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[Stock] KRS Persistence N-S II: Single Stage to Anywhere Rocketship


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KRS Persistence N-S II - A Dream Completed

 

At long last, the dream which has inspired over 440 hours of in-game time has been completed! When my eyes saw the wonder that was the ISRU units and the mining drills a couple hours into the game, I knew immediately that what I wanted to build was a rocketship that could travel to and land anywhere it wants, refuel, and return, carrying a bold Kerbal crew and all science experiments as well. In practical terms, this meant a rocket which could take off from Kerbin, travel to Minmus without refuelling beforehand, land on Minmus, refuel and then travel elsewhere with good delta-V to spare. 

The KRS Persistence N-S II is the pinnacle of all my spacecraft, and it represents the culmination of countless engineering mindset breakthroughs as well as a well honed piloting ability. Its maximum delta-V, travelling on the nuclear engines alone, is 6533m/s if my calculations are correct. 

cTNMNDa.jpg

Its takeoff flight plan is moderately complex. At launch, turn on the chemical engines only with the chemical rockets action group, then start performing a gravity turn at roughly 50m/s. I typically nudge it a small amount at 50m/s, then set autopilot at prograde after 2500m altitude. At approximately 5000m altitude, turn on the nuclear engines with the nuclear engines action group, and continue performing the gravity turn. Keep both nuclear and chemical engines on until the chemical rockets run out of fuel. Stay with the standard gravity turn until there is one minute left until apoapsis, then set it back to stability assist and hold until circularization of orbit happens. At this moment, you should have enough remaining fuel to travel to Minmus and land if you aim at Minmus accurately. This might take some practice.

Action groups:

1. Toggle Radiators.

2. Toggle Cargo Bay Doors and Drill Deployment.

3.  Turn on Drill.

4. Toggle Chemical Rockets

5. Toggle Nuclear Rockets.

Lights: Turn on/off the two lights.

Gears: Extend/Retract the landing gear.

Naming:

KRS Stands for Kerbal Rocket Ship, N-S stands for Nuclear-Science. I've made an S-S, Solar-Science version as well, but the Nuclear one has reliable electricity across the entire solar system.

Download:

KRS Persistence N-S II Download Link (KerbalX)

Notes:

This post was finally posted after weeks upon weeks of procrastinating on doing so, because I wanted to make this grand post showcasing all the SSTAs I have built, as well as my space stations and shuttles... but I realized that the problem was that I was taking too large a bite in one go, so I opted for this first. 

So... thoughts?

Edited by DarkwarriorJ
Change in adjective.
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5 hours ago, Majorjim! said:

Again it seems some are afraid of their post count so I will be the one to comment. 

Me thinks eve and tylo are out of bounds with this craft though. 

 How far have you taken her?

 

Eve landing is certainly out of bounds unfortunately. It doesn't have the necessary acceleration, and its more efficient engines are crushed by Eve's atmosphere. However, Tylo should theoretically be possible - it just needs to be careful with its ratio of oxidizer to liquid fuel upon refueling at Pol or Bop. I haven't done a Jool-5 with this particular SSTA yet, but with its similar delta-v (6558m/s) much larger cousin, the KRS Endurance N-S III, I've gotten within 500m and 100m/s of landing on Tylo. It turns out that I have refueled too much oxidizer, so I'm trying to figure out some good way to burn off a chunk of it and refuel again before attempting Tylo again. I'm using the KRS Endurance N-S III first because it has a large scanner, and I'm planning to scan the entire solar system before then sending out the Persistence and deploying the fuel stations.

D7RtMek.jpg

The KRS Endurance N-S III at Bop. The Endurance line was the first line of SSTAs built along similar shapes, and it was breakthroughs discovered while engineering the Endurance line of SSTAs allowed the Persistence line to become SSTAs. Their flight plan is similar. Download link here.

 

The furthest I have gone with the KRS Persistence N-S II was a straight to Eeloo trip from Minmus on a different save. Refueled entirely on liquid fuel, found the closest launch window and went straight at it. I recall that I had approx. 1 000 liquid fuel remaining upon landing at Eeloo, so I had a decent delta-V margin left. Unfortunately, no pics from that save - I did that before I thought of taking pictures, and I deleted the save because I fail at quicksaving and every so often I loose my Kerbals in an unrecoverable fashion (offscreen death, for example). In my current save, the KRS Persistence N-S II is chilling at Minmus for now while the Endurance III scans everything it can. 

 

Got7at6.jpg

The Persistence chilling and refueling at Minmus.

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