The weak engine challenge

[foamyesque]

On 1/30/2018 at 8:40 AM, MarvinKitFox said:

With 45 tons up there, you can go anywhere and do anything.

 

Really? Prove it: There's points for a sea-level Eve return up there

[bewing]

3 juno/3 spark SSTO -- 2 kerbals to LKO & land on VAB.

Spoiler

 

[Gordon Fecyk]

On ‎2‎/‎1‎/‎2018 at 7:46 PM, foamyesque said:

Really? Prove it (45 t going anywhere): There's points for a sea-level Eve return up there

Twenty-five Spark engines (1, 8, 8 x 2 symmetry) strapped to an orange tank plus five tonnes of logic and ISRU, and I could get to low Dres orbit. Just had under 4 km/s. Couldn't land though; was 50 m/s too short.

With better planning I could have refueled on Minmus and set up an ejection toward Dres from Minmus, burning only about 300 m/s back toward Kerbin and ejecting from there. A normal ejection from 86 km LKO cost just over 1500 m/s. Starting from Minmus and dipping down at the right time, I might save 400 m/s or so, which would have allowed me to land there.

Using small engines you'd need the modded Spark from Eve Optimized Engines. Even then I think TWR is too low.

[Jack5.exe]

1 hour ago, bewing said:

3 juno/3 spark SSTO -- 2 kerbals to LKO & land on VAB

 

1 hour ago, bewing said:

3 juno/3 spark SSTO -- 2 kerbals to LKO & land on VAB.

  Hide contents

 

70 points!

[foamyesque]

4 hours ago, Gordon Fecyk said:

Twenty-five Spark engines (1, 8, 8 x 2 symmetry) strapped to an orange tank plus five tonnes of logic and ISRU, and I could get to low Dres orbit. Just had under 4 km/s. Couldn't land though; was 50 m/s too short.

With better planning I could have refueled on Minmus and set up an ejection toward Dres from Minmus, burning only about 300 m/s back toward Kerbin and ejecting from there. A normal ejection from 86 km LKO cost just over 1500 m/s. Starting from Minmus and dipping down at the right time, I might save 400 m/s or so, which would have allowed me to land there.

Using small engines you'd need the modded Spark from Eve Optimized Engines. Even then I think TWR is too low.

 

In principle, an unmodified Spark engine can lift 0.2t of mass over and above its engine mass, at Eve sea level. A launcher is therefore theoretically possible, but I, for one, should not like to see what kind of monstrosity would be needed to make it work.

[sevenperforce]

My baby grand tour ship has landed boosters on the pad, on the VAB, on the island runway, and my SSTO will eventually come back to the runway.

[Jack5.exe]

18 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

My baby grand tour ship has landed boosters on the pad, on the VAB, on the island runway, and my SSTO will eventually come back to the runway.

pics?

[sevenperforce]

18 minutes ago, Jack5.exe said:

pics?

Still flying the mission.

[roboslacker]

Are seperatrons allowed?

[sevenperforce]

21 hours ago, roboslacker said:

Are seperatrons allowed?

Been working under the assumption that they are not.

[Jack5.exe]

On 2/6/2018 at 11:46 AM, roboslacker said:

Are seperatrons allowed?

No, Too much power

[foamyesque]

I took a poke at an Eve sea-level launcher, but ran into game engine limits -- specifically, part counts blowing past 2000 that cause my copy of KSP to crash

[KingDominoIII]

Brad Whistance did an Eve launcher that used sparks, if I remember correctly. It was 12 tons.

[Jack5.exe]

8 hours ago, KingDominoIII said:

Brad Whistance did an Eve launcher that used sparks, if I remember correctly. It was 12 tons.

He didn't enter

[oAsAo]

https://imgur.com/a/qB2Kiwr

https://www.dropbox.com/s/gl1vg5dfj7lb1vs/K-1.7z?dl=0

[swjr-swis]

Edit: I removed the previous entry posted here. I missed the part where it said it had to transport a kerbal.

In its place I post a two-stage rocket that uses only Terrier engines to lift a kerbal to LKO and bring it back safely again. It was made for a different challenge, but it is valid for this one too.

Spoiler

19 Terrier booster stage, single-terrier orbital stage. Note that the sepratrons are used only to carry the loading pod away, before the rocket is launched.

Booster stage just gets us to 160 m/s and 2km, but it's enough so the single-engine orbital stage can carry itself to orbit.

Stable 81km orbit reached.

Last half unit of LFO used to deorbit, aerobraking does the rest. Kerbal is kept safe from reentry heat.

Safely back on the surface.

Full imgur album: https://imgur.com/a/39fzZ4n

Craft file: https://kerbalx.com/swjr-swis/Terrier2LKO-1b

Edited June 28, 2018 by swjr-swis
replaced by valid entry

[Aetharan]

I'll let you guys decide how many points this mission is worth.  My destination wasn't listed.

https://imgur.com/a/RSGvnMg

Edit: While obviously a modded game, I used only vanilla parts with their vanilla functionality, barring the inclusion of MechJeb's functionality being added to probe cores.

Edited June 26, 2018 by Aetharan

[sturmhauke]

I did this tiny part challenge for Reddit a while back, but I believe it qualifies for this one also. Jeb takes a multistage craft, landing on the Mun, Minmus, and Gilly and then returning to spashdown way out at sea. I actually ended up doing a separate mission to manually recover him and the surviving hardware.

full album