61 ion engine explorer!

[Arugela]

This is something I was doing to figure out pure ion engines. I wanted to get a feel for how to make a deep space ion exploration ship to add as part of a multi part ship. Not sure yet how to do it and be able to explore the sun. It's pretty big to get enough delta v for a sun visit. I think 1/3 of this can barely do it, but it's still way to big. I'd have to scale it down to smaller sized ship parts.

So, here is a 2.5m ion ship:

680 parts

540,000 Battery Capacity

1,710,000 Xenon Gas (300 large tanks.)

35,000 delta V

3 passengers.

36 solar panels

16.67 minutes approx. of burn without solar panels.

2.5 hours approx. of burn time facing directly towards or away from the sun.

Inifinite potential burn time facing perpendicular to the sun.

16 hours of total fuel burn time.

Needs more science added.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/jn19nsyiv7tvczl/multi-pass 3_2.craft?dl=0

https://imgur.com/a/XeVf3T2

I may change the nose cone parachute out for a docking bay. Although without mono and reverse engines it will be hard to stop and dock without outside assistance.

Edited January 1, 2021 by Arugela

[king of nowhere]

It would be a good idea to take pictures of your ship when there is some ambient illumination. All I can see is a black screen with a blue exhaust on the bottom.

[Arugela]

It's mystery ship! 8D

BTW, this ship can be shrunk down to 2/3 or 1/3 and it can still get good delta v with no where near the 680 parts count. I think 2/3 can get around 30k and 1/3 can get near 27k delta v. And with many hundreds less parts. The lag does unfortunately activate the garbage collection lag and makes it even slower to fly. The smaller versions I made do not have this problem. But still take forever to fly being ion.

Edited January 1, 2021 by Arugela

[Arugela]

Here is the improved model.(After I discovered the MTM stage existed.) This can be easily fit onto a larger mothership. You technically only need the front part of the ship, but you can add the fuel pods for extra potential range. BTW, it flys backwards.

Solar Explorer:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/k31dlpapspxq7f6/Solar Explorer 1_2.craft?dl=0

100-260 Parts

39k Delta V (With 2 fuel pods.)

32k Delta V (With 1 fuel pod)

7.2k Delta V (Without Fuel pods.)

48 Ion engines

12 nukpubs

12 XL Large Solar arrays

12 XL solar panels

Just under 2 minutes of burn time from electrical without solar panels.

Infinite electricity if looking at the sun from Kerbin. Even more near the sun.

12 MTM Stage pods.

150 Large xenon tank (75 per pod.)

https://imgur.com/a/YKunYQL

Edited January 3, 2021 by Arugela

[NIGHTSWITCH]

nice!