Put a station into orbit using 1 reusable rocket

[Zamolxes77]

Another update. I tested above design, adding refinements on the go, establishing a launch protocol and its maximum lift capacity. Its a 60 TON launcher, one stage, 100% recoverable, possibly 65 tons !

This is the payload, a 60 ton vehicle Nuclear TUG with some 5k dV . Its launched empty, a dry mass of 44 tons, I added fuel+oxidizer in the tanks, to make up the difference until 60 tons, so that fuel will get used to shift the mass backwards. The amount is aprox 1400 LqF + 1600 ox in the payload, to bring its nominal test weight to 60 tons. Remember the trick I mentioned earlier? It will all make sense at the end.

Here are various stages of ascent, tests I done to nail down proper profile. Trick is: control the craft from main stage pod and block the fuel usage of the 2 orange tanks in the middle. That way, the fuel in the payload plus the one in the 6 pods with the vector engines are used 1st. Once they're nearly empty, simple enable the fuel in the middle. It went up smooth as silk, no surprises when following proper procedure, otherwise, is unflyable.

One minute to Apo, main sail gets turned off, middle tanks get enabled:

Final design, in stable orbit:

Note the fins have been moved forward, so completely empty, the CoL is through the CoM, for a easy, painless reentry. Take note of the fuel remaining. Its MORE than the 16 tons of fuel I had in the payload at launch. So if I transfer 1,400 LqF + 1,600 Ox into the payload, I get the original test weight of 60 tons ! The balance can be used to de-orbit the main stage.

It burns, it burns ! Due to large wings, drag is increased and the relatively fragile vector engines DON'T burn up.

Finally, its about to hit the ground. Note the descent speed when chutes are fully deployed, well within the safety margin of hitting solid ground, also the vehicle is about 16 tons HEAVIER, look at the remaining fuel. I underestimated the drag a bit, and during the "bleeding velocity" maneuvers, it changed its destination by a bit, those are the mountains preceding KSC. This is the extreme example, I left the fuel and monoprop in, to test its limits, vehicle suppose to return nearly empty.

Hope you like it, gonna start working at the space station you requested, I'm not very good at making them, they end up looking like tubes too often hehehe.

<note>

No, you can't make SRB's recoverable, not without using mods. There is one, safe recovery or something like that, if you add chutes and probe cores I believe, then SRB's get recovered automatically. I didn't want to use it, since its usually not updated very often, I like to work within the limits imposed by the game. But by using the mod, you can make a slim vehicle, 3-4 stages and all are 100% recoverable. In vanilla, this is the only way, excluding SSTO's off course.

Edited August 5, 2016 by Zamolxes77

[RocketSquid]

So, two questions:

Does it count as reusable if I reuse the rocket as something besides a launch vehicle? For example, part of a massive mothership?

What happens if the station is also a rocket (through wet workshops or just lots of fuel storage)?

[Garrett Kerman]

9 minutes ago, RocketSquid said:

So, two questions:

Does it count as reusable if I reuse the rocket as something besides a launch vehicle? For example, part of a massive mothership?

What happens if the station is also a rocket (through wet workshops or just lots of fuel storage)?

You need to return at least one stage to get credit.

[Kergarin]

So here it is.
I have changed some things to make the station fit the requirements, and pushed it to orbit using my Excalibur Stationlift Mk2 

Unfortunally, I'm somewhere with almost zero upload, but i will post a video next week.

Here are some pictures:

 

I think it now meets all requirements for "ULTRA MEGA DELUXE CHALLENGE"?

-Weights 47.425t
-100% reusable SSTO
-Landed at KSC runway
-All experiments on board
-Return landers for 6 (emergency use only, crew transfers are done by comfortable SSTOs) 
-5 docking ports

Also has some extras like fuel and monoprop tanks

 

 

Edited August 6, 2016 by Kergarin

[Zamolxes77]

Ok here it goes. Meet the Challenger, a rocket SSTO with capacity to lift and deploy in LKO a 60 ton space station. 

On the launch pad, the KISS (Kerman International Space Station) is safely stowed inside the ample Challeneger's cargobays. Some components have to be secured on the outside however, especially the escape pods !

Together with the hardware, flies a crew of eight kerbals, two teams that will work on KISS, by rotation. Each team has a pilot, an engineer and two scientists. At the controls, there is only one person we can trust to deliver this multi-million kerbucks project in orbit : Jebediah Kerman. He will also return the launcher safely to KSC.

One minute to Apoapsis. Everything looks good, craft flies easy as pie, extremely smooth, you don't even have to bother with shifting fuel or blocking tanks. In fact you don't have to do anything, everything happens automatically. Only player input required is to get gravity turn started, make sure you're at 45 degrees at 10 km and then throttle down when 1 minute to Apo.

"Were in stable 77/77 orbit" says Jebediah. " Prepare the craft for orbital ops. Bill, Jerry, get on the drones and start assembling the KISS. Everyone else, stay at your windows and observe"

"Careful with that section Bill, it has one of our escape pods, if you crash it, we'll have to draw wires to see who gets to be stranded !"

Mission complete, The KISS is fully assembled and crewed. "See you later Jebediah !"

Aerobraking at 35 km. By adding fairly large wings forward and carefully balancing the CoL vs CoM positions, Jebediah can easily perform aerobreaking maneuvers. To land, main stage needs minimum 300 LqF+ corresponding oxidizer and some 200 monoprop. Design can be further tweaked, is not as stable during descent as I like, it tumbles back and forth, but engines stay safe and don't burn up.

Aerobreaking complete, preparing to deploy the drogues. Sadly 300 Fuel is not enough for a precise landing, the accuracy depends on how well you tumble while breaking. Further refinements to CoL and CoM should give a dramatic increase in precision, goal is for main stage to behave like a spaceplane on re-entry. 

"We're nearly home !" It seems I went a bit wild with parachutes, used KSP parachute calculator online. 5m/s is a very good landing speed, even on solid ground, I usually aim for 5.75 m/s. Good news, I can probably remove another ton worth of radial parachutes, which will give me more payload mass in orbit. YAY !

Mission complete, final shot:

Modules:

-16 solar panels;

-2 Fancy escape pods, one for each team of kerbals on board, with some 2k dV worth on fuel already in the tanks - and extra liquid fuel for atmospheric flight;

- 2 Habitation modules;

- 1 Cupola for admiring the universe;

- 1 Science facility;

-1 science bay with 8 experiments - the 6 basic one plus atmospheric variometer and surface scanning. 5 of the basic experiments are duplicated, for balance.

-1 command/propulsion pod, with eight engines, fuel tank, monoprop, the works. ATM it holds about 10 tons worth of propellant, some 1,500 dV for orbital changes.

-5 unused docking ports, 3 large ones and 2 standard.

- 2 RCS drones, with klaws, that were used to build the station, but they can double as recovery vehicles for orbit stranded kerbals. Hard to estimate how much dV they have, but I finished the station and pushed it 1,000 meters to catch up with the SSTO, and still have monoprop left, I would say, 1,000 dV a piece or so.

That's it, I'll refine the main stage and try to land on VAB, for those extra style points ! But so far, lemme see if I get the score right:

-10 points meeting all the requirements, in fact with extras;

-20 points for using a 100% reusable rocket/SSTO, whatever you want to call it;

-30 points for spacex landing? Not sure what that suppose to mean, landing back where you take off from ? I'll add them for now, hope I'll get some clarification.

-57 points for tonnage. 57,000 kg/1,000.

Total score: 117.

 

Edited August 6, 2016 by Zamolxes77

[Zamolxes77]

After many hours of tinkering, I managed to remodel previous vessel into a spaceplane hybrid: it takes off like a rocket, but lands on wheels, no parachutes required. All that parachute mass, nearly 10 tons allowed me to install plenty of wings and gave me more payload in orbit.

So I tested the escape pods, sent both crews home from previous KISS:

Then I loaded up a new space station and sent it off, again:

Once in orbit, I took the station out and rebuild it quickly, just so it stays together, modules aren't in proper place though:

Jebediah is leaving for home, Bill and others will have to clean up the jumbled mess.

As you can see, its 5 tons extra of payload, mostly fuel, KISS's tanks are full to the brim !

Jebediah is aiming for the runway:

Very close now !

SUCCESS !!!

This version of Challenger is not as stable as I want, its very finicky on approach and landing. I was considering trying to land on VAB roof with it, but its not possible, I need a vehicle that can land like SpaceX - powered rocket descent to do that. As bonus, this vehicle delivers more and is some 150 parts less - 302 parts vs 476. Anyway, my score should be around 108 now.

Edited August 7, 2016 by Zamolxes77

[Adelaar]

You requested the tonnage of the space station I sent into orbit, it's weight is 27.268 kg

[Garrett Kerman]

5 hours ago, Zamolxes77 said:

After many hours of tinkering, I managed to remodel previous vessel into a spaceplane hybrid: it takes off like a rocket, but lands on wheels, no parachutes required. All that parachute mass, nearly 10 tons allowed me to install plenty of wings and gave me more payload in orbit.

So I tested the escape pods, sent both crews home from previous KISS:

Then I loaded up a new space station and sent it off, again:

Once in orbit, I took the station out and rebuild it quickly, just so it stays together, modules aren't in proper place though:

Jebediah is leaving for home, Bill and others will have to clean up the jumbled mess.

As you can see, its 5 tons extra of payload, mostly fuel, KISS's tanks are full to the brim !

Jebediah is aiming for the runway:

Very close now !

SUCCESS !!!

This version of Challenger is not as stable as I want, its very finicky on approach and landing. I was considering trying to land on VAB roof with it, but its not possible, I need a vehicle that can land like SpaceX - powered rocket descent to do that. As bonus, this vehicle delivers more and is some 150 parts less - 302 parts vs 476. Anyway, my score should be around 108 now.

Nice! However, I only judge off one station/ ship as if I didn't, everyone would send up as much stuff as they could. Which one do you want me to use?

[Garrett Kerman]

My science finally allows for me to make a space station (without the docking ports :/) so I'm going to try my challenge soon, and see how I rank up to you guys

[Zamolxes77]

On 8/8/2016 at 8:22 PM, Garrett Kramme said:

My science finally allows for me to make a space station (without the docking ports :/) so I'm going to try my challenge soon, and see how I rank up to you guys

Do it in sandbox mode, that's what I did. If I were to do it in career mode, I would never use such crafts or techniques, too expensive AND INEFFICIENT.

[Kergarin]

3 hours ago, Zamolxes77 said:

Do it in sandbox mode, that's what I did. If I were to do it in career mode, I would never use such crafts or techniques, too expensive AND INEFFICIENT.

I do also think it's a good idea to do this in sandbox mode.

But... I brought up my fully assembled 47ton station just for ~9.000credits of fuel. I think this was cheap and efficient? 

[Zamolxes77]

1 hour ago, Kergarin said:

I do also think it's a good idea to do this in sandbox mode.

But... I brought up my fully assembled 47ton station just for ~9.000credits of fuel. I think this was cheap and efficient? 

That sounds about right, maybe a bit too efficient, did you use a plane SSTO ? Cause that's sounds in the range of spaceplanes, chemical rockets are a bit more expensive.

[Kergarin]

31 minutes ago, Zamolxes77 said:

That sounds about right, maybe a bit too efficient, did you use a plane SSTO ? Cause that's sounds in the range of spaceplanes, chemical rockets are a bit more expensive.

Yes, your are right. it was a plane, see pictures in my last post. A full video will follow this weekend. 

[Garrett Kerman]

8 hours ago, Zamolxes77 said:

Do it in sandbox mode, that's what I did. If I were to do it in career mode, I would never use such crafts or techniques, too expensive AND INEFFICIENT.

I'm playing science mode, so funds are no problem. I gave that up so I could science and redirect an asteroid comming within 3,000,000 m of Kerbin and nearly putting itself in orbit. All I need is "The Klaw!"

Edited August 10, 2016 by Garrett Kramme

[Kergarin]

Finally... here is the video