Quick Challenge: Lightest Craft to Orbit [Stock only] New Challenge #5!

[Aetharan]

...well, wow.  At least I still have the lightest one that keeps its pilot enclosed on re-entry.  

[Bloojay]

BAh, who needs protection from flash ignited air? Not Valentina!

[Aetharan]

 

@Bloojay, I'm taking it back again (for however long it lasts this time): 2.676t unmanned, 2.770 on the pad with Val on board, 0.501 descent weight.  I call it the "Ogod-Y", and this is the second iteration of the design.  Makes a 71k circular orbit (with 0.000 eccentricity) with 186 delta-V left, and manages to come home safe for a splashdown.

 

Edited May 29, 2017 by Aetharan

[foamyesque]

I hope you enjoyed it while it lasted, @Bloojay: 2.457t w/o Kerbal.

 

Parachutes and reaction wheels are for losers. I fobbled the suicide burn unfortunately -- should've switched the SAS to hold. I overthrusted with it set to retrograde and it flipped the thing on me. The Kerb survived, though, which is is what matters!

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 18, 2016 by foamyesque

[Aetharan]

Beat again, and by only 0.219t!  I must work harder! (Edit: And for the second time, I held 1st place for less than 5 minutes, meaning that the person who beat me was flying at the same time I was.)

(Edit #2): I think this is where I bow out.  To go lighter than @foamyesque, I'd have to go no chute / no reaction wheel like he did, and I just can't control my experimental craft that would have done it.  My hat's off to you, bloke!

Edited July 18, 2016 by Aetharan

[foamyesque]

39 minutes ago, Aetharan said:

Beat again, and by only 0.219t!  I must work harder! (Edit: And for the second time, I held 1st place for less than 5 minutes, meaning that the person who beat me was flying at the same time I was.)

(Edit #2): I think this is where I bow out.  To go lighter than @foamyesque, I'd have to go no chute / no reaction wheel like he did, and I just can't control my experimental craft that would have done it.  My hat's off to you, bloke!

 

Heh. Don't feel bad, man. I've been interested in smallest-possible-launchers for a long time. Weight saving is a religion. :)

 

[Aetharan]

@foamyesque: Considering how long you've been at it, I'll take having designed and flown something only 8.9% heavier than your craft to be a minor victory in itself, especially given that I didn't know I was up against your suicidally-insane build in the first place.  

Edit:  I will note that an Oscar-B and a Round 8 together have exactly the same mass and fuel capacity as the tank you're using, but in a more compact form-factor.  It's what let me fit the whole upper stage in a straight-vertical fairing rather than having it flare out.  Not sure how useful that will be in this particular challenge, but it's a design note to keep in mind for future tiny craft.

Edited July 18, 2016 by Aetharan

[herbal space program]

Oy, things sure have changed since I went to bed last night. Don't you people ever sleep? . Anyway, when I went to bed last night this ship, the MiniKerman Mk2 Hybrid Eco-orbiter, was winning the "manned recoverable" contest by a hair, with 3.696t uncrewed, 3.789 with Kerbal, but that was so long ago:

This rig made orbit very easily, getting to a 110km Ap on this  (not particularly optimal) run with fuel to spare. Re-entry was also a cinch, and it can land just about anywhere  in one piece . Anyway, I'm sure I could make this significantly lighter by dropping more fuel and optimizing my ascent profile, but I doubt I could get it below ~3.4t without losing either the Rapier or re-configuring the upper stage. Rather than do that in a futile attempt to try to beat you or @foamyesque, I will leave it at this and move on to other challenges, because I think my little lander is CUTE! .

[Bloojay]

@foamyesque if you where going for manned and recoverable you missed the recoverable portion
I also ask that you submit it in Album form instead of inline so the submission isn't a mile long

 

@Aetharan *GRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr*

 

@herbal space program tis cute indeed  updating the boards now

[Aetharan]

Just a nitpick, but if the Ogod-Y and Up-Chucker lines are mutually exclusive on the same leaderboard, shouldn't @swjr-swis also only have one place in the Manned Recoverable category?

[Bloojay]

woops

[Aetharan]

@Bloojay The Ogod-Y only beat the Pram because I carried 5/6 the weight in fuel tanks, fuel, and engine that you did, and by going with the spark instead of 6 smaller engines, actually pulled off a lot more thrust at (assuming you used half ants and half spiders) roughly the same ISP.  Since you DQ'd @foamyesque's entry for flubbing the landing, I'm going to aim for first to recover a manned craft weighing under 2.5t at launch.

[Bloojay]

knock yourself out

[foamyesque]

1 hour ago, Bloojay said:

@foamyesque if you where going for manned and recoverable you missed the recoverable portion
I also ask that you submit it in Album form instead of inline so the submission isn't a mile long

 

 

I recovered the important piece

 

Fine, I'll redo it.

[Aetharan]

My latest design keeps coming close, but not quite, and I know that it's entirely my own piloting failures.  I'll give it a few more tries after I've eaten, but so far I've run out of fuel with numbers like AP 73 PE 67, AP 70 PE 60, AP 75 PE 55, and so on.  If I can just get my ascent profile down perfect, I should be able to get it into orbit and have Jeb get out and push to deorbit if necessary.

[Bloojay]

No pushing  only for manne non-recoverable (because just the kerbal needs to reach space)

Edited July 19, 2016 by Bloojay

[EliteGuy3]

I will have an entry soon... I'm stuck in Hawaii right now.

On July 12, 2016 at 5:42 AM, Foxster said:

Here's my entry at 0.16t...

Could probably be lighter but it was the best I could do in five minutes. 

MJ installed but not used for flight. 

 

That's orbit of Gilly, and you could probably get into orbit with way less fuel. YOU ONLY NEED 90m/s TO GET INTO GILLY ORBIT! 

I hope you guys are aware that a guy completed the lightest SSTO challenge with only 0.7 tons!

 

I'm going to win this...

[EliteGuy3]

26 minutes ago, EliteGuy3 said:

I will have an entry soon... I'm stuck in Hawaii right now.

That's orbit of Gilly, and you could probably get into orbit with way less fuel. YOU ONLY NEED 90m/s TO GET INTO GILLY ORBIT! 

I hope you guys are aware that a guy completed the lightest SSTO challenge with only 0.7 tons!

 

I'm going to win this...

Here's the challenge link:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/61635-smallest-ssto-in-kerbal-space-program/

Also, the actual weight is 1.9 tons.

Edited July 19, 2016 by EliteGuy3

[Aetharan]

From what I can make of that challenge, it has little relevance here, especially with the changes that have been made to the game's aerodynamics and parts available since that time.  Short of replicating each of the builds still visible there and testing whether it's still orbit-worthy in this version, and light enough to compete in its given category (unmanned or manned, recoverable or not), I'm not sure what the point was of bringing it up for discouragement.

[foamyesque]

On 2016-07-18 at 9:01 PM, Bloojay said:

@foamyesque if you where going for manned and recoverable you missed the recoverable portion
I also ask that you submit it in Album form instead of inline so the submission isn't a mile long

 

Since you already know it can hit orbit and re-enter fine, I'm just going to post two screenshots.

Start of suicide burn:

 

Safely on the ground:

 

Edited July 20, 2016 by foamyesque

[Bloojay]

@foamyesque sorry i'm late, i'll add it to the boards

Edited July 21, 2016 by Bloojay

[Martian Emigrant]

Hi all.

 

You guys are a tough act to follow.

I was working on being number one and by the time I am ready to post I am 3rd... I think.

Anyway.

Stock 1.1.3.

I have MechJeb but did not use it.

Running for Manned-Recovered.

Before loading Vallina: 2.705t 14 parts.

Achieved 70,065m by 73,445m.

EDIT:

I can't load the album. I have to work on that....Be right back.

EDIT Again:

imgur hates me. the first few images are messed up but the rest is fine. I assure you.

 

Edited July 22, 2016 by Martian Emigrant
I am a poor learner

[Aetharan]

While I will cede that @foamyesque will always be able to build a lighter ship than mine until I can get over my reliance on reaction wheels for control, a whole load of experimentation has produced a vessel I can maintain control of which is lighter than the Micro-Orbiter, at 2.444t sans Kerbal.  It makes it into orbit, then deorbits and comes in for a safe (powered) water-landing.  Behold, the Ogod-Y Mk.14!

Edit: Correcting which of Formyesque's ships I mentioned!

Edited May 29, 2017 by Aetharan

[foamyesque]

Reducing the fuel load, eh? It'll be a couple of days before I'm able to put some time into this, and even then I dunno if I'll be able to beat that. We'll see

[Aetharan]

14 minutes ago, foamyesque said:

Reducing the fuel load, eh? It'll be a couple of days before I'm able to put some time into this, and even then I dunno if I'll be able to beat that. We'll see

As a side-note, you can see that I had fuel left after the suicide burn, and there was actually more fuel in the first stage when it ran out of air to breathe, so I could probably drop the mass a little bit more.

Edit:  Looking back over your posts, and comparing against my own experiences, the fact that you carry your fairing all the way up with you effectively negates the advantage you gain over my craft by excluding the small inline reaction wheel.  I burn a little bit more of my launch weight on the fairing, but you have to expend more fuel than I do to make orbit because you keep yours long after I shed mine.

Ultimately, I think the lightest we could get would be an Ogod-Y sans reaction wheel, using your superior piloting skill.

Second Edit:  The fairing base alone weighs 0.075t, and with a relatively tight cone of fairing that comes up to rougly 0.1t.  The reaction wheel plus battery total 0.065t, so the ultimate question is whether keeping the fairing for aerodynamic efficiency makes enough of a difference when staging above 26 km to make up for the increased mass.

Edited July 22, 2016 by Aetharan