How to create reusable launch vehicles?

[paul23]

Hello,

I'm wondering: how to create a working launch vehicle? I've made my first stage of the rocket based on a dozen huge rockets (heavy lifting duty to bring a complete base from kerbin to eve & land correctly there).

I added like around 50 parachutes to the thing, in such a way the craft is actually landing "stable". Made them open at the same stage as when I decouple (and first a few sepratrons to clear it away). I did test this by switching vehicles after decoupling. - It landed correctly. However the problem is: the moment I do the full launch I don't wish to switch views, now each time the launch vehicle "disappears", it just doesn't show up as debris "landed at kerbin" (which it should).

What shenanigans are at work here? Who's stealing my craft?

[Kryxal]

How high are you when you separate from whatever you're launching? If you're below 23 km, things vanish at 2.5 km if they're not landed.

[M4ck]

You would have to use some kind of mod, like FMRS, to either auto-recover "recoverable" stages or let you land them manually. It cannot be done in stock like that.

[paul23]

How high are you when you separate from whatever you're launching? If you're below 23 km, things vanish at 2.5 km if they're not landed.

Indeed I am at around 10km (I typically aim to have my first stage separate before I start the turn to orbit, so there's less chance on collisions as flight direction equals angle of of attack). So I guess I'll have to keep this "out of my mind" for now - wish to first discover the system etc with vanilla.

[Taki117]

For a totally recoverable rocket you need a mod like StageRecovery or DebRefund. Otherwise if you are below 22km and more than 2.5km away from your uncontrolled ship (be it debris or otherwise) whatever you are not controlling (regardless of potential controllability) is deleted.

[Kasuha]

For a totally recoverable lifter stage without using mods you need to bring the stage to the orbit, or at least to suborbital trajectory high enough that you'll be able to circularize the payload and switch back to the lifter before it falls below 23 km altitude.

If the payload is not too massive, it's best done using turbojet engines. Here is my lifter that can take 30 tons of payload to LKO, leave it there and return back to runway for maximum recovery. If the payload is smaller, it can give it a kick on its interplanetary ejection or perhaps transfer it to Mun on free return trajectory, still returning to runway afterwards.

[paul23]

Bringing the stage to orbit is just silly. The whole point of a booster stage is to take advantage of NOT going to orbit with that. I am trying to "minimize fuel" to bring heavy payloads into orbit.

Does the "deleting" hold for everything? - also spacecraft that you let fall automatically (just activate chutes at the mun already and let it fall down).

[Specialist290]

Does the "deleting" hold for everything? - also spacecraft that you let fall automatically (just activate chutes at the mun already and let it fall down).

To put it simply, yes. Any "craft" (including debris, asteroids, etc.) that passes below a certain threshold in the atmosphere (~23.1km on Kerbin) is automatically deleted by the game.

[Kasuha]

Minimizing fuel usage and minimizing costs go kind of against each other in this particular case. You either save fuel and lose parts, or save parts and lose fuel. Except if you use jet-powered SSTO because then you save parts and spend negligible fuel. One trip of my lifter with full payload (30 t) costs me about 5,000 funds.

Parts are only deleted in flight when they exceed certain atmospheric pressure. On airless bodies such as Mun, they get deleted when they hit the surface. But it doesn't matter much as you can't recover from any other place but Kerbin.

[Lukaszenko]

I have some nice "booster" stages of various sizes that can usually achieve full orbit, or enough to give me time to circularize the payload and still land the booster. The "booster" stages are usually augmented by solid boosters which don't get recovered, but are cheap enough not to worry about.

[KerikBalm]

Bringing the stage to orbit is just silly. The whole point of a booster stage is to take advantage of NOT going to orbit with that. I am trying to "minimize fuel" to bring heavy payloads into orbit.

Does the "deleting" hold for everything? - also spacecraft that you let fall automatically (just activate chutes at the mun already and let it fall down).

In this case, you simply need a suborbital trajectory, get your first stage above 23 km for long enough to do your 2nd stage burn (which also doesn't *need* to get to orbit to be recovered), switch back to your first stage before it goes below 23 km... hopefully you can land it before your 2nd stage reaches apoapsis and you need to do the circularization burn.

[blooper98]

Kasuha,

I would love to see the craft file or more pictures of that lifter, would you mind posting?

Thanks,

Bloop

[archsim27]

Has anyone tried adding remote command modules to their boosters. I was experimenting with this. I used action group to activate the command module once the boosters separate the system seems to work since the game thinks that the boosters are separate ships. Anyone have thoughts on this.