Ion Craft!

[Arugela]

http://www./download/klhi9qh3ft3ia5e/Ion_craft.craft (BTW, does this link work correctly and can people download it.?)

http://www./download/4536v4red2lso47/Ion_craft(2).craft <- Updated version! More air intakes. BTW air intakes compensate for low thrust ratios going into orbit. This is not avoidable with ION as it is heavy. Hence I use more air intakes to get into orbit. As many parts as this adds it's not as bad and using massless for electricity for ion!! >< (Also added more massless electricity and other items for easier munar decent.) I also added seperatrons to the rear to slow down decent for lunar landings.

This will be the possible new design for my Ion cluster engines in a nice craft form that can be flown(hopefully) to space and tested(If not it will attached to a larger ship.). This can be modified to be added to a larger craft as an Ion engine cluster with jets to help design a more complex Ion based vessel. As you can see it comes at a price though. Nearly 300 parts(mostly massless electric) and a large price tag. This when use will probably be designed to detach from the main ship fly and collect samples in orbit(or where ever it can get) and fly back to the main ship or ships.

So far this flies pretty nice. It has an interesting feel to it. And a nice low mass for hopefully better deltaV. Or am I using the wrong term?

This is at 18.74 but could go up to 18.75 weight before massless. Not sure what to put on though. This would make it 1/4 of 75 mass exactly. (heavier in updated version.)

Not sure if it needs another torque for the front. It has one in the form of a drone base in the rear under all the batteries. (added in updated version)

Edit for updated version: TIP for larger Air intakes. at around 64 air intakes per engine(and higher), thrust of the basic jets ends around 32k, Rapiers ends at around 42k, and Turbojets up to 69k. But the advantage of Rapier isn't it's duel role. It's it's ability to stack another engine on top! I could change the basic jet for a turbojet to help with the upper atmosphere but it would be harder to take off and consume more fuel potentially. If this was added to another vessel it would have turobjets elsewhere for getting into orbit. In this desing you can use the Ions in place of turbojets past 42k. Also, gain speed around or before 40k and before you hit the 42k mark or you will spend more xenon gas.

Parts:

33 Ion engines (if they are all on it should say 16 Xenon gas at full throttle)

1 Basic Jet

1 Rapier Engine(it allows another on top of it.)

(I forgot the RCS)

Pic of updated version of craft:

http://i1262.photobucket.com/albums/ii613/PicsMe101/KSP/Screenshot%20from%202015-03-09%20104153_zpseplbzfhf.png' alt='Screenshot%20from%202015-03-09%20104153_zpseplbzfhf.png'>

Edited March 9, 2015 by Arugela

[Arugela]

http://www.deviantart.com/art/KSP-Interstellar-lander-1-506355813

Holy crap! This is basically my engine design with my general space craft aesthetic design. But custom done. Interesting... I wonder how it performs differently.

[Larrt_M]

Can't wait to give this a try!

[Arugela]

http://www./download/ih1b8ve4872zgl7/Ion_craft_v2.craft <- minimized for max efficiency in space. Can't land on the moon. but possibly on the second moon. Can get to both. No large solar panels but more massless parts. Landing is tough but I think can be done if you control the throttle well enough. Can't do it personally though. Make sure you come in slow and probably long. I reduced the overall lift to reduce weight and part count. This makes it harder to land. I could also remove some more batteries and replace them with another set of wings overlayed on the old ones. That might make it easier to land. I beleive I avoided it because it shifted more parts to the weighted category to increase performance. But it's not that much weight. doubling the current wings and placing them on themselves for both wingsets will make it mostly stable if I'm not mistaken.

http://www./download/6uhhbqyqjy5ay0k/Ion_craft_v3.craft <- Vastly improved steering and landing/takeoff plus electricity exchanged for more lift(As mentioned above). Can now land pretty safely. Slightly heavier and will need to do more loops with the Ion engines to get to a target.

http://www./download/fcia49u4tzbeuuh/Ion_craft_v4.craft <- Improved landing and takeoff again and added one generator. (This is the best version atm!) To take off flat from the run way: 1. Fly below 50km and float the front wheel in the air to the desired hieght(SAS may be helpful or needed for this). 2. Accelerate to takeoff speed and wait for plane to lift off. Do not let the rear of the craft hit the ground or you may destroy elevators or worse the jet engine. Above 40-50km the speed will drive the nose into the ground making it impossible to achieve early takeoff.

334 parts and one landing assist item. Has interesting flight characteristics. It has a good satellite in it's nose also. Just scan with the nose cone and select send. It will pop out. These versions have RCS now also. I recommend Version 3 or 4 unless you don't care about landing. This vessel is very bouncy on landing though. Try to keep the nose down and come in slow and at a low angle if possible. This was a needed change to allow it to have early takeoff. Which you also need to be careful of. If the nose goes up to fast it will blow up a few elevators or the turbojet engine. Make sure to let it coast up into the air slowly if doing runway like takeoff. Using SAS helps this tremendously.

Also, you can fly it like a vtol if you fly it straight up and switch witch engines you use. Some variation of Ion and rapier, ion and turbojet, or the turbojets alone! I'm not sure if this is usefull though given the plane can do what it needs already. Useful if you added rear landing struts maybe.

To increase range just add more groups of 8 xenon fuel by zooming in the inside from the top and placing them in the other tanks. Not sure how much can be added or how much range increased yet. I'll have to test this later.

http://i1262.photobucket.com/albums/ii613/PicsMe101/KSP/Screenshot%20from%202015-04-17%20150533_zpsxllefovh.png' alt='Screenshot%20from%202015-04-17%20150533_zpsxllefovh.png'>

^ Made it to minmus. Not sure how much fuel I wasted getting there.(Had enough left over to to explore quite a bit though.) But as you can see I fudged up the landing and crashed. It was at the right sped but I tried to do a maneuver and left the engines on and accidentally crashed. Either way there is my rocket pod engine minus the other stuff! ;p

Edited April 18, 2015 by Arugela

[Arugela]

I was just testing a minmus run and I left the apoapsis at about half way and let it run around until minmus came back(I accidentally oops and didn't refresh my energy early enough.). As I was running around at full fastforward it slung me out of Kerbins influence. It happened without spending any extra fuel. the only thing on was the SAS possibly and it used electricity. So gravity or something slung me out possibly with SAS turning around randomly. I wonder if it anything to do with the moons gravities colliding and slinging me too. Anyone run into this?

Even now as it's accelerating with the SAS on around the sun it's expanding and virtually giving me a free duna sling. I'm halfway to it's orbit. And SAS is on and the ship keeps going back and forth from the radial position I set it to point to. Might be because I had it on normal or prograde set it to another one then fastforwarded really fast. Either way it seems to be an electrically driven form of propulsion this way(or torque to be more specific). Does this count as legitimate transport or does it count as a cheat?

Can anyone else fly this and reproduce this? it's version 4 of the craft. The last one I put up. -> http://www./download/fcia49u4tzbeuuh/Ion_craft_v4.craft

It seems to have stopped. It's either the torque or the gravity from the moons slung me there. The apoapsis stopped moving. Maybe it was already there.

This position did not cost me any xenon gas beyond what I had already spend halfway to minmus. Whatever slung me got me here without spending fuel. Edit: as I keep moving the torque it is an impact on the orbit. I wonder if this could be controlled.

http://i1262.photobucket.com/albums/ii613/PicsMe101/KSP/Screenshot%20from%202015-04-18%20072021_zpsbtfdjkj9.png' alt='Screenshot%20from%202015-04-18%20072021_zpsbtfdjkj9.png'>

Edited April 18, 2015 by Arugela

[CitizenAerospace]

Nice craft! How much DV does this thing have?

[Arugela]

I'm not sure. Anyone know how to calculate it? I assume about 16.67t max weight(And approx 15.67min weight) by time you hit orbit and around 10,000 xenon with 66 thrust from 33 Ion engines. That is probably 10 minutes of burn time total.

And if it's low it can probably have more xenon added for space travel.

More exact figures:

Approx. 18t max weight

1.5 Liquid fuel

1.12 xenon gas

0.24 Monopropellient

Aprox 15.14t min weight.

33 Ion for space travel at 66 thrust.

1 Rapier at 190 max thrust (approx 95 max on runway. AKA half.)

1 Turbojet at 225 max thrust (Approx. 112.5 on runway. AKA half.)

Every additional 8 xenon gas tanks would add 5600 xenon gas(.56t weight) and 0.96t max weight(0.4t empty).

Not sure how to calculate the rest.

Edited April 18, 2015 by Arugela

[Arugela]

http://www./download/dkzn05r51iu16i8/Ion_craft_v5.craft <- Version 5

https://www./folder/hm4t241awm5xigd,bqrb9zmbbnozyot/shared <- Version 6. (Only open in VAB) Two versions. (T) = Turbojet version and ( = Basic Jet version. All the bells and whistles. Nothing but masseless parts added and the ability to strap 5 kerbals to the nose of the jet. Also added 4 more science tools and 4 more satellites in the nose. Stats the same as Version 5. Edit: Make sure after you load your kerbals that you reset the drone controller( as the pilot. It is just behind the engines in the middle of the xenon gas tanks. Version 6's have the engines move back a hair to be able to select the drone core. This seems to have messed up the flight characteristics. I will have to fix this. (<- Repuploaded and hopefully fixed.)

Max weight: 20t

Min weight: 16t

Parts: 350

Liquid fuel: 300(1.5t)

Xenon Gas: 22,400(2.24t)

Monopropellient: 60(0.25t)

Electric Charge: 22,415

Lift: 24(Not sure if I'm missing any)

Intake air : x/16

Shortcuts: (Version 5)

1. toggle Ion engines(33)

4. toggle Rapier engine mode(useless in current config. Unless using to keep rapier off over turbojet)

5. toggle Turbojet engine

6. toggle Rapier engine

Shortcuts: (Version 6's)

1. toggle Ion engines(33)

2. toggle Turbojet/Basic Jet engine

3. toggle Rapier engine

5. toggle ladder

6. toggle Thermometer

7. toggle Seismometer

8. toggle Barometer

9. toggle Gravioli Detector

10. toggle Sensor Array Nose Cone

To fly: Rev up jet engines to near full power(.60 or higher fuel consumption). Turn on SAS. Release clamp(I recommend also turning on Ion engines until at least 1k altitude). fly like a normal SSTO air hogger and fly into orbit. Use Ion where needed. The heavier weight makes it harder to fly as easily and provides a huge boost at this crafts weight. The rest if up to you!

I also probably got there pretty inefficiently.

Version 6: With 5 kerbals loaded!

Did not capture laythe. But my next version my have the solution! I'm going to try to get another basic jet in the back without hindering or damaging the other engines or vice versa.

Edited April 19, 2015 by Arugela

[Arugela]

http://www./download/vvsfpi3mwod1zoo/Ion_craft_v8_(RW).craft <- I think this is about as much as this 33 Ion engine bed can be pushed. It has about 9,000 Delta V once in orbit. and 450 Liquid fuel and 60 mono to get up there and do whatever. It now has 3 engines besides the Ions. Turbojet, Basic Jet, and Rapier. This gave it the oomph and versatility to get the max delta V I'm willing to put up with without sacrificing flight time. BTW, it takes 2minutes exactly to get to 10,000km. It's not fast, but it's not too slow. Once in space do what you want. And if you really want delta v you could add in a lot more Xenon tank. 8 at a time gives approx 700 delta v per set of 8 tanks added on past the current tanks. Easy to calculate.

Edit: It will be interesting to see how all this works when 1.0 comes out.

Either way, this is an example of how you can use ION to act like nuclear.

Shortcuts:

Abort: Toggle Large ladder.

1. Toggle Ion Engine cluster(33 engines)

2. Toggle Turbojet Engine

3. Toggle Rapier Engine

4. Toggle Basic Jet engine

5. Toggle Small Ladder

6. Log Seismic Data

7. Log Gravity Data

8. Log Temperature

9. Log Pressure Data

10. Run Atmospheric Analysis.

Note: if you add kerbals you need to reset the RCS-001S Remote Guidance Unit as the pilot or the vehicle may not fly correctly. To do this look straight at the nose cone and zoom in all the way. You will see what looks like a star shape(these are winglets). Right click directly in themiddle of them and it should bring up the Drone cores selection menu.

http://i1262.photobucket.com/albums/ii613/PicsMe101/KSP/Screenshot%20from%202015-04-23%20020724_zpswb1y18eu.png' alt='Screenshot%20from%202015-04-23%20020724_zpswb1y18eu.png'>

OOPS! I thought Moho had only 0.275 gravity. Adding a rocket tank to the design to see if it can help land on moho and like surfaces with the assist of Ion and Rapier burns.

Edited April 23, 2015 by Arugela