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Just press the spacebar. No SAS, no gyrodynes, no control, just SRBs. Drink tea, enter orbit. I've done something similar in stock before - it really did manage to launch crew, satellites, and a bunch of other things - and even make all this beauty returnable. FAR brazenly takes away 100 m/s of delta V, complicating the situation. It would seem that this is a simple craft of five boosters, and such attention to it. But everything is in the details. 1. The angle of the small booster and the amount of fuel affect the starting pitch angle, and its location relative to the center - the final pitch angle. The further it is from the center, the faster the craft spins in the thin atmosphere. 2. The wings at the end of the booster, looking like a dart, reduce the tilt and increase stabilization. The further they are from the center, the slower the craft spins in the thin atmosphere. Outside the atmosphere, they have no effect at all - only point 1 works. 3. At first glance, it seems that the optimal formula is to maintain TWR 1.0 after acceleration and not increase the time to the apocenter. Everything is almost true, but reducing TWR reduces the delta V and the height of the apocenter, which requires changing the amount of fuel in the small booster and the distance of the wings to the center (points 1, 2). 4. Intuitively, burning down is like burning the delta V in vain, but this is moving the apocenter closer to the craft and setting the pericenter directly below it on the other side of the planet. At the moment the burn is completed, the apocenter and pericenter change places, and the craft remains in a stable orbit of 73.8/76.2 km, which I consider a good result for SRBs. 5. The Kerbonaut in the chair greatly affects the symmetry of the craft, and therefore it has to be placed very precisely and clearly, because in a vacuum, every kilogram of weight in one direction or another without SAS and gyrodynes gives a turn of several degrees, which completely changes the geometry of the orbit. To summarize: FAR forces us to invent more complex centering schemes, but the hypothesis is confirmed - it is POSSIBLE. Video with proof of concept: Craft download link: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3347523570

Landing a first stage booster is hard, but this guide will help you with it. The picture below shows what can happen when there is an unsuccessful landing attempt. Picture above show that during landing, the rocket can run out of fuel. This picture shows when the landing attempt failed. So the rocket crashes. before we start. you need to know how to: Get to sub orbital trajectory. Get to orbital trajectory. Know how to use fast vessel switch ( using " [ " and "]" ) and map switch. ready? let's start! here i'll leave a rocket.so you can download it . https://kerbalx.com/Jeronimo/Dragco (p.s. i'm too lazy to add pics.) So now that we have an a craft. let's Begin! Ok. when it's on the launch pad. check the staging. after all stages checked (showed in the pictures below), you should launch the rocket. When you reach the speeds of around 100 m/s. start turning from ~90° (degrees) to around 80-70° Keep the throttle at maximum throttle. Note, you need to be sure that you'r sub-orbital Apoapsis doesn't go beyond 110,000 Meters. after you reach ~100,000 M above Kerbin . Put the throttle at 0 power. Switch to rocket mode view Decouple the first and the second stage. After you decoupled, press "[" or "]" to switch to the second stage. Put the throttle to the first line on the throttle-meter. Then when it reaches a safe enough distance ( 20 m above the first stage) put the throttle on full. Fly up until you reach ~230,000 m above Kerbin or more (the reason behind this is that you will need as much time for the first stage). Use fast switch (reminder "[" and "]") or map switch (click on the first stage, then click switch to) and switch to the first stage/orbital booster. After you switched, make a retrograde maneuver node, and make it on the line with the island airport (or a little further, in case of what, you can add Delta-V (short Dv) ). Use RCS. Start the maneuver burn at half the time shown. Ex. if it's showing 18s. burn at T - 9s. After the maneuver is finished, turn the orbital booster prograde. When finished turning. open the A.I.R.B.R.A.K.E.S by pressing the brake button (or "B"). When the rocket is at 70,000m above Kerbin, adjust the landing position so the end of the trajectory will be a little in front of the space center (where the Airport island is located or the water near the space center) We do several landing burns to slow down the rocket, after what we will wait until it's time to do the "suicide burn" which slows down the rocket to landing point. This part isn't going to have a lot of pictures, eyeballing will help ( in case eyeballing isn't gonna help, use landing lights, so you can see how close you are to landing, preferred to use MK1 landing lights). Next, try to eyeball the landing, here i can't give any advice except try to keep the throttle down no more than half of the throttle, so right before landing, you could put as much throttle needed to bring the rocket to full stop. Also, important, do not turn of RCS at any point in the flight after turning it on. When you land, do not turn off the RCS, until you sure that the rocket is stands stable. Result you might get. Now, when we finished landing the first stage, we go to the map, and using the map switch, we switch to the second stage. Next, we turn on the throttle on and get the second stage to orbit. Congratulations! You landed the first stage back to Kerbin, and got the Second stage into a Kerbin orbit without quicksaving. Special thanks to one and only moderator : @Vanamonde

Anyone interested in playing with flyback boosters I have shared a link to stock ones which I have made. They are designed to be able to lift adequate payloads to a parking orbit with equatorial apoapsis of 125km. Then your payload will circularise or you can use an upper stage to do this (taking out of your payload fraction). From there you circularise your payload before switching back to the booster and performing a course correction burn if necessary and then ignite the panther engines to extend your range back to the runway. The Twin Boar variant is great for small satelites. The variant built off the plane tanks can easily lift the Mark 2 capsule to space using a poodle kicker stage and plenty Delta-V to reach your station. the 3.75m variant has be glide tested only, but I figured larger payload options might be useful. I do recommend SRBs for larger paylaods to reserve some Delta-V for high altitude trajectory corrections. Very much interested on people's opinions on the crafts or if they have made fly backs of their own. https://kerbalx.com/Avo4Dayz/FlyBackhttps://kerbalx.com/Avo4Dayz/medium-fly-back-boosterhttps://kerbalx.com/Avo4Dayz/375-fbhttps://imgur.com/gallery/RmgQRJW

Hey everyone. So I'm struggling a bit both with getting satellites to orbit and to make airplanes that can fly high altitudes. Last night I was googling for some tips and tricks and I came over a thread with someone posting a picture of a plane he made. https://m.imgur.com/Q7J5cyL As you can see in the pic his thrust limit is 36 and he woops out a smashing 23.4 k delta V?!?! I tried to make roughly the same model but I get nowhere close to that! Thrustlimit set to around 1 and I get something like est 8 min burn. Ofcourse that thrust is so small even a light aircraft would never lift. How is this possible? How can he have a twr if 1.02 and an estimated burn of 14 hours??

There's a new shuttle challenge, I had an idea for a small shuttle. The airplane stage wasn't hard for me to build, and it flys nice - holds prograde more or less by itself , generates optimal lift/drag ratio when in prograde hold , thanks to incidence angle on wings. I had the idea of putting a kickback on each wingtip to get the thing halfway to space. That's the easy bit right? Well, no. After I'd finished getting hung up on my own launch clamps, then the torque from the boosters sending me pitching up or down into a half loop crash, i found that the flight profile you get with solids doesn't play nice with the lift from the wings. On the solids, it accelerates harder and harder as the flight goes on due to fuel burnoff, we end up generating too much lift and steadily pitching up into a vertical climb, or even going over vertical. So we need to not build speed too fast down low, but we still need enough thrust in the first 15 seconds or you get another comedy takeoff. So, I'm starting over with liquid fuel boosters, since when has any shuttle program ever been about saving money anyway? Though i might need more than a pair of Reliants to get the job done... Here is the mini shuttle with a fail-tacular solid booster setup. https://www.dropbox.com/s/i9myyrt0vsj7v7s/Starswift micro shuttle.craft?dl=0 What it really needs is something that gets it to 15km+ at mach 3 or more, in a shallow climb (less than 15 degrees of pitch) - that way the upper stage isn't wasting it's meagre thrust against gravity for long, and is actually thrusting horizontally with some atmosphere to make lift from the wings. Basically the ascent the upper stage wants to follow looks something like this -

All Rights Reserved : https://sketchfab.com/Warsoul/collections/ksp-maerda-mods MaErDa Docking Port T3 GumRoad Supporters or Donators Exclusive MaErDa Corp is proud to release is ultimate docking solution for 2.5m modules. This splendid invention include one stable docking port surrounded by 4 Mini LFO engines supported by 8 one way mono-propellant engines. 4 emissives warning bands surround the docking port for better visibility in total darkness. Compatible with 1.25m and 2.5m docking ports. https://sketchfab.com/models/d141fc51d9e64429b73e147949834875 Download Link : -snip- Exclusive Contents avaible soon Early access MaErDa Dual Engines ; No balancings, No Fx To Help MaErDa To Help KSP To Help SpaceDock Version 0.6 is Out ! Download Links : -snip- https://kerbal.curseforge.com/projects/maerda-beta-testers-pack/files/latest http://spacedock.info/mod/899/MaErDa Corp Beta Testers Pack MaErDa just discovered a new artefact on Ike ! MaErDa Present the Dual Mode Engines Cluster Type 1 The perfect solution for who need emergency monopropellant burn ! Now with M-DM-EC-T1 you can save the situation if you are out of fuel. No more jetpack pushing or hell long RCS burn. The M-DM-EC-T1 let you switch engine mode to monopropellant engine automaticly when you get empty. This is not beautyfull ? MaErDa Corp present the Landing Leg Silo Concept Sketchfab Link : https://sketchfab.com/models/84011bc53bc04b1d9ccd5ef776b357de MaErDa present the Landing Module solution for the T-Series, the MaErDa Atlander. This heavy duty tank are the result of a mislead secret command vehicule who turned into a crashcan. Perhaps we keep some breakthroughs from ours fails. Resulting into a new design for an landing module wich include four mounts for landing engines fitted for MaErDa L1 standards. The module include an vertical pod for 2 kerbal. Attach a docking port on top for horizontal landing. Legal Mention : MaErDa Corp do included engine within his sales. Sketchfab Link : https://skfb.ly/RCGq Download Link : -snip- or https://kerbal.curseforge.com/projects/maerda-atlander-1-v0-2/files/latest MaErDa present the Liquid Fuel Booster solution for the T-Series, the MaErDa Booster T-Series. Theses long refined boosters tanks are the result of a mislead secret aircraft who turned into a mess. Perhaps we keep some breakthroughs from ours fails. Resulting into a new design for liquid fuel booster wich include an air intake for airbreathing engines. The single compartment tank give us a little weigth loss in exchange of crash tolerance. Legal Mention : MaErDa Corp do not included any engine within his sales. Sketchfab Link : https://skfb.ly/RGNu Download Link : -snip- or https://kerbal.curseforge.com/projects/maerda-booster-t-series/files/latest MaErDa present the Jet Booster solution for the T-Series, the MaErDa Jet Booster T-Series Theses long refined boosters tanks was created to help the Booster T-Series to lift off. The Jet Engine include an air intake for his airbreathing engines. Some defects make us impossible to stage them normally. Some Action groups must be made to turn them on/off. The price of innovation i bet ! Our scientists are on the case. Fix coming soon ! Legal Mention : MaErDa Corp does engine within his sales. Sketchfab : https://skfb.ly/RHNo Donwload Link : https://kerbal.curseforge.com/projects/maerda-beta-testers-pack-version-0-1/files/latest MaErDa present the refirbushed Atlander. Recycled Atlander crashed on moon. The pod, monopropellant was striped off in exchange off better SAS and Fuel capacity. Sketchfab Preview : https://skfb.ly/RKNK Download Link : https://kerbal.curseforge.com/projects/maerda-atlander-refirbushed/files/latest MaErDa Corp like thinking big. So they made an variant of the original Atlander for big lifting purpose on low gravity planet or moon. The pod and monopropellant was striped off in exchange off better SAS and a triple wider FuelTank. The Lander Engine L3 (LeL3) was specialy created to fit on theses oversized variants. Warranty void if used with fart gaz. Download Link : https://kerbal.curseforge.com/projects/atlander-supersize-v-01/files/latest AtlanderSupersise.cfg https://www.facebook.com/maerda/ -snip- https://sketchfab.com/Warsoul I dont know why i can't embed my sketchfab here !?

SpaceX prefers vertical powered landing to horizontal winged landings for their booster to do RTLS since it requires little modification to the booster and because it would also work on airless bodies. However, using wings may offer an advantage. Based on the lengths of the burns for the return portion of the boosters flight on the Orbcomm-2 mission, I estimate the amount of propellant that must be reserved for the booster RTLS as ca. 46 metric tons (mT). This results in a large performance hit of a 30% loss of payload according to Musk. However, estimates of wing weight are about 10% of the landed weight, which probably could be reduced to 5% with carbon composites. So for a F9 booster with an estimated dry mass of 20 mT to 25 mT, you would only need an additional 2 to 2.5 mT, and likely half that with composites. This would results in large reduction of the payload loss. But the question is could we use wings to allow a RTLS when the booster flies at hypersonic speeds, say, at ca. Mach 7? I think it might be possible, or with minimal propellant burn, if your airfoil has high hypersonic lift-drag ratio. To be sure this would be very different from the Space Shuttle's delta-wing shape. The shuttle has been described as akin to a flying brick with a hypersonic L/D ratio of only 1, though its subsonic L/D is better at about 4.5 However, airfoils of high hypersonic L/D are known: Waverider Design. http://www.aerospaceweb.org/design/waverider/waverider.shtml So my challenge to Kerbal-mavens is if you have a Mach 7 L/D of about 7, could your first stage booster at a max speed of Mach 7 do a return to launch site? Bob Clark

Hello everyone, I am having a little difficulty launching a refueler into LKO that can hold 4000 units of liquid fuel. Please note that I don't have access to 3.75 parts at this time. If I could see an example of a stable refueler. I'm pretty good with designing efficient and stable boosters and upper-stages, but this one has stumped me... It's just so unstable! Thank you, -Will Granda