Victor Terra Phlogistonic Laboratory

[dire]

Hello, and welcome to the grand tour of the Phlogistonic Labs! Please pay no attention to the occasional explosions; those are working as intended although we DO ask that you stay away from the large, open-topped cement bunker titled "DANGER HIGHLY EXPERIMENTAL". You can find the minimum safe distance by looking at the scorch marks. Do not proceed inside any blast craters as some of them are in active use.

For our first showing, an all-stock craft, the Dream Katcher! This custom design is intended to capture the imagination and deliver a small payload of kerbonauts and science potentially as far as Ike. Proceed to Duna at your own risk, as while VtphL is confident you will be able to descend safely we make no guarantees about your ability to return home.

If your aspirations are a bit more modest you can replace the long-range drop tanks with a crew cabin and cargo bay and should be able to deliver up to six kerbals and supplies to anywhere in the Kerbin sphere of influence. We hope you enjoy, 

https://kerbalx.com/direstorm/Dream-Katcher

When you do strand your Dream Katcher in low Dunar orbit, we offer a very competitive package on the Duna Express Rescue Shuttle for your long-distance immediate retrieval needs. Although equipped with a stock 2-kerbal lander, the Duna Express can be retrofitted for dreamkatcher compatibility at a minimum of effort and expense, allowing you to return your stranded vessel with all science and crew fully intact to Kerbin. 

Please remember to leave the mothership in orbit as it is not intended for landing on Duna. Also remember to check your staging as over-eager lander pilots have been known to experience premature engine ignition and explode in the cargo bay. If ignition lasts more than eight hours please consult your flight engineer.

https://kerbalx.com/direstorm/Duna-Express

 

Edited August 29, 2019 by dire

[dire]

https://kerbalx.com/direstorm/Minty-Thrush

VTphL is proud to introduce our latest offering for the amateur bottle-rocket crowd, a simple design capable of flying three kerbals to Minmus, deploying a research satellite, landing for flags, footprints and soil samples, and returning all three Kerbals safely to the KSC. Note that because there is no heat shield, multiple reentry orbits will likelyl be required. Don't forget to collect science into the handy dandy science collector after every stop in your journey; while there is a high likelihood of each capsule surviving the same cannot be said of the delicate instrumentation on the exterior of the rocket.

Due to regulations surrounding the Duna Outpost Mission Architecture, VTphL was unable to test a complete Minmus run. However, our expert pilots were capable of docking an alternate pizza-and-snacks payload to  our brave Duna kolonists waiting patiently in LKO for a transfer window, using a cargo delivery configuration with identical mass and worse aerodynamics. Remember, bottle rocketeers, start turning no later than 6 km in altitude and have an offset from vertical of at least 45 degrees by 12 to 15 km altitude; otherwise your Minty Thrush will be doomed to cut its glorious flight short with only sub-orbital science.

 

Curious about the other three ships in this picture? From left to right, those are SLV-2 "Artemis", SLV-3 "Prospector" and SLV-8 "Gullinkambi". Check out a full recounting of the DOMA Arigato kolonization effort, with links to ship downloads and tons of screenshots - 

 

Edited September 2, 2019 by dire

[dire]

https://kerbalx.com/direstorm/Heimdall-17-RM-1-Muninn

For those who have mastered everything the  Thrush has to offer and are looking for a mid-career heavy-lift workhorse, VTphL is pleased to offer the Heimdall Reusable heavy lift  rocket. In its stock configuration it's designed for munar biome science expeditions with an orbital mothership. Crew safety is paramount with a 3.5-G full envelop launch abort system capable of returning all crew in the primary capsule safely to the KSC from as far away as Duna. This is a large, heavy-lift rocket with a 40+ ton payload to LKO, and although the initial investment is steep the great majority of the hardware is recoverable.

The stock payload features two relay satellites, an orbital mothership, a munar descent module and a munar ascent module and is rated for three crew total (launch with two empty seats). Recommended itinerary is to launch to LKO, land the primary stage for recovery, jettison fairing and nose cone, then engage the transfer stage to a lunar impact. While en route, decouple the lander and return capsule and dock them, then adjust orbit to a very low munar orbit. Launch relay satellites and adjust relay satellites to a high munar orbit. Extend solar panels and communicator dishes. Transfer crew to lander, choose landing site, and initiate landing procedures. Once landed, the landing module will serve as a ground relay and science station out to a range of about 3.6 GM. Collect science into one of the science receptacles on the ascent module, wait for orbital rendesvous, and launch to encounter the return capsule. Dock with return capsule and transfer crew and science, then jettison lunar ascent module. Once jettisoned in orbit, the lunar ascent module will serve as an additional relay satellite and emergency orbital supply facility for life support and fuel. 

With all crew and science safely aboard the return capsule, adjust your apoapsis out away from the Mun's direction of travel until you reach munar escape (This is called a free return trajectory), and then continue adjusting your Kerbin periapse down until you reach about 30km altitude about a hundred KM past the KSC. This is a hot re-entry, but your heat shield should easily be able to handle it. Once touched safely down, congratulations! You have been to the Mun and back again.

The primary lift stage is extremely powerful and it can be difficult for a novice to achieve an efficient orbit with the primary stage. Throttling down after 12km can improve your gravity turn significantly and it's not recommended to allow your apoapsis to creep past 75 seconds ETA. When in doubt, aim for an apoapsis of at least 100 km to give yourself time to circularize the upper stages before engaging boost-back burn on the primary stage. Every stage of the rocket has a generous margin of error in its delta-V available for a munar landing mission, allowing novices the luxury of practicing their descent without necessarily splattering their lander the first time they attempt a suicide burn.

You may have enough fuel remaining in your transfer stage to attempt a landing. Do so at your own risk, however, as the most likely result is that you will run out of fuel prior to touchdown and you may wind up being forced to jettison the lunar descent module without being able to use it as a ground station. You may have enough fuel to visit several munar biomes and get far more science with short sub-orbital hops, but again please do so at your own risk. A scientist can reset the Mystery Goo and Science Jr. experiments.

VTphL hopes you enjoy this intermediate-level stock craft. Once you've mastered the Mun, you should be able to take it to Duna, although the Duna Express is perhaps a better choice for those more advanced missions.