Smallest Craft to Various Milestones

[blueshark15]

The challenge is to build the smallest (by weight) vehicle to perform a mission, I am starting off the thread with "to stable Kerbin orbit" and "to Mun landing". Guidance mods like mechjeb are allowed, but try not to use deliberately overpowered parts for construction.

leaderboard:

To Stable Kerbin Orbit

1st:[FAR]1096bimu 0.7t

2nd:tavert 0.801t

3rd:[stock]tavert 1.075

Mun Landing

1st: [stocktavert 1.63t

2nd:1096bimu 1.7t

3rd:[stock]Otis 1.91t

Vall Landing

1st:HoY 5.723t

2nd:nhnifong

3rd:

Moho return

1st:[stock]koshelenkovv 125t

2nd:

3rd:

Minimus landing

1st:HoY 1.472t

2nd:[stock]tavert 1.55t

3rd:

Duna return

1st:[stock]metaphor 2.93t

2nd:

3rd:

Eve rover

1st:[stock]koshelenkovv 2.768t

2nd:

3rd:

Eeloo rover

1st:[stock]koshelenkovv 7t

2nd:

3rd:

Manned Eeloo return

1st:[stock]Otis 16.79

2nd:

3rd:

Eve return

1st: [stock]tavert 12.71t Good god. I think me may have a record here.

2nd: [stock]Respawn 255.36t

3rd: [stock]Fidelacchius 740t

Kraken landing

1st: [stock]SunJumper 28.68t

2nd:

3rd:

Edited September 14, 2013 by blueshark15

[blueshark15]

my examples

for smallest to orbit:

4.07 tons on pad

and in orbit, (about 71km)

and for smallest to mun landing:

8.51 tons on pad

final stage

and landing

[tavert]

This was done in 0.19, but should still work. 1.238 tons to stable Kerbin orbit:

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Or cheaty way, 0.31 tons via infiniglider: http://imgur.com/a/5EsQF#0

To bring a Kerbal to a Mun landing and return, 2.22 tons was possible in 0.19, but would be a bit heavier in 0.20 since Kerbals on EVA are 3x heavier now. For a one-way probe it should be even lighter.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Edited June 17, 2013 by tavert

[blueshark15]

Nice! what kind of engines are you using?

[tavert]

These both use a single Rockomax 24-77, carefully rotated and positioned in the center of an octo-strut. For a one-way Mun probe lander, the ant engine like you used is probably a better choice.

[Johnno]

This was done in 0.19, but should still work. 1.238 tons to stable Kerbin orbit: *snip*

I can confirm tavert's Kerbin orbit entry, I extrapolated a design from his/hers and managed to bring a probe into orbit using ever so slightly less mass. Wouldn't feel right posting it though, I was struggling to bring my own design to below 1.8 tons or so before seeing tavert's design.

Lovely challenge, I had fun thinking minimalistic instead of the usual overengineering I do.

[nhnifong]

I took this little ship to Vall

It's the smallest Manned ship I've seen, but unmanned could certainly be smaller.

[tavert]

Wouldn't feel right posting it though, I was struggling to bring my own design to below 1.8 tons or so before seeing tavert's design.

Why not? I don't mind being improved upon, occasionally it sparks my competitiveness and I'll go come up with something even lighter. Did you get away with a few less units of fuel by replacing some of the round-8's with oscar-B's?

[soranno]

seeing that brought back memories of one very long, but very entertaining evening tavert

[Guest]

My 1st attempt is 2.89T. I am currently exploring the limits of what can be done with my old laptop. I want to improve my design( Getting some ideas from the other entries:wink:) and improve my videos(adding sound would be nice:sticktongue:)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18CNqKChq7o

[Johnno]

Why not? I don't mind being improved upon, occasionally it sparks my competitiveness and I'll go come up with something even lighter. Did you get away with a few less units of fuel by replacing some of the round-8's with oscar-B's?

I felt it would've been cheeky to plagiarize your idea when I wouldn't have gotten there myself in a while, but since you don't seem to mind the idea I'll post an entry. I did go for more oscar-B tanks but mainly because I found the wider design unwieldy to control, I also couldn't get the hang of your style of staging without losing a lot of momentum, so I ended up sort of reversing the design with an ant engine below 2 oscar-B tanks and probecore up top as final stage.

1.196 tons to stable kerbin orbit. Credit to tavert for design inspiration.

[tavert]

I felt it would've been cheeky to plagiarize your idea when I wouldn't have gotten there myself in a while, but since you don't seem to mind the idea I'll post an entry. I did go for more oscar-B tanks but mainly because I found the wider design unwieldy to control, I also couldn't get the hang of your style of staging without losing a lot of momentum, so I ended up sort of reversing the design with an ant engine below 2 oscar-B tanks and probecore up top as final stage.

1.196 tons to stable kerbin orbit. Credit to tavert for design inspiration.

Cool, nicely done! This game's all about mutual inspiration, otherwise we'd stay off the forums and play without getting involved in the community. In a thread from a month or two ago that soranno was referring to, I didn't think you could beat 1.26 tons (which was based on what I saw in an even older thread from before the forum crash). The 1.238 design I made was sparked by soranno posting about his struggles to get that something at that number to work - I built and flew what I did because his number made me curious.

Yeah the flip-staging is pretty silly. Carrying a separate second-stage engine means extra weight so less performance from the lower stage, but since the second stage is so tiny, having less engine weight means more delta-V out of the same (or smaller) amount of second-stage fuel. Impressive that you got the numbers to work out there.

[tavert]

My 1st attempt is 2.89T. I am currently exploring the limits of what can be done with my old laptop. I want to improve my design( Getting some ideas from the other entries:wink:) and improve my videos(adding sound would be nice:sticktongue:)

Looks like you're headed the right direction

Instead of the Mk1 fuselage, you should try the Mk2-to-Mk1 adapter piece. It's only 0.5 tons full, and has a better full-to-dry mass ratio than the Mk1 fuselage does (actually all of the other jet fuselages and adapters are much better than the Mk1). It carries 80 units of fuel which is way more than you used.

Jet-boosted rockets should be flown a little differently than normal rockets. It helps to fly horizontally around 30-40 km until you've built up as much speed as your number of intakes (intakes are worth way more than their weight in fuel right now, more intakes makes a noticeable difference) allows. And jet thrust vectoring should be more than enough to control these tiny things, I doubt you actually need the wings and control surfaces.

[Guest]

My 2nd try comes in at 1.91T. Probably could shed a little more weight, but I'm learning to make the videos too. This one's got sound.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=po8wQVokJTI&feature=youtu.be

[blueshark15]

I modified my mun lander to go to duna, with very little extra weight

8.87t on pad

almost into orbit

separating ion engine and solar panels

touchdown

[koshelenkovv]

125 ton manned Moho mission with rover and return - http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/36366-To-Moho-and-back

I finicking with Laythe SSTO now.

[Spaceisbeautifulul]

I took this little ship to Vall

It's the smallest Manned ship I've seen, but unmanned could certainly be smaller.

Nice video, have some rep.

I might chop up something later, just give me a couple minutes.

[tavert]

Thanks to Johnno for showing us a better design avenue, I got a legit orbit at 1.075 tons. Very good piloting might be able to pull off different permutations of this type of design at 1.04, I couldn't quite make that work.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

Aaaand, a 1-way probe to the Mun in 1.63 tons, total of 21.47 units of fuel.

Javascript is disabled. View full album

[tavert]

Very similar design, 1.55 tons to Minmus:

Javascript is disabled. View full album

[metaphor]

This is my trip to Duna and back on 2.93 tons with a Kerbal onboard. All stock, not even Mechjeb! (although I miss the nice readouts)

Javascript is disabled. View full album

[Dkmdlb]

my examples

...

and for smallest to mun landing:

...

8.51 tons on pad

...

final stage

...

and landing

Why are you placing legs on your lander? Do they not weigh anything?

[blueshark15]

I was not sure the ant engine would slow it down enough to land on the engine without it blowing, if i were to do it again i would remove them.

[Mr Shifty]

This is my trip to Duna and back on 2.93 tons with a Kerbal onboard. All stock, not even Mechjeb! (although I miss the nice readouts)

Dear Science! This is one of the most impressive things I have seen on the forums. My hat is off to you!

Edited June 27, 2013 by Mr Shifty

[HoY]

Heres my 1.472 tonne Minmus lander. (1.472 t on the pad)

it uses the Rokomax 48-7S stack mount little orange engine from KSPX, and the rules say not to use overpowered or unbalanced mods. KSPX is neither of those engineer and mj2 also onboard

In the VAB

Just after stage 1 seperation

Landed on Minmus. still some extra fuel onboard!

[tavert]

it uses the Rokomax 48-7S stack mount little orange engine from KSPX, and the rules say not to use overpowered or unbalanced mods. KSPX is neither of those

It seems to me like the stack-mount small Rockomax in KSPX should really have the same stats as the stock radial one, instead of slightly worse TWR but substantially better Isp. Due to the Isp difference, the same design with the stock radial engine doesn't work (enough delta-V to get out to Minmus, but not enough to land): http://imgur.com/a/9lyyu#0