Kerbolitto

You could also try to dock something longitudinally above or below the shuttle ? :p like a fairing with cargo placed as an External Tank

Here is an idea I had to deploy stuff on bodies with high G : double set of landing wheels, one medium and one high to lift the rear of the shuttle A possible solution for you : green circle represents a fairing (better heat resistance) with interstage nodes, it has a much lower drag than standard fuel tanks, and I can also put stuff inside (tank, batterie, relaydish).

Damn, now I got to fly it for the 3rd time !

Thanks a lot Michal ! Take care, and play for fun

Oh sorry I stopped at only one craft must go to Jool So you're good to go ! Did a 5500m/s difference rendez-vous in solar orbit once, don't hesitate if you need help !

I don't think you can do that since you have to launch 1 craft only to Jool to accomplish the whole mission..!

A few pictures from the last missions I flew (yes I love shuttles <3 !) more pictures in Shorpa mission reports

If it flies well on 4 Rapiers (w/o cargo, low fuel) you can use them to provide a bit of boost when ascending Laythe on Vectors ! If you're shuttle is Tylo capable and has a sleek design you'll have enough dV to get out of the atmosphere. That's the problem, nukes can only kill horizontal velocity, they're just too heavy to be usefull on descent.. even on Vall it's hard, you'd need 6 nukes for a 150t. craft to get 1TWR, and it would still be very dangerous to not impact. That would represent 15t. of LF (826dV) + rocket TWR to kill vertical velocity. So a lightweight solution could be to use 1 Dart and give it 200-300m/s. Following this idea on Tylo, you'd need 50t. of LF to get 2430dV (150 -> 110t.) but 20 nukes to get 1 TWR, 60 tons of engines, which leaves only 40t. for the structure of the craft, minus the weight of the empty tanks D: And it would still be very hard to land it :p I like nukes too but even with 1.73TWR from 30k altitude I had troubles not to impact Tylo, I reloaded for maybe 1h30 before starting the retroburn at the precise second and still landed on the tail.

Jool injection is only 2k m/s, could go even lower if you use Eve ! I don't know what would be the dV difference if you split the injection at Duna.. You can use the refinery as part of the Laythe outpost, as I did, so you only need to land on Laythe, deploy the thing, re-orbit and come back home . Im not sure you can save a lot of dV by deorbiting on Tylo with nukes, the thing is you will reduce your horizontal speed quite significantly and will need a lot of rocket TWR to avoid falling directly on the surface. By looking roughly at my screens, I burned 62ms from Pol, +100m/S correction, 700m/S to capture at 30x30 above Tylo, 2450 or so to land (1.7 Vectors TWR). So once you empty LiquidFuel and shut the nukes, it's not that hard to come with 2500 +/- rocket dV. You could also leave the nuke's pod in orbit and save lots of weight this way. Or detach un-necessary parts of Laythe's outpost !

That's a good solution to cover the first ones but in the end it might hamper you to finish the high dV missions. I used that idea to dock 2 shuttles back to back and go / return to Jool but the crafts were not that efficient individually. Ultimately it's possible to create a 200t. Tylo shuttle but even with 0.12 nuke TWR it's barely manageable, so having a few tons of unused engine is a risk. Regardless, this is good creativity and it's quite cool to use your shuttle as a toolbox, ready for almost anything

This is the report of a new STS Whynot, I went back to Duna with 2 different Shuttles to deploy a large outpost, using 2 assembly rovers https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/187136-spaceshuttle-shorpa-sts-jool-5-most-certainly-part-3-laythe-and-kerbin-heavy-beauty-pics/&do=findComment&comment=3759618

Ok so the Shuttles are back in action ! I flew a mission to deploy a large outpost on Duna using 2 shuttles, the biggest is a new twin bay design, while the other is the well-known Shorpa with a body-lift new wing design ! A few numbers : I'll refer to this one as DB (Double Bay) : this beast weights 259t. and has 2x 1.5 Mk3 bays, 1600dV 0.3 TWR with 2 Bobcats, then 3140dV 0.24TWR on 6 nukes. 2 small docks, no RCS, the center craft is an "abort" shuttle designed to save the crew. It has 800m/s on a Terrier + 2 Panthers. This version is still fragile during re-entry. This is the BL (Body Lift) Shorpa, 139t. 1.5 Mk3 bay + a ramp, 1340dV 0.56TWR on 2 Bobcats, then 3100dV 0.28TWR on 4 nukes, RCS but no docks. The wings are shorter and I tried to mimic a body-lift fuselage. So far it works quite well, but the cargo tonnage is reducting faster than on the larger shuttle. Part 1 : Launch and Burn to Duna ! DB Orbiter is a 1500t. 3 stage design, 2 SRBs + a massive 12 Vectors central core, then 8 Vectors to finish the circularization. Shorpa BL Orbiter is the same as usual, I kept the old SRB design because they look cool :p Part 2 : Duna approach At first I tried to land on the poles or somewhere cool but the DB was quite fragile (probably due to a glitch savegame or autostrut breaking the fuselage :/). Part 3 : Landing (cough) Part 4 : Deployement (why 2 shuttles?) Smolcar is detached first : Assembly rovers are deployed on their carts : DB detaches its cargo : And the assembly begins Its mine ! Outpost is now complete ! Part 5 : Take-off Part 6 : Return maneuver Part 7 : Approach and landing implied message ? End of the mission Hope you enjoyed Sorry for the (tons) of pictures ! Also there's still some videos of this mission on Twitch !

Here's the first part of the relaxed mission I flew on the surface of Duna. The goal was to use somewhat "realistic" crafts, like 2 seats / kerbal for interplatenary travel, lots of electric power, heat dissipation, shield against radiations .. and land a little outpost on Duna. Part 1 : Kerbin maneuvers Orbital station on launchpad : Staging : Station in space : It has many docks, small maneuvring capabilities, will also deploy a M700 and act as the main relay around Duna Duna burn : Outpost on the lauchpad : Staging : Outpost in LKO : It carries the 2 stage lander plus the outpost with a skycrane Burning : Habitat + Re-entry vehicle on launchpad : Staging : Once in orbit, the crew ship turns around Apollo-style, to dock in front of the habs and transfer vehicle Part 2 : Duna ! Habitat capturing : Outpost has arrived : .. And the orbital station : Habitat is now docked to the station : The crew is then transferred to the lander : Outpost is remotely landed : .. While the crew deorbits on its own : Outpost is successfully deployed : .. And the work begins ! Part 3 : Return to Motherland After days of work (ha ha) the crew gets back in orbit : Everyone is transferred back to the habs : Burn back to Kerbin : Capsule is detached : the habitat-transfer module is left on a solar orbit Crew is succesfully landed

Sent you a message, all pictures of the stages I've finished are the v7_8 version which is specially designed for high speed jumps, up to 9G (but it doesn't like to turn sharply or drift)

I can share my crafts if you want to study them !

Yes I saw the hinges ! Robotic is not that bad once you lower your expectations ^^ Look at that you will get a better idea

Nice ! but a bit large for mk3 bay ? I can send you this rover if you want to check it

Here are 2 small clips from the mission Im flying right now. First is the landing of a 210t. shuttle with 2x 1.5 cargo bays, followed by the Shorpa with which I made my second run at this challenge, with a new wing design (body lift). I detailled the complete approach from supersonic to landing . Again sorry if the quality is bad, I have dark age internet New clip, outpost assembly I will do a full post once the mission is over but maybe some of you may enjoy small videos too

Cool stuff for future archeologists !

Work in progress 0.6TWR in orbit without cargo, 2 bobcats & 6 nukes, around 4k dV in total, good glider, double 1.5 cargo bay Also the central cockpit is a terrier / jets propulsed mini-shuttle which can detach from the rest.

My advice would be to design a shuttle capable of holding 40t to orbit and descending them on the ground, with some pre-thinking about adding more fuel tanks / different engines. This way you'll have a suitable craft capable of flying with various cargo and fuel mass, and possibillities to extend its range for the latest missions

Oh yeah that is a cool mother-ship !

Yeah problem is the vehicle takes a ton of speed downhill, and it bounces too often to keep its balance The less I use brakes the happier I am !

This is the JET-version, I just covered a few nodes and painfully pulled it to 150ms +/-. The bow generate immense drag, I created a v2 which was more sleek but did not even touched 200m/S .. It's going to be a looooong way to make it SSTO capable xD

Thanks, it was not design to land in an atmosphere so the result is somewhat unexpected xD. But yeah using empty SRBs and some struts, its really sturdy !