sevenperforce

I want to be a Space Reporter.

Looks fantastic! I agree, it just had to be red. Great job; can't wait to see this baby floating through space. And to your (implied) question: it doesn't have to have Kerbals on board or be on flat terrain, though it does have to be on terrain of some kind (e.g., no launching it off a cliff to get it up to 45 m/s). I actually do love rules questions, because it reminds me how inventive people can be, and how specific I should be for my next challenge. Double Trouble was intended to be separate from Hail Mary, but if you want to do them together, go for it. I was primarily thinking of something like what Scott Manley did in his video about the SpaceX fairings, where he built two fairings shells out of structural parts, added thrusters and other recovery hardware inside, then wrapped a stock fairing around them for the actual launch. You must use a single upper stage to get into a Hohmann Transfer to Duna, and this upper stage must come back to land for Hail Mary. However, you can have a non-recoverable braking and/or landing stage "included" with your payload, if you wish. My recommendation would be to complete the transfer burn using the upper stage, decouple the payload, and then turn around and burn retrograde until you have an eccentric Kerbin orbit. You only need about 130 m/s to drop out of a Duna Hohmann transfer into an eccentric Kerbin orbit, which isn't much fuel at all for an otherwise-empty upper stage. I tried this with mine and got into a Kerbin orbit with plenty of propellant to spare, but I forgot to put a power source on my upper stage so it ran out of battery almost immediately. Not sure if I could have landed it anyway; it had no heat shield and no chutes.

Hah, thanks! Would FMRS even work for this? Seems like it would be essentially the same as a quicksaving, landing, then quickloading and landing the other, ad infinitum. The trick was really careful timing. As far as I can tell, ships delete/unload once their apoapsis drops below 70 km. So the boosters can be in atmosphere but still be accessible as long as they are still on a suborbital spaceflight trajectory, even if they are on the downward leg of that suborbital trajectory. Of course, there's another twist: if you're controlling a ship in-atmo, it won't let you switch to another ship unless it's less than 2.5 km away. So I had to set it up so that "jumps" between vehicles only occurred when the ships were less than 2.5 km apart or when the starting vehicle was fully exoatmospheric. Right after separation, the core was still less than 2.5 km from the first booster, so I could switch back to it for the first boostback easily enough. However, by the time I completed that boostback burn, I was more than 2.5 km from the second booster, so I had to wait until I crested out of the atmosphere before I could switch over to it for the second boostback burn. Of course, by that time, the core was well out of the atmosphere (no trouble there), but the first booster was well-into the atmosphere; I think I caught it just seconds before its apoapsis would have dropped below 70 km. By the time I landed it, the second booster was even lower in the atmosphere, but thankfully it started with a loft so its apoapsis was still in space. Rinse and repeat. I wasn't sure it could be done (I originally thought that perhaps I'd need to keep all of them out of the atmosphere the whole time, which would have been REALLY messy) but I'm glad I could!

Nope.

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=44376.0

Hey, just keeping with the long-established tradition of grainy porn...

You've got that Proton look going on.

If I may -- for help with separation, try either inducing a slight roll right before staging (this will produce a centrifugal effect to nudge the boosters away from the core) or simply add a few Sepratrons. What's your biggest problem with landing the boosters?

Oh, the video about "taking it for a spin", haha. Gotcha. Tempted to go back to my "finally made orbit" save and wait for a Duna window and try to land, using the upper stage for an entry/landing burn.

Kerbin is so small that you really have to put your barge WAY out. I only see one video -- you may want to edit again.

@Ultimate Steve Very nice! I will count everything but Destination since you blew up your wheels, but definitely impressed! I'm guessing you did staging REALLY low and just switched back and forth between the two boosters rapidly until you got your landings? That's tough.

A bit of rocket porn from the guys over at NSF: THERE SHE IS. THE FALCON HEAVY ON THE TEL.

I never can get Imgur to order my pictures the way I want, so I usually create a separate thread and paste in using postimg. I'd love to see your entry!

Glad you liked it. I try to make the points something at least a little challenging. The thing I had the most trouble with was getting the trajectories lofted enough that I could fly each landing in sequence. I have done quickload-based landings before but that's not quite as satisfying as actually landing both boosters and the core within the same savegame. In theory, BurnTogether could have been used to land both boosters simultaneously, but only with ridiculously good luck.

All right, here's my entry. Timing was everything. Had to figure out a way to get each booster landed without the others unloading. Full album and play-by-play here: My entry qualifies for Gone For a Spin, Falcon Nine, Autonomic, Looking Easy, Insane Mode, Downrange, Tru Lyfe, and Purity, for a total of 190 points. I'll add a leaderboard once I get other entries.

I want to be that guy driving. Just for a day. For the love of all things SpaceX, I created a challenge to send an electric rover to Duna on a reusable triple-core booster...here's my submission: Figured one post on this thread was appropriate.

I created this challenge yesterday: And I just managed to complete it. I didn't score all the possible points, but I did successfully complete my main goal, which was propulsively landing all three booster cores within the same save. It's very challenging. The trick is to use a highly lofted initial burn, followed by a flat boostback on the first booster, an even-more-lofted boostback on the second booster, and a high-apogee downrange loft on the core. If timed properly, each booster can be landed before the following booster drops out. I suppose it doesn't look very Tesla-esque, but oh well. It can do about 50 mph, so we'll just chalk that up to it being a little on the old side. Corners ridiculously well, though, thanks to the low center of gravity. It survived this jump, surprisingly, though I believe it lost a headlight. Then came time to mate to the rocket! It's a big rocket. I could have made it smaller with Tweakscale, but didn't want to use mods. The Roadster takes its rightful place. The three cores are virtually identical, except for the fairings up top. Not shown: nine Vectors, thrust-limited to 92% (because Falcon Heavy will launch Elon's Tesla at 92% of its max thrust), with 100% gimbal on the core engine and 75% gimbal on the circle of engines. Time to head to the pad! Sitting pretty. Ignition before clamp release. Each of the 12 landing legs are an aligned pair of landing struts covered by elevons (with control authority turned off), keyed to the gear action group. "Check ignition "And may God's love be with you..." Starting a very, very mild turn at 100 m/s. Going to have a very lofted trajectory. At around Mach 1, I used an action group to cut thrust on all but the core's center engine. It's not perfect; the real Falcon Heavy will throttle all nine engines down to the minimum throttle together, but I couldn't be QUITE that perfect. Up, up, and away! I would have liked to use a reskin but oh well. Cutting all engine thrust to around 65% at 500 m/s to help loft the trajectory a bit more. Coming up on staging. The goal will be to separate and flip the first booster for boostback as soon as possible after apoapsis exceeds 70 km; that's when I know I'll be able to switch back and forth without problems. Am I correct that the navball automatically switches from Surface to Orbit as soon as your apogee exceeds 70 km? I suppose I'll have to test that another time. Anyway, it was the indicator I used. MECO and stage sep! Action groups are your friend. Leaving the core engine firing until I clear the two side boosters. I would have liked to have a single RCS thruster set to "fore by throttle" connected to a single monoprop tank, just to aid in separation, but there's no good way to do it. The core engine will fire until I am 2.5 km out of range, which should give me a bit of a loft. Using the engines to help with the flip on the first booster. The trick here is to get as flat a boostback as possible, but still keep my apoapse over 70 km so I'll be able to switch to the other booster in the brief window of time that I'm officially out of the atmosphere. All right, this boostback is almost done. Waiting to be able to switch back to the other booster... This one takes a much more lofted boostback burn, because I need a bit of hang time. I will only have a few seconds after I land the first booster before the second one would unload. Lofted boostback on the second booster, complete. Rapidly switched back to the core; I'd already crossed apoapse so I really have to gun these engines to get back onto a good trajectory. After getting my core to the desired trajectory, it was back to the first booster...with just seconds to spare. Already dropping like a rock. Used action groups to turn off the ring of outside engines but manually reactivated two of them for the three-engine burns to come. The first booster has a very gentle entry and doesn't need an entry burn. Landing burn starts pretty high, though. These engines are still limited to 92% thrust. I would have liked to come down closer to the beach, but I'll take what I can get. Booster is transonic. I'd toyed with using the airbrakes for control, but it never really worked right so I just made them fixed. Made sure to switch to radial-out at the right time; otherwise you end up going haywire at landing. Opening up those elevons and lowering the legs. Legs down; final approach. Throttling for landing. Dropping throttle lower. This will be a perfect hoverslam. And down! Still wobbly, but safe. And again, with seconds to spare, I switch to the next booster core. This time I'm already in re-entry while I'm switching my engines back on. Despite a higher-energy entry (given the more lofted boostback), I didn't need an entry burn on this one either. Starting the landing burn at roughly the same altitude; drag is the great equalizer here. Subsonic. Should have good fuel reserves. Still firing full-throttle. Legs down early this time...not really possible in real life, due to drag on the legs, but the drag from my airbrakes is so much higher than leg drag here that it doesn't matter. Less slam, more hover. I had enough fuel to counter gravity losses; my real concern was getting down fast enough to get back to the core before it hit the atmosphere. Made it! Couldn't resist a glamour shot with this core here and the other one in the distance. I really should have used Tweakscale to bump up the authority on the RCS thrusters, but I wanted to do it pure-stock. Uh oh; the core (and upper stage) have already dropped out of the atmosphere. This is going to be REALLY tight. Glad I didn't blow that fairing earlier. Boosting the upper stage free as soon as possible. I'm going to let the upper stage burn on its own while I switch back to the core. The engine will continue to fire until there is 2.5 km between the two vehicles; then the engine firing sequence is unloaded even though the vehicle persists on its trajectory. With luck, this will be just enough to get out of the atmosphere, but not so much that I waste all my fuel. Back to the core, switching to my three recovery engines. On this one, I'm DEFINITELY going to need an entry burn. (Spoiler: I tried without one, and most of the engines survive but all the airbrakes burn up.) "This is Ground Control to Major Tom "You've really made the grade" Thankfully it doesn't take a very long entry burn, though. Coming down in a mountainous region is going to be REALLY tricky. Deploying legs early to help me slow down, even though again this is NOT SpaceX kosher. Missed most of the landing burn, but here's the very last bit. A good deal of hovering and translation here to find a flat enough landing spot. Yikes! ....but I made it, didn't I. Now to see what happened to the upper stage! Hah! Still in the atmosphere, but with an exoatmospheric apoapsis. I'll go ahead and blow the fairing, though there's not much to see on the dark side. Should be a piece of cake from here on out. Getting ready to circularize. Stable orbit achieved! There she is! Roadster perched atop the upper stage. Now for the exit burn. POW. Five gees is a bit much for the real-life Tesla, but autostrut is our friend here. Pushing out of the system. And there we go! Hohmann transfer above Dunian orbit! Finally, the money shot. "Can you hear me, Major Tom? Can you hear me, Major Tom?" "Though I'm past one hundred thousand miles "I'm feeling very still "And I think my spaceship knows which way to go"

Looking forward to seeing how you recovered your upper stage! I'm doing it as close as possible to the way SpaceX is actually doing it, with the exception that I didn't attempt to land fairings.

You're gonna need a bigger boat? Full disclosure -- I tried "land on a boat" for a long, long time, but I eventually gave up on that idea; smashed my barge to pieces every time. Ended up landing my center core on the peninsula far east of KSC. And I just finished, landing all three boosters successfully, on the same load. Not that I didn't use quicksaves voluminously, of course, but I was able to do it in a single continuous save, so all three boosters are actually landed successfully within the same save.

Sure, I'll allow it. Though I'll be doing the "pretty difficult" version myself, just to prove it can be done.

The Roadster does look great! The rules specify a battery-powered Roadster, so I can't give you the speed demon bonus unless you can hit 44.7 m/s without the monoprop boost engines, but it still looks excellent!

My upper stage is significantly heavier than my payload...as is the case with SpaceX. As will be the case with most submissions, I think.

Looking good! Nice job keeping it small. Mine is a touch bigger, haha, and not nearly as fast. Technically, 100 mph is 44.7 m/s, so 44.9 passes. I just rounded to the nearest decimal.

Informational mods are okay.

Oh my god. That's....cute? In the most epic way possible.