this is a theoretical/challenge question. I would like to have a mothership that can drop a rover on eve and recover it in a completely reusable fashion; that would of course require that the rover be packed up into a cargo bay of a rocket that can SSTO on EVE.
according to my deltaV map, landing-taking off from eve costs 8000 m/s. a giant tank with a mammuth engine will have 6000 m/s of deltaV. make it 5000, because i will have a payload: that rover must carry at least a convert-o-tron and drill, plus wheels and science instruments. plus the cargo bay, which is not weightless. it seems we are missing 3000 m/s.
then again, perhaps 8000 for eve is not the most optimized. the same map gives 3400 for kerbin, but i have seen vehicles get a kerbin orbit with as low as 2700 m/s. also, getting on a suborbital trajectory where i could send in a fast tanker for a refueling would also be acceptable. it would be a difficult manuever, the launch would have to be timed right for an intercept in the few minutes you get out of the atmosphere, and the intercept velocity could be as high as 1 km/s, so the tanker would have to be optimized for the task. but it's ok, if i need a bit of extra speed to finish circularizing the orbit i can do that. finally, perhaps there are ways to use eve's atmosphere to help. maybe an helicopter can lift the rocket for the first few kilometers, or maybe good aerodinamics will allow a more optimized trajectory.
anyway, are you aware of anyone managing an eve ssto? would it be feasible to try to build one, or would it just be a waste of time?
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king of nowhere 560
this is a theoretical/challenge question. I would like to have a mothership that can drop a rover on eve and recover it in a completely reusable fashion; that would of course require that the rover be packed up into a cargo bay of a rocket that can SSTO on EVE.
according to my deltaV map, landing-taking off from eve costs 8000 m/s. a giant tank with a mammuth engine will have 6000 m/s of deltaV. make it 5000, because i will have a payload: that rover must carry at least a convert-o-tron and drill, plus wheels and science instruments. plus the cargo bay, which is not weightless. it seems we are missing 3000 m/s.
then again, perhaps 8000 for eve is not the most optimized. the same map gives 3400 for kerbin, but i have seen vehicles get a kerbin orbit with as low as 2700 m/s. also, getting on a suborbital trajectory where i could send in a fast tanker for a refueling would also be acceptable. it would be a difficult manuever, the launch would have to be timed right for an intercept in the few minutes you get out of the atmosphere, and the intercept velocity could be as high as 1 km/s, so the tanker would have to be optimized for the task. but it's ok, if i need a bit of extra speed to finish circularizing the orbit i can do that. finally, perhaps there are ways to use eve's atmosphere to help. maybe an helicopter can lift the rocket for the first few kilometers, or maybe good aerodinamics will allow a more optimized trajectory.
anyway, are you aware of anyone managing an eve ssto? would it be feasible to try to build one, or would it just be a waste of time?
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