Can you get this in orbit?

[Kerbonautical]

While I understand this challenge may be minor to some people here it seemed like a good challenge for any of the new players who we picked up along the way during Steam's summer sale (myself included) or any other new players, while also hopefully learning a bit more about efficient design personally too. So here's my challenge.

I have a moderately heavy space tug that is going to be making it's way to Duna and hopefully well beyond in time. It weighs 82.02 tonnes and is made from all stock parts. The challenge is to take this into a 100Km stable orbit around Kerbin without tapping in to any of the fuel reserves of the tug and without adding any modded parts. If you complete the challenge and are happy to upload the file of the finished spacecraft I would also really appreciate the opportunity to deconstruct your work and see what I could be doing better.

I apologize if this seems like a bit of a pathetic challenge to many of you more experienced players but hopefully there's someone who can find a bit of fun from it too. Here's the craft file.

http://www./?c8cmw4cg8eomaw5

[The Destroyer]

Well, I'll go try.

But does it need to be stock?

[Kerbonautical]

Well, I'll go try.

But does it need to be stock?

Ideally but I'd still be interested in seeing how it can be performed with mods provided they are relatively well balanced. I know that a 3.75m base is very handy when launching large sections like this. Only reason I stick to stock is because my laptop can't really handle mods too well.

[Elsig]

Here's how I did it. I'm sure there's more efficient ways, but this works.

13 orange tanks

7 Mainsails

2 ASAS modules (needed for the torque, the new reaction wheels are two small)

Decouplers (decoupled asparagus style)

Struts, struts and more struts

All tanks are arranged in asparagus style. The outer 6 tanks have no engines (fuel only)

The challenge was to get your contraption into orbit and this does the job. However, your module is very wobbly. You need to add more struts to make it stable...I didn't do that, i did exactly what you asked. Got it into a stable orbit with all the tanks still full.

Only Mod I used was Mechjeb for the delta v stats. Didn't use it for ascent. I made it into 100k orbit with 100 Delta V left in the last Orange tank (the one you see floating away in the photo).

Edited August 3, 2013 by Elsig

[Kerbonautical]

Color me impressed. I've spent a good number of hours trying a variety of different builds using MJ to assess delta v too but never found a sweet spot. Seems I was looking at things the wrong way and trying to downsize my vessel to compensate for the weight. No wonder mine kept collapsing on itself. You've given me a lot of food for though in my design techniques.

Also I realized after testing a number of builds that the majority of the fuel tanks were not supported as well as I hoped. I didn't consider the kind of force it would be subject to when being pushed to orbit by another rocket and had only tested the tug on it's own before so I do apologize for leaving you with a horribly wobbly payload. I'm extremely impressed that you managed to get it to hold together under the thrust of 7 mainsails without adding any additional support to it.

[Elsig]

You're welcome. I can share the craft file if that would help. Is there an easy way to share craft files (ala image sharing sites like tinypic?). I never share files so have no idea.

[Kerbonautical]

You're welcome. I can share the craft file if that would help. Is there an easy way to share craft files (ala image sharing sites like tinypic?). I never share files so have no idea.

No need to worry, I had a mess around with a similar design going by your description and managed to launch it into orbit finally! After adding some struts to the top section too it managed to get there with 220 delta V left so it's more than capable. Hopefully the tug and lander will be capable too since they have a combined Delta V of around 9000.

I just had to search for a site for the first time to upload that craft actually. Never used any others but mediafire was quick and I didn't even need to stop off at my email to confirm registration.

[DaveofDefeat]

Never fear Dave is here!

If its worth doing its worth overdoing!

http://www./download/vqq6w807n7qurjx/Dunar_Tug.craft

[Kerbonautical]

Never fear Dave is here!

If its worth doing its worth overdoing!

http://www./download/vqq6w807n7qurjx/Dunar_Tug.craft

Wow that's one enormous launcher! Yep, definitely realizing that larger craft hold themselves together better than I thought