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Since all interplanetary vessels tend to get very heavy in Real Solar System, you need a really big launcher too! Something like the Super Heavy Booster ... just BIGGER :-) I wanted to design something that is reusable and can be landed on the runway manually. Here is what I came up with - enjoy :-) Mods: Real Solar System Realism Overhaul Starship Expansion Project Camera Tools Continued Environmental Visual Enhancements Redux Ferram Aerospace Research Continued Parallax PlanetShine Procedural Parts Procedural Fairings Real Fuels Real Plume Real Heat RealChute Parachute Systems RO Engines RO Heatshields RSS CaneveralHD Scatterer TUFX

A brief background of the aircraft: The OFV-18 was the original of the governmental space planes. Its earliest mention being bacm in the 1970s, as a small, unmanned variant of the space shuttle, which was in the works at the time. After being bought by the USAF in 1973, the OFV became somewhat of a "known secret". It was known by space enthusiasts, but they had no idea what it was or looked like. After 6 years in production, an unplanned Saturn IB mission took it into launch in 1978. It returned to the KSC in 1979, making a very secretive record. Its sister, the OFV-19, was designed as a replacement for the very flawed OFV-18. After being completed in 1983, the OFV-18 was retired, as it was actually a prototype that was never designed to be used, but due to rushing of the program, and pressure by the USAF, it was pushed to become a functional orbiter. While it succeeded, it became apparent of flaws. Unbenonced to the ground control, during one of its secretive long-term flights, a payload, presumably a satellite, had collided with the solar array built into its payload. This caused the solar panel to break. While it wasnt noticed, due to the array being powerful, it became one of the most common issues with the OFV-18, as the array was built into the payload bay, and blocked some of it causing issues. The OFV-19 aimed to fix this by moving the equipment into the front of the nose, aswell as the solar array. This would mainly stop the payloada from hitting the solar array. After its first test flight in 1985, it proved successful, ultimately sealing the fate for the OFV-18. OFV-19 in orbit. OFV-18 Craft files to be released soon, hopefully! They are modded, but shouldnt be a problem

Are you bored of the standard KSP rocket launch experience? Do you like building "reusable" rockets but wish you actually re-assemble them? Have you tried building a rocket verticator vehicle and now have no hair left because you pulled it all out? Do you just generally want to lift massive payloads up in the air and side to side for reasons you wish to keep secret? Then this vehicle is for YOU! Introducing Modular Dual Drive Bridge Crane 5600 by Matsuma! This modular design allows you to lift just about anything you can access by flatish terrain. MATSUMA ORBITAL uses this as a crawlerway-crawler for restacking rockets enabling full rocket reuse. The default design measurements take this into account: it stands about as tall as the interior of the VAB (67m), and exactly as wide as the KSClvl3 crawlerway (35m). However, you can make it as stout or as tall as you need, taking advantage of Procedural Parts. The upper crossbars are in symmetry, while the lower verticals are not (including each drive section). Aside from some struts needing to be reset, size adjustments should be as simple as changing a few Part Action Window values. 205 parts can be further reduced by changing the design of the crane hook and pendant. After all, the 14 winches, their connection, and parent parts add a lot to the part count. The default design winches means something else in the vessel will likely fail before the winch connections. The connection should be Gantry>Structural Part>Structural Part>Winch to allow the winch to Grandparent Strut. Meaning the minimum crane hook could be as low as 4 parts. The wheels are made from Motors + Mk3 Tanks(x2) which have 50m/s and 50G tolerance making them robust. Wheel stretching with extremely heavy loads is normal. Surface speed is variable with the wheel throttle, but future refinement can be done by change the Length of the Driver KALs. MATSUMA generally prefers stock designs, and this crane is based off the CBGC-90S. However, with KSP development 'complete', future designs will likely, like this one, be built with the best mods in mind to reduce part count and maximize function. Booster and elevator sold separately. This crane does the same jobs, with more reliability, as the Stock CBGC-90/60 but with less than half the part count. It also no longer requires the crawlerway as a rail and can drive itself around anywhere (including the crawlerway) 200 tons on the hook causes nominal stretching, still works.

Decided to make a couple of ssrt LKO reusable booster designs as they can look pretty sleek with the new cargobays. This is one of my intermediate designs, able to lift about ~25t's in to LKO with an efficient orbit burn along with a well executed suicide burn. Tho once the cargobay bugs are fixed, i imagine it should be capable of lifting more. Ive also considered adding dedicated vacuum engines, but i felt like it kinda ruined the ''sleek'' design. Specs: Mass: 246 / 48t Parts: 33 Engines: 4 vectors LKO Lift capacity: 25t Craft file: https://www.mediafire.com/file/sl5gwxuexidzoj5/ssrt_v3_various_takeoff.json/file

Hi and welcome to this thread! I am a big fan of the current progress LinkSpace is doing. Their NewLine-1 rocket is paving the way for reusable launch vehicles on Chinese ground. That's why I am inspired to make this mod. This mod will include the following parts: First stage engine (has 2 engine modes) Legs based on the design of NewLine-1 S1 fuel tank S1 guidance interstage S2 vac engine with 4 smaller engines that gimbal S2 fuel tank Payload deployer Fairing half Known issues: Legs clip inside the ground. Doesn't harm the rocket but looks weird. Trying to fix this. Required mods: Kerbal Reusability Expansion For the fins Recommended mods: Community Category Kit For an extra icon in the VAB to see all the parts SmokeScreen To see the mighty plumes Download here: Massive thanks to @Nessus_, @JadeOfMaar and @neistridlar for helping me with the balance and plumes! And a special thanks to @EmbersArc for helping me with getting the legs working (Kind of). Any of the configs will be distributed under CC-NC-SA-4.0 License. All Textures/models will be distributed under All Right Reserved License. SootyShaderLoader is based on the custom shader importer by shadowmage and modified with permission by DMagic & Blowfish with custom modules and settings. All Rights Reserved License. CKAN support is coming.

I will first check submissions on 10-05-2022 at 15.00 GMT (UTC), and probably every day at that time. You can submit entries earlier, but I probably won't be able to look at them before 15.00 because of school/other responsibilities. Proposed by u/AutomaticDoubt5080 on r/KerbalSpaceProgram Submitions must include screenshots/videos of every launch phaze (liftoff, booster sep, booster recovery, core sep, core recovery, upper stage reentry, upper stage recovery) and a screenshot inside the VAB Rules: Central core must be Size 2 (2.5m) Must have three cores. Cores do not have to be the same size; It must be fully reusable, second and later stages included; Must not be an SSTO; Can be both remote-controlled and crewed; No cheats (Kraken drive, Alt-f12 menu, KAL glitch etc.). Every type of recovery is valid. You will, however, get extra points for propulsive landings. Mods that count as stock: Visual (AVP, EVE, Scatterer, Parallax, ReStock etc.); Information (Kerbal Engineer, Trajectories etc.). Mods that count as modded: Part mods (NFT, ReStock+ etc.); Autopilot mods (MechJeb); ANY MODS THAT CHANGE GAME DYNAMICS, ADD PARTS, CHANGE PHYSICS etc. MODDED PARTS ARE ALLOWED AS PAYLOAD Sorry if this is put together poorly, I'm not very skilled at making posts. Point table: FIRST STAGE: Parachute (ocean) [20p] Propulsive (ocean) [50p] Parachute (land) [60p] Propulsive (land) [75p] Propulsive (LaunchPad) [100p] Parachute (LaunchPad) [125p] Propulsive (Drone ship) [150p] Parachute (LaunchPad) [175p] SECOND AND LATER STAGES: Parachute (ocean) [30p] Propulsive (ocean) [70p] Parachute (land) [80p] Propulsive (land) [100p] Propulsive (LaunchPad) [150p] Parachute (LaunchPad) [175p] Propulsive (Drone ship) [200p] Parachute (Drone ship) [250p] Drone ship-an object in the ocean, put there by you. Can be cheated into position, but must not move during landing Stock rank list: Rank Username Points Price 1 Thundrevv 50 205 420 1 QF9E 3.260 70555 2 swjr-swis 1.642 133 406 Mod rank list: Rank Username Points Price Rank is calculated using average of points and price, at the rate of points * 1000 / price. My (stock) take. I used ReStock+ for dummy payload, not the craft itself.

I recently edited out the clips of a mission done one and a half years ago. While there are claims of fully reusable lunar missions done with stock parts predating this mission way back, they relied on splitting the timeline during stage separation, so in their respective timeline, either the booster crashes, or the payload never reaches orbit. To my knowledge, this was the first stock craft, based on mission finish date, able to finish a fully reusable mission beyond LEO in RSS(there is a interplanetary SSTO launched earlier, but I only managed to finish the mission after this was done due to a mission extension and some complications with the Kraken). It was based off of some earlier sstos, being scaled down to basically just be able to get up to leo with the lunar lander., so payload fraction wasn't high, just below 2%(at least 4.2% can be attained on large, stock part conventional wing sstos in RSS). The three solar panels were clipped into two, solar panels don't occlude each other from sunlight in this scenario. As for the mass, this mission was done before I along with others discovered magic wings, if this was done now, the mass would be way lower, probably around 2t, which I might explore in the future. Magic or conventional, there is a lot of design space and optimisation to explore with stock SSTOs in RSS.

Download the whole set from Matsuma's KerbalX Hangar (all 8 crafts), or individually below. Demonstration of a crew capsule instead of payload. Crawling Bridge Gantry Crane stands almost 90meters, can handle 100t, and can be stripped apart for different applications, as it itself is a reiteration of EJ_SA's gantry concept. It crawls along the 500m crawlerway for operations. Antarro Model S[tock] Block VII - the current Flagship. The Fairing Plate is the only expendable piece in the whole system, costing around $2400 per launch. Important to note that the grip pads shown below the struts (below right) AS to upperstage tanks as it's simply a Jr. holding the payload fairing. The struts then attach to your payload. Aerial Lift Truck is a very generalized cherry-picker style vehicle. Designed for packing chutes on Antarro Upperstages. Comes shelled (214 parts) or unshelled (104 parts) Whatever colour you want, just change the 'solidCOLOR.png' flag. Forktruck is a proprietary design for Antarro Upperstages, but is overengineered to serve any general lifting purpose up to ~32tons. Recovery Barge can launch from the runway or cove, and collect splashed-down capsules or upperstages. Antarro Recovery Trailer is a quite simple Tractor-Trailer with configurations for towing Antarro Upperstages. Remove these configurations and it's a great little flatbed trailer. SUPERTANKER 50m/s top speed, powered steering, ISRU supertanker for refuelling, well, whatever. Future variant (current in mission save) drops ISRU for simple fuel moving from Refinery -> Pad ↓ New demo video ↓ Tank Farm featured in video. Truthfully I use a modded tank farm to save many many parts, but I whipped this up for demonstration and it mostly avoided kraken strikes so there it is. No images at present; currently a very different vehicle in use, see KerbalX for imagery. I'd love to answer questions on how I got the measurements or why I even built such things etc I'm an open book but don't want to post a novella. I learned basic Blender video editing to share a demonstration. A crane-specific guide video is in the works, but this video took me three days, lol. Lost tracks months ago on how much time went into working out kinks in the pieces. They all work reliably with repeatability if you follow safe docking protocols. Snap-dock is a real concern in reusability. I've reused a booster 12 times in one case before I just wanted it to be fresh again.

Reusable Space Program is a career mode series set on a Kerbin where resources are running out. After generations of kerbals have squandered the planets precious metals by firing them into space, but being unsuccessful in getting much further, Kerbal society has retired from the space race. All apart from our fabulous 4 dreamers though, who hope to get to space and beyond with whatever they can. Only one problem...... Everything has to be renewable... no single part can be wasted.

Matsuma Heavy Orbital introduces MTS-BCC60S and MTS-BCC90S. Fully stock cranes that ride the Lv3 KSC Crawlerway. Goal: Re-use boosters by stacking new and used upperstages on used boosters that land back on the crawlerway. Problem with a simple static crane: it wanders quite dramatically over time. Solution: Ride the crawlerway. You can see in this gif that the heading is almost nearly locked (footage is at 10x speed) as it travels the rail. It also can re-align itself if it wanders slightly off, though it should want to correct itself by design. More specs on Kerbalx page. I am using it to launch and reuse 2 3 and 5m rockets. I'm very proud of it, and potential operators should find it pretty easy to use. At current it handles up to ~78tons. For me this is plenty, but if you wish to expand you'll face more and more binding on the gantry rails thus the part count increases exponentially. I've sunk easily 100 hours into this crane design, and hopefully it's free of kraken baits. One iteration launched a booster 7 times before I broke my save file. The gantry is a work of art by EJ_SA on Twitch. and I wanted to add controlled axis in all directions and the Bridge Crane Crawler was born. The 60m and 90m versions are 342 and 364 parts respectively. They only come with tiny power supply but users can add on or swap out for modded generation. It comes with a speed controller for speeds between 75mm/s - 1M/s. Below is the link to all images included in the Kerbalx page for quick viewing. Full album here on Imgur. This is my baby at the moment, but do share your criticism as I'd love for it to be improved!! Enjoy reusing rockets! EJ_SA's crane can be found here. ps I have OCD (among other things) and have put off sharing this because I cannot get the 'release page' to be the way I'd like so I'm just typing this all out and sharing it because I think it's worth sharing! *proud kerbineer noises* I'll likely update this post. Shouts out to the LaserDistance mod, without it I couldn't have made the measurements I needed, particularly of the crawlerway itself. I had screenshots of the Krew doing those surveys but they seem lost.

The history of Eve SSTOs and reusables For a long time it was said, Eve SSTOs are impossible. Even going there and back reusable was unthinkable. But then a hand full of brave Kerbonauts put all their efforts in proving this wrong. This is their story. 03.09.2015 - V1.0.4 - First SSTO plane from Eve's surface to Orbit @astrobond was the first to do the impossible. He created this SSTO which was capable of getting from surface to orbit using stock parts and physics. To stay in the narrow margin, the control was given to KOS. 05.07.2016 - V1.1.3(?) - First reusable trip from Kerbin to Eve's surface and back @Stratzenblitz75 was the first who managed to do the entire trip from Kerbin to Eve's surface and back completely reusable. He is using a spectacular and never seen before suborbital catch of the lander, as well as massive SSTO launch systems. 19.08.2016 - V1.1.3 - SSTO rocket from Eve's surface to Orbit @Kergarin (I) was inspired and motivated by @astrobond's SSTO to start playing around with different SSTO designs. Coming to the conclusion, that SSTO rockets actually seem to work better than planes, giving a larger margin and payload. 23.08.2016 - V1.1.3 - First SSTO Lander from Eve's orbit to surface and back @Kergarin (I) was then able to scale it up to a bigger version, with enough payload to equip it with isru and seats for all our 4 brave Kerbals. Resulting in the first ever SSTO wich can not only launch from Eve but also land on its own in one piece. By being refuelled in low Eve orbit, this craft could have done the entire trip Kerbin to Eve and back reusable. My plan was, to do a reusable trip to all landable bodys in the Kerbol system based on this lander plus an orbiter, but this plan should be crossed soon... 11.10.2016 - KSP 1.2 release - an increase in Eve's atmospheric pressure changes the rules The pressure of Eve's atmosphere was increased, resulting in even higher drag and giving all engines lower thrust and Isp, making Eve SSTOs even harder... it seemed. The change in the Mammoth engine thrust for example: For reference Eve's atmospheric pressure in 1.2.2: After this change my SSTO lander stopped working, at least with the needed payload for ISRU. While the change in pressure made SSTO rockets harder, it will soon turn out that SSTO planes now work better again. 29.10.2016 - V1.2.2 - the first asteroid refuelling assisted SSTO plane from Kerbin to Eve's surface and back @EvermoreAlpaca built this craft initially in 1.1.3., and when 1.2 came out, this plane worked even better, opposed to SSTO rockets. This craft can get from Kerbin to Eve's surface and back to Eve's orbit independent. It then needs orbital refuelling, to get back to kerbin, which is realized by the craft itself moving an asteroid to low Eve orbit in before, which is then used for ISRU refuelling. 28.01.2017 - V1.2.2 - SSTO rocket from Eve's surface to orbit achieved again @Kergarin (I) managed to make my small SSTO rocket work again in 1.2.2. But scaling it up did not work as good as back in previous versions. The ISRU lander would have become unhandleable large. So I cancelled this concept. 20.05.2017 - V1.2.2 - infinitely reusable trip to Eve (and first ever to everywhere else) and back Since my Eve SSTO lander doesn't work in 1.2.2 anymore (and I didn't want to do this in an old version), I adoptet @Stratzenblitz75's concept of suborbital docking and developed it to a single ISRU ship wich splits in two for the Eve landing with his friendly permission (thanks again!). (Creating the first ever ship which can independently and forever travel between all 14 landable bodys. But that's on another page.) Skip to 3:40 for Eve landing (caution: flickering scenes in fast forward) 07.03.2018 - V1.3.1 - smallest ever SSTO plane from Eve's surface to orbit @astrobond the creator of the first ever Eve SSTO comes back to the game. Presenting us the smallest ever seen Eve SSTO. Also it's the first not to use the Mammoth engine, but the Vector with a slightly lower twr. 11.06.2018 - V1.3.1 - reusable two stage plane from Eve's surface to orbit and back to surface @OHara created this reusable two stage plane, which can be used for crew rotations of 4 Kerbals per flight. It launches horizontal and then transitions to vertical ascend pushing the ap far above Eve's atmosphere. The second stage then undocks and accelerates to orbital speed before the first stage reenters and glides back to its starting position. The second stage can also be landed and then redocked to the first stage. The craft then needs some external refueling to be reused. 29.10.2018 - V1.5 - First completely independent SSTO plane from Kerbin to Eve and back SSTOs to Eve's surface and back to orbit were now proven to be possible, and they seemed to be the limit of possibilities. All of them need some kind of orbital refuelling or catch to escape from low Eve orbit. But then @EvermoreAlpaca did the unthinkable. A massive independent SSTO from Kerbin to Eve's surface and back to Kerbin. He managed to raise the payload on Eve ascend that much, that there was enough margin to fit an ion drive with enough dV to escape Eve's gravity and then send the ship back to Kerbin using some gravity assists, without any dependencys. 04.12.2018 - V1.5 - First stock electric prop SSTO plane from Eve's orbit to sea level and back to orbit (plus from and to Kerbin by external refuelling) @EvermoreAlpaca continues doing the impossible by presenting us this stock electric propeller assisted Eve sea level SSTO. It ascends from sea level to above 19km sole on electric props, then continues its way to orbit on conventional rocket engines. It can also launch and land at Kerbin, but needs external refueling to do so. This craft uses clipping for the stock props as well as engine clipping, but is honored in this list for being the first of its kind. 28.01.2020 - V1.8.1 (+ Making History + Breaking Ground) - First Breaking Ground electric prop multi engine SSTO plane from Eve's orbit to sea level and back to orbit @realseek was the first to show us a working sea level SSTO using electric rotors and blades from Breaking Ground, packed into cargo-bays to reduce their drag, after switching to rocket engines. It reaches 16km on electric props (two EM-64S rotos with 16x R25 blades on each. The rotors run at 60% power and a max RPM of 400). To escape Eve's still dense atmosphere, it uses a combination of 3 Vector engines and 2 Nervs to circularize. As if an Eve sea level SSTO would not be enough, this craft can land fully fuelled from orbit , also carries the extra weight of ISRU quipment without even needing it, because it can launch from Eve below 100% fuel and stiff make it to orbit with hundreds of m/s dV left to spare, while the craft even looks good. This is just insane! More pictures and details: https://imgur.com/gallery/afVyAv1 15.02.2020 - - V1.8.1 (+ Making History + Breaking Ground) - minimalistic Breaking Ground electric prop single engine SSTO plane from Eve's orbit to sea level and back to orbit (+ to and from Kerbin with a separate tug) @Kergarin i was a little to slow on this, and humbly take the second place. Props alone work great, and rockets alone work great. But in combination the drag of props after igniting the rockets is horrible. The way to deal with this, is placing them inside cargo bays, to shield their drag when they are not used. It would be beautiful to use hydraulic cylinders to make them stick out, and while this would be possible in term of weight and drag, they sadly the flex way to much to even lift off. I've tried a lot of designs for this since BG came out, and while @realseek found the mixed engine design work best for him, I found a single enige design work best for me. This craft uses two EM-32 Rotors with 6 R25 blades on each which run at 100% torque and max RPM to climb to 17km. To escape the dense atmosphere, this craft uses a single vector Engine on full thrust, and then carefully throttle adjustment to not overheat and circularize. This was done as grand finale in my reusable career playthrough: 28.05.2020 1.9.1(?) First stock (no DLC) electric prop SSTO helicopter rocket to sealevel and back without clipping (+ from Kerbin and back) @Stratzenblitz75 returned to Eve, almost 4 years after he was the first to do a completely reusable roundtrip from Kerbin to Eve and back using suborbital docking. This time he uses an SSTO rocket which is first lifted by insanely large counter rotating koaxial like props to 39km, and then ignited to get to orbit on rocket power in a single stage. The props consist of stock bearings, but they are not powered by the usual way of using reaction wheels. To reach the record height of 39km, large rover wheels power the props, which is obviously way more efficient. The craft features ISRU, and can therefore land and launch unlimited often and completely independent on Eve. The craft takes of from Kerbin using a single reusable launcher, and is pushed to Eve and back by an orbiter. This far Kerbalkind conquered the purple monster as of the middle of 2020. Can they go even further? Disclaimer:

Well, I started a new RSS save, and I figured I'd share it on the fora. Welcome to RSS. Basically, everything is harder. dV map for example: Currently I'm having problems with visual mods beyond the Earth-Moon system, so there likely won't be any adventures to atmospheric planets. If you can't see the photos, just wait a couple seconds; it may take some time to load. If that doesn't work, please post here and tell me what browser and OS you are using. Mods (mostly): All the Near Future mods Cryo Engines + Tanks Vessel Mover FMRS RSS RVE64k Kerbal Reusability Expansion Ablative-Airbrake RealPlume stock config Stockalike Station Parts Expansion Redux And a lot of informational mods. What's a space program without lifters? Here's the first iteration of a reusable lifter: Liftoff: Beginning gravity turn: Booster separation: We'll be getting back to these. The core continues: Upper stage separation and fairing deployment: Again, we'll get back to the core. The upper stage continues its ascent to orbit: Finally, orbit is achieved: Back to the side boosters. Maneuvering into position for a targeting burn: Burning: Slowdown: Here's a video of the landing: https://www.dropbox.com/s/satcvj3j9t30blx/Side booster landing.mp4?dl=0 It should be previewed in Dropbox, so you don't have to download the entire thing. Now, the core stage: Landing: Landed: For some odd reason the landing legs bounced off the booster, but it still remained upright. Finally, back to the relay. Raising the orbit: Deploying the relay: Circularizing: Done: Now the upper stage deorbits: Atmospheric entry: Beginning the landing burn: Here's a video of the landing: https://www.dropbox.com/s/xpghoyhvwe9n5hh/Upper stage landing.mp4?dl=0 And that's all for today! Likely next I'll deploy a couple more relays and maybe build a refueling depot in LEO. Thanks for watching/reading!

this challenge is for a fully reusable mun mission there will be a separate thread for entiers and contest winners. has to be 100% stock DLCS allowed

Howdy y'all! Some of you might remember me from some of my previous mission report series but for those who don't, I'm Stephen and this is On the Shoulders of Giants. Before we get into the thick of things I just want to give a shoutout to everyone and everything that allowed me to build, fly and write this series. To the outstanding mod makers who are the engine behind this game, to the poor stand-up guys who read my drafts, to Squad, to the writers who continue to inspire me every day, to the people who helped me troubleshoot my install, and to all the mad lads coming up with wild ideas in the space program, I say thank you to all. None of the things I've done would be possible without y'all and I dedicate this to you. Anyway, soppy stuff over, welcome to On the Shoulders of Giants! Like I said I'm Stephen and in this series we're going to be looking at the transition between the first generation of reusable launch vehicles and the second generation, as well as anything beyond, in a JNSQ 1.8.1 install. The overarching idea behind this series is, unlike previous series I've done where we look at one or two launch systems, we're looking at several spread across the globe. Along with that, expect a few vignettes along the way. The full mod list can be found here, and a special thanks to Zorg and his TUFX profiles that can be found here. So, without further ado, I humbly present for your viewing and reading pleasure: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PROLOGUE: The Space Transportation System Booster "Enterprise" on the pad ready to liftoff on STS-161 The Crew Chief could see a lot of long days and oceans of paperwork ahead of her. As the hangar door closed, the warm sunlight of the late afternoon was replaced by the cold halogen lights of the building. Three years with her leading the bird's sprawling hangar gang and not a single hiccup. Until today. She chafed at the thought. She was grateful it was in mostly one piece, and she offered a silent toast to the pilots who brought her back on a wing and a prayer. As if on queue, the STS-161’s booster commander and flight engineer walked over to her after surveying the damage for themselves up close. They looked ashen, like they'd just seen their own ghosts. “What say you about this, Chief? Enterprise is your bird after all.” the commander asked in his wide drawl. “I'd say you two are the luckiest sons of guns out there.” She led the two back to the looming engine section, battered and blackened. One of her four massive main engines completely gone, and the other three in various states of damage. “When number three blew, shrapnel was about an inch from taking out your aileron hydraulics line.” She pointed her flashlight on the hole punched out by the offending hunk of metal, hair raisingly close to the yellow hydraulic lines. The Chief then pointed at the damage sustained by engines two and four. “It was a good call opting for single engine abort. Trying to restart two and four would've sent the two of you to an early grave.” The three of them got quiet for a second, fretting at the thought of the great booster Enterprise plummeting out of control at Mach 5. “Well,” the flight engineer started, “I estimated us at about Pucker Factor 9.0 at the time. Something tells me my estimate was way low.” “Like I said, lucky.” The commander crossed his arms and furrowed his brow, unsatisfied, but couldn’t think of any reason why his very presence in the hangar couldn’t be explained by plain luck. He looked past the Chief at the two suited men being pointed in his direction by one of the investigation team. “That must be our ride down to the capitol,” the commander took a deep breath, “I don’t know who has the more unenviable task Chief.” She laughed, “Definitely you two, I don’t have the patience for congresscritters. Enterprise might be a cranky old girl, but she’s my cranky old girl.” The three shook hands and over his shoulder the flight engineer called out, “Take care of her, she’s a good bird and I hope to see her again soon.” “Me too,” the Chief said quietly to herself. The Chief wasn’t Enterprise’s first handler, or even her second or third. Enterprise was getting old, the entire booster fleet was and The Chief knew it. She stepped outside and took a good long look across the Cape. Past the gaggle of press outside the hangar, out past the company launch pad, was the competition. Younger, meaner and leaner. Securing contracts that her team couldn’t. She felt a breeze, and over the hills to the west she could see thunderheads. Change was coming to town. What seemed like an eternity later she flopped onto her bed, but after a concerted effort she found sleep elusive. Her future, a future with the Space Transportation System program, wasn’t so sure anymore. Minutes and hours ticked by as she, consciously or not, weighed different implications for today’s events. She decided that sleep was a fool’s errand tonight and rolled out of bed and lumbered to the coffee pot, making a pit stop at the liquor cabinet on account of the late hour, and over to her desk. It might’ve been paranoia, or good sense, but either way the Chief gave her resume a thorough update. As the first whispers of dawn started blotting out the stars she was satisfied and sat back in her chair, feeling sleep finally sneak up on her. Before tucking in, for giggles, she took out her rolodex and looked up the contact information of NASA’s chief astronaut she’d met at an STS contractor symposium. Attaching her working life’s story to the email she was confronted by a blank page asking to be filled. She thought for a second and decided to let the liquor take the wheel. “Per aspera ad astra.” She hit send, shut down her computer, and settled in for the night. "Enterprise" in the hangar after its harrowing launch

After designing my previous craft, the Eve Infinity (https://kerbalx.com/EveMaster/Eve-Infinity). I thought that this craft could be altered to make a grand tour possible. The main changes were a full mining equipment also in the upper stage and two landing legs so that the upper stage could land vertically. The result is the Reusable Grand Tour Vessel (https://kerbalx.com/EveMaster/Reusable-Grand-Tour-Vessel) The mission is performed on a new sandgame game with normal difficulty. The surfaces of the bodies are visited in the order: Minmus, Mun, Minmus, Ike, Duna, Dres, Laythe, Pol, Tylo, Val, Bop, Eeloo, Gilly, Moho, Eve, Gilly, Kerbin. Mission Report: The kerbals on the mission a the pilot Jebediah and the Engineer Bill. Firstly the whole craft flies as a single stage to the surface of Minmus. There the upper stage decouples and flies to the Mun surface. This landing one the moon is the only one where no mining is done because the upper stage still has enough fuel for the way back to Minmus. Then the whole craft flies to and lands on Ike. After that the upper stage lands on Duna and docks back to the lower stage in Duna orbit. On the next destination, Dres, only the upper stage lands. The craft reaches the Jool system with an intercept tangentially to Laythe orbit an can easily aerocapture and land. The ascent from Laythe takes quite some fuel so the next stop is the low gravity moon Pol to get full on fuel again. For the Tylo landing the lower stage is left in an elliptical orbit. The Tylo landing succeeded on the first try. The fuel runs out as the craft is hovering closely above the surface and it lands without damage. Back in orbit the lower stage is about 20m/s short of reaching the other stage. The other stage only has reduced control because it has neither long range antenna nor a kerbal on board. So Jebediah goes on EVA to fly to the other stage and bring it back. Flying from elliptical Tylo orbit to low Val orbit it does not take that much delta-V so there is enough fuel left to be transferred to the upper stage. After the upper stage has visited Val the whole ship flies to the last of the Joolean, Bop. The next stop is Eeloo. Only the upper stage lands there. Now Jebediah and Bill would like to go to Moho. But the delta-V requirements for going directly are way too high and the ship isn't even full on fuel. So Bill has the idea to stop at Gilly to refuel. But Jeb responds: "We don't have enough fuel to reach Gilly either." "Then let's use gravity assists." Bills responds. So they leave Eeloo and head for Duna. After leaving the SOI of Eeloo they notice that the Duna encounter won't get them anything useful. So they change their plan and make a course correction to make a Kerbin gravity assist. That works and brings them on a course to Eve. At Eve the speed is more than 5km/s and too high for an aerocapture. So the capture is mostly done by retroburning at an height of 81km above Eve. The apoapsis is now on the height of Gilly. After putting the periapsis out of the atmosphere and correcting the inclination to match the one of Gilly they notice that they don't have enough fuel left to reach Gilly. But Bill has an idea: "Lets transfer fuel to the upper stage, so that it can reach to Gilly and shuttle fuel back to the other stage." That works and after redocking the craft has enough fuel to reach Gilly as a whole an finally get refueled up completely. The craft leaves Gilly at a point in time where Eve's and Moho's orbit intersect. The ejection burn contains a normal component to match the inclination of Moho's orbit. When the craft reaches its Kerbol periapsis which is at the height of Moho's orbit, Moho is not there. Performing some retroburning in deep space however gives an encounter with Moho one orbit later. When reaching orbit around Moho, Bill and Jebediah notice that they don't have enough fuel for landing the whole ship. So they do the same trick as for reaching Gilly. After two shuttle missions there is enough fuel for the whole ship to land. After refueling, the ship ascends to low Moho orbit. Bill notices: "Going to orbit has cost us quite some fuel. We could shuttle more fuel up by using the lower stage. I don't want to get stranded in deep space." Jeb: "You can do that if you want. I stay in the orbital stage while you do that." After around seven refueling runs the ship is as full on fuel as possible. Jeb got routine in doing so and by using the board computer he found it easy to rendezvous back and dock back with the orbital stage even without maneuver nodes. Jeb even risked putting less than 1000 m/s of delta-v into the tank some times when leaving for Moho surface. Nearly full on fuel it is easy to transfer to Eve. There is even enough fuel for lowering the Eve apoapsis with a retroburn instead of mulitple aerobrake passes to save time. They make a final retroburn of more than 1000 m/s to descent to the highest mountain of Eve. They decided not to land directly on top but at the side of the mountain because there is a better landing area. After mining a bit of fuel they roll up to the very top of the mountain. Now it is time to say goodby for Bill and Jeb. Bill would stay on Eve to operate the lower stage that can push an upper stage into a suborbital trajectory. Jeb promises to come and visit Bill soon. Bill takes a seat in the lower stage and Jeb in the upper stage. They disable the fuel crossfeed so that the upper stage is full on fuel when decoupled. The craft takes of horizontally and quickly climbs to an angle of around 70 degrees then switches to prograde for a gravity turn. The throttle is at 100% all the time. When the fuel runs out in the bottom stage the vehicle travels at around 1700m/s and has an apoapsis at around 105km. Jeb pushes the upper stage into orbit while Bill returns the lower stage to the surface of Eve. The high wing area of the lower stage is needed to survive the reentry. The speed vertical component exceeds 1km/s at times and the resulting g-forces reach 9g. Nevertheless Bill manages to land it safely. Jeb flies the upper stage from low Eve orbit to Gilly. When approaching Gilly Jeb becomes a bit worried. The current speed relative to Gilly equals the remaining delta-V left. Jeb decides to continue anyways but without capturing into an orbit first. He waits with the burn until he is very near the ground. After burning all his fuel, the speed is down to 1m/s and he is 3m above ground, safe for Gilly. After landing horizontally he puts the lander up vertically using the reaction wheels. This is only possible to the low gravity of Gilly. The vertical position has the advantage that the craft does not mystically wise sink into the ground when time warping during mining. Full on fuel again Jeb heads back to Kerbin. He descends at a steep angle because the craft does not glide as well on Kerbin as on Eve. With the landing on the runway of the KSC he has completed the 'Grand Tour' in less than 60 years. Screenshots of the mission: https://imgur.com/gallery/phYIcHw

Hi and welcome to this thread! I am a big fan of the current progress LinkSpace is doing. Their NewLine-1 rocket is paving the way for reusable launch vehicles on Chinese ground. That's why I am inspired to make this mod. This is currently the dev thread of mod. Please report any bugs and features you would like to see.

The Legendary Saturn V, re-imagined in a more modern and cost saving way, now with the ability to be completely reused! Craft file: https://kerbalx.com/SparkeyFlarkey/Reusable-Saturn-V This behemoth has a few changes that make it stand out from the original, such as legs, wings, and extra boosters! 4 extra vector engines on the first stage second stage uses 5 vectors instead of skiffs as it needs to make orbit quickly Lunar module has only one stage instead of two to get the whole thing back service module is now a spaceplane capable of verticle landings, instead of a boring command pod no Launch escape tower (safety is for cowards) No mods required, other than the Making History expansion Here is a video of the craft flying: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIy8cMku39Q&feature=youtu.be

On-Board Cam: Ground Tracking Cam:

Designed a new Launch vehicle in KSP using KOS. This is the testing of the Launch Escape System.

After starting a permanent outpost on Eve, I remembered (much to my relief) that I remembered to build a surface-return vehicle. However, it's completely disposable and horribly unsuited for rotating crew on/off Eve to an orbital station (then back home). The cost to return all those homesick Kerbals, let alone rotate crew, would be astronomical... Goal: Build a reusable vessel that can land on Eve, refuel (with pre-existing infrastructure), take a Kerbal to LEO (Low Eve Orbit), then land to refuel and repeat. Required payload: 1 Kerbal. That's it! However you bring him up is... up to you! The idea is to have a crew shuttle that can be reused within the Eve system infinitely (until you break something ). Note: Your vessel doesn't have to be an SSTEO! Reassembly (with parts you already launched) is allowed. To save time, you will be allowed to cheat in pre-existing infrastructure (see rules). Winning criteria: Completing the challenge earns you a spot here. Entries ranked byspent. If the design is an SSTEO (SSTO but for Eve), I will create a 2nd list. Rules: You may cheat in pre-existing infrastructure. Your vessel may start at LEO. Disable commnet (built-in antennas will reach LEO anyways in career). You may simulate refuels with Hyperedit, but only when: 1) In a stable orbit around Eve (simulating refueling at a station). 2) Landed on Eve (simulating refueling at an ISRU base). Take screenshots. Upload your craft so we can use it too. I have several Kerbals stuck on Eve... Normal difficulty or harder. PIlot aid/build aid/planning/cosmetic mods are allowed. If I can use your vessel with similar results in pure vanilla, it's OK! Stage recovery mods are allowed. If your rocket isn't an SSTEO, you must reassemble your rocket (with the same old parts you originally launched) in some way so that you can reuse and refuel it infinitely within Eve's SOI without shipping new parts. There's one reasonable way I can think of to do this, and one that requires Jeb's piloting skills and precision landings! Good luck!

This is one of my best creations: a reusable launcher made with stock parts only. Average payload is between 20 and 40t: in career mode it prevents huge funds wasting, making contracts more profitable and missions more affordable. However, you can boost it up to 70t with some modifications as extra fuel tanks and a few boosters. For a full technical excursus on how to make this thing fly you can check craft's page on KerbalX or the video I made appositely. For a rapid overview I made a Quick Guide album on imgur, which pics are available after the video. Some specs (from KerbalX): Type: VAB Class: lifter Part Count: 110 Pure Stock!! Don't get mad with those fancy mods which just drain power from your gpu... Mass: 282.41t Cost: 159,700.0 (My average funds recovery rate is between 98% if I land ON KSC, 96% if I land in a range of 100km) I hope to get some feedback of any kind. I hope you enjoy! I hope you'll fly safely =.= Upload huge craft files to the space consuming no gigabytes, or just some fuel tanks... ...and no, you won't waste 'em either. Take advantage of re-entry warming up your snack on the cockpit. Get back to KSC in time for dinner. Land safetely enjoying all those balloons!

At the Kerbal Astronomical Conference 2K17, a certain young and rich Kerbal by the name Keylon took the stage. What he presented would upend the Kerbal universe. Taking a direct dig at KASA and the KLA, he accused them of not innovating in decades, and sticking to throwing away boosters, or trusting some unkerbal forces to recover their parachuted boosters. To add to this, he presented a preliminary work, done by his upstart company KAS:3X Industries, which focuses on eliminating the unknowns in the industry, and establish reusability on a scale no one has ever seen. This booster was built out of mostly current and stock KSC hardware, except a computer the size of a toaster. This debunked the KASA theory that computers get fried in space, and the achievement gave Keylon a cult following. Further, Keylon vowed to eliminate the automatic recovery option, and recover boosters manually. He claimed this would drop costs further, and demonstrate a new space age, where every Kerbal could access space at a reasonable cost. Now, all eyes are on the next major space conference, as Keylon has posted a teaser of a much larger orbital rocket on kReddit.

Ever get tired of stock's shoddy landing legs that don't work as advertised? Solution: build your own. Easier said than done. It is easy enough to build a set of legs, but not ones that start folded and then deploy at landing. But I managed! Here it is on the pad. Planning on using an expendable upper stage and sending a relaysat to KTO, but bringing the first stage back with RTLS, SpaceX-style. Detail view of the landing legs on the pad: The legs start folded, held against the side by paired docking ports. I could have done it with decouplers, but I wanted them to be refoldable, at least in theory. The leg itself has a crossbar which is suspended between paired structures coming out of the rocket body to form dual hinges. On the pad, the rocket is held up by double-docking-port clamps, which are themselves held to the pad with launch clamps which will not be used. When the rocket launches, the lower docking ports release by action group. These same docking ports become the locking mechanism for the landing legs later on. I went with five engines because I wanted to do it pure-stock; otherwise I would have tweakscaled down the Vectors and done it with nine engines, just for kicks. Ignition: And clamp release! Very thrusty off the pad, but that's what five vectors will do. Throttling down around Max-Q, mostly to help loft my trajectory a bit. The higher and slower I stage, the better shot I have at getting the boostback burn just right. I turned off fuel flow for the bottom tank, so I don't have to worry about how much fuel I am reserving. Down to fumes, so I cut the outer four engines and throttle the single engine back up in preparation for staging: Staging! Switch view to orbit to point more downrange, then back to the booster for the boostback burn. This is a rapid sequence of events. Set SAS to Orbit-Radial-Out to begin the RCS flip, activated the airbrakes, mashed X to cut throttle, and turned the lower tank fuel flow back on. Single engine back on and burning hard. Switched the navball back to surface so I can see when my surface prograde marker noses back over toward the west: Money shot of the boostback burn, with detail of the lower landing leg locking clamps: The prograde marker is now over on the west side of the navball, so this should be enough for a boostback. Cutting the engines and heading back to the second stage. The second stage has just cleared the atmosphere, so I'm blowing the fairing and nosing down. Burning halfway between Radial-In and Prograde in order to push to orbit as quickly as possible. Throttling down and following the prograde marker would be more efficient, 'tis true, but it's time-consuming and I don't have much time. You can see the first stage is still climbing: Almost to orbit... Made it! Throttled down and switching back to my first stage. Quickly set surface orientation and retrograde. The airbrakes form a nice little landing crosshair. I should come down just off the coast. I won't need an entry burn. Here come the gees! Punching the engine to full throttle just after the accelerometer shows terminal velocity. In pad testing, I used separatrons to force the legs down to snap into place. I thought I might have to do the same, but it turns out that the upward thrust of the landing engine results in enough differential force to pop the legs out, once they are released. I set the docking port release to the Gear action group, just to make it more authentic. Just about to throttle down... The legs cannot be released at a high airspeed, or the airflow holds them up no matter how hard I thrust. Which works well, because I need to drop the gear pretty close to the ground anyway. Gear dropped! At this point, all four separate landing legs are viewed by the game engine as debris. So they are falling separately from the stage. However, the hinge keeps them stuck to the stage, and the gees on the stage itself from the engine lifts it up, causing them to rotate down: Oddly, there's always one leg that rotates slower than the others, but it's never the same one. I guess that makes sense, because they are all separate parts. Punching Z again to make sure I get a good inertial lock on the legs. As soon as the ports touch, it is viewed as a docking event and the game switches views and turns off my engine. So this was a lot of constant Z-mashing. Then I quickly switched SAS to Radial-Out and throttled down to avoid air-launching. I think I kept my TWR above 1:1 the entire way down. A bit of a bounce, Bulgariasat-Style: But I recovered! There she is, standing tall and not at all wobbly. Detail view of the leg locking assembly. And done!