What's the highest mass you've ever put into Kerbin orbit with a single ship?

[Awass]

My record is 101 tons using a hybrid asparagus-septaengine main stack, and I wish I could post a picture, but it says I can't post attachments. Anyone know why that is?

[Whackjob]

Use (img)file.ext(/img) only using [ and ] instead of ( and )

[Awass]

Use (img)file.ext(/img) only using [ and ] instead of ( and )

Words cannot describe.

[fcdrifter13]

2k tons cereal lifter, I am pretty sure that was its weight after all the fuel got out.

EDIT: 2k is its mass full of fuel, 600ton got put up there.

Edited October 7, 2013 by fcdrifter13

[Blue]

Trying to remember how much I got into orbit with this bad boy.

It transported the equivalent of 4 orange tanks plus 6 empties so that's at least 250 tons. I don't particularly like massive lifters because it "feels less realistic" to me. The only reason why it was launched in this way was because the payload (the core assembly there) was a Tylo/Laythe lander with a transport ship below it, and at the time large docking ports were not available stock yet, so it had to be well-strapped in onto a single 1.5m port.

Were large docking ports available, this would've been two launches, both with dry fuel tanks, and then locked with four large docking ports. In the future I don't plan to ever have launchers of size greater than this unless I'm intentionally being redonkulous, and even then, I've got a long way to go before I impress myself again, considering this forum...

[Whackjob]

My first one is nice. This one will be its bigger brother. Instead of 4 full fuel tanks it should lift twenty-seven.

But I cannot honestly submit it because it is not yet done and not yet in orbit.

[Awass]

My first one is nice. This one will be its bigger brother. Instead of 4 full fuel tanks it should lift twenty-seven.

But I cannot honestly submit it because it is not yet done and not yet in orbit.

Well be sure to put up some pics when you do

[Requiem762]

whackjob wins........ again

[arq]

The biggest I ever did was a 409t payload. Ofc, I can't compete with the likes of Whackjob...

[Ghost13]

The heavies thing I put on the orbit was ~100 tons of payload for Eve lander\return mission. Things help if you go to the minimum stable LKO such as 72-73 km.

I never really needed to put more than 100 tons per launch since you can always split the mission into getting the hardware and the fuel to the orbit.

[Vector]

Whackjob I have to hand it to you, I have tried to make large rockets and it always ends with magnificent explosions, half the time before leaving the pad.

I can see a certain pattern to your designs, with struts attached to girder segments instead of to the tanks directly. It also appears all the tanks stack in tall columns with nothing but struts between them, with no radial connections at all. Can you describe the experiences that led you to these designs and why they work well?

[alacrity]

the largest in tonnage I evermanaged to get into space was 57 tonnes.

Most parts in a single launch was 367 parts on the ground and 215 in orbit.

alacrity

[Fendleton]

The largest I've done is probably about 130 tons. Usually I limit things to 75t maximum, since I'm on a laptop and large craft tend to be problematic anyway.

[DaveofDefeat]

I can only get 500 tons up stock at the present, but im looking into this "welding" parts thing to see if I cant build some more.

[Merinsan]

The largest I ever did was 5 orange tanks, whatever that weighs. Since then, I decided to never do so again!

My standard fuel tanker is about 3.5 orange tanks, with structure, 2 nukes and 2 big RCS tanks.

[NGTOne]

2800 tons, with this bad boy.

Lag-tastic, but it made it to Eve (as planned).

Whackjob, care to compare notes?

[MrPopcup]

So far 120 tons into 500 / 250 km, in one launch then sent another one to carry it all the way to the moon! I'll post pictures when I go home

P.S: a guy requested to get this to the mun and i did it.. Some of you may have seen that.

[KatzOhki]

Probably around 49-60 tons. Not even really on purpose, but I made it into orbit with my core stage intact. You know what would be cool is if KSP tracked these kind of metrics for us. Not sure how it could be done to track most mass into orbit though.

[Neko]

>1kt with all stock, ~1600 parts, 14*5 Mainsail boosters with 140 Jumbo-64 fuel tanks and payload is - 49 LV-N with 28 Jumbo-64 (~12km/s delta-v)

But such amount of fuel and ship itself is pretty useless. Most fun was achived in construction time, so since i am using FAR, it makes sense to rebuild it with proper aerodynamics...

Javascript is disabled. View full album

[Whackjob]

Whackjob I have to hand it to you, I have tried to make large rockets and it always ends with magnificent explosions, half the time before leaving the pad.

I can see a certain pattern to your designs, with struts attached to girder segments instead of to the tanks directly. It also appears all the tanks stack in tall columns with nothing but struts between them, with no radial connections at all. Can you describe the experiences that led you to these designs and why they work well?

I'm a sucker for really well thought out and phrased questions.

Sure. Whenever I build big, there's a certain beast I have to slay. I call it resonant stress calving. Struts are GREAT at keeping things from moving. The problem is with the really large scale structures, during launches and thick atmospheric decelerations, is that significant stresses can build up. I can't say for sure, but I imagine the stresses reflecting back and forth from one end of the craft to another, like in those physics games where link get redder the more stress they have. Struts don't have any give to them. If they give even a little, they snap. And the number of struts used seems to not have much effect on the resonant stress calving. While I was toying about with making handmade lander gear, I went with trusses instead of girders. During one of the many tests I did where I never even bothered to take pictures, I had one drop test going where I had a significant weight being dropped onto a prototype set of heavy lander legs. The feet survived, even down to the "toes", with nary a snapped girder anywhere. However, components I just had strutted on had sheared clean off. Adding more struts did nothing. Then I suddenly noticed that parts of the lander legs had as few as one strut, and they held up fine. I realized that a combination of girders and struts can hold parts fast and secure, but still flex a bit under fantastic stresses.

So, from there on out, girders and struts.

[Whackjob]

2800 tons, with this bad boy.

Lag-tastic, but it made it to Eve (as planned).

Whackjob, care to compare notes?

Certainly. What mod are those tanks and engines? Is that novatech? What is the thrust and ISP of those engines?

[bsalis]

656 ton to LKO

Only really built it to see what was possible with a certain design approach.

[LtHeckard]

My Mun Station

[Meltro]

Not sure how much this weighs, but the tanks are full. Uses stock parts (minus MechJeb module, I need to launch five of these to fuel one of my ships and I just don't have the time).

[Hello moto]

whackjob wins........ again

Yeah I agree