Solid Rocket "SSTO" Challenge

[Klapaucius]

32 minutes ago, Cavscout74 said:

I don't know why the Thumpers are doing this, but the whole craft is acting weird - on loading on the runway, the thumpers start bouncing like they need autostruts despite being autostrutted AND externally strutted.  About 3-4 seconds into the Thumper burn, the craft started an uncontrollable pitch up followed by uncontrolled rolling.  It took Thumper burnout followed by a quick time warp once past 70km to regain control.  It has an advanced inline stabilizer in the service bay for control

 

Something is a bit weird with the solid attachment. On one of my early designs, I had a Clydesdale and two Thumpers on either side of it. The wings were attached to the Thumpers and every time I took off, one (not both) of the wings fell off.

I fixed it by attaching the wings to the Clydesdale and then the Thumpers to the wings.  I used the repositioning tool to pull the Thumpers back in close and pulled the wings out. On the outside, it looked the same as before, but it managed to solve the problem. Of course, that design was ultimately a fail anyway!

Edited May 8, 2020 by Klapaucius

[Cavscout74]

7 minutes ago, Klapaucius said:

Something is a bit weird with the solid attachment. On one of my early designs, I had a Clydesdale and two Thumpers on either side of it. The wings were attached to the Thumpers and every time I took off, one of t (not both) of the wings fell off.

I fixed it by attaching the wings to the Clydesdale and then the Thumpers to the wings.  I used the repositioning tool to pull the Thumpers back in close and pulled the wings out. On the outside, it looked the same as before, but it managed to solve the problem.. Of course, that design was ultimately a fail anyway!

My SSSTO-1 & -2 had the radial SRB's (Thumpers or Kickbacks) attached to the wings and had no issues, only the SSSTO-3 attached the Thumpers directly to the core and had the issues, so it sounds like you are onto something.  Thanks for the tip

[ralanboyle]

Holy excrements, 

I did it just now complete with stopping under the bridge but it was suppose to be a test flight (it just went way better than expected) so I wasn't recording. love! I'll do it tomorrow! 

haha, the expletive replacements are fun. excrements love dammit! 

[Klapaucius]

14 minutes ago, ralanboyle said:

Holy excrements, 

I did it just now complete with stopping under the bridge but it was suppose to be a test flight (it just went way better than expected) so I wasn't recording. love! I'll do it tomorrow! 

haha, the expletive replacements are fun. excrements love dammit! 

I now record everything for that reason.  And then just dump 90% of the videos.

[Klapaucius]

Taking another cue from @Chequers, please note the new medal categories with add-on challenges: Argon, Krypton, Xenon, Radon and insane Organesson.

@sevenperforce  Per your request, I have added a Plutonium honorable mention for mind-blowing Kerbalness. This award will be completely subjective, so make it good!.

[mystifeid]

1 hour ago, Klapaucius said:

Taking another cue from @Chequers, please note the new medal categories with add-on challenges: Argon, Krypton, Xenon, Radon and insane Organesson.

I was going to say, is there anywhere else you'd like it parked? OMG, the Woomerang launch pad?? Yeah, some of these are going to take a while and probably I'll need a new design. In the meantime here is Swift Mk2 parking it under the R&D bridge. I had to move the rear wheels in toward the center just so's I could stay off the blasted grass. I hope you realize what an inconvenience that was. Needed one more improvement too...

 

[chargan]

Updated Firecraker Mk2. Now costing only 16959 by having fewer control surfaces and reducing the starting fuel in the Pollux. Smaller SRBs now moved to the center for better balance.

Did the Island Airfield one. https://imgur.com/IWPjje2

[ralanboyle]

2 hours ago, chargan said:

Updated Firecraker Mk2. Now costing only 16959 by having fewer control surfaces and reducing the starting fuel in the Pollux. Smaller SRBs now moved to the center for better balance.

Did the Island Airfield one. https://imgur.com/IWPjje2

That's cool, but if you were going for the one I mentioned above then you have to take off from KSC, land at IA, park in the hanger, then take off again and fly to KSP and park at the SPH. So, two take off and landings. 

[AHHans]

On 5/6/2020 at 4:55 AM, Klapaucius said:

Francium: Taxi off the runway and park under the large bridge at the R&D Building. Please keep off the grass while taxiing. 

Just to be clear: is taxiing with reaction wheels and a steerable front wheel O.K.? Or is that considered cheating?

Edited May 8, 2020 by AHHans

[AHHans]

2 hours ago, AHHans said:

Just to be clear: is taxiing with reaction wheels and a steerable front wheel O.K.? Or is that considered cheating?

Well, I did it. Without using the reaction wheels after landing and even with two sets of "taxi-engines" unused:

Now I "only" have to do it again and document it properly.

P.S. You wrote "Please keep off the grass while taxiing." So running over the apron in front of the SPH during landing in a desperate scramble to find the runway is O.K., yes? I wasn't taxiing at that time!

Edited May 8, 2020 by AHHans

[mystifeid]

Parked at the SPH. Check. Parked under the R&D bridge. Check. This time the "Swallow" (cost 16205) takes off and lands at the Island Runway and parks in a hangar.

 

 

Edited May 8, 2020 by mystifeid

[Klapaucius]

11 hours ago, AHHans said:

Just to be clear: is taxiing with reaction wheels and a steerable front wheel O.K.? Or is that considered cheating?

The whole idea is to be utilizing the power generated by solid rockets--be it actively using the engine or using your leftover momentum. So, no that would not be in the spirit of the challenge.

8 hours ago, AHHans said:

Well, I did it. Without using the reaction wheels after landing and even with two sets of "taxi-engines" unused:

Now I "only" have to do it again and document it properly.

P.S. You wrote "Please keep off the grass while taxiing." So running over the apron in front of the SPH during landing in a desperate scramble to find the runway is O.K., yes? I wasn't taxiing at that time!

The main reason I have the "keep on the grass rule" is so folks don't just drive off the runway and make a straight line to the parking spot.  in the interest of keeping this reasonable, if you miss the runway, but land within the KSC area, you will not get the pure Cesium medal, but will be honoured with an isotope. Likewise, in your case, you will get a Francium isotope.

Edited May 9, 2020 by Klapaucius

[Klapaucius]

5 hours ago, ralanboyle said:

That's cool, but if you were going for the one I mentioned above then you have to take off from KSC, land at IA, park in the hanger, then take off again and fly to KSP and park at the SPH. So, two take off and landings. 

If you do that, I will award the first Plutonium or come up with something.

Edited May 8, 2020 by Klapaucius

[ralanboyle]

Alright, I want to go for Plutonium but here is my Francium submission. 

 

[Klapaucius]

8 minutes ago, ralanboyle said:

Alright, I want to go for Plutonium but here is my Francium submission. 

 

I've had many approaches like that. Nice recovery.  And I like the silver.  Did you glide all the way to the parking or was that a sepratron?

BTW: What was your launch cost and vessel name?

Edited May 8, 2020 by Klapaucius

[AHHans]

2 hours ago, Klapaucius said:

if you miss the runway, but land within the KSC area, you will not get the pure Cesium medal, but will be honoured with an isotope.

Hmmm... If I find a crazy spot to land at the KSC, will I get one made of Caesium-137? (*)

On a related note: did the mission with screenshots, but uploading will have to wait till tomorrow. (It's pretty late around here, and I still need to come up with a good name for the plane.)
P.S. Did you know that the ground / roadway between the SPH and the mission control building isn't completely flat? There is a kind of "step" in there. (That makes my plane wobble when taxiing over it.) Same between the astronaut complex and the science buildings.
P.P.S. Did you know that two pairs of sepratrons (so 4 in total) is not enough to do a U-turn at the science building and taxi back to the SPH?

[Edit:] (*) I guess the widest lane would be between the astronaut complex and the SPH, trying to miss the VAB on the left. Or turn around and land on the crawlerway from the east. Well, I'll look into it tomorrow. .oO(It would probably be easier if that damn thing wouldn't be so unstable on the ground.)

Edited May 8, 2020 by AHHans

[Klapaucius]

Here is my Francium attempt that became Cesium and then when that failed became Rubidium.  I have a low-thrust Shrimp on the bottom that in testing will take me all the way from the end of the runway to the bridge. Unfortunately, that one change seems to throw everything out of whack. The engines I already have no longer have enough to get me into orbit, so I wind up using the engines that were formally for de-orbiting to push me over the hump and used my parking engine to deorbit.

I did get over confident and try to do a quick turn on the runway. I wound up on the grass and knocked off the bottom engine. Considering that was a last-minute decision I'm going to pretend that did not happen. 

 

Keeping with my usual theme of naming craft after authors or characters, this is Volkhonsky. Lockdown seemed like a good time to finally tackle War and Peace.

 

I also made a test attempt at landing at Woomerang. I headed out at 135 degrees after taking off.   I did not quite get a stable orbit (Periapsis was 64000) but I did try to see if I could do the landing. Alas, I misjudged the de-orbit burn and was a bit short. There are also some rather large mountains to get over coming from the direction I did.

Edited May 8, 2020 by Klapaucius

[ralanboyle]

3 hours ago, Klapaucius said:

I've had many approaches like that. Nice recovery.  And I like the silver.  Did you glide all the way to the parking or was that a sepratron?

BTW: What was your launch cost and vessel name?

I’ll have to look up the launch cost later and I’m not creative with names. This one is Solid SSTO. Boring, I know. I just coasted the whole way, no taxi thrust. 

[Klapaucius]

2 minutes ago, ralanboyle said:

I’ll have to look up the launch cost later and I’m not creative with names. This one is Solid SSTO. Boring, I know. I just coasted the whole way, no taxi thrust. 

I was surprised at how far people are coasting. I might need to move the parking further away 

[ralanboyle]

9 hours ago, AHHans said:

So running over the apron in front of the SPH during landing in a desperate scramble to find the runway is O.K., yes? I wasn't taxiing at that time!

This reminds me of a story: 

When I was in flight school I was flying to a small country airport called Dekalb and the following radio conversation occurred. I am Skyhawk172SS- 

Dekalb traffic, Skyhawk 172SS 6 N inbound runway 17, full stop. 
Dekalb traffic, Skyhawk 172SS going around. Aircraft in the grass near runway 17, do you require assistance? Dekalb traffic. 
Skyhawk 2SS, piper 18, negative I’m just not very good at this. 

Edited May 9, 2020 by ralanboyle
Edit

[mystifeid]

Swallow (still 16205) launches into polar orbit from and lands back on the Dessert Runway.

For some reason I found this one to be very difficult. It's hard to see the runway from any great distance and landing on it at night was a nightmare. Probably for those with something like Trajectories mod this would be a lot easier.

PS. The Swift Mk2 left parked under the R&D bridge cost 24570.

 

[Klapaucius]

11 minutes ago, mystifeid said:

Swallow (still 16205) launches into polar orbit from and lands back on the Dessert Runway.

For some reason I found this one to be very difficult. It's hard to see the runway from any great distance and landing on it at night was a nightmare. Probably for those with something like Trajectories mod this would be a lot easier.

PS. The Swift Mk2 left parked under the R&D bridge cost 24570.

 

Cool. Polar orbits are funny. I got confused for a second by the fact you were landing headed southbound until I thought about it and rewatched your video.  It is one of those things that is obvious after you realize it, but not something you think about straightaway.

It is actually quite nice to see something besides the typical eastbound KSC orbit.

[mystifeid]

8 minutes ago, Klapaucius said:

It is actually quite nice to see something besides the typical eastbound KSC orbit.

It was different. I think I exploded Jeb about  a thousand times trying to do high speed course adjustments on approach before I worked out that the only safe way was to set up a deorbit that was way short and then extend my glide.

Edited May 9, 2020 by mystifeid

[chargan]

Slight revision to get the cost down to 15474 by removing the reaction wheel and battery.

Also managed to park it under the R&D bridge: https://imgur.com/ic5JfHt

[mystifeid]

The Swallow (still 16205) has three flights to the Woomerang area. The first merely confirms the existence of the launch pad - it is impossible to see from the air - and it's general location. After the second flight touches down and is bumping over the ground, the tower is seen through the trees and Swallow ends up losing all energy right beside the pad. The ramp direction is noted and the surrounding landscape memorized.

The third flight ... well, third time's the charm.

 

Edited May 9, 2020 by mystifeid