Kerbatta Quatro

[Saaur]

Maybe it's too easy to orbit with. By the time the boosters are done I'm well above 10 km, and by the time I get the orbit rounded out, I'm always at 150-300 km, with anywhere from 75% to 150% of a tank of fuel left.

You know it's a good design when all three Kerbals are smiling! Must be a pretty smooth ride.

[Skaaltel79]

neat idea with the parachutes.. I'll have to see if that works nicely

[Saaur]

It's just role-playing fluff for now, but when the full game comes out, they mentioned you'll be able to recover and reuse parts if they have their own 'chutes, so I decided to try it with this design.

I built a Kerbatta Trio this morning off the same basic plan, but omitted the anemic three-SRB second stage. The 'orbiter' section (chute, capsule, decoupler, fuel, fuel, engine) still makes it EASILY into orbit with one whole tank left.

[Eyes]

I tried this, and it's floating at around 1500K. Going at 1760.M/s

[Saaur]

It's a great ship, considering it uses all stock parts. I left them orbiting all night last night. got up this morning and had enough fuel to do a deorbit burn (started just before perikee so there wasn't as much velocity to kill) and brought them safely home.

Well, several hundred kilometers from 'home', but they were safely on the ground anyway.