Mothercraft Launch System - Deflowered Galactic [Stock 0.15]

[ChronicSilence]

Hello friends,

In light of the many attempts I\'ve seen on the forums at replicating the 'Virgin Galactic' WhiteKnight2/SpaceShipOne system, I decided to give it a shot. I was, ultimately, successful, and have named my creation 'Deflowered Galactic'.

Flight instructions:

1) full throttle, ASAS on, RCS off. Ignite low-atmosphere engines (stage 1).

2) Roar down the runway. ASAS should keep it fairly straight, you might need to disable and adjust manually if it starts veering.

3) Just before the end of the runway, disable ASAS and full pitch up. Rear landing wheels may run along grass for a little ways.

4) At 60 degree pitch, 90 degree heading, and 0 degree roll, re-engage ASAS.

5) At 5,500m ignite high-atmosphere engines (stage 2).

6) at 6,500m jettison low-atmosphere engines (stage 3).

7) at 13,000m reduce throttle to 66% and ignite no-atmosphere engines (stage 4).

8 ) at 15,000m jettison high-atmosphere engines (stage 5).

9) at 27,000m engage RCS to compensate for thin atmosphere, no air over control surfaces.

10) once apoapsis reaches 70,000m level off to 0 degrees pitch.

11) run at 75% throttle until out of jet fuel.

12) detach space vehicle

13) ignite liquid fuel rocket. You should be in or very near low Kerbin orbit, with 2 tanks of fuel to mess around with.

If you time everything perfectly (NOTE: instructions above are not perfect, just approximations) you can get the entire spaceplane into stable orbit. Otherwise, it should only take maybe 5-10 seconds of burn on the rocket to get there.

Have fun! If you have a more efficient flight plan, post it!

[RedDwarfIV]

I have something similar. But with an actual spaceplane.

Also, it has MORE WINGS.

[Klopchuck]

Wow. My first spaceplane flight. That was fun. Thanks!

I haven\'t been using or following spaceplanes. Can you share some of your logic behind the engine choices? I try to design my traditional kerbalkraft (i.e., rockets) to maximize thrust while minimizing (and jettisoning ASAP) dead weight. (e.g., http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=10204.0). Why do you carry the second stage engines to 5,500 before igniting?

[RC1062]

It looks more like the strato-launch design from space-x.

Nice looking craft!

[ChronicSilence]

@Klopchuck,

I carry the second stage engines up to 5500m because they\'re a different type of engine. As it says in the part description for them (turbojet), they 'choke' in thick atmosphere. This means that if you ignite them in low atmosphere (i.e. takeoff), they\'ll burn the fuel but produce very little thrust. The opposite is true for the low-altitude engines (basic jet), they work well at low altitude but die from lack of air at high altitude, so I dump them. The 3rd stage engines (toroidal something) require no air, but burn an insane amount of fuel, so they\'re only good once you\'re almost out of the atmosphere.

@RedDwarf,

You should post it.