Size-0 to Orbit.

[Jakalth]

Bill, Bob, and Jebadiah have been busy building their mission to Duna, but a small issue has arising closer too home. Due too the ambition of the trio, the KSP has been left without any of the usual larger engines in stock. And they need to launch a single kerbal to orbit to perform maintenance on their orbital communications up-link. They need you to build them a way to get this kerbal mechanic into space using only the engines they have in stock.

The plan:

Using no engines bigger then 0.625m scale(same size as the new mk0 liquid fuel fuselage), you need to build a craft capable of sending a single kerbal "into space". Yes, that is up too at least 70Km height. achieving orbit is a bonus.

The rules:

1: No engines of a scale larger then 0.625m may be used. So the 48-7S Spark, J-20 Juno, or smaller engines... I'll accept the ion engine if you ask nicely.

2: You may use as many of each engine as you need to as long as they follow rule 1.

3: ANY(yes that means you can use mk3 and the 3.5m fuel tanks if you really want too) parts can be used to make the rocket part of the body and the kerbal doesn't need to be housed inside a cockpit. External control seat is acceptable. Any kind of staging is acceptable as well.

4: No solid rocket boosters, other then the sepratrons, can be used. Jeb took the rest with him to celebrate their Duna landing.

5: Mods are not allowed, to be un allowed. Any mods can be used as long as no engines larger then 0.625m scale are used.

6: Special Tweak Scale notice: Any engine can be Tweak Scaled down too 0.625m as long as they do not become too powerful or too broken.

7: Most Importantly!!! Have fun and be creative. Thinking outside the box is good, but thinking the box is made of cheese and kracken repellent is even better.

Challenge level 1: Simply get to space.

That simple. By any means you can come up with, within the rules, get your kerbal to space.(over 70,000m) Keeping him there is not required.

Challenge level 2: It's not that simple son...

Get your kerbal to space, and keep him there. So get your craft into a stable orbit.

Challenge level 3: And they said there would be snacks...

Bring some snacks up with your kerbal. So that's reach space, get into a stable orbit, and bring at least 0.5 tons of non fuel cargo(aka: snacks) with you.

Challenge level 4: Everyone needs a little help.

Bring a satellite or micro tug to help your Kerbal once they're in orbit. This craft need to come up with your kerbal, in the same craft, and be deployed once in orbit. The satellite only needs power, an engine, "some" fuel and a form of communication. OR The tug only needs to be capable of moving your kerbal around in orbit.

SSTO..oh my level: And it all comes up with you.

Not only do you need to reach space with your kerbal, but your entire craft needs to come with you, nothing is left behind. If your craft does not reach a stable orbit, then it all needs to come back down again and land. note: not everything needs to survive the landing, just your kerbal, because that's KSP for ya. If it does reach a stable orbit, then mission accomplished.

Spaceplane level: More like space...pain...

Can you get your kerbal into space using an aircraft? How about a spaceplane that does not have any of the normal spaceplane engines? How about one where all the engines are no bigger then 0.625m scale? Yep, Juno and spark... or smaller...

Sepratron level: You want me to use this cellophane, with the sticky stuff on it, to fix things???

How high can you get using only sepratrons for engines? Can you reach space? Can you bring this container of snacks with you? That's it, is it possible, once again, to lift 1 ton of mass to over 70,000m using just sepratrons? I've seen it done once before, somewhere, using nearly 20 staging sequences, now can it be done again? Kerbal not required.

Some pics or a short video would be appreciated, but are not really necessary. This challenge is open to those that simply want to challenge themselves as well as those that want to challenge each other.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My failures... I mean submissions:

SSTO..oh my level:

Built a simple craft using 8 spark and 8 Juno engines, mounted onto 2, stacked, fl-t800 fuel tanks. The sparks were clipped into the bottom of the tank using cubic octagonal struts. The Juno's were mounted radially on mk0 liquid fuel fuselages with a small intake on each. On top I had a mk1 command pod for the kerbal. This craft also had landing legs and 4 radially mounted parachutes for landing.

The craft reached a height of only 4,200m before the engines failed and I aborted the mission. deployed the parachutes and used the juno's to slow the descent. The landing was nearly flawless, but it was not a good run, may have to try it again without the juno's though...

Spaceplane level:

Build a small spaceplane from a fl-t800 and fl-t400 fuel tank. I mounted 4 juno engine nacells, made from a juno, a mk0 fuel fuselage, and a circular intake, onto pylons and attached them to the rear of the craft. behind them, on the back of the fl-t400 I attached 6 spark rocket engines. I had a mk1 cockpit on the front for the pilot. This craft flew pretty well but had a hard time climbing under the power of the 4 juno engines. When it was all said and done, I once again failed to achieve orbit, but I was getting very close. 64,000m. So this challange is quite doable for someone more skilled with spaceplanes then me.

A note: Juno's drop out on power pretty early, cutting out entirely well before 20km, so plan acordingly.

Edited November 16, 2015 by Jakalth
Fixed the title

[Kagame]

Quibble: The size 0 engines you're reffering to are all 0.625m cross-section.

[Jakalth]

ah, thanks for that correction.

[Vreivai]

Challenge level 2 done with a 2 stage rocket. First stage has 17 Spark engines and second stage has 4. Achieved low Kerbin orbit with about 30 liters of propellant to spare.

http://i.imgur.com/etClbNc.jpg - At the launch pad

http://i.imgur.com/E82nMHQ.jpg - Screenshot from below showing the 17 Spark engines.

http://i.imgur.com/Q6FY5El.jpg - In orbit

[Hotaru]

Here's my attempt, Sparky 3. This was in my OSX install, which is pure stock except for KJR. No KER or MJ to give me TWR and delta-v info, so I just threw something together that looked like it should work. Three-stage core with four asparagus boosters, which turned out to be a bit overkill. Sparky 1 and 2 didn't have enough TWR to take off, only difference between each model was more engines on the boosters each time until initial TWR got up to somewhere around 1.7.

First stage. Each core has one 48-7S in the middle and six 24-77's in a ring around it (clipped into the bottom of a 1.25-0.625m adapter); the boosters have an additional 6 24-77's each around the outside.

Booster separation. The core was a little short on TWR but by this time we're high and fast enough that it doesn't matter too much.

The first stage core had exactly enough delta-v to put the ship in a 105x90km orbit. (Probably could do better with MechJeb at the helm, I haven't done a manual ascent in a while.) OK, now we're in orbit but we've still got two more full stages, plus the retro-rockets...

...so let's go to the Mun!

Second stage is still more than half-full after insertion into about a 20km Munar orbit. It didn't occur to me to put solar panels on the thing so having to watch the battery situation very carefully.

More than enough delta-v left to land and return, if only we had landing gear.

Back to Kerbin, the second stage (still about a third full), service module, and retro-rockets used to make the reentry a bit gentler.

Safe return.

Getting late tonight but I think tomorrow I'll see if I can get it to land.

Since there's no bonuses for doing anything other than reaching LKO by various methods this is only actually good for challenge level 2, unless you count the top two stages as either the payload for Level 3 or the tug for Level 4.

[Foxster]

A little stock ship I threw together and then threw into orbit and back...

Javascript is disabled. View full album

[Jakalth]

@Vreivai That is a nice and simple two stage approach. Gets the job done nicely. Good job on it, and welcome too the KSP forums. We hope you enjoy your stay here.

@Hotaru Beautifully overkill rocket you have there. Very Kerbal styled by piling on more booster engines, on the boosters. I like it. I'd consider the fourth stage, with the capsule, as an acceptable tug since you did most of your flying in orbit with the third stage. So level 4 it is.

@Foxster And Foster with the cute little mini rocket. Nicely done. Did that reach orbit by chance or just pop up to space and return? Looks good either way.

Edited November 14, 2015 by Jakalth

[Foxster]

@Foxster with the cute little mini rocket. Nicely done. Did that reach orbit by chance or just pop up to space and return? Looks good either way.

Oh, it makes an 80km orbit fine with a fair bit of dV left over.

[Aetharan]

I decided to give this one a try, and here's how it turned out. The only non-stock engines used for thrust were a quartet of DERP monoprop engines on the final stage.

Imgur Album

 

Edited December 24, 2017 by Aetharan
Fixed Imgur again.

[Jakalth]

@Aetharan Nice modded rocket! Clean and compact. And I love the way your lander top stage turned out. Looks good.

[Aetharan]

@Jakalth: I'm guessing that with the lander and return capability, that one counts as a level-4 challenge, right? I'm working on a bigger, nastier mission next: reach, land on, and return from Duna. It's also worth noting that I'm working with TAC-LS, so that leads to fun with mass.

Oh, and if I may make a suggestion? You might stir up more interest by re-naming the thread to "Size Zero to Orbit" or "Size-0 to Orbit". The current title contains 3 errors: lack of capitalization, the wrong measurement for the engine size required, and the wrong homophone in the middle. While none of it really matters, the combination of those problems might be making the more uptight pass over instead of clicking.

[ElMenduko]

You said we could use tweakscale, so I used a vector! (I also made a custom command pod, using an external command seat on its own feeled... cheaty...)

This was real funny to build. The landing part is particularly... interesting...

Here you go!

[imgur]6FAGt[/imgur]

Facts:

* SSTO, nothing is jettisoned

* Gets a little bit more than 0.5t of "snacks" (Monopropellant, as I don't have the snacks mod)

* Only 0.625 PARTS. That's right, not only engines.

* It felt a little... unchallenging... to just put 8000 spark engines on cubic struts, so I used ONE engine!

* That custom pod is very comfortable, deserves extra score. It also protects the Kerbal inside from heat!

* It LANDS! At least the Kerbal is alive...

[Jakalth]

Thanks for the suggestion. Grammar is one of my Banes though. No matter how hard I try I just can't get it all straitened out. Give me some time and a good calculator and I can calculate the orbit of 12 different object, but getting to and too correct... O_o

Yeah, I can give your craft the level 4 rank. The last stage works as a tug so yeah. It's all good. :) Edited November 16, 2015 by Jakalth

[Jakalth]

To prove it can be done, I've completed the Sepratron level challenge. I present the Sepratron to orbit 2.
[IMG]http://i1346.photobucket.com/albums/p685/Jakalth/sepratrons%20to%20orbit/sepratrontoorbit1_zpstinuvwva.jpg[/IMG]

This ugly craft is capable of reaching over 80,000m without even using it's final stage. It [U]MIGHT[/U] be possible to get this craft into a stable orbit using a gravity turn and the final stage, have not tried it yet. Not really needed for this challenge either. This craft has 180 total parts, most of which are sepratrons. It reached a max height of 80,345m using 9 out of 10 stages. Using the tenth stage would of dropped it's payload weight to under the 1 ton minimum.

Stage 1 has 32 sepratrons.
Stage 2 has 24 sepratrons.
Stage 3 also has 24 sepratrons.
Stage 4 has 24 sepratrons as well.
Stage 5 has 16 sepratrons.
Stage 6 has 12 sepratrons.
Stage 7 also has 12 sepratrons.
Stage 8 has 6 sepratrons.
Stage 9 has 4 sepratrons.
Stage 10 has another 4 sepratrons and a fully fueled mass of 1,010kg(1 ton), and a dry mass of around 700kg.

[URL="http://s1346.photobucket.com/user/Jakalth/sepratrons%20to%20orbit/story"]The full flight of the Sepratrons to orbit 2 can be found here.[/URL]

Info for the Sepratron level updated. kerbal not required for this one.

[ElMenduko]

What about my rocket? It somehow returned Valentina in one piece, and it didn't jettison anything, so I guess it's SSTO, right? Edited November 16, 2015 by ElMenduko

[Jakalth]

@ ElMenduko Yep, I'd give that the full ssto marks. Was quite the amusing rocket to boot. :) plus payload to orbit, nicely done. beats my mostly failed attempts at making an ssto using 0.625m engines. And the landing, your pilot survived so full marks there. The rocket not quite surviving is mere details... heh Nicely done!

[The Space Core]

Just to clarify you can use radial decouplers correct?

[Jakalth]

Yes, you can use decouplers. that is fine.

[RocketBlam]

Welp, I think the Junos are just not going to work for getting into orbit. They're like the Wheesleys were, only worse. They lose thrust too low. You'd be better off just using pure rockets all around. I've tried several configurations, from 1 Juno + rockets to 3 Junos and 2 Sparks, and I just don't see how to make it work.

Which is fine, not all the jet engines are supposed to be for getting into orbit.

[Aser]

Does it count if I get a probe into orbit on only sepratrons? I did similar to what you did, but I thought the challenge was to take a kerbal.

[Jakalth]

@aser If the liquid fueled engine on it was only used after it reached orbit, then that more then counted.  that beat my attempt.  Nicely done.

[Aser]

Unfortunately, the upper stage is needed to reach orbit.  I'm sure I could get it up there without. All it would take is more sepratron spam.

[SuicidalInsanity]

Technically only a challenge stage 4 attempt - mobile Kerballed vessel in orbit with non-fuel payload - Size-0 to the Mun and back.

Went with an N-1-ish design to fit all the engines on, all stock. Somewhat overbuilt; had enough extra fuel I probably could have delivered the lander to Duna or Dres instead

[moogoob]

I read the thread title and got excited. I though it was "no parts bigger than size zero" and though I have no screen shots, I've done (in 1.02 or somesuch) a size 0 single-stage to orbit rocket. It's a nose cone, reaction wheel, battery, five or seven Oscar-b's, a little orange engine, some fins and about six separatrons to get the thing off the ground.

Just makes it with to 71km orbit. Of course, it carries no crew or payload so...

[Dfthu]

I did it! Should be lvl 3.

 

Edited December 8, 2015 by Dfthu