What gets to other planets?

[SuperWeegee4000]

It's a question everyone wants answered - what do I need to do to reach other planets? An example of the Newb Question is this:

Beneath the six LV-N transfer stages, there is another FL-T800 and an FL-T400 connected to an LV-T45 serving as an orbital correction stage.

So, assuming I can get just that stage into orbit some-freakin-how, how far do you think this could go? Eve, Duna, Dres, even Jool? I doubt the last two extremely heavily. That is why I am a newb.

[The Jedi Master]

I've tried designs similar to that. Boom.

[MrKicker]

Heres a sight with a tutorial and a calcualtor.

http://ksp.olex.biz/

And heres a usefull chart.

http://i.imgur.com/9xvAsIT.png

[Superfluous J]

Why don't you just try it? If it doesn't make it, rebuild

I just keep throwing boosters and fuel at the problem until it's fixed.

[Boffinbox]

that specific nuclear stage and probe combo has 2,215m/s of delta-v to spend.

assuming this stage is in a 100x100km orbit, you will certainly get to jool, and then you could pick whether you wanna put the probe around jool or laythe, provided you use aerocaptures correctly.

950m/s to escape kerbin

965m/s to transfer to jool

^^^^ both of those are done during the same burn

this leaves you a 300m/s cushion in case you miss your burn slightly, or knock your rocket off balance, w/e.

[SRV Ron]

1. I would ditch the six LV-N and replace them with LV-909s, That will save you from pushing around 10.5 tons as well as placing that extra dead weight in orbit. You may even get better performance from losing the extra 10 tons vs the lower efficiency of the LV-909.

2. Asparagus stage the six rockets attached to the probe rocket. That will shed weight as each pair of fuel tanks are used up during maneuvers.

3. Replace the orange tank with 2 Rockomax X-200-32 fuel tanks. Be sure a Rockomax X-200 8 tank is on the bottom. Stitch the tanks together.

4. Use six instead of four of the strap on boosters.

5. Onion stage the boosters so that they all fire along with the center stage but feed fuel to it as well.

6. Brace the boosters to the center stage near its base.

7. Brace a ring around the boosters near the bottom.

8. Run a pair of braces from the top of the boosters to the bottom of the upper stage ring.

9. Ditch the fins, or use them on the onion stage only. You may find that the rocket flies better without them.

10. You may need an additional SAS controller in top of the second stage in addition to one under the Stayputnik for maneuver control.

11. Don't forget batteries and power generators or solar panels.

The design will not only fly but should be able to reach every planet or moon in the Kerbal system. It should be fully capable of reaching orbit on the first two stages and may be even capable of Kerban escape velocity.

If you are having spin problems during flight, Launch straight up at dawn for the outer planets or at dusk for the inner planets.

Edited August 10, 2013 by SRV Ron

[Geschosskopf]

It's a question everyone wants answered - what do I need to do to reach other planets?

Well, 1st you need to get whatever is going to the other planet into orbit at Kerbin. That takes about 4500 delta-V per module of the interplanetary ship. If all you're doing is sending 1 to 3 Kerbals to plant a flag and come home, you can get this off the ground fairly easily. If you want to do more, then you pretty much have to assemble your interplanetary ship in orbit from 2-3 modules, so it's like a mobile space station.

Once in orbit, you need enough delta-V to 1) transfer to the target planet and 2) get captured. The usual way of providing this delta-V is with nuclear engines because they need less fuel, so getting them to Kerbin orbit is easier. The amount of delta-V the transfer stage/tug needs IN GENERAL is shown on the delta-V map on the Wiki, here:

http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Cheat_Sheet

To make sure your rocket, and each stage thereof, has enough delta-V to do its intended job and enough TWR and burn time to land and take off from the destination, you should probably get the mod Kerbal Engineer Redux, here:

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/0-18-1-kerbal-engineer-redux-v0-5/

Then you need to launch when Kerbin is at the proper phasing angle to your destination. You can get the times that happens here:

http://alexmoon.github.io/ksp/

Because the launch window will no doubt be weeks or months in the future, you need Kerbal Alarm Clock to tell you when it's about to happen:

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/kerbal-alarm-clock-2/

And that's about all you need to get to another planet.

[SRV Ron]

I have built something similar that almost reaches escape velocity on the second stage and has landed probes on Eve, Duna, Laythe, and dropped a suicide probe on Jool and kerban. Several are flying Voyager missions with a nearly full fourth stage booster.

[SuperWeegee4000]

I'd rather not use mods, but thanks for the help.

[Waz]

The Kerbal X can land on Eve.

I eyeballed the position of Eve to a bit over 45 degrees behind Kerbin and aiming a gravity assist from Mün ejecting the ship roughly forward and inward of Kerbin's orbit (i.e. as http://ksp.olex.biz/ calculates), then a retrograde burn to get an intercept, then another maneuver at the next descending/ascending node tweaked to to impact Eve, then upon entering her SoI, a radial tweak to come in at about 12km (instead of impacting). Parachute, landing gear, watch the pretty lights.

The more I learn in this game the more I think the Earthling Space Program really is worthwhile.

[Keldor]

Both my Moho and my Eeloo landers looked pretty much like that, though they might have been two tanks per LV-N rather than one (I really don't remember). In other words, that thing is likely to be able to get just about anywhere you want.

[Johnno]

Sometimes, less is more. If you're just looking to send off a small satellite like the one in your picture, then a single FL-T800 tank with a nuclear engine will get you anywhere really (has about 6000 dV). A small satellite (0.5T), FL-T800 and nuclear engine is bit under 8 tons. To get that into orbit you just need orange tank - skipper - decoupler - orange tank - mainsail.

Be aware that mainsail straight onto orange tank has a tendency to overheat, so keep an eye on that.

But that's about it. First stage - orange tank with mainsail. Second stage - orange tank with skipper. That'll get your FL-T800+nuke engine+satellite into orbit. The nuke engine with FL-T800 gets you anywhere.

[SRV Ron]

I'd rather not use mods, but thanks for the help.

No mods were used on my similar design. Just finished building and landing a probe on Eve with the modified version of your design. The upper stage used single FL-800 fuel tanks on a LV-909 asparagus together in a ring of six. It worked quite well for the maneuver to catch Eve, not an easy planet to reach to orbit. Lots of fuel left in the last FL-800 fuel tank. Difficult to find good landing spots on Eve.

I did have to place lots of struts on the booster for stability as well as to hold everything together. Asparagus staging makes it tricky to brace together in a ring. First test launch flipped out of control after staging the first two asparagus. Additional struts on that section fixed the problem.

There should be no problem reaching Jool and any of its moons. Jool is far easier to get an encounter window then Eve.