Falcon Heavy to Duna

[sevenperforce]

With the Falcon Heavy's first test fire just days away, Elon's personal Tesla already mounted to the PAF, and the launch to Mars expected next month, what better time than Christmas break to build a Falcon Heavy in KSP and use it to send a battery-powered sports car to Duna?

The Challenge: Build a battery-powered two-seat rover (with a probe core, please; this IS a Tesla we're talking about), mount it on the single-engine upper stage of a three-stick parallel-staged launch vehicle, and send it to a Duna-intersecting orbit! Recover as many components of your launch vehicle as possible.

All mods are allowed, but try to keep it as close to stock as you can, and name whatever mods you use.

Scoring is based on accumulation of points as follows:

• Gone For a Spin (10 points): Before the launch, demonstrate your Roadster's moves by driving it around the KSC.
• Speed Demon (15 points): Test your Roadster at speeds over 100 mph (45 m/s).
• Falcon Nine (27 points): Use nine engines on each of your booster cores.
• Autonomic (13 points): Use drone cores; nothing manned.
• Looking Easy (16 points): Recover at least one parallel booster.
• Insane Mode (42 points): Recover both parallel boosters with boostback, RTLS (anywhere on KSC continent), and propulsive landing.
• Downrange (19 points): Recover your center core.
• Supercruise (18 points): Recover your center core by landing on a boat.
• Tru Lyfe (33 points): All booster recoveries without chutes.
• Hail Mary (28 points): Bring back the upper stage.
• Double Trouble (26 points): Build your own fairings and recover at least one.
• Purity (30 points): No mods.
• Destination (22 points): Land your Roadster on Duna and take it for a spin!

Leaderboard:

1. @Ultimate Steve: 277 points
2. @LightBender: 196 points
3. @sevenperforce: 190 points

Edited January 5, 2018 by sevenperforce

[Ultimate Steve]

Okay, I've got enough going on right now, but I am so going to try to max out my score on this. I'll start tonight, might not get done for a while. *checks clock* Yup, it's 11 here...

Question about the purity category, are informational/visual mods fine for that?

[LightBender]

Land it on a a boat huh...I'll skip that one to lazy and gonna be to small of a target unless...nvm I'm doing it! Also is KOS and Mechjeb be used without breaking the Purity point module?

Edited December 26, 2017 by LightBender
Reasons...

[sevenperforce]

8 hours ago, Ultimate Steve said:

Okay, I've got enough going on right now, but I am so going to try to max out my score on this. I'll start tonight, might not get done for a while. *checks clock* Yup, it's 11 here...

Question about the purity category, are informational/visual mods fine for that?

Purely visual mods (reskins, etc.) are fine. I'm flying the boostback-and-RTLS "blind" myself, but I don't want to be too big a jerk so I'll say informational mods are okay too.

7 hours ago, LightBender said:

Land it on a a boat huh...I'll skip that one to lazy and gonna be to small of a target unless...nvm I'm doing it! Also is KOS and Mechjeb be used without breaking the Purity point module?

Mechjeb for information is fine, but no use of autopilot.

[sh1pman]

I wish there was a similar challenge for BFR. I already have a vehicle for that!

[Piatzin]

1 hour ago, sevenperforce said:

Mechjeb for information is fine, but no use of autopilot.

What about KER?

[sevenperforce]

2 minutes ago, Earthlinger said:

What about KER?

Informational mods are okay.

[Ultimate Steve]

Okay, I've almost finished my work on the "Tesla:"

Unfortunately it will need just a tad bit of pruning - 44.9 is its maximum speed.

EDIT: This took me infinite fuel and an hour of trying, but...

Edited December 26, 2017 by Ultimate Steve

[sevenperforce]

11 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

Okay, I've almost finished my work on the "Tesla:"

Unfortunately it will need just a tad bit of pruning - 44.9 is its maximum speed.

Looking good! Nice job keeping it small. Mine is a touch bigger, haha, and not nearly as fast. 

Technically, 100 mph is 44.7 m/s, so 44.9 passes. I just rounded to the nearest decimal.

[Piatzin]

Ta-dah!

Still a prototype though (have to fix some aesthetics and stuff with the engines)

It has decent D-V, enough to get to Duna, at least. The stats above are without a payload though.

[sevenperforce]

18 minutes ago, Earthlinger said:

Ta-dah!

Still a prototype though (have to fix some aesthetics and stuff with the engines)

It has decent D-V, enough to get to Duna, at least. The stats above are without a payload though.

My upper stage is significantly heavier than my payload...as is the case with SpaceX. As will be the case with most submissions, I think.

[Piatzin]

The Falcon 9 first stage is finished! (Or rather, the Falcon Heavy booster......core...thing. Er....pick one)

Sadly, it is not entirely accurate, since it has 6 engines, not 9. It's also a bit too chubby. The real boosters are thinner and taller, but oh well.

Luckily, my rover (I just named it Roadster, even though it doesn't look like Tesla's ) looks decent:

Slowpokes

Edited December 26, 2017 by Earthlinger

[sevenperforce]

21 minutes ago, Earthlinger said:

The Falcon 9 first stage is finished! (Or rather, the Falcon Heavy booster......core...thing. Er....pick one)

Sadly, it is not entirely accurate, since it has 6 engines, not 9. It's also a bit too chubby. The real boosters are thinner and taller, but oh well.

Luckily, my rover (I just named it Roadster, even though it doesn't look like Tesla's ) looks decent:

Slowpokes

The Roadster does look great! The rules specify a battery-powered Roadster, so I can't give you the speed demon bonus unless you can hit 44.7 m/s without the monoprop boost engines, but it still looks excellent!

[Piatzin]

23 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

The rules specify a battery-powered Roadster, so I can't give you the speed demon bonus unless you can hit 44.7 m/s without the monoprop boost engines, but it still looks excellent!

Oh. Lol

[Ultimate Steve]

Question. Quickloading for recovery is allowed, right? Like, if I detach the boosters, quicksave, land one, quickload, land the other, quickload then continue the mission? This is only so that the whole "2.5km limit" thing doesn't get me, that's fine, right? Because trying to land three cores and a fairing at pretty much the same time would be pretty difficult.

[sevenperforce]

8 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

Question. Quickloading for recovery is allowed, right? Like, if I detach the boosters, quicksave, land one, quickload, land the other, quickload then continue the mission? This is only so that the whole "2.5km limit" thing doesn't get me, that's fine, right? Because trying to land three cores and a fairing at pretty much the same time would be pretty difficult.

Sure, I'll allow it.

Though I'll be doing the "pretty difficult" version myself, just to prove it can be done.

[Ultimate Steve]

Heh.

Does this count as "Recover your center core?"

[sevenperforce]

2 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

Heh.

Does this count as "Recover your center core?"

You're gonna need a bigger boat?

Full disclosure -- I tried "land on a boat" for a long, long time, but I eventually gave up on that idea; smashed my barge to pieces every time. Ended up landing my center core on the peninsula far east of KSC.

And I just finished, landing all three boosters successfully, on the same load. Not that I didn't use quicksaves voluminously, of course, but I was able to do it in a single continuous save, so all three boosters are actually landed successfully within the same save.

[Ultimate Steve]

2 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

You're gonna need a bigger boat?

Full disclosure -- I tried "land on a boat" for a long, long time, but I eventually gave up on that idea; smashed my barge to pieces every time. Ended up landing my center core on the peninsula far east of KSC.

And I just finished, landing all three boosters successfully, on the same load. Not that I didn't use quicksaves voluminously, of course, but I was able to do it in a single continuous save, so all three boosters are actually landed successfully within the same save.

Well, as far as boat landing, my problem wasn't destroying the boat, it was just hitting it in the first place! Glad to see you landed all 3 in one go. I managed to land both of the side boosters in one go and could have done the fairing as well but I decided not to. The center one took a lot of trying, but I eventually made it. The second stage was also recovered.

Currently en route to Duna, formal submission coming soon.

 

[sevenperforce]

3 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

Well, as far as boat landing, my problem wasn't destroying the boat, it was just hitting it in the first place! Glad to see you landed all 3 in one go. I managed to land both of the side boosters in one go and could have done the fairing as well but I decided not to. The center one took a lot of trying, but I eventually made it. The second stage was also recovered.

Currently en route to Duna, formal submission coming soon.

Looking forward to seeing how you recovered your upper stage! I'm doing it as close as possible to the way SpaceX is actually doing it, with the exception that I didn't attempt to land fairings.

[Piatzin]

7 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

I managed to land both of the side boosters in one go and could have done the fairing as well but I decided not to

40 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

And I just finished, landing all three boosters successfully, on the same load. Not that I didn't use quicksaves voluminously, of course, but I was able to do it in a single continuous save, so all three boosters are actually landed successfully within the same save.

And here I am, still trying to do proper suicide burns

Also, it turns out I can't really utilize reaction wheels without this happening:

Spoiler

 

[sevenperforce]

All right, here's my entry.

Timing was everything. Had to figure out a way to get each booster landed without the others unloading.

Full album and play-by-play here:

My entry qualifies for Gone For a Spin, Falcon Nine, Autonomic, Looking Easy, Insane Mode, Downrange, Tru Lyfe, and Purity, for a total of 190 points. I'll add a leaderboard once I get other entries.

Edited December 26, 2017 by sevenperforce

[vyznev]

43 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

I'm doing it as close as possible to the way SpaceX is actually doing it, with the exception that I didn't attempt to land fairings.

Wouldn't "the way SpaceX is actually doing it" involve writing a KOS program, so your boosters can land themselves? Or I suppose you could just use MechJeb landing guidance, if you're lazy. 

Nice challenge, though. I honestly didn't expect much from the title, but the points scheme actually makes it feel interesting.

[sevenperforce]

3 minutes ago, vyznev said:

Wouldn't "the way SpaceX is actually doing it" involve writing a KOS program, so your boosters can land themselves? Or I suppose you could just use MechJeb landing guidance, if you're lazy. 

Nice challenge, though. I honestly didn't expect much from the title, but the points scheme actually makes it feel interesting.

Glad you liked it. I try to make the points something at least a little challenging.

The thing I had the most trouble with was getting the trajectories lofted enough that I could fly each landing in sequence. I have done quickload-based landings before but that's not quite as satisfying as actually landing both boosters and the core within the same savegame.

In theory, BurnTogether could have been used to land both boosters simultaneously, but only with ridiculously good luck.

[Ultimate Steve]

Okay, challenge complete!

My attempt:

Spoiler

The roadster that is going to Duna. Note the unintentional face on the front. Max speed is 49.4m/s.

Proof it can hold two Kerbals. It's a bit cramped, but if they took off their helmets they should be fine.

Taking it for a drive. Quick stop at the astronaut complex.

Jumping the pool!

Parked.

Getting the barge into position - "Avengers," anyone?

 

 

I ran out of fuel halfway to the Italy-like peninsula, not as far as I would have hoped to get, but okay. Upon splashdown the probe core and engines exploded, but, ehh, we don't need those anymore!

Liftoff of the Falcon Heavy! There are 9 LV-T45's on each core and no parachutes. Landings are purely propulsive for the cores.

The fairing is way different from standard fairing halves, but it works. I tried making a two half one out of wings and stuff, but it was way to draggy to work.

Fairing glides back to land and deploys a parachute.

One sepratron exploded upon impact, so not 100% recoverable, unfortunately, but close enough!

Sorry for dark images, but that's the booster separation.

Boostback burn for one of the two boosters.

Wait, when did I lose a nosecone? I literally didn't notice that until now.

Booster 1 landed!

And so is booster 2, you can see booster 1 in the background off to the left!

Meanwhile, the core has separated and stage two is continuing into orbit.

After a lot of quickloads, Core 3 is heading to within a few hundred meters of the droneship.

Very little fuel left (see KER!).

But we have landed on Of Course I Still Read The Instructions!

 

Again, sorry for the dark image, but S2 is in orbit.

After the trans-Duna injection burn, the payload separates and Stage Two burns back into an elliptical Kerbin Orbit (and all of the pictures are dark as night so you'll just have to take my word for this).

After some careful aerobraking, Stage two is suborbital.

Burning to splash down, and...

Success!

The roadster has a small RCS correction stage.

Some time later, we have reached Duna, however we're going about 1000m/s faster than we had in testing.

Because of this, the wheels melted.

Nevertheless, three parachutes are deployed and the braking motors are still fired.

We've now got half of a car on Duna. However.... we just need to take the car for "a spin" so...

 

 

Eventually I was able to get it into the sunlight on reaction wheel torque. So, not a long distance rover, but it's still technically a rover...

 

 

So it looks like I qualify for:

• Gone For a Spin (10 points): Before the launch, demonstrate your Roadster's moves by driving it around the KSC.
• Speed Demon (15 points): Test your Roadster at speeds over 100 mph (45 m/s).
• Falcon Nine (27 points): Use nine engines on each of your booster cores.
• Autonomic (13 points): Use drone cores; nothing manned.
• Looking Easy (16 points): Recover at least one parallel booster.
• Insane Mode (42 points): Recover both parallel boosters with boostback, RTLS (anywhere on KSC continent), and propulsive landing.
• Downrange (19 points): Recover your center core.
• Supercruise (18 points): Recover your center core by landing on a boat.
• Tru Lyfe (33 points): All booster recoveries without chutes.
• Hail Mary (28 points): Bring back the upper stage.
• Double Trouble (26 points): Build your own fairings and recover at least one.
• Purity (30 points): No mods.
• Destination (22 points): Land your Roadster on Duna and take it for a spin!

 

As for Double Trouble, it says "Fairings" instead of "fairing," so I'm not sure that I qualify for that one. As for destination, that one's up to you if it counts.

 

If my in-my-head addition has not failed me, that's 299 points, or 251 if none of the two questionable ones count.

That was fun! And now I have a semi decent rover to do stuff with! *suspiciously eyes Dakar thread*

 

EDIT: I forgot the video, scroll back up.

EDIT: Oops, put two videos and deleted first image.

Edited December 26, 2017 by Ultimate Steve