150 Kerbals to Duna on a friggin' Spaceplane!

[NoobTool]

I flew this mission to participate in the Elon's problem challenge posted by Jasonden. I thought it would be a good test/demonstration flight for the Czar Galactica Mk3 platform. I figured I'd do a mission report here with a link to it in the challenge post. 

The craft: Czar Galactica Mk3 Heavy Crew Transport

1,270,939 funds to get started.

Seating for 150 Kerbals

Less fuel than I expected when we got to orbit, still more than enough for a flight to Minmus. I'm thinking the lower frame/refresh rate with 150 Kerbals on board played with my ascent profile. I remember having more fuel in orbit on the maiden test flight with only the pilot on board.

Had the option of refueling on Minmus or intercepting an asteroid, I chose Minmus. Ateroids can be mined faster, but I neglected to check phase angles before departure, so we were going to have a lengthy layover at Minmus anyway.

After Refueling (and waiting for phase angles), on to Duna!

Plenty of fuel left for insertion and landing (or so I hope). I flew this mission with no mods (no mechjeb or Kerbal engineer), So there was a lot of guesstimating going on.

It took a few failed attempts to get the Duna landing procedure nailed down (Oh, the carnage!), but the landing went pretty smoothly after that.

With the parachutes deployed, and the NERV's and vertical landing engines at full throttle, I was able to touch down at around 30 m/s and less than 5 m/s vertical. Very survivable, I just had to remember to turn SAS off immediately upon touchdown. Otherwise the SAS did it's best to shed the engine pods, control surfaces etc, etc.

Landed At Duna!!

With 150 Kerbals on board.

Should've brought a rover, next time maybe...

I made the mistake of topping off the tanks at Duna... very bad idea. I had a difficult time finding a piece of terrain suitable for takeoff. Apparently a rocket-powered commercial passenger vessel weighing around 1000 tons makes a poor bush-plane... Go figure.

A few more failed attempts here, but in the end I found a sweet spot.

Success!!

And we're off to the races!

The oxidizer was just about right, but I had waaay too much liquid fuel. Oh well, I'll have plenty for orbital maneuvering back at Kerbin.

I didn't do any aerobraking for Kerbin capture, I had a lot of fuel and I wanted to burn some of it off. Not to mention, she doesn't hold up to aerobraking terribly well. Speaking of fuel, balancing fuel distribution to get a good center of mass is a bit of a chore. I recommend using the Mk3 long tanks along the sides, filling the front and rear tanks in around a 2:3 ratio. The rear tanks are pretty close to a good center of mass.

Re-entry went pretty well... until I got south of 20km. High altitude flight is not the Mk 3's strong suit. I entered a spin, but luckily was able to correct once I got below 7km. It does much better low and slow. I'd like to say I landed at the runway on the first attempt, but I didn't. What made that worse is that loading any of my atmospheric flight quicksaves below 7km resulted in the forward wings ripping off immediately. This meant I had to do the whole re-entry over again. This time I was able to descend without a spin, and I made a quicksave flying over the mountains at 7.5km, after dropping my speed to less than 200 m/s and pointing my nose directly prograde. That quicksave works (I tested it afterward), but luckily I didn't need it.

Coasting to a stop, all parts intact! Sorry I didn't get a pic of touchdown, but I had my hands full.

Well, I guess that's it. It was definitely a learning experience. I have a few refinement ideas for the Mk 3 (outrigger landing gear on the wingtip engine pods probably foremost among them). All in all, I'm pretty happy with her performance. If anyone has any ideas for improving high altitude flight characteristics, I'm all ears.

Thanks for reading!

Edited October 12, 2016 by NoobTool
image spacing

[Kertech]

That is how Elon Kerman would do it...

 

what was frame rate like?

[Wallygator]

Did they all actually get out and stretch their tiny legs?

[627]

Thinking about how long it took me to get over 30 Kerbals out and back in on Eve, I can't imagine how long you'd sit there transferring and ejecting crew. And with every single kerbal out your framerate drops a bit.

Nice plane and mission, though

Edited October 12, 2016 by 627

[NoobTool]

Yeah... I didn't go to the trouble of getting them all out, only one engineer eva'd to re-pack the chutes (I thought to myself after landing, "gee, I hope there's an engineer on board"). Heh.

Framerates were pretty abysmal (I'm playing on a first gen i7). Probably dropped to lowish single digits during ascent/re-entry. 1.2 runs pretty well though. 

The good news is the i7 doubles as a space heater!

Edited October 12, 2016 by NoobTool

[NoobTool]

6 hours ago, 627 said:

Nice plane and mission, though

Thanks!

[chadgaskerman]

Nice plane

my congratulations on your the correct application of moar boosters 

[NSEP]

Look at your rank dude! Bottle Rocketeer! Very inaccurate!

 

 

 

[NoobTool]

13 hours ago, NSEP said:

Look at your rank dude! Bottle Rocketeer! Very inaccurate!

 

Haha, Thanks! I've been playing for a while, but only recently started posting on the forums.

[vestradeus]

Wow...just wow.

 

[RocketSquid]

If this does not already bear the description, "Eat my exhaust, SpaceX!" it needs it.