When i switch to the lower stage, the upper stage's engines immediately stop and it is still well below orbital velocity. It completes the sub-orbital arc and falls below 25km and gets deleted before i can land the lower stage. Attempt 2 I tried adding extra fuel to lower stage and removing from upper. The lower stage now has 1700dv. Separation was at 950m/s at 35km in a 65 degree climb. The booster reached 65km before falling back. I still wasn't able to put enough velocity on the upper stage before having to switch back to the booster, and it fell back below 25km again just as the booster was opening its parachutes. I don't like adding more fuel to the booster, it means either a very inefficient lofted trajectory or being too far from the space centre to glide back at separation. So, it seems i need to give the upper stage some serious TWR so it can get close to orbital velocity much quicker. BTW, what happens if the upper stage is an SRB? Does that magically extinguish itself when i switch away from the vessel ? Just thinking out loud.

Can we talk about how amazing this is, and how Elon is single handedly going to push humanity into a new era?

You could have made the same argument about any colonization or exploration people have ever made in the past. And it would be wrong in almost every case.

Does anyone have tips on how to land 2 seperate boosters decoupled at the sametime in the lower atmosphere?

Just wondering who you guys think will send humans to Mars first.

In much the same spirit of @Bottle Rocketeer 500's rather-popular "Doing It Orion Style" challenge, I decided to put together a similar challenge featuring sequential missions, building up from the launch of the Falcon 1 through the present and beyond. But, since Elon also owns Tesla, some steps in the challenge will include building all-electric vehicles to match the Model X, the Model S, and the Model 3. To add variety to the challenge, I'm also going to include planned-but-never-flown configurations like Falcon 1e and Falcon 5. For each mission, I'll do my best to provide a set of mission requirements which are specific enough to make it interesting and challenging but not so specific as to make it arbitrary or time-consuming. Missions are optional; you can choose a single one, skip around, or do them all one by one in sequence. Possible missions (I won't do all these but it's a sampling of possibilities based on demand): Falcon 1 Falcon 1e Tesla Roadster Falcon 5 Falcon 5R Falcon Air Tesla Model S Falcon 9v1.0 Dragon 1 Falcon 9v1.0 Dragon 1 + comsat, engine-out Falcon 9v1.1 Cargo (polar, soft splashdown) Falcon 9v1.1 Cargo to KTO Falcon 9R Dragon (soft splashdown) Falcon 9R Cargo to Kerbin Escape (soft splashdown) Tesla Model X Dragon 2 launch abort test Falcon 9R Dragon (ASDS attempt) Falcon 9 FT Cargo (RTLS landing) Falcon 9 FT Cargo GTO (ASDS attempt) Falcon 9 FT Dragon (ASDS landing) Falcon 9 FT expendable (fairing recovery) Falcon 9 FT with X-47B Tesla Model 3 Falcon Heavy Demo Falcon 9 Block 5 with Dragon 2 Dragon 2 max-Q abort Falcon Heavy Constellation Falcon 9 Crew Falcon Heavy: Grey Dragon Falcon Heavy: Red Dragon If there's some interest, I'll get started on the requirements for the first few missions! General rules: Tweakscale is allowed Readout mods are allowed Piloting mods are not allowed Unbreakable Joints and No Crash Damage are allowed for propulsive landing attempts Part mods which alter tankage ratios or engine performance are not allowed No reaction control wheels are allowed You must use the same engine for all first stages, so plan accordingly. The engine you choose will start with low thrust and be uprated over time. Scoring is based on lowest LV dry mass. EDIT: Missions below!

Hi guys! I just wanted to share with you the new project I'm working on. It's a YouTube series called "The Story of Space Exploration". In this series I'll talk about and explain the most important missions in the story of Space, with some help of Kerbal Space Program. I made 2 trailers and just published the first episode, "How does a rocket work?". I'll put the links below just in case you're interested: Trailer 1 Trailer 2 How does a rocket work? The Story of Space Exploration ep 1 Please let me know what you think

DISCONTINUED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE! THIS MOD IS STILL A WORK IN PROGRESS AND NOT YET AT A POINT FOR RELEASE. PLEASE KEEP AN EYE OUT AS THIS MESSAGE WILL CHANGED TO RELEASED. THANKS. UPDATE: THIS WILL BE RELEASED AS AN ALPHA ONCE STAGE 1 IS COMPLETE. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ABOUT: From a small team just entering the modding world, we bring to you the SpaceX parts pack. This mod brings you all the parts required to produce your very own Falcon 9 series. Based off measurements and specific information provided on the SpaceX website along with some good guess work, these parts provide a 1:1 scale of the real Falcon 9 used by SpaceX. CONTENTS: This pack includes a variety of parts that can be used in combination to produce realistic looking Falcon 9 rockets. This pack will currently include the following: · Merlin Octaweb Engine · Merlin Octaweb Engine Mount · First Stage Fuel Tank · First Stage Control Module · Landing Legs · Grid Fins · First Stage Radial Decoupler · Interstage Decoupler · Merlin Vacuum Engine · Second Stage Fuel Tank · Second Stage Control Module · Dragon Decoupler · Dragon Trunk · Dragon Trunk Fins · Dragon Solar Panels · Dragon Heat Shield · Dragon Preassurised Pod · Farings More parts will be added as I progress through the models and assemblies. PROGRESS: As I have previously mentioned, I am new to the modding community and am developing this mod in partnership with a few friends. This pack will take some time to be released as I work a standard work day and have personal priorities. I am currently working on this pack with any time I have. I ask for your patience with this and I will keep this up to date. The progress so far: · Merlin Octaweb Engine o Modelling – 100% o Texturing – 0% o Coding – 50% · Merlin Octaweb Engine Mount o Modelling – 100% o Texturing – 100% o Coding – 95% · First Stage Fuel Tank o Modelling – 100% o Texturing – 0% o Coding – 50% · Landing Legs o Modelling – 100% o Texturing – 0% o Coding – 50% · Grid Fins o Modelling – 100% o Texturing – 0% o Coding – 50% · First Stage Radial Decoupler · Modelling – 0% · Texturing – 0% · Coding – 0% · Interstage Decoupler o Modelling – 0% o Texturing – 0% o Coding – 0% · Merlin Vacuum Engine o Modelling – 50% o Texturing – 0% o Coding – 0% · Second Stage Fuel Tank o Modelling – 0% o Texturing – 0% o Coding – 0% · Second Stage Control Module o Modelling – 0% o Texturing – 0% o Coding – 0% · Dragon Decoupler o Modelling – 0% o Texturing – 0% o Coding – 0% · Dragon Trunk o Modelling – 0% o Texturing – 0% o Coding – 0% · Dragon Trunk Fins o Modelling – 0% o Texturing – 0% o Coding – 0% · Dragon Solar Panels o Modelling – 65% o Texturing – 0% o Coding – 0% · Dragon Heat Shield o Modelling – 0% o Texturing – 0% o Coding – 0% · Dragon Preassurised Pod o Modelling – 50% o Texturing – 0% o Coding – 0% · Farings o Modelling – 0% o Texturing – 0% o Coding – 0% PICTURES: DOWNLOAD: This mod is still far from completion. Once completed this mod will be available to download off Spacedock. A link will be provided once released and this post will be updated. UPDATE: THIS WILL BE RELEASED AS AN ALPHA ONCE STAGE 1 IS COMPLETE. CREDITS: As I have previously mentioned, this is a shared project. Although all the modelling has been carried out by myself, this mod would not be possible without the correct configs and texturing. I would like to thank my friends Fordie, Spoonstiker and Mr Mental for their help with coding this mod and making it work.

Kerbalized SpaceX for KSP1.3.X Want to build the SpaceX BFR crew/cargo, Falcon 9, falcon heavy, etc.... This mod is for you! This mod is designed to help you save on part count big time. Be it docking ports to cargo bay's- every part is integrated with something (or multiple somethings) to help you lower your parts count. HOW TO RE-ENTER WITH THE "BFR" -Kill 98% of velocity on a 55 ton vehicle with aerodynamics only-. (I took a steep angle of attack, and experienced very high G's, with good piloting skills and a lower angle of attack you can limit the amount to under 5g's. This happens during the flip maneuver(You will see). Includes: Pods- Dragon, Dragon V2, ITS Titan, Space Bug, BFR crew & cargo variation. Rockets- Falcon 9 Ft, Falcon 9, BFR Engines- *31 raptor cluster, *3 raptor cluster, *4 raptor vacuum cluster, *9 merlin engine cluster, merlin vacuum, merlin atmospheric. Misc: Dragon 1 trunk, Dragon V2 trunk, Dragon nose cone, Dragon panel Covers, Heat shield, Falcon Legs, Aero Fins. Downloads: Spacedock: https://spacedock.info/mod/1477/Kerbalized SpaceX Curse: https://www.curseforge.com/kerbal/ksp-mods/kerbalized-spacex Real plume config: (Currently not working because new engines) Dependencies: Retractable lifting surfaces for aero fins (included in download) Requires "near future solar" for the solar panels on the trunk to work. RPM and Asset Props are required for any functionality in the V2's IVA. Recommendations: Kerbal joint re-enforcement will make ur life much easier playing with the BFR. Appreciation Section: Thanks to @Mecripp for converting all the textures to .dds and for his help in various other areas. Thanks to @mrtagnan For taking the time to provide some beautiful new engine plumes using the Real Plume mod Thanks to all my followers for helping me keep the ambition to continue the development of this mod! I likely would have stopped with the V2 if it wasn't for you guys. Disclaimer: All rights reserved. 1.3 Compatible

Note: these are two separate launches, because FMRS doesn't want to work for me, and the videos are very quiet for some unknown reason (not because QuickMute). Payload's view Booster's view and "landing"

Elon Musk said that he will land first stage of the ITS back on the rocket holder (don't know what it is called) and that is what this challenge is. Show that it is POSSIBLE. Design a ITS-like rocket that can have the first stage land on the pad Level one: land the booster back at ksc. Score is 100times(Launch mass/distance to the pad)/dv used to land. Level two: land the booster back on the pad. Score will be Score will 20Launch mass/Dv used to land. Level three: land the booster back on the launch holder (Dock with the launch holder using engines). Score will be 30 times Launch mass divided by Dv used to land. Docking ports are recomended for the launch holder. Dv will be measured in m/s in a vacuum, distances in meters and launch mass in tonnes. Rules 1. No f12 menu, hyper edit, cheating, or exploiting glitches. 2. You can use the landing guidance in Mechjeb as an informational tool, but not the autopilot. 3. The only three part adding/changing mods allowed kerbal reusabitity expansion, any life support mod, and deep freeze. 4. Must have at least 100% re-entry heating, plasma blackout, kerbnet enabled, have it so the signal is required for control, and must have no partial control allowed. 5. Must have no kerbals on the booster. 6. FAR, FMRS, and deadly re-entry are allowed 7. NO PARACHUTES 8. NO DROPTANKS/ASPARAGUS. Must be Two stages. 9. Modded. Only mods that don't offer a signifigant advantages over stock are allowed. If it adds fuel tanks with a better full to empty mass ration than stock, it is not allowed. Prohibited; Procedural parts and near future propulsion. Obviously, no using the ITS mod (It is WAY overpowerd). Tweakscale can be used if it is not abused. Bonus points Second stage goes into orbit +1 Second stage lands back at kcs +1 Second stage lands on launch pad +2 Booster can refuel +.1 Multiply final scor by ten Documentation Have informational tabs and Dv stats open (Mechjeb, not KER for dv) Keeping the landing guidance tab open with the information tab is highly recomended Video is great. If you take pictures, use an imgur album; when to take pictures; Pre launch (on the pad). Gravity turn. Stage seperation. EVERY BURN. Re-entry Take plenty of pictures in during landing for level three and two. Refeuling (If done). Leaderboard; Stock; Modded; My exemple entry on level one. Score=1000*266.924t/75.2m/1995m/s+1=1.178

I recently had another series, 2mF, developing a KOS script to automatically fly, return and land boosters in KSP. I decided to try that again, this time with less "empirically determined values" and with explaining my code. This should make the script fit to multiple different missions, not just this one specific rocket. I hope to be able to demonstrate New Shepard, Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy like missions. This also is an editing-learning-experience for me. So I hope the audio quality on the next video will be better, I am trying! I want this to be a community-thing, so I am looking forward to your feedback, improvement suggestions and criticism! Links YouTube channel Forum Thread GitHub Repo Modlist CameraTools for recording DistantObjectEnhancement little dots for planets and ships PlanetShine planet illuminating the vessel Scatterer better atmosphere and water kOS programming rockets Other Info Text Editor Atom Syntax Theme Solarized Dark KSP Version 1.2.2 Video Editing Software Adobe Premiere Pro Microphone Blue Snowball Hans Episode #1: Automated Booster landing development tutorial using a KOS Autopilot script. Inaugural episode: Dumb suicide burn with a simple hop. I promise the audio will be better next time! Also go to the YouTube video, to like and subscribe!

One of the things Elon Musk said in his September 2016 speech about the ITS was that the cost of getting to Mars is essentially infinite right now. In his powerpoint, he put it at $10 billion per person. Now, the logistics of the ITS aside, I wonder how accurate this is. How much WOULD it cost to get humans on Mars? What are the different cost breakdowns of different approaches, and which mission configuration would be best? And, most importantly, what happens if we Kerbal it? The challenge is to send a few Kerbals to Duna, using only currently-available propulsion methods, with enough supplies to live on for the trip, as cheaply as possible. Rules: Propulsion. No nukes and no airbreathers. SABRE isn't up and running, and NTR isn't likely any time soon, so your propulsion needs to be chemical only. No ion engines; we need to assume you're running against some kind of a deadline. ISRU. Nope, sorry. We can't wait around on Duna forever. Payload. Send up to 12 Kerbals to the surface of Duna and bring them back to Kerbin. But they need consumables, right? Let's be very Spartan and say that they each need a total of 0.2 tonnes of food and other consumables for each leg of the trip. You can pack that extra payload any way you want; that's approximately two Science Jrs per Kerbal, and you can ditch up to half of them (they're empty, after all) before you enter Duna's SOI. Prop transfer. This is not only permitted, but encouraged. I highly recommend it. Reuse. Recovery of components is encouraged by a cost reduction as outlined below. Scoring. Your total score is the total mission cost divided by the number of Kerbals you actually land on Duna and return safely. Kerbals which stay in Duna orbit do not count, and dead Kerbals do not count. Any recovered components (reusable launch vehicles, etc.) are counted at 30% of their full cost. You do not have to include the cost of whatever you use for dry mass payload for consumables. The winner is whoever has the lowest score. Mods. No part mods and nothing that would affect scoring, but anything else is fine. I only have the Demo, or I'd make my attempt, but obviously this can be done. I'm mostly interested in seeing HOW it is done, what mission architectures are used, and so forth. Good luck!

For clarification this would be Kerbin Orbiter's space program however that save is corrupted and well I've done two saves on that one so this is the third save ive added a few mods, removed some aswell, most notably RT because KOS refuses to do anything with RT installed even with a connection BREAKING PRESS RELEASE! so are you planning to go to Duna? KSEA-"yes we are we plan to go to Duna by the end of the decade" will you be using falcon heavy? KSEA-"no we won't we will be unavailing the rocket in around 10 days all I can tell you is it's HUGE" woule you take it to the Mun and/or Minmus? KSEA-"we will take it to the Mun but not Minmus because Minmus doesn't have the gravity" info: Currently the KSEA is working towards a recoverable rocket (this is the time i show you my code) Launch vehicles how to get involved Scheduled launches: Mission: Kerbinorbiter sat One objectives: Launch the satilite into orbit Secondary objective: Safe splashdown in the ocean Updates: we are now constructing a space station, i will also put the save file for downlaod every fortnight (two weeks) mod list incase you want to create a module for me video versions (release one soon!) https://github.com/Kerbinorbiter/KSS-expeditionary-missions/releases

What do you think, guys(from Squad too), about add Grid Fins for more realistic stock reusable (mostly) rockets and Super Heavy Landing Legs for Heavier Landers?