Heaviest Rocket

[Archgeek]

On 10/10/2017 at 2:38 PM, RedPandaz said:

What's the heaviest rocket you've ever launched, [In-VAB weight]? Mine is 3.5 kT, or 3500 tons

Heheh, calling all @Whackjobs, eh?

I think my biggest was the lifter for my very poorly-designed .24-era Eve lander.  Oddly enough my 60km/s ion monstrosities are a lot lighter (to the point that they have to be dragged to space to avoid flipping)  I'll have to check on the mass later.

12 hours ago, He_162 said:

I launched a rocket that was a total of around 15,000 tons (currently rebuilding it for the latest KSP version before release)
It takes 3000 tons to an 80km orbit.

Wow, that beast looks like my old, never completed, "Icarus" super-heavy lifter writ large, if sans asparagus.  'Amazing what autostrut lets us get away with these days.

[septemberWaves]

I think my most massive rocket was a prototype lifter with SpaceY designed to put 500 tonnes into low Kerbin orbit. I never managed to optimize it, or to get it looking good enough for me to be happy posting it on the forums, but if I recall correctly it was something in the range of 5000 tonnes at launch. Of course, with SpaceY's new(ish) 10m parts, and the fact that my current series in New Horizons involves 3.2x scale Kerbin, I'll be needing a much bigger rocket for the same mass.

[Archgeek]

HEH, mine turns out to be kinda pathetic in retrospect:

Spoiler

 

barely over 2200 tonnes including launch clamps, and lifting a mere 330.7 tonnes.

Spoiler

I'm a little surprised that it comes in that light, considering the silly design decisions at the top of the lander stack.

Clearly I need to learn to build heavier--perhaps an Eve and back mission sans nukes or ions?

[RedPandaz]

On 10/12/2017 at 11:24 AM, eloquentJane said:

I think my most massive rocket was a prototype lifter with SpaceY designed to put 500 tonnes into low Kerbin orbit. I never managed to optimize it, or to get it looking good enough for me to be happy posting it on the forums, but if I recall correctly it was something in the range of 5000 tonnes at launch. Of course, with SpaceY's new(ish) 10m parts, and the fact that my current series in New Horizons involves 3.2x scale Kerbin, I'll be needing a much bigger rocket for the same mass.

My 50-ton base parts, with lander and second and first stage, total a rocket of 5000 tons to reach minmus, with enough fuel for accidents

[He_162]

14 hours ago, Archgeek said:

HEH, mine turns out to be kinda pathetic in retrospect:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

barely over 2200 tonnes including launch clamps, and lifting a mere 330.7 tonnes.

  Reveal hidden contents

I'm a little surprised that it comes in that light, considering the silly design decisions at the top of the lander stack.

Clearly I need to learn to build heavier--perhaps an Eve and back mission sans nukes or ions?

My smallest "mega lifter" takes 1,500 tons to orbit, and it's capable of taking most "Jool 5" mission's entire rocket boosters to orbit.

[septemberWaves]

3 hours ago, RedPandaz said:

total a rocket of 5000 tons to reach minmus

Could be interesting for me to try, since not only am I currently playing at 3.2x scale, but Minmus also now orbits Eeloo.

[GarrisonChisholm]

(...someone should start a thread about "what is the most dV you've put in a rocket"... )

@Archgeek  wins.  

 

[He_162]

That 3000 ton lifter I made (the craft file got corrupted) has been successfully rebuilt and uploaded to kerbalX, so for my critics, you can actually launch it yourself!
(I also got it down to 644 parts, making it the lowest part count lifter to take more than 1000 tons to orbit!)
https://kerbalx.com/He_162/He3000-ton-lifter

[Archgeek]

5 hours ago, GarrisonChisholm said:

(...someone should start a thread about "what is the most dV you've put in a rocket"... )

@Archgeek  wins.  

 

Heh, I might win in the "Purely Stock" category, but then again I might not.  I think I've seen beasts bigger than mine, but they may've been pushing more.

[He_162]

2 minutes ago, Archgeek said:

Heh, I might win in the "Purely Stock" category, but then again I might not.  I think I've seen beasts bigger than mine, but they may've been pushing more.

I just posted one

[Archgeek]

32 minutes ago, He_162 said:

I just posted one

I sense @GarrisonChisholm was speaking in the context if a "Most Delta-v" sorta thing.  A field wherein I've designed stock ion monsters intended  to cut transit time for genuine interstellar travel -- stuff like 100.35km/s in a 247 tonne package, about 53 hours total burn time.  I think I've seen bigger ones than mine shortly after the big xenon tank came out, but they were pushing more than the little wisp probe I've used on top, so I can't really say either way.

In the context of this thread "Most Pad Weight" monkey lamps do I lose.

[He_162]

2 minutes ago, Archgeek said:

I sense @GarrisonChisholm was speaking in the context if a "Most Delta-v" sorta thing.  A field wherein I've designed stock ion monsters intended  to cut transit time for genuine interstellar travel -- stuff like 100.35km/s in a 247 tonne package, about 53 hours total burn time.  I think I've seen bigger ones than mine shortly after the big xenon tank came out, but they were pushing more than the little wisp probe I've used on top, so I can't really say either way.

In the context of this thread "Most Pad Weight" monkey lamps do I lose.

All I'd have to do to beat you is launch 3000 tons of ION into orbit

[Archgeek]

3 minutes ago, He_162 said:

All I'd have to do to beat you is launch 3000 tons of ION into orbit

Holy crap that'd be a lot of parts.  At only 247 tonnes I had 457 parts, and tankage per stage was really starting to balloon out.  To get 3000 tonnes of stuff that light would be...a lot of parts.  Indeed, talking largely tankage at a little under 1 tonne each...that's gonna be over 2700 more parts.  Which is just too many parts.

[He_162]

15 hours ago, Archgeek said:

Holy crap that'd be a lot of parts.  At only 247 tonnes I had 457 parts, and tankage per stage was really starting to balloon out.  To get 3000 tonnes of stuff that light would be...a lot of parts.  Indeed, talking largely tankage at a little under 1 tonne each...that's gonna be over 2700 more parts.  Which is just too many parts.

That's not "too many" but it is a lot. I have a VERY powerful computer, and it'll be upgraded soon as well.

[Azimech]

Using mods so it's not a very big achievement. Something I've built 4 years ago. 4.8 kt. Had to invent all kinds of tech to make sure the thing would survive.

Does look impressive though.

Edited October 15, 2017 by Azimech

[Whackjob]

I have a lot of possibilities, rifling through my imgur account.  I don't know the weights.  I never went by that, just the parts counts, usually.  Putting in spoiler tags just for brevity and screen real-estate.

 

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

 

Spoiler

 

Back in the day when I had to make custom boosters because the ones provided weren't powerful enough by a factor of a hundred or so:

 

 

Edited October 16, 2017 by Whackjob

[Spricigo]

 

With my preference for smaller vessels, no doubt that is the Glacier with 845t.  A model rocket when compared with the stuff others posted.

Spoiler

 

Edited October 18, 2017 by Spricigo

[LitteXMan808]

1,808.273 Tons 3,616,546 LBS

[JcoolTheShipbuilder]

My heaviest launch was about 22740t, which was launching a 147m long fully fueled 2700t mothership straight out of Kerbin's SOI for a trip to Jool

This is just a behemoth

so.. about 22.7kt stock

Look at all of those mammoth engines!

At stage separation, the ship is just over 2700t, and it used a little bit of its fuel to fully escape Kerbin's SOI as it was just too laggy to do a gravity turn

I used a hammer SRBs as sepratrons

The interplanetary colony ship can carry up to 360 kerbals and has about 10km/s delta v on its nuclear engines (9km/s if it has oxidizer for its rhino engines as a boost)

This launch was done purely stock just over two years ago. it was also nearly 700 parts

Edited January 15, 2023 by JcoolTheShipbuilder

[Mars-Bound Hokie]

I think my heaviest launch is the Moho Ring Station at a launch mass of 4,024.08 tons.

• Yes, you read right. I can send a ring station to Moho.

 

• The station at the VAB. As you can imagine, I need all those SRBs if I want to save delta-V for the trip to Moho.
• I was going for a compressed version of the Jool ring station (see my KerbalX) to save weight and, by extension, increase my dV.
  • Maybe I should have gone a little bit smaller and sacrificed some functions like ore conversion.

 

• We have liftoff.

 

• And here is the eventual result.

[Beriev]

My personal record for heaviest craft would be my 6.4x Jeb's Level Jool 5 spacecraft, which I flew in early 2020. The liftoff mass was 155.2 kilotons and lofted about 7.5 kilotons to orbit. The Kraken wouldn't leave stock-part launch vehicles alone, which is why I had to use less part-intensive 7.5m tanks and engines from the old Kerbodyne Plus mod. Still, though, the craft was a little under 2500 parts at launch and 390 meters tall, taking several hours to reach orbit.

For the curious, the mission album can be found here: https://imgur.com/a/g1hgYTG

[Mazlem]

My heaviest booster is 2,428 tons and can put 500 tons into a 100km orbit:

 

And the heaviest thing I've launched was a way-to-big mining ship which needed booster engines to get off the pad.  6,612 tons on the pad with those boosters, and 6.450 tons fueled up in orbit.