One hour sprint with limits

[Xenoc]

OK, similar to the challenge set before by SiLo, but I much prefer a challenge with well defined boundaries and not open to abuse from ridiculous 0 fuel / massive thrust type engines.

So, the challenge is:

Reach the highest altitude you can in 1 hour.

The only permitted parts are:

Standard parts

Sunday Punch's Wobbly Rockets

Nova Silisko's Doughnut Research pack

MTS Limited Tuned SAS modules

For Kerbal Science!

[MaxSchram]

47581km

I'm sure there is more to get.

[foamyesque]

I have a vanilla rocket that can put better than seventy seven hundred m/s of dV into orbit. I think I might give this a shot.

[Xenoc]

Nice runs. Finally got home to try it myself with my superheavy lifter and a few upper rocket stages. Will report back in 55 minutes

EDIT: 400km, 2.3k dV, 2 stages to go

EDIT 2: burnout at 800 km, 5.3k dV. Clearly not going to get anywhere near that first one. Just realised I hauled a parachute up with me too Pretty sure I could go a bit heavier on teh throttle int eh early stages, and probably strap a couple more late-stage SRBs on too... Will report on final tally in 48 mins...

FINAL EDIT. 15,861km. Bums.

[Xenoc]

Of course, it occurs to me this might be more interesting as a 15 minute challenge as then there's a bit more balancing between dV and how fast you can generate that dV...

[foamyesque]

Bah. Just build a rocket with 58 LFTs.

[MaxSchram]

Of course, it occurs to me this might be more interesting as a 15 minute challenge as then there's a bit more balancing between dV and how fast you can generate that dV...

The 15 minute and the 60 minute challenge are quite similar, but they have different requirements for the optimal solution.

What makes them similar is the need for generating as much dV, as fast as you can. Because the longer the time you go on high velocity, the further you go. But the differences come with the limitations of the engines and fuels. You can't get as fast as you want in a given time span. It's about balancing between a long, steady acceleration to a high velocity or a short burst to lower velocity.

To illustrate this i made the first two figures below. Each showing the velocity curve of two different rocket configurations. The blue rocket takes a lot longer to accelerate and the burnout is ~1000sec, but the maximum velocity is higher. On the other hand, the red rocket only needs about half of the time to reach max speed, but has a lower end velocity.

The area under the curves is the corresponding travel distance - and that is what we want to maximize. So lets take a look at the two graphs: The first one goes up to an hour (3600s) where the area under the blue curve is greater than the area under the red curve. In the second picture, with 15min (900s) to go, the result is inverted and the area under the blue curve smaller.

To go even further, intelligent staging is the key. The third picture shows the blue rocket again and a larger black rocket with a second stage added to the blue rocket. It takes the maximal velocity up by ~5000m/s, just by using a (quite larger) second stage to generate some more dV.

[Salda007]

23,463 km, stock parts only. Got up to 7700m/s before final stage burnout. And this was just a concept tester; I'm certain I can push the design farther.

Edit: Realized that I was looking at 'Total Distance Traveled', not 'Highest Altitude Achieved'. Whups. Fixed, but only have the altimeter to go by. Beat this on my next flight, but going to tweak some more and will post the highest.

[Salda007]

26,461,328m, stock parts. Top speed 8,341.4 m/s.

Had a nice slideshow going until the final stage, so I'm not sure how much further I'm going to try to push this design.