ForScience6686

I would also not recommend polar orbit for stations. My solution involved a station in an equatorial orbit and a tug in a polar orbit that my science hopper would rendezvous with for refueling. The tug would then bring the hopper and crew back to the station.

Since you don't have mining tech, just send a bunch of tanks with a probe core. Either leave the tanks attached for extra fuel storage later or leave enough fuel to de orbit and crash into the mun.

Be cautious switching to orbital so early, you are still in significant atmosphere at that point. Other than that congratulations

Try and stay under 300 m/s until above 10km, then full throttle. Begin your turn between 50-100m. At 5-10 degrees, then follow prograde up above 30k before making big maneuvers. Larger payloads I use a more gentle turn until I'm up out of the thick atmosphere. And I almost always use fairing now.

Like others are saying, start small to learn the basics then scale up to larger craft. You begin to destroy designs by continuing to add parts, keep only what is needed for the mission and scrap everything else. Only use radial intakes for early jets, they cause a lot of drag.

I'm wandering about the aoa you're using. You should be facing prograde +- 5 degrees until out of the thick atmosphere. From your description, you are moving off prograde and causing the aero forces to hit the side of the rocket causing it to flip. You need to be above 25k before doing any aggressive maneuvers. Also make sure you are viewing surface velocity.

Well by your description, you are running fuel lines from all tanks to the central tank as well as to each other which is probably causing a fuel loop issue. If you continue to have issues my guess is a fuel line is not placed properly or the wrong direction. Another possibility, maybe you've accidentally drained a tank in the vab and forgot to fill it back up, I've been guilty of this a time or two, but not when handling booster stacks. Or maybe you've accidentally locked a tank.

I'd love a pink Floyd prism. Nothing else says dark side of the moon quite so easily.

Sent a probe bomber to eve with enough probes for each biome and a spare for the inevitable failure of missing. Didn't transfer at the right time so I had to pack a few thousand extra dv. It looks like it's going to arrive before my duna crew makes it. So I guess eve will be my first planet visited.

I just put them on a probe bomber for self de orbiting probes, just enough kick to drop them in the atmosphere. Have forever used them to nudge boosters away from my ship. One lander enroute to duna uses them to slow the lander right before touch down. I wish we had a way to automate when they ignite, otherwise I'm stuck reverting until I get that landing down perfect. I know it's not that practical, but man is it a fun landing, to early and they run out and you crash, too late and you crash, but just right gives you a gentle yet exciting landing, plus I'll have my first kerbalnauts on another planet.

I would focus on the booster that is not draining fast enough. You should also only be connecting booster to booster with your final boosters connecting to the central tank. There is no need to connect all boosters to the center tank unless you are onion staging.

I'm just starting to dabble in this myself. I would suggest your parking orbit be around 100km, you're wasting a lot of fuel parking way out there. Nukes have been my go to engine, but I have also used the poodle and 909. Just built a ship with over 6k dv and 4 nukes as I don't want to spend all day burning. It carries 9 probes, each one self de orbits, lands with parachute and packed with all the science goodies. I had to pack extra dv as I'm not launching at the best times, but the transfer ship has enough to hit almost every planet if launched at the right time. I would recommend learning the rocket equation to calculate your dv before launch. This has drastically improved my missions and confidence. What's the size of your payload? That will help determine what engines you can use.

Was successful last night in a mid fairing. Was able to get out properly placed by having the cursor way above the ship so the payload fairing was closed. Not sure why it worked this time, but I noticed on the first couple placements that the fairing was closed inside the payload fairing. A couple retries and it closed on the proper place.

I've had no luck with mid fairings. In fact it caused rapid disassembly from what I guess was clipping. To be honest, I would rather have the fairing stay in place and become opaque in the vab instead of it moving out away from the vehicle.

I would guess you're either launching too vertical and don't have timeto circulize, or you're not packing enough fuel. Your launch would be a gradual turn that lands you horizontal and in orbit. Need more specifics on the situation you're facing.

Perfect. Red, you are a great teacher. Thanks for all the help.

I don't think it would be recommended except for small probes. I have done it, even h had a small science hopper with only rcs, don't think it was worth it though but worked great at minimus.

Oh that's helpful info. What about thrust limiting, that would change all the numbers, so lets say is set to 75, would I use .75 to figure thrust and fuel consumption? Then from there I should be able to calculate time.

That's what I figured. I am guessing the easiest method would be to test how much fuel is remaining after the srb burns, then do the math.

Thanks for all the help guys, I have successfully launched my manned lander can and separate rover to duna. Not my first, but I at least have confidence in them making the journey. I will have to go to my ships already enroute and check if they have the delta-v. I do have one final question. How would calculation the lifter go? Lets make it somewhat easy and say we have a center stack with main sail. And then 8 onion staged srbs. Would I just calculate the dv of the boosters and the engine or does the fuel loss during srb ignition have to be accounted for?

So one last question and I should be set. 4 lvn would equate to 46.43t fuel required while 1 lvn would equate to 31.45t Ve would be constant in this correct? With the only difference being mass. and TWR of the 4 lvn setup would be: TWR=240/(74.33*9.81) TWR=.3:1? 74.33 I don't think is quite correct as it only equates the mass of the vehicle and engines plus the result of x=46.43t fuel required, so no tank mass is in that number correct? I guess that's more than one question...

Ugh this just keeps getting more and more complex, but I'll give it a shot: Here are my actual numbers: M1=X M2=17.6 Ve=3433.5 DV=6800 m/s 6800=3433.5*ln((1.125x+17.6)/(.125x+17.6)) 1.98=ln((1.125x+17.6)/(.125x+17.6)) 7.246=(1.125x+17.6)/(.125x+17.6) 7.246(.125x+17.6)=1.125x+17.6 .90575x+127.5296=1.125x+17.6 109.9296=.21925x 501.34=x And if I went with the 1 poodle and 4 909's: Ve=9.81((250+60+60+60+60)/((250/350)+(240/345)) Ve=9.81(490/(.7143+.1739+.1739+.1739+.1739) Ve=9.81(347.542) Ve=3409.387 6800=3409.387*ln((1.125x+20.1)/(.125x+20.1)) 1.9945=ln((1.125x+20.1)/(.125x+20.1)) 7.3485=((1.125x+20.1)/(.125x+20.1)) .9186x+147.7049=1.125x+20.1 127.605=.2064x 618.24=x I think a different setup would be best. But I hope I have the concept down now. And it looks like you got the 909 thrust wrong or I am still missing something. Aren't they at 60KN. If I went with multiples of the same engine like 2 poodles. The Ve would still be 3433.5 correct?

Thank you much for the info red. My plan did include drop tanks but this is looking much bigger than originally planned, I am guessing that I would just have to pick a combination of tanks that gives me the total of 878.7t of fuel correct? Lets say I wanted to add a bit more thrust and added 4 909s. How would that affect the equation having different isp? Would I add them in figuring for Ve, so: Ve=9.81*(350+345+345+345+345)

can you continue your example so I can see the full process.

If that's the case, then I assume I need to have my dry mass as the payload and engine only.