Mephisto81

Next Grand Tour attempt is underway. (Lots of clipping involved, so might not be eligible. ) Nevertheless: - 46t takeoff mass on the runway, - 2 Kerbals - 1 base SSTA with ISRU - 1 Eve lander with 11.5t fully fueled, 6.5t empty. (https://kerbalx.com/Mephisto/XE-02-Stingray-Eve-Lander-115t) We will see, if this one succeeds... To orbit! Almost 2000 m/s dV left in low Kerbin orbit. First stop: Minmus. Refueling, flag planting, jetpack shenanigans.

Hi Xandelaar it started with a video by realseek: he made an single stage to orbit from Eve sea level based on propellers, Vectors and Nervs. Basically, the propellers will bring the craft to about 15km above sea level. Vectors will provide high thrust supported by Nervs. When the oxidiser runs out, the Nervs have to carry the craft all the way to orbit. As I found out, this is really, really tricky to pull of. Kergarin made a version of his own, and Chargan put two crafts on KerbalX who managed to do this as well. It took me weeks, to rebuild the craft from realseek just by reviewing his video. Same with the craft from Kergarin. A vessel from chargan was downloaded from KerbalX. I can recommend this thread by Kergarin: But rebuilding them was only part of the issue. To actually reach Eve orbit, the flying in atmosphere with propellers and the flight profile had to be almost perfect. Personally, I was not able to pull it off. With every craft from other creators, I fell a couple of hundred meters short. What worked finally, was an approach with 4 Vectors and 3 Nervs as opposed to the 3 vectors and 2 Nervs of realseek. This led to a higher thrust to weight ratio from the nervs. To get bigger margins and to negate drag, lots of fuel tanks are clipped inside fairings. The propellers are shielded from drag inside the service bays during rocket flight. As we all saw in the video from Lt. Duckweed and Stratzenblitz, 1.25m service bays are sufficient to shield R25 Propellers from drag, even if they stick out a little. As the center of lift is affected by the propellers and can move to different positions if service bays are opened or closed, I followed a similar layout as Chargan used: Build the propellers very close to the center of lift. This way, the craft was flyable in all states. The hardest part was to reach a certain speed with vectors: if you can reach 2.800 m/s when oxidiser runs out AND your aposapsis is high enough to buy you some time AND you have enough liquid fuel for your Nervs, you can make it to orbit. It took me roughly six weeks, where I spent every other evening in front of my PC to get to the point, until I had a craft, that could reach Eve orbit in a somewhat repeatable manner. You can get away with TWR of the vectors of slightly lower than 1, because the wings provide lift. You start out with horizontal flight and slowly transition to an s-curve. Ar max Q, you have to throttle down a bit to prevent overheating. Curiously, throttling back at max Q led to a higher velocity when oxidiser run out. When this happens, the Nervs will have to do the rest. Basically, the difference between 2,800 m/s and the final 3,080 m/s have to be provided by the Nervs. With proper flying, more than 300 m/s are left over in a stable Eve orbit. Interestingly, Chargan had a very peculiar ascent profile, where he was not able to fully establish an orbit at apoapsis. But he continued to burn his Nervs whilst the craft plummeted back to a suborbital trajectory, only to get to a stable orbit again on the other side of Eve. This happened to me as well several times with a previous craft. Have fun!

Eve is hard. Here is a rather simple Eve ascent vehicle meant for players new to the difficulties of getting to orbit from Eve. Maybe it can give you some ideas for your own builds. https://kerbalx.com/Mephisto/Simple-Eve-Ascent-Vehicle The lander is massively overengineered . If flown properly, you can reach orbit with over 2,200 m/s dv left. This is intentional to provide generous margins for beginners. On the profile, there are several other Eve landers as well, some with propeller stages, some more conventional. Basically any craft with something purple in the background. The lightest one is about 11.5t and has a propeller stage, an aerospike, a terrier and a spark stage. https://kerbalx.com/Mephisto https://kerbalx.com/Mephisto/XE-02-Stingray-Eve-Lander-115t Some thoughts on Eve landers and ascent vehicles: Copy crafts Don't hesitate to copy a functional design. By rebuilding it, you will gain insight into the workings. Even if it is from watching youtube videos or downloading craft from KerbalX. Kergarin and Bradley Whistance have some really nice designs on Youtube, Foxxster has some nice builds here on the forum as well. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPFuJDY-mn-DZxykUydyN9g https://www.youtube.com/user/nEvermore930 Gravity, atmosphere and drag Others have already laid out the basic dv requirements (8,000 m/s dV is a good start) and the impact of atmospheric density on rocket performance. A dense atmosphere basically limits your engine choices to Vector and aerospikes for the lower stage. For upper stages ignited above 35km, Terriers and sparks are useful. Drag is another issue. Always check the drag of your craft by displaying the aerodynamic forces (shows coloured lines during flight). Especially with the dense atmosphere and high friction, you will lose more dV than on Kerbin to this. Try to use the smalles diameter possible for your rocket and built it in a streamlined way. Discard landing gear, parachutes, or anything else you don't need for your ascent immediately after lauch. This will save you weight and drag. Ascent profile You best watch lots of youtube videos and take notes, at which height crafts are starting to turn, which engines they use, which velocity they have at a certain height and and how they throttle to prevent overheating. Build backwards Might be obvious, but don't bother with bring your craft to Eve and attempt atmospheric entry before you can take off. 1. Build a functional ascent vehicle. Test it thoroughly. Hyper Edit is your friend. 2. Make it capable of Eve landings. The simples method is to add two inflatable heatshields, one at the front, one at the back. Bunch of parachutes and landing gears. 3. Find a means to get your craft to low Eve orbit. Build the rocket or spaceplane at last, because the layout depends on mass and size of your lander. Have fun and good luck!

This should work on Kerbin as well: https://kerbalx.com/Mephisto/XE-01-APEX-Mk-VI-Eve-SSTO

Some new additions to the fleet: An 11.5t Eve lander with a propeller stage: https://kerbalx.com/Mephisto/XE-02-Stingray-Eve-Lander-115t XE-02 Stingray Eve Lander The Stingray is an extremely light, yet generous Eve Lander to bring a single pilot to the surface of Eve and back to orbit. Layout With only 11.5 t , Kerbal included, it consists of five stages: Landing gear Propeller stage with 2 rotors with 6 R-25 propellers each in a service bay Aerospike stage Terrier stage Spark stage A single service bay host 2 medium sized motors with 6 R25 propeller blades each. the 1.25m service bay is sufficient to shield the propellers from drag when closed. The propellers are powered by fuel cells in the back. Toggle fuel cells with Action Group 10. Motor lock and propeller deploy status is bound to action group 2. When deployed, propeller deploy angle can be modified with the main throttle. Landing on Eve Bring the craft to a suborbital trajectory on Eve. (It comes with a docking port at the rear, but you can also just add a fuel tank and an engine or use another craft.) Open the service. The propeller blades can create huge amounts of drag. The drag from propeller blades and wings is sufficient to decelerate the craft enough to prevent catastrophic overheating. Glide to a landing spot of your choosing and land. Take off Make sure, fuel cells are started (AG10) Toggle deploy state and motor lock (AG2) Activate motor power (AG1) disengage brakes use main throttle to adjust prop angle for maximum propeller efficiency. (Show aerodynamic forces for better control.) take off Propeller stage When in the air, stage the landing gear to reduce weight. Head upwards until you reach 15 km above sea level. Aerospike stage The rocket stage is designed to work from 15 km above sea level. When you reach 15 km above Eve’s sea level, pitch up as far as possible, stage to discard the propeller and wings and to activate the aerospike. Throttle thrust to maximum. Pitch up 45 degrees and continue course until the fuel in this stage runs out. (You might want to monitor a fuel tank from each stage to time your staging better.) Terrier stage When fuel in the aerospike stage runs out, stage to the Terrier stage. The goal of this stage is to get your apoapsis to 90 km. As with previous stages, stage when fuel tanks are empty. Spark stage The final stage consist of a single spark engine, whose job it is to get your Kerbal to a circular orbit. It has more fuel than needed: circularization can be achieved with 900 m/s dV to spare. Good luck and have fun! https://kerbalx.com/Mephisto/XE-02-Stingray-Eve-Lander-115t A proper Eve SSTO: hard as nails to fly, but can bring three Kerbals to low Eve orbit and back again. Can refuel itself with onboard ISRU. https://kerbalx.com/Mephisto/XE-01-APEX-Mk-VI-Eve-SSTO XE-01 APEX EVE SSTO The XE-Series The new XE denominator is for Eve related crafts. The Apex Mk VI is the first one to reliably reach Eve orbit as an SSTO from sea level. This has been made possible by a combination of of three different engine types: propellers to reach a certain flight level, vectors to launch the craft into suborbital trajectory and Nervs to complete the circularization Our RnD-Team spent literally weeks in reverse-engineering crafts by realseek, Kergarin and Chargan to escape the hellish boundaries of Eve’s thick atmosphere and high gravity in an SSTO. Go check out their work here: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/183085-the-history-of-eve-sstos-and-reusables/ As drag is a major issue with getting up to Eve orbit, several measures have been taken to minimize drag: overall craft is highly streamlined fuel tanks have been clipped inside a fairing propellers are inside service bays. Once rocket motors are ignited, service bays are closed. As weight for ISRU / Crew / landing gear is almost consistent, switching to the larger 4 vector / 3 Nerv approach compared to realseek’s 3 vector / 2 Nerv version offered bigger margins in term of TWR and dV. Crew and Control MK1 Lander Can inside a fairing offers seating for a Pilot (or Engineer during mining). Two additional crew members can rest comfortably in the womb-like confinements of an inflatable airlock. Access is provided by the trademark MMA “frontal airlock in a servicebay” technology Remote Control capability is provided by a RC-001S Remote Guidance Unit and a single RA2- Relay Antenna. Propeller flight Six service bays host 2 medium sized motors with 5 R25 propeller blades each. the 1.25m service bay is sufficient to shield the propellers from drag when closed. The propellers are powered by a total of four fuel cell arrays near the front. The fuel cells toggle with the same key as the motor power (action group 1). Motor lock and propeller deploy status is bound to action group 2. When deployed, propeller deploy angle can be modified with the main throttle. For takeoff, do the following: Toggle deploy state and motor lock (AG2) Activate motor power and fuel cells (AG1) disengage brakes use main throttle to adjust prop angle for maximum propeller efficiency. take off For transitioning to rocket flight, do the following: disengage rotor power (AG1) Activate brakes Toggle deploy state and motor lock (AG2) Close service bays (AG10) Rocket flight Propellers will bring you to about 15 km above sea level on Eve. Try to gain as much velocity as possible with rotors. Engage Vectors and stow away the propellers. Ascent can be divided into several phases: 15.5 km ASL: use vectors together with a very small climb (about 5°) to gain enough speed and to break the sound barrier. At around 500 m/s, engage Nervs as well. Pitch up: pitch up very gently to about 25°. Try to minimize drag by flying mostly in prograde direction Max Q: at around 39 km above sea level, velocity and air pressure put the highest amount of stress on the craft. Use the indicator for overheating on the frontal fairing to reduce thrust if overheating is reaching critical levels. When overheating gets down, throttle up again to maximum thrust. Fly prograde and getting suborbital: after passing max Q and being back on max throttle, fly prograde for the rest. You should reach almost 2.800 m/s when oxidiser runs out and an Apoapsis of 110-120 km. Anything lower than 2.700 m/s is really hard for the circularization. Circularize: continue flying with Nervs and try to complete your circularization burn. Known bugs When using Hyper Edit to teleport craft onto the surface of Eve, the impact from landing gear combined with the huge amount of clipping can get you explody results. For this, I used the cheat menu to increase joint strength and prohibit damage. Remember to uncheck them again for take-off. The craft flies nicely without them. https://kerbalx.com/Mephisto/XE-01-APEX-Mk-VI-Eve-SSTO

XS-07 Myrmidon: single stage to the Mun, Duna and back with Liquid Fuel only No refueling. Has about 6.100 m/s dV after reaching low Kerbin orbit. 24t take off mass, single Rapier / single Nerv. Kerbalx: https://kerbalx.com/Mephisto/XS-07-Myrmidon-Liquid-Fuel-only-SSTO-to-Mun-and-Duna

Well, some kinks still need to be ironed out, but after several weeks I managed to put an Eve SSTO repeatedly to orbit. Will be put on KerbalX once polished and time permits. Hope you don't mind posting it prematurly. XE-01 Apex Mk VI Eve SSTO Our RnD-Team spent literally weeks in reverse-engineering crafts by realseek, Kergarin and Chargan to escape the hellish boundaries of Eve’s thick atmosphere and high gravity in an SSTO. The Jool SSTA from Lt. Duckweed and Stratzeblitz also gave some input. As drag is a major issue with getting up to Eve orbit, several measures have been taken to minimize drag: overall craft is highly streamlined many fuel tanks have been clipped inside a fairing. 1.875m form factor was chosen as a compromise between part count and drag. propellers are inside 1.25m service bays. Once rocket motors are ignited, service bays are closed. As weight for ISRU / Crew / landing gear is almost consistent, switching to the larger 4 vector / 3 Nerv approach compared to realseek's 3 vector / 2 Nerv version offered bigger margins in term of TWR and dV. Crew and Control MK1 Lander Can inside a fairing offers seating for a Pilot (or Engineer during mining). Two additional crew members can rest comfortably in the womb-like confinements of an inflatable airlock. Access is provided by the trademark MMA “frontal airlock in a servicebay” technology Remote Control capability is provided by a RC-001S Remote Guidance Unit and a single RA2- Relay Antenna. Propeller flight Six service bays host a total of 12 medium sized motors with 5 R25 propeller blades each. The 1.25m service bay is sufficient to shield the propellers from drag when closed. The propellers are powered by a total of four fuel cell arrays near the front. The fuel cells toggle with the same key as the motor power (action group 1). Motor lock and propeller deploy status is bound to action group 2. When deployed, propeller deploy angle can be modified with the main throttle. For takeoff, do the following: Toggle deploy state and motor lock (AG2) Activate motor power and fuel cells (AG1) disengage brakes use main throttle to adjust prop angle for maximum propeller efficiency. take off For transitioning to rocket flight, do the following: disengage rotor power (AG1) Activate brakes Toggle deploy state and motor lock (AG2) Close service bays (AG10) Rocket flight Propellers will bring you to about 15 km above sea level on Eve. Try to gain as much velocity as possible with rotors. Engage Vectors and stow away the propellers. Ascent can be divided into several phases: 15.5 km ASL: use vectors together with a very small climb (about 5°) to gain enough speed and to break the sound barrier. At around 500 m/s, engage Nervs as well. Pitch up: pitch up very gently to about 25°. Try to minimize drag by flying mostly in prograde direction Max Q: at around 39 km above sea level, velocity and air pressure put the highest amount of stress on the craft. Use the indicator for overheating on the frontal fairing to reduce thrust if overheating is reaching critical levels. When overheating gets down, throttle up again to maximum thrust. Turns out, that throtteling down near max Q resulted in a higher velocity when oxidiser ran out. Fly prograde and getting suborbital: after passing max Q and being back on max throttle, fly prograde for the rest. You should reach almost 2.800 m/s when oxidiser runs out and an Apoapsis of 110-120 km. Anything lower than 2.700 m/s is really hard for the circularization. Circularize: continue flying with Nervs and try to complete your circularization burn. Known bugs When using Hyper Edit to teleport craft onto the surface of Eve, the impact from landing gear combined with the huge amount of clipping can get you explody results. For this, I used the cheat menu to increase joint strength and prohibit damage. Remember to uncheck them again for take-off. The craft flies nicely without them. Reaching almost max flight level before rocket ignition. Out of oxidiser with 2.800+ m/s. The Nervs will do the rest of the circularization. The higher TWR of this layout compared with a 3 Vector / 2 Nerv appraoch made circularization easier. Circularization achieved. Test of ISRU complement on the runway. Craft was launched empty and refueled with a small converter and a large mining drill powered by fuel cell arrays. Level 5 Engineer onboard.

Much more important than a high or low PE is the angle of your flight path in relation to Moho. If your encounter is not optimal, you will pay a much higher dV price. As the mass of Moho itself is rather small, savings due to oberth effect are not as plenty as with other planetary bodies or Tylo. You can test the differences with a transfer window planner for yourself. Although a capture is cheaper than a circular orbit. https://alexmoon.github.io/ksp/ Good luck!

@realseek Thanks for the explanations regarding motor size and blade number, wing angle and ascent profile. That was far more fruitful than watching your video over and over again to reverse engineer it. EVE SSTOs are the holy grail of Kerbal Engineering, it seems. Well done.

You're right.

I think Stratzenblitz just set a new record:

This. Have done a Grand Tour with it. https://kerbalx.com/Mephisto/XR-06-Ranger-Mk-III-Grand-Tour-with-Javelin-Eve-Lander The trick is to make a list for alle the hardest parts of your voyage. For the stock Kerbol system, these are: - Getting into orbit and to Minmus with an ISRU - Getting from Eve or Gilly to Moho, land on Moho - Get to Tylo from another Joolian moon, land on Tylo - Land on Eve. Take off from Eve, get to Gilly for refueling Then, you start solving them. When you have solutions for all the problems, you can combine them into a single craft. Basically, a SSTO with ISRU and 2000 m/s in low Kerbin orbit gets you to Minmus' surface. With an ISRU and mining drill, you can practically refuel at any planet or moon. To reach Moho and land on it, you will need plenty of low thrust dV, for example with Nervs. 4000+ m/s dV for the transfer and roughly 900 m/s for the landing. These numbers are without safety margins. Most likely you will need much more, especially for the transfer. To land on Tylo, you will need roughly 2.500 m/s dV with high thrust chemical rockets and an initial TWR of 1.0 in low Tylo orbit. Getting there requires some more fuel, getting away from Tylo and to land on Pol another 1300 m/s. Landing on Eve is (relatively) easy. A well designed spaceplane with a shallow reentry, empty fuel tanks and good wing area can land. But taking off is the hard part. I just slapped a lightweight Eve Ascent vehicel on the front of the SSTO. But there are other solutions, for example by Kergarin. Good luck,

Here you are: https://kerbalx.com/Mephisto/JNSQ-02-Stiletto-SSTA-for-Je-ne-sais-quoi-Planet-pack Successor is already in use with 4 Kerbals to Orbit / Minmus, some science equipment, and a pair of parachutes. Range with Nervs has been extended from 7000 m/s dV to 7.500 m/s dV. Upload comes probably at the weekend after some additional testing. - Mephisto- ["Only the sky is the limit" said the father to his son. Unfortunately, he was an astronaut.]

Yeah, that is inconvenient. I just add a small cubic octogonal part and offset it inside the docking port. Not much of a weight or drag penalty there. And now I can add a regular docking port to the shielded one. No need to fumble with settings. - Mephisto - [Drag is king, baby...]

Jolly good, that brought another bunch of fps... Now we're talking about conquering this exqusite planet pack properly. - Mephisto - (smooth like pinguin gliding...)

Thanks. That was it. Turns out, you can disable them in settings.cfg . Or at least prevent from spawning. SERENITY_ROCS_VISUAL_SPEED was set to 0 (from previous 500). That improved FPS quite to playable levels. Here is another thread to the topic: https://github.com/Kopernicus/Kopernicus/issues/365 -Mephisto-

JNSQ-02 Stiletto SSTO, (possibly also SSTA) https://kerbalx.com/Mephisto/JNSQ-02-Stiletto-SSTA-for-Je-ne-sais-quoi-Planet-pack Built for the "Je ne sais quoi"-Planet Pack by Team Galileo, this craft can reach Kerbin orbit in a 2.5x scale system with 2.500 m/s dV left. As "low Kerbin orbit" in this pack means "falling around Kerbin with 3.855 m/s, roughly 90km above ground", designing and building this craft was a tad bit more demanding than the usual SSTOs. A combination of Rapiers, Aerospikes, Wolfhounds and Nerv finally succeeded in bringing it to orbit with sufficient delta V left over. -Mephisto- ("One quarter impulse forward!" How fast is that in m/s? )

Good thing is, I have a potential SSTA in low Kerbin orbit with Jeb and Bill and 2.500 m/s dV left for a proper Minmus transfer and landing. Bad thing is, my framerate drops significantly as soon as I am low over Minmus. Framerate was 3 fps, landing not possible in that way. Framerate directly after launch is fairly okay, but drops as soon as I am over the ocean on Kerbin. This is a fresh install from yesterday with KSP 1.7.3 with Breaking Ground and Making History, latest Kopernicus and JNSQ. Reasonable Ressources has been removed manually, other mods are Mechjeb, KER, RCS planner. Link to output.log https://drive.google.com/open?id=1g21Toqx4CmjsaripSn76r2BA16DLtWZ- Does anybody have an idea? - Mephisto- KerbalX link for the Stiletto: https://kerbalx.com/Mephisto/JNSQ-02-Stiletto-SSTA-for-Je-ne-sais-quoi-Planet-pack

A under 3t to orbit SSTO: XS-05 Mighty Flea https://kerbalx.com/Mephisto/XS-05-Mighty-Flea-3t-Micro-SSTO Mephisto. ( Rollin', rollin', rollin', ... raw-hide... )

XS-05 Mighty Flea 3t Micro-SSTO Link to KerbalX: https://kerbalx.com/Mephisto/XS-05-Mighty-Flea-3t-Micro-SSTO 3t to orbit in a single stage. Kerbal included. No science experiments, no shenanigans. Take off: Activate Junos (AG1). Liftoff and and gradually transition into level flight. Stay below 1km ASL whilst doing your speedrun. The Junos can accelerate to 700 m/s. Start your climb and activate both Spark engines. Try to do an efficient climb, where you gain as much velocity as possible for an apoapsis of just above 70km . If flown correctly, you can reach orbit with about 100 m/s left. Deorbit: Just point retrograde and fire the engines so that periapsis comes below 55km. Orient craft radial out for maximum drag. Landing: This is the tricky part. As the craft has no parachutes or landing gears, you have to land unpowered in water. Obviously, you want to land as slow as possible. around 40 m/s landing speed with a veeeery gentle touchdown worked. Alternatively, use the ejection seat ("Abort") and the parachute of your Kerbal. Warranty void if done so. XS-04 All-Seeing Eye Relay / Ressource Scanner Satellite Link to KerbalX: https://kerbalx.com/Mephisto/XS-04-All-Seeing-Eye The latest excrements in ore surveillance technology. Also knows your bad habbits and browser history. Comes equipped with ressource scanners, regular and relay antennas as well as repeateable science experiments. Powered by "a excrementsload of batteries and some spare ion engines", as the designers at the Kerbal Space Center put so eloquently. Comes with solar panels. Has roughly 15.000 m/s dV with ion engines, so evading it by moving to Dres or Eeloo seems kind of futile. Better use that incognito mode in your browser more often....

XR-14 Icarus Eve Ascent Vehicle The Icarus uses a helicopter stage to lift a rocket up to 20km above sea level on Eve. This reduces weight requirements drastically, as a 16t ascent stage is sufficient to reach orbit, helicpoter stage included. Thanks to Brikoleur for the helicopter guide! Link to craft: https://kerbalx.com/Mephisto/XR-14-Icarus-Eve-Ascent-Vehicle -Mephisto- [Up, up and away...]

Do I understand the 3x correctly, in that you have 9.81 m/s² gravity, just like in stock, but the sizes of planet and atmosphere are bigger, resulting in a higher dV needed? And if so, how much dV do you need to make orbit in your game?

Fits in the 2.5m Service bay of this craft: https://kerbalx.com/Mephisto/XR-01b-Brahe-Moon-Truck https://kerbalx.com/Mephisto/XR-02-Ranger-XR-04-Agamemnon-SSTA-and-Eve-Lander Mephisto. (Rollin', rollin', rollin', ... raw-hide...)

Dolphin Mk V Mini SSTO 3.87t with Kerbal, 3.757 m/s dV (vac), 150 m/s dV in a 70x70km orbit. https://kerbalx.com/Mephisto/Dolphin-Mk-V No landing gear or parachutes. Lands after a glide phase via suicide burn. No solar panels or RTG, battery only. Can work far out in the solar system as well. Basic science experiments and an experiment storage unit. Mephisto. (Rarely flown, only crashed once.) (and yes, I watched too many videos from Bradley W. and Turbo Pumped lately...)

Dolphin Mk V Mini SSTO https://kerbalx.com/Mephisto/Dolphin-Mk-V Dolphin Mk V 3.87t with Kerbal 3.757 m/s dV (vac) The newest solution for space aficionados on a tight budget. For only 22.978 Kerbucks, you can reach orbit around Kerbin and conduct a number of science experiments. The docking port at the end allows you to carry the dolphin on larger craft as a small lander or dinghy. Take off Use the reaction wheel to get into an upright position under any circumstances. The strong reaction wheel allows the craft to function whithout landing gears. Three sparks power the small craft. Take off like a regular rocket. The margins are a bit tight, but you can reach orbit with 150 m/s dV left. Reentry and landing Burn retrograde until your periapsis is at around 35km. Pitch 45 degrees up and gently reenter. Despite having no wings, the Dolphin can glide somehow. Try to reduce speed as much as possible and glide like an aeroplane. when you are 200 meters above ground, you should pitch up and get your speed to 80 m/s or below. Hit retrograde, pretend that you are a Falcon rocket and do a suicide burn with the three sparks. This maneuver safes a parachute and cost you only about 100 m/s dV, when done correctly. Known issues Fairings can be a bit buggy. Sometimes, the Kerbal gets stuck in the fairing upon leaving the command seat. Did not yet happen with this craft yet, but is possible. Just in case, try to quicksafe before leaving command seats. Mephisto. (Craft might be inspired by the who-has-the-smallest-contest currently going on between Turbo Pumped und Bradley Whistance.)