Search the Community

I'm sure most of us have been there: your mission plan didn't quite estimate delta-v right and now your probes are drifting in interplanetary space, out of gas and lonely. I've been working on a ksp career save for about a year now, slowly working away shooting off probes in every which direction, and while I've had many successful missions and many on the go, my biggest failure to date on this career has been Operation Infernus. The goal was to place three probes at Moho. One a lander, one an orbital cartography satellite, and one an orbital science satellite. All were for not however, as none were capable of slowing down enough for capture and now they're drifting in low solar orbits, entirely useless to me. So I gotta get to Moho eventually (for science!) but I'm working on a very tight (hard mode) budget. I wanna plan the second attempt a little better, so that I can get to Moho and do all the intended science for as cheap as humanly possible. Now, efficient engines are swell and all, but efficiency in hardware comes at a price. I wanna know what kind of clever planning and design can get me to Moho for the lowest possible funds cost. And that's my challenge to you! Construct a rocket that can get a minimum 1.5 ton payload to Moho, for as little funds as possible. I wanna know your design tricks, I wanna know your wacky but efficient manoeuvring techniques. I want to see the cleverest, cheapest way to send a 1.5t payload to a low Moho orbit. GROUND RULES: >payload must have a mass of at least 1.5 tons. >final Moho orbit should have an apoapsis no greater than 500km and a perhaps is no greater than 100km >bonus points will be awarded if you perform the mission after year 2 day 250 >further bonus points will be awarded if you come up with a manouver that's particularly clever. (as judged by me ) >a specific set of mods are allowed as follows: -RLA stockalike -Kerbal Engineer Redux -Dmagic (though it won't really help) -Ask about any others, but those should be it for part mods SCORING: Score will be directly determined by launch cost. Since payload is only being judged by mass, not content, the cost of the launch should be recorded without a payload. Without a payload, the vehicle should cost no more than about 80000 funds. So, from this I'll determine score. The cost of your vessel at launch, minus the payload, is to be subtracted from 80000. The difference will be your score. Highest score wins. If you performed the mission after y2d250, you'll be awarded an additional 5,000 points. If I found your manoeuvring particularly clever, you'll earn an additional 10,000 points. Thus the theoretical maximum score is 95000, but of course I expect the best submission won't crack 50000. To submit an attempt, simply reply to this post with a photo of your payload, with either KER or the engineer's report demonstrating that the payload's mass is at least 1.5ton, as well as photos of the vehicle at launch, and in the designated Moho orbit, including a detailed explanation of your flight plan. Video submissions are of course also welcome. Best of luck, and happy flying! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CURRENT LEADERBOARD: Maccollo 75079 points Jetski 36334 points