Vespertilio MkI - a stock Lunar return craft using only 5 1/2 sized large tanks

[sjwt]

Good day to all,

With the ever growing number of Rocket companies, Plane manufacturers and even those who just like blow things up, us Kerbals have been experiencing a massive rise in the cost of fuel, and as such we need to look at ways to reduce our usage..

I would like to present SKRAM's newest project, Vespertilio; a light fuel usage Muner return vessel that users less then 8000L of fuel to get a 3 person crew safely to and from the Mun. This feat has been brought to you by our very own project HIVE(Hyper Injection, Velocity & Efficiency).

By using advanced rocketry design, and staging with efficient engine types at all stages the drain on our fuel resources should be minimised so long as you keep to the bellow flight plan.

Begin the first part of the launch at 100% throttle, the air breathing turbo jet engines will take a few seconds to reach high enough thrust for lift off.. keep your heading at 90' and Pitch at 90'

Every 3000meters in Altitude reached reduce your pitch by 10', until you reach 50' @ 12000m, then at 13000m please start the Airospike stage, keep holding 50'

When Apoapsis reaches 80kms perform a MECO, alter your pitch to 20' and hold until you are about 5 seconds from Apoapsis at which point you should start your burn to ride the AP until your trajectory reaches 90' around Kerbin from the space centre.

As your trajectory reaches this point you will need to start the high efficiency Nuclear stage and also at the same time alter your Pitch to between 60' and 70', this should allow you to continue to increase your orbit whilst saving fuel.

Please keep an eye on the AP, and if it gets further rather than slowing down please decreases your pitch by 5' or 10' each time until you reach a pitch of around 10' only then should you start slowing down to ride the AP. Keep riding the AP until you reach a nice 80km orbit, but keep an eye on the fuel, as you will need to drop those 4 main tanks when they empty, and that could happen at any time.

After circularising your orbit, begin a 100% pro-grade burn when the Mun rises over Kerbin, keep an eye on your pro-grade heading, and cut the engines when you reach your intersection with the Mun. I generally use this time to slowly alter my heading with very small burns either pro or retro grade and bring my Periapsis on my Mun encounter down to 10kms.

Now you sit back and wait until you reach the Muner Periapsis, at which point you burn 100 where your current retrograde maker is until your Retrograde marker moves most of the way upto the top of the nav ball, then follow it up and begin landing

After that its just a hop skip and a jump back to Kerbin for your fabulous return!

Vespertilio MkI

Stuart Kerman, President of SKRAM - bringing you tomorrows engineering problems today!

Upcoming projects from SKRAM include an interplanetary return craft.

[Giggleplex777]

So many decouplers!

[sjwt]

So many decouplers!

Indeed, I felt it looked nicer than using the longer decouplers, and gave a more stable base!