$100 000 Space Program

[koshelenkovv]

Recently some people created challenges which used 'money', but parts prices were arbitrary or these 'money' had not any relationship to actual game money.

So I proposing challenge which counts real money.

Here is a minimalistic probe:

The goal of challenge is to create a fleet of very cheap rockets which will be capable to land such probes on every planet and moon for $100 000 in total.

RULES:

• Pick any probe core, attach antenna and solar panel+battery or RTG.
  
• Choose any planet or moon.
  
• Build a cheapest rocket with overall cost (probe included) is not more than:
  
  Minmus - $4000
  
  
  Eve, Mun, Duna - $5000
  
  
  Gilly, Jool - $5000,
  
  
  Ike - $5500,
  
  
  Laythe - $7000,
  
  
  Bop, Pol - $7500
  
  
  Dres, Vall - $8000
  
  
  Eeloo, Moho, Tylo - $10000

  
  

• Land a probe intact and alive on a chosen planet (in case of Jool park it to 150-200 km orbit).
  
• You can use any informational mods - Kerbal Flight engineer, Protractor, Mechjeb (info only).
  
• If you using Mechjeb for autopiloting, add up penalty - 20% to rockets's cost.
  
• You can do double, triple and multi-missions, such as Munmus+Mun, Pol+Bop+Vall, etc, but at price of SINGLE mission. (Because it's obviously easy to build an $50000 land-on-everything monstrosity).
  You can use only one probe for this missions - it successful landing that counts, after it same probe can fly to next planet.
  

Notes:

• Build Engineer from Kerbal Engineer Redux is highly recommended, because calculating costs manually is boring. You can deduct $160 from final cost (price of Build Engineer itself).
  
• It will be good if you will share you design and post a .craft file.
  
• Heavy save-scumming is not greeted with joy. If a rocket lacks dV and is too hard to fly, then it means that design is poor.
  

There was many challenges in which one must optimize a rocket by size, weight or part count.

I suggest to optimize rockets by price.

The prices in VAB are really bizarre. For example, turbojet costs $950 while scoop intake for it costs $1000. Two FL-T200 tanks costs $450, but one FL-T400 tank costs $850. Tiny and huge stack decouprers costs $200, but standard decoupler costs $600. Xenon engine and Gigantor solar paner are prohibitively expensive - $5000 and $3000, while RT-10 solid booster is very cheap - only $450. RSC is ridiculously overpriced.

All this price mess must stipulate very interesting and unusual optimizations.

I wish to see your creative designs and even novel ideas how to combine and use old things in unobvious new ways.

Good Luck!

LEADERBOARD:

Single missions:

Mun

1.

Francesco

- $1835 (mod: Rockomax 48-7S degraded to stock 24-77)

2.

Rhomphaia

- $3285

3.

Daddy Cecil

- $4330 (mod: Rockomax 48-7S)

Minmus

1.

Francesco

- $1835 (mod: Rockomax 48-7S degraded to stock 24-77)

2.

Lunniy Korabl - $1905

3.

RocketPilot573

- $3565

Duna

1.

Francesco

- $2967 (and $1835 with mod: Rockomax 48-7S degraded to stock 24-77)

Tylo

1.

Kappa73 - 10340

( mj, but not adding penalty while there is no other claims - try to make it cheaper first!

)

Eeloo

1.

koshelenkovv - $9915

- Eeloo Exploration Rover

Multi-missions:

Mun+Minmus

1.

Edited May 20, 2013 by koshelenkovv

[koshelenkovv]

There is Kerbin Orbiter for $2115

At launch

Second stage

Quite a lot of fuel left

Orbiting Kerbin

Next will be Minmus mission.

[Rhomphaia]

Mun Mission.

Total Cost 3285.

The Second stage Has slightly too much TWR

This Stage finalizes LKO and begins Munar Transfer, Landing engine has to finish that though.

On course to Mun, readying a small correction to put me on an impact trajectory. (TBH there were a couple of mishaps where I forgot to rotate to face the sun before warping and probes impacted or were ejected due to running out of leccy)

coming in for a landing near the south pole

Final descent.

nearly there, careful... Careful... Really wish I had some kind of laser altimeter.

Touchdown.

[Atanar]

One question though, why the hell do you use the very heavy rockomax decouplers? Is it that much cheaper?

[Rhomphaia]

One question though, why the hell do you use the very heavy rockomax decouplers? Is it that much cheaper?

Yep, The OP even mention's it $200 for the Jumbo and tiny. $600 for the regular. Could have used the tiny ones I suppose but I didn't know how stable that would be, plus the TWR of the first stage was more than adequate and the second stage was so ridiculously high I already had a reentry flare on the way up, so I stuck with the jumbo. Even with the weight penaly I would have had enough delta V to reach Minmus, assuming a decent ascent. You can see in the second pic how far of vertical I ended up taking my hands off the controls to grab screenshots. Since the only control authority at that stage comes from the probe core I had to waste a lot of the LV-909's fuel to fix it to an equatorial orbit.

Edited May 15, 2013 by Rhomphaia

[Daddy Cecil]

Can we use part packs, ex. KSPX pack? (it's an addition to stock parts, filling in the voids) Or even B9?

[koshelenkovv]

Mun Mission.

Total Cost 3285.

Impressive. It's hard to do it much cheaper.

[koshelenkovv]

Can we use part packs, ex. KSPX pack? (it's an addition to stock parts, filling in the voids) Or even B9?

I dont' know how much modded parts costs and how strange is prices arranged.

The point of price optimizing in some unusual combinations. (Right now I found one which can give me a hell of dV for Moho or Eeloo missions).

So you can, of course, participate using mods, but you will not listed in scoreboard.

[Rhomphaia]

Impressive. It's hard to do it much cheaper.

Thanks, I could probably get it down to $2995 (now there's a sales price). Maybe I'll try that for Minmus.

Edit: maybe even $2810, will try tomorrow.

Edited May 16, 2013 by Rhomphaia

[Francesco]

I did a mission to Duna, after landing I realized I forgot the antenna :/

I'll post my entry anyway if it's okay with you, since that wouldn't have changed the outcome.

here's the orginal rocket: 3057-240= 2817$

adding a 5kg antenna steals 40 m/s of delta-v and costs 150$ more ---> total = 2967$

http://imgur.com/a/sr8eh#0

by the way, did you know that the small parachute costs exactly 422$? it's weird.

Edited May 16, 2013 by Francesco

[Daddy Cecil]

I used a fuel tank (FL-T100) which costs 110 (i will nominally name their currency Kux) and it holds 45 liquid fuel; the Rockomax 48-7S which is a stack mounted version of the Rockomax 24-77, costs 300 Kux, and our beloved MechJeb (550 Kux). Those were all the modded parts I had; the total racked up to 4330 Kux for the Mun mission

[RocketPilot573]

Mission to Minmus: $3565

On the Pad

Launch

Space!

Landing

Landed!

[Francesco]

Here's the new record breaker, do it all ship: 9 parts, 1835$, can get to Mun, Minmus, and Duna.

(and orbit of course )

as you may have noticed, that engine comes from the KSPX pack: it's the Rockomax 48-7S, basically an inline version of the stock 24-77.

I first tried to use the 24-77 itself, but it was quite painful to find a balance on the center of the ship:

there is a problem, though. here's a data comparison:

[B]24-77[/B]

Weight: 0.09
ISP: 250 (atm), 300 (vac)
Cost: 240

[B]48-7S[/B]

Weight: 0.1
ISP: 300 (atm), 350 (vac)
Cost: 300

the higher ISP gives the 48-7S an unfair advantage: with a small FL-T200 tank, a ship gains 600+ m/s of delta-v.

Therefore, I edited the .cfg file to match ISP and weight, while leaving the higher price untouched: I consider this a fair deal.

Delta-v readout after editing:

With that said, let's launch this baby into space!

Mun landing:

Minmus:

Here's a cool thing about Duna: with small ships, adding a 0.1 tons parachute literally kills your delta-v; what's more, by the time you're almost out of fuel, the spacecraft is so light it can do a powered landing for pennies, having been already slowed down by the atmosphere.

You don't even need landing gear, you can just land on the engine nozzle.

800 m/s is roughly the speed you have to bleed when going straight to a Mun landing, but on Duna, the atmosphere will slow you down to ~300 m/s.

So, a mission to Duna actually requires less delta-v than one to the Mun.

I couldn't bother testing this on Eve, but since the atmosphere is thicker there, and you only need about 100 m/s for a powered landing, this should be well within the ship's capabilities.

Edited May 16, 2013 by Francesco

[Lunniy Korabl]

I'm very impressed with cheap micro rockets/probes. Instead, I went with the strategy of decouplers are expensive, fuel is cheap and built a bigger rocket with the probe just bolted a onto the liquid 3rd stage. It could be another 200 cheaper, but I kept forgetting to sun orient the tiny solar panel during cruise so eventually gave up and put the cheapest automatic array on there. Anyway, here's the breakdown. This could probably make it to Duna or Eve with a parachute, but for testing I went for the easiest target, Minmus. Sorry for the huge images. Looks like I was ninja'd by a cheaper one too...

Probe

Core 230

Battery 80

Antenna 150

Folding Panel 300

Total: 760

Landing Stage

Tanks 450

Engine 750

Total: 1200

Launch Stages

Small solid 450

Large solid 800

2 small decouplers 400

Total: 1650

Grand total: 3610

Lifting off the stick is pretty much dead because fins cost money. The off-centre battery slowly pulls the rocket in the right direction for gravity turn.

Second stage really roars through the dense atmosphere as the tiny battery tries its best to tug us into a turn.

After very little steering from the solid motors, third stage needs to work pretty hard to make the most of the orbeth effect, but at least we're in the tenuous upper atmosphere.

Launch windows are boring, maneuvering at the low orbital speeds of high altitude orbits is more fun and doesn't take much fuel to get a Minmus intercept.

Orbits are expensive and boring, let's just aim at that ball of green ice and see what sticks.

Ok, maybe too much timewarp is a bad thing, but on the plus side there's plenty of fuel for a suicide burn.

Maybe I could have come in somewhere flatter. I have enough fuel to aim for the bottom of that basin, but again that's boring, let's just land already.

Nailed it.

Just in case anyone was concerned that awesome landing compromised the mission, we can see from looking behind the hill that our antenna is nicely aligned with Kerbin overhead.

[koshelenkovv]

I did a mission to Duna, after landing I realized I forgot the antenna :/

I'll post my entry anyway if it's okay with you, since that wouldn't have changed the outcome.

here's the orginal rocket: 3057-240= 2817$

I've used similar design with my Minmis+Min mission, bun insted of circular tank I had second FL-T200 and decoupler. Radial engines were placed on very bottom of upper FL tank.

It costs 3020 and have 1400 dV in top stage (Probe + Oscar tank + Ant engine). Total dV is enough to reach Duna or Eve.

You did it even cheaper

[koshelenkovv]

I used a fuel tank (FL-T100) which costs 110 (i will nominally name their currency Kux) and it holds 45 liquid fuel; the Rockomax 48-7S which is a stack mounted version of the Rockomax 24-77, costs 300 Kux, and our beloved MechJeb (550 Kux). Those were all the modded parts I had; the total racked up to 4330 Kux for the Mun mission

I added you to scoreboard anyway, but 4330 feels like a lot of money

[koshelenkovv]

I'm very impressed with cheap micro rockets/probes. Instead, I went with the strategy of decouplers are expensive, fuel is cheap and built a bigger rocket with the probe just bolted a onto the liquid 3rd stage. It could be another 200 cheaper, but I kept forgetting to sun orient the tiny solar panel during cruise so eventually gave up and put the cheapest automatic array on there. Anyway, here's the breakdown. This could probably make it to Duna or Eve with a parachute, but for testing I went for the easiest target, Minmus. Sorry for the huge images. Looks like I was ninja'd by a cheaper one too...

Grand total: 3610

Probe + Oscar tank + Ant are have impressive 1400 dV for so tiny thingy.

You could make it cheaper if you've added Oscar+Ant+Decoupler and got rid of big SRB.

[koshelenkovv]

Here's the new record breaker, do it all ship: 9 parts, 1835$, can get to Mun, Minmus, and Duna.

(and orbit of course )

as you may have noticed, that engine comes from the KSPX pack: it's the Rockomax 48-7S, basically an inline version of the stock 24-77.

I first tried to use the 24-77 itself, but it was quite painful to find a balance on the center of the ship:

This IS a problem! Even when you place engine perfectly aligned with CoM, it will have small lever effect on the attach point due to its have radial fixture.

Therefore, I edited the .cfg file to match ISP and weight, while leaving the higher price untouched: I consider this a fair deal.

It would be good to find new unusual combination of old parts and to make contraptions using this combination %)

(Like small probe + huge (relatively to probe) FL-T200 tank + absurdly small (relatively to tank) ant engine. This combo gives you whopping 5900 m/s dV)

But anyway, I'm never could think that it's possible to send an interplanetary mission for less than $2000!

I couldn't bother testing this on Eve, but since the atmosphere is thicker there, and you only need about 100 m/s for a powered landing, this should be well within the ship's capabilities.

Even less than 60 m/s at sea level.

[Lunniy Korabl]

Well, it's clear now that I've been doing it wrong. Here's a stock Minmus lander for just 1905! It still has the automatic panel, so anyone who wants to fly a more carefully sun-oriented mission could pull off spending 1705, which I believe is a new record. It does require part clipping to get that radial motor nice and central and the decoupler clear of it with the help of a few struts. Since almost all stock spaceplanes use part clipping I figure this is ok.

Probe

Core 230

Battery 80

Antenna 150

Folding Panel 300

Total: 760

Landing Stage

Tanks 225

Engine 240

3 tiny struts 30

Total: 495

Launch Stage

Small solid 450

Small decoupler 200

Total: 650

Grand total: 1905

As you can see from the landing shots, the fuel margin is tight, but good enough to tolerate my no-mecjeb no-maths style of flying. Suicide burn required!

[koshelenkovv]

Well, it's clear now that I've been doing it wrong. Here's a stock Minmus lander for just 1905! It still has the automatic panel, so anyone who wants to fly a more carefully sun-oriented mission could pull off spending 1705, which I believe is a new record. It does require part clipping to get that radial motor nice and central and the decoupler clear of it with the help of a few struts. Since almost all stock spaceplanes use part clipping I figure this is ok.

I've never managed to attach this engine perfectly.

My double Minmus+Mun mission costs $3020.

[Lunniy Korabl]

I've never managed to attach this engine perfectly.

Neither have I, but it was close enough to be able to counteract the torque manually even at full thrust. Interestingly enough, using this design with a 3rd ant stage on top raised the centre of mass such that it was impossible to control at full thrust. Back to the drawing board for Joolian missions!

[Kappa73]

I've not quite made it within the budget, but I thought i'd post these here anyway, just to get the ball rolling. So, here's my mission to Tylo, rocket cost 10340 which includes 550 for the mechjeb2 case. So if i was to remove the MJ I'd be within the budget just barely but I don't want to fly the mission manually. Maybe someday if I have lots of extra time, but not this weekend.

http://i.imgur.com/OeIm8Wz.jpg"]

http://i.imgur.com/jb0FsgA.jpg"]

heres the stock version of the craft if anyone wants to have a go with it

[koshelenkovv]

I've not quite made it within the budget, but I thought i'd post these here anyway, just to get the ball rolling. So, here's my mission to Tylo, rocket cost 10340 which includes 550 for the mechjeb2 case. So if i was to remove the MJ I'd be within the budget just barely but I don't want to fly the mission manually. Maybe someday if I have lots of extra time, but not this weekend.

Awesome, unbelievable rocket!

I love how you made stackable aerospike And the way you assist to the booster with small engines.

I've not quite made it within the budget ... rocket cost 10340

It's not a problem - KSC made some savings on a cheaper Minmus, Mun and Dina missions ;

(And anyway, it's unlikely that anyone will make it cheaper.)

[koshelenkovv]

I've took Kappa73's rocket and replaced top stage 24-77 engine with Ant, then tested if it will reach Eeloo orbit.

Plane alignment tooks 1100 m/s dV. Then i tried to intercept Eeloo. It was in wrong phase angle, so i did huge 1400 m/s correction. It was tedious 15 minutes burn, but i got an interception. Circularisation ate another 1600 m/s dV and 15 minutes of time. After all that i was on a low Eeloo orbit with 2001 m/s left. Then I've botched landing.

It seems that I don't need extra 2400 m/s. Maybe even 3500 dV - if one starts in right flight window when Eeloo interception will occur right on descending/ascending node, he can save 1100 m/s dV which is wasted on plane correction. But waiting for it is a bit long even with 100000 time acceleration.

So I have a better idea of Eeloo mission now. I'll send a rover!

[lukerules117]

How do you people make these rockets so cheap, the cheapest thing I could get in to orbit cost 5370?