Kergarin

Non ISRU Grand Tour recipe: Design a lightweight refuelable lander that can get from moho orbit to surface and back. This can do at least everything but Eve, Tylo and Laythe. Build a disposable Eve lander. Check if your Eve lander can get from orbit to surface and back on Laythe and Tylo in one piece and then be refuelled. And if this is more efficient than a separate lander. If yes, you are done. If not build a lander for laythe and Tylo. You could build one that gets to surface and back in one piece at laythe, but which is staged and disposed at Tylo. Laythe is easier, as you can land almost for free due to its atmosphere. At least one of the above crafts should be able to do duna. This could at best be the lightweight lander, depending on your design. Due to its atmosphere, you can land here also almost for free, while Dunas atmosphere is so thin and gravity so weak, that even small engines can get you back to orbit. Now you will need something to travel between planets. It's probably a bad idea to take all the needed fuel and the heavy landers with you from planet to planet. You could split your rocket in kerbin orbit into several refuelling pods, sending them directly to where you will need them. The order also matters. Try to get rid of heavy things early. Now strip all this together in a big rocket, and you are done To fullfill the Ultimate Challenge in game contract, I think you will need to do all this using a pod that's dockable to all your landers instead of some command seats. As this contract requires to land the same vessel everywhere.

I have tested where ese my little rocket can go

This one is around 0.2 tons in LKO. Will have to check for the exact weight. Edit: 0.18t in 75km orbit

Does it only have to land on the Mun or also return to kerbin?

Would a Video work too? seems I did save some more fuel this time. Still far from perfect... Edit: I wonder where else I can go with that

1.32t with 9m/s left

1.565t with ~200m/s left. There still goes more. This challenge seems to lack pictures

Well it was more like the last two month than today Started a new reusable career playthroug:

We will see what happens but the continuation may take some time It's still one of my favorite challenges, really a great idea!

There was once this challenge by @5thHorseman the "no contract career challenge". The goal was to upgrade all buildings in career mode, without accepting any contract. The money has to come from milestone rewards only. To make this even more interesting, I have set myself the additional goal, to recover every single part I have used. As if this was not enough, I have added the goals to put a flag on every planet and unlock the whole tech tree. I also intend to not do science spamming. From the moment when I leave kerbin, there will only be one science trip to every celestial body, getting sience from space high, low and surface (and atmosphere if existing). So no boring biome hopping and no repeated missions. My settings are normal, plus require signal for control, plasma blackout and all G and pressure limits activated. I had a look at my old submission for this challenge, and now was verry unhappy with it. There were way too many science launches on kerbin, the crafts were ugly and still way to big. So I have decided to start over again! This is part one of our journey: Chapter 1 - Kerbin For a quick start, I have strapped together a few rockets, getting science from launchpad, air and water. There also come our first rewards for altitude and speed records, giving us some money. The second launch features an upgraded version of my old 5 science points SSTO rocket, doing our first spacewalk in space low. (This rocket became verry popular, when a bigger youtuber picked up the design two weeks later.) Next comes the second and last science rocket, bringing a bunch of science JRs to different altitudes. Giving no money but boosting science. Our last mission on Kerbin features another SSTO rocket, which takes us one step further, and gives a lot of science from space high. Those fins are not intended to give it stability at launch, but to provide some aerobraking on reentry. Chapter two - Mun & Minmus We now have the parts and restrictions to land and return a Kerbal fully reusable on the Mun. For the first time in this Series we use a recoverable SSTO Booster. Well, actually we don't use its full SSTO capabilities, as we can't afford a probe core to do the reentry burn. So the Mun lander is released on an almost orbit suborbital trajectory. The lander circularizes its Orbit, while the booster reenters the atmosphere, gets braked down with help of some fins and then lands safely on preactivated parachutes. The lander does his trip to the Mun in a single stage, and then uses some passes of aerobraking before it does land on a parachute with the help of a little burn. The lander could be even smaller, but actually we only have the Terrier, which has good ISP but is way too heavy for such a small lander. We could already have done Mun and Minmus in a single run right now, by adding a little more fuel to the Mun lander, but we won't be able to transmit all the science, as we don't have solar panels and a to low part count restriction for that much batteries. Also we have to upgrade the skills of Val for our upcoming missions. So we do this in a separate launch. Now that we have unlocked the Spark engine, we can scale down our lander. This engines low wieght and good TWR makes it extremly efficent for lightweight landers, even if its ISP is not that high. The new dV Display can help you a lot which engine to choose. Chapter 3 - Gilly Our first interplanetary tour takes us to Gilly, as it is the only landable Body in our actual Com-Range. Its Orbit is still not completely covered, but it's enough to stay in contact near the transfer windows. By unlocking the lightweight lander can, we can keep our craft small. Fairings are released on a suborbital trajectory, so I would count them as recovered. The reentry is assisted by the landers main engine, and its horrible drag brakes it down quickly without overheating. Chapter 4 - Duna and Ike Now that we can upgrade the Tracking Station, Duna comes in our reach. To get the maximum science (and a cool spaceplane), we launch two crafts. One to Duna and one to Ike. To save some weight on the Duna lander, the Ike lander brings a relay, which allowes the Duna plane to use the smallest antenna. The Duna plane is not really a plane, as ist CoL is way to far back. Those wings are just for some aerobraking and a little guidance to a flat landing spot. (and to make it look cool!) While a spaceplane was not really necessary, it has the advantage of creating much or less drag when you need it. We also could have done Duna and Ike using a single lander, but I absolutely wanted to have this plane on the tour This was the first part of the journey, and perhaps the one with the most changes. We will see how this continues, once I will find some free time again. If you can't waint for the continuation, here is my old version: https://youtu.be/LtMBu9-c-sI

Sorry for grave digging thins thread I had a look at my no contract Career video, and i was verry unhappy with it... so I started over again! Less launches! Better looking crafts! Now with more Spaceplanes!

All

Could this qualify somehow? Or may be an adapted version? It's not a rocket but an SSTO, which is also the transfer stage. After the "transfer stage" has brought the payload into a trajectory to duna, it does a short retrograde burn, returning into a highly elliptic orbit, and then using some passes of aerobraking to return to Kerbin. This way the transfer stage can be recovered for almost free. It's called a Kergarin maneuver, unless someone proves the opposite. The lander has the required instruments, but actually is a rover. It does not completely return to kerbin, but it has a backpacked rocket, which sends a little container back to kerbin containig all the science. The lander comes packed with one relay satellite, which is also used as cruise module for trajectory corrections. It separates from the lander shortly before reaching Duna. At first the relay sat is brought into a precisely timed flyby trajectory, from where it ensures communications while the landers touchdown. Afterwards it brakes down into a stable orbit around Duna. So it is a mixture between the cubesats and the mro. The relay sat also acts as refuelling station for the science return rocket, to keep it as small as possible. The science return rocket only features short range com, which is sufficient to get into return trajectory and do a little correction when reaching kerbin. It then does a planned disassembly on reentry, leaving only the science container and the preactivated parachute intact for a safe landing. It's a verry old video from almost two years ago. If it does not exactly fit the challenge, I could change the mission to be more like insight A little ot (or not?): Here is also a larger version of the same kind. A single launch using a reusable launch vehicle, featuring a fully equipped manned trip to duna and back with base, rover, lander, orbiter/return module, and 3 relay sats. https://youtu.be/MHvyZ6Q3M_4

That's right It's mostly all that docking and aligning which would take a lot of time. Actually it's all just strapped together in the VAB with decouplers. While for the challenge I would need claws and assemble this in orbit after an ssto (or whatever) took the pizza there, if I get the rules right.

I prefer using a Plasma-Cutter Not yet a full challenge entry, but a proof of concpet. Sadly I'm a little short on time to do the full Video on how it got up there

What about the center piece? Can this be destroyed too?

Let me throw in a few My series of cargo SSTOs, which can accelerate payloads into duna intercept without leaving Kerbin's SOI. They use a small retro burn and aerobreaking for minimal return cost. It's called a Kergarin maneuver (as long as no one proves the opposite) My Jool 5 ISRU SSTO from my completely wasteless career playthroug. Featuring a separate laythe SSTO lander even if could land there on its own, just because I like the small one Or my verry old grand tour SSTO and my space station delivery SSTO both from the Excalibur series (sorry for the bad video's, they were my first) My old senseless podracer SSTO https://m.imgur.com/a/JmJ6L And isn't this one cute? https://m.imgur.com/a/HnpyE

Thanks! The forward Col in my comparison in an extreme sample. Your looks like extreme forward too. For the challenge my Col was a just little more backwards, so you it's a good balance between stability and agility.

Hm... Do heatshields in ksp work at the sun as expected? I just gave it a quick try and it did not seem like the heatshield covers anything. Parts behind it get as hot as they do without it. Edit:I mean outside of it's atmosphere.

I don't want to spam this thread to much with CoM and CoL, but for everyone who is interested, here I have tested how big the difference can be on two extreme cases:

That's why I would not try to land it on wheels. But if you look at the picture where I approach the runway, you see in the navball that it flies surprisingly well. Over and undershooting ist corrected by what you said: pull up hard and bleed off speed or fly straight like a bullet. Using the mk1 pod instead of the cockpit makes it verry heat resistant. (and lighter) I also adjust the control surface authority for every phase of flight, to have more or less aoa. Edit: Also wings become much more efficient when the com col is correct. Com too far in front forces the control surfaces to generate drag instead of lift, or even downforce depending on wether they are in front or behind com.

It's not the size of the wings that matters, it is having com/col verry near to each other. (and not having it shifted too much between wet and dry) This thing can do a cobra maneuver I guess your dry com is too far in front of col

Yes, but I had corrected this an hour before you quoted it. How did this work?

Thanks for the hint, but that challenge only accepts horizontal takeoff and landing. Also I'm above the weight limit. This would be within but also not horizontal https://youtu.be/KIR1m7bEpRA

Let me throw in the first SSTO. You asked for tier 6 or 5 with bonus. What if I do it on tier 4? Album: https://imgur.com/a/CIOURPf 4 toursit seats 30 parts (could do 29 without the luxury of an escape pod and perform even better) tier 4 parts only wet 15.035 dry 13.474 1.561 for fuel + 1.347,4 for airframe depreciation = 2908,4 / 4 tourists = 727,1 / per Tourist -10% = 654,39 points Or is there a tier 4 bonus?