Calculating Delta-V for asparagus staged rockets.

[dansmithers]

Recently I built a rocket with a set of liquid boosters that are asparagus staged, and it went interplanetary on the one stage. Wanting to quantify its massive power (in the form of Delta-V), I searched for a way to do such things on the internet, but I'm drawing a blank. Please help!

Edited June 3, 2013 by dansmithers

[Jason Patterson]

The easiest way is to download an addon (kerbal engineer or mechjeb come to mind) that will do the calculation for you. If you want to do it by yourself, you have to do each stage independently. Determine the m0 and m1 values for the stage and the average Isp across all active engines. The Isp should be weighted by mass flow if you really want a good value. Again, the addon is a much easier method.

[Specialist290]

For multistage rockets, you need to calculate each stage individually, counting the unused stages on top as part of the payload. Then you add up the totals for all your stages to get the grand total for the whole rocket.

For asparagus staging in particular, you treat each set of boosters as its own stage and only count the fuel in the tanks being emptied during that stage.

As I usually do, I'm going to refer you to the Atomic Rockets page on the subject, which does a wonderful job of explaining things.