Spricigo

Rearrange your reentry vehicle parts to move it's CoM and CoD so you can maintain it pointed retrograde in atmosphere. From top to bottom: command pod, service bay, science Jr, crew cabin, heatshield. Also your trajectory when reentring matter. For slight different reasons, too deep or too shallow may cause heat problems. For your craft lowering the periapsis to 10km and holding retrograde seems ok.

In the VAB/SPH top left there is four icons: place, move, rotate and reroot. With rotate active clicking in a part will make a mesh with 3 circles appear. Drag those circles to rotate the part. Doing it in the root part will rotate the whole vessel.

May be util

Notice: A) the later stages will affect the performance of the early ones, the opposite don't happen. Thus is much easier to design the stages in the opposite order of use. B) It's important to avoid over engineering, unused/unneeded resources will hinder the vessel. Overengineering in later stages will be worse because of (A) So, the first problem to solve is heat at reentry. Adding a service Bay below the command pod seems the ideal solution, when open it causes just enough drag to keep the vessel pointed retrograde and slowing down to reduce the time heat build up. Unlike fins, you don't need to make adjustments in lower stages. Next let's think about the stage used to circularize and deorbit. Your payload is about 2,5t, with a FL-T400 and a terrier it will be 5t with 1500m/s deltaV and TWR 1.2. For next stage a Reliant engine with 4 FL-T400 can provide 2000m/s with 1.3 initial TWR. It's enough deltaV, but with this low TWR (which will not increase much) gravity loss is a concern. A pair of hammers can help with the initial kick from the launchpad or you can add another fuel tank to increase the deltaV. Either way, 4 basic fins at the bottom tank to help stabilize. Since the steering power is so low (only the capsule has any) consider to set a tiny inclination toward west in the editor and use a launch clamp. Anyway, the idea is to launch the rocket in a curved trajectory and let it fly itself. Adjusting the angle and thrust will adjust the trajectory.

If that was a badge, I'd be proud to have it. I also have some other weird design in development but unfortunately, because not so much KSP time available, it will take a while to finish then.

It's clear enough. But how exactly that fit in the challenge concept? As long the engineering report don't present warnings it's a valid craft, and whatever I decide to present as my entry is by my definition the "craziest ship I can make". If the idea it's to just present weird but functional vessels it's a craft exchange thread, not a challenge.

OP request? Because it's hardly a challenge given the rules (or lack of clear rules, score system...)

Not really relevant if those engines don't get activated. On the other hand there is no rule against use fuel contained in the payload's tanks. (I suppose that's intentional, just checking)

I have a question: how much of the orbiter need to land back to still count? More to the two points: Some missions (e. g. STS1-b) requires to put something in orbit but not to bring it back. Its ok to use fairing instead of cargo bay? How about undocking after reaching orbit, complete the mission and redock before reentry/landing?

Out of curiosity: What worked best for you? And the speed/height you are dropping the pods?

Since you are so close and docking seems to be out of reach, I will suggest something very kerbal: Design a pusher tug, using a mesh of landing legs to hold the other ship in place. Use it to provide the extra m/s you need and get the tech you need for Jr docking port.

Actually is not that much more advanced concepts while may me more difficult (also more rewarding) in practice. Matching inclination from launch means to combine the inclination matching with the launch. To effectively match inclination it need to be done at AN/DN which in this case means when the launchpad is bellow target orbit. Raising orbit before changing inclination. For large inclination changes this always results in less total deltaV. Burn progade at AN to raise DN, match inclination at DN(or the other way around). How much to raise the orbit? As much as possible. Notice others said "raise apoapsis", what you want to raise is the AN/DN with may not coincide with apoapsis before the maneuver.

I accept your word because I cant see it. Personally I had good results with the MK0 heat shield

Holly quoting, Batman!

Which 'more info' it shows? For what I know MJ show as much as KER but I may be wrong, but even so I wonder if it misses something important. Well, there is always the option to do the calculations by hand . I think MJ (and also KER) may have some trouble calculating deltaV with crossfeed, asparagus and dropped stages. My solution for this its to move the parts around, locking resources and removing decoupler from stage, to get the actual partial values. Also worth checking setting for flow priority and crossfeed, just in case.

Well, there is several ways to improve a design and several design philosophy. Mine is about as good as the other guys (or worse). I usually design my launch vehicles following this procedure: 1.Define a Payload mass/size and orbit height. I build a 'test weight' on top a decoupler as stage 0. 2.Design stage 1: vacuum engine, TWR > .5, deltaV ~500m/s 3. Design Stage 2: liquid fuel engine, TWR > 1, deltaV ~ 500-1000m/s 4.Design Stage 3: 4a. 2x radial decouplers with crossfeed enabled, SRBs with Fuel tanks on top, 1.5 < initial TWR <2.5 (depends also on final TWR, stage burn time and considerations about drag/heat), deltaV = whatever is missing in upper stages. The fuel tanks are to feed the liquid fuel engine of stage 2 for just about SRB's burn time 4b. (For smaller payloads) Single SRB, 1.4 < initial TWR < 2 (same consideration as 4a). DeltaV = whatever is missing in upper stages. 4c (Bigger payloads), Same as 4a but with more than 2x radial SRBs. 5. Basic fins (4-8) to help stability. 6. Set incination in editor between 1° and 10°. Hold in place with launch clamp. 7. Add gizmos from smart parts mod for staging. 8. Test flight, adjust steps 4 and 6 until the launch vehicle is able to put the payload in the target orbit with minimal input, reducing the cost as possible(/convenient). My launch vehicles either reach the desired apoapsis with SAS off and no input or with SAS set to prograde when I reach a specific speed (varies between 50m/s and 200m/s). The throttle is always at 100% during the ascent and the circularization is manual. That said you craft seems to have enough deltaV to reach a low orbit with some margin. You only need to adjust your trajectory, which may require some TWR adjustment to avoid control/heat/drag issues. As pointed by @Ten Key: Its important to notice that the value varies in flight. By engine choice, thrust limit and throttle you change the Thrust part; by adding or removing parts and resources you change the mass part. If it is too low you will not make orbit in time, if too high may cause loss of control, drag and heat. Particularly relevant for pure SRBs stages since you cant turn down your throttle to keep TWR in check.

My suggestion its to adjust the angle right off the editor and hold it with a launch clamp, start with about 5° and adjust if you notice it go too step(more angle and/or less thrust) or to shallow(less angle and/or more thrust). Fine tune until it does a gravity turn with minimal effort from your part and it have 'just enough' deltaV to reach a stable low orbit, the result will be a reliable Launch Vehicle that will serve you well for that particular payload mass. As a rule of thumbs if you reach about 45° at 10km its a good trajectory. (just notice: make a slow and constant turn(if possible following prograde), an abrupt change of direction will probably make you flip). Another trick its to hover your mouse over the Apoapsis marker in map mode and see if the time to apoapsis is slowly increasing. Finally, either learning to calculate by hand (or just estimate) deltaV and TWR or using a mod that gives a readout will be handy to design better crafts.

usually that comes with a "MOAR compromises" Probably forfeiting some of this POWA may improved some other aspects of your plane. That is, if you decide to do something else than reaching 1,6km/s and melting as fast as possible.

Just check if is not still auto-saved (last craft launched) first. If not there is still hope: http://www.kerbaltek.com/craftkitchen craft extractor thread with various mos, ship save splicer is the one you are looking for. Notice I don’t have personal experience using either. The first seems more convenient for a one time thing.

Nerv will give a huge amount of deltaV if you can endure the low TWR (and consequent long burn time) It's a tradeoff, you can't have one without another.

Just wait a bit when loading, physics kicking in will shake the rocket and small deviations may cause huge differences. Also let me provide a working example: https://kerbalx.com/Spricigo/Auto-Orbiter (search for @Snark's Osumi challenge for even better examples.) Edit: for the typical put a satellite around Kerbin contract there is the add convenience of the orbit well outside the atmosphere. Allows for climb on SRBs followed by insertion/circularization on efficient vacuum engines. Brute force then finesse.

A bit further explanation : Tail heavy plane s are unstable, each time it deviate from the airflow it wants to keep going. And since most of the wings/control surfaces are close of CoM it's difficult to apply the restaurative force necessary. Adding offence to injury: even with enough control authority to point in the right direction, the plane don't want to stay there so constant correction is needed.

I'd say it was wishful reading, the wiki says "ore and electricity" in the text and also list ore in the inputs (table at the right). Notice that creating duel from nowhere it's very unrealistic. Ksp usually goes much closer to what exist in real life, there is exceptions but converters are not among it.

@gargamel those links?

Basically your CoM it's so far behind that your plane want to fly tail first. Also canard... When you pitch the center of drag moves forward, another reason to the plane wanting to fly tail first. Finally, this red sphere is the CoM for the ship empty. Which means that after some fuel burned the CoL will be in front of the CoM