Snowflake Booster Engine series (DLs to come)

[Mechtech]

I use these things enough that I felt it was time to sit down and codify 'em for future use... and so other people can use 'em.

now this series was first made WAY back in the old days when KW was yet young, and was inspired by some of the historical test rockets from the dawn of rocketry.

this is a typical arrangement-

for a mediumweight lifter.

the wide thrust-base and finwings give the Snowflake series superb stability even at high speed or with awkwardly-shaped payloads. while the above booster is a solid piece due to using engines that all run out of fuel at around the same time, and further is strictly a solid-fuel booster, other variants including lighter lifters, heavy lifters, LF and mixed LF/Solid models, arrangements that jettison the wing-fins or the outer boosters, and so on exist.

I most commonly create these as medium-weight lifters for ships with minimal computer support- snowflakes are not easy to do gravity turns with. generally, one should expend the entire booster as a first-stage going straight up, then utilize upper-stage engines to do high-angle circulation burns.

the above booster, for example, gave my payload (a Soyez-esk orbiter with a -stays-in-orbit service section/satellite) an apothisis of ~125km, though that dropped to the high nineties during circularization due to Pilot Error (I didn't start the burn soon enough.)

typically, one expends the booster and sometimes a second-stage ascent engine, then burns at 80-90° to circularize.

craft files (and pretty pictures) will be forthcoming as soon as I figure out this Kerbal-X thing and have a few hours to fiddle with Sandbox.

in the meantime, the above image should be sufficient guide for building your own if you don't want to wait on me..

[The Space Dino]

That is really a weird design. I wonder how it does not self-destruct with the boosters like that. I guess struts are magical.

(You could have posted this in my thread for launch vehicles, I wanna get support)

[Mechtech]

actually, many of my Snowflake designs don't even need the struts to be flyable, but the strut setup is responsible for the line's rock-steady stability. the key here is the lines from the tops of the outer boosters to the payload and the ones just above the wingfins, which keep the vertical torque manageable, while the lines between the outer boosters keep them from 'flopping' during corrective maneuvers with the flaps. this system (albiet with more struts and the use of KW's Medium and Heavy struts)  is effective all the way up to 5m formfactor. it's really quite something to stick a complete space station onto one of those things and launch it in one go. I've used these to launch everything from teeny probes with a 1.25 formfactor to single-launch Jool missions stuck on 5m boosters. definitely one of my 'go-to' solutions.

[The Space Dino]

What an engineering masterpiece !