Realistic Solar System Crafts - MEGATHREAD

[HexYZAsh]

You should get StretchyTanks, Procedural Fairings, FAR and MFSC before you even try to make orbit.

I only use FAR, KIDS, KW, and Mechjeb for help and I get into orbit fine. I've gotten a space station up there with a fuel supply and everything. Here is the biggest rocket I have used; it carries 30t into orbit in RSS. It really looks sane. It resembles the Delta-iv heavy

http://imgur.com/XI45444

[Motokid600]

I only use FAR, KIDS, KW, and Mechjeb for help and I get into orbit fine. I've gotten a space station up there with a fuel supply and everything. Here is the biggest rocket I have used; it carries 30t into orbit in RSS. It really looks sane. It resembles the Delta-iv heavy

http://imgur.com/XI45444

Why use KIDS with RSS?

[Fenisse]

Why use KIDS with RSS?

Because he isn't using Real Fuels, which gives KIDS functionality (at least he didn't state he uses RF)

EDIT: It's Real Fuels, not Realism Overhaul.

Edited January 16, 2015 by Fenisse

[LaydeeDem]

Delta IV Medium Replica:

Uses all the right engines too.

EDIT:

The upper stage:

Edited January 19, 2015 by Nutt007

[Rabada]

I installed the Realism overhaul for the first time a week ago, and I have never been more addicted to KSP. I absolutely love what this community has done to this game. I really don't know what took me so long to try it out. I wouldn't be surprised if I have well over a thousand, if not two thousand hours into this game.

I was able to pick up realism overhaul pretty quickly, I learned most of what I needed to know to adjust to RSS scale from a very long game KSP with the 6.4x Kerbin system I have played before this. I am really enjoying the difficult. I play wil most major difficulty mods. I chose to skip Remote Tech for now, and unfortunately I had to uninstall engine ignitor because it cause massive FPS drops. I also decided the skip using EVE so I could install more parts instead.

I just recently finished the tech tree in career mode, and I have decided that I am going to design a fleet of boosters of varying sizes to save as sub-assemblies. I usually just make a new booster for every payload in regular KSP. Usually I can make a booster in 2 or 3 minutes stock.... Realism overhaul on the other hand it taking much longer.

My goal is to design a family of fairly realistic boosters that can launch a wide variety of payloads into orbit. I plan is to only use American engines. For a long time I have wondered what NASA could have done if it had stuck with Saturn style designs instead of investing in the Space Shuttle. I am still thinking of ideas for the actual missions I will use these rockets for.

Here is the first design that I have pretty much finalized:

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This is a small rocket that I use to fulfill satellite contracts in Kerbin's SOI to make money. The first stage is a solid rocket booster. it burns for 160s for 4,305 m/s of dV. The second stage is powered by a RL-10B-2 engine. With 5,460 dV I usually am able to reach a 300 or 400 km orbit with about 100-300 m/s of dV remaining. The second stage has a probe core hidden in it, so it can use its remaining fuel to de-orbit. This rocket launches a MMH/NTO powered satellite that weighs about 1.6t. It is a small simple rocket, but I have been very happy with it.

My current project is a SDHI based system to launch Kerbals into orbit. This design still has a few kinks that I am working out. The booster is a 2.5 stage design. The main stage is powered by a single RS-25D/e with 2 RL-10B-2 engines that act as vernier thrusters to give the main stage roll control. In its current configuration, it has 4 Aerojet AJ-73F SRBs that burn for 90 seconds. The main stage burns out 6 minutes and 10 seconds after launch. It's second stage is powered by 4 RL-10s, for only 2 minutes 43 seconds. Once I get better at getting into orbit in RSS, I will probably reduce the number of RL-10's it uses.

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[LaydeeDem]

Trying to build the Delta IV Heavy variant now. Oh god so much gimbal. This is what I get for asparagusing in RSS.

[Roikkeli]

Here's a skylon inspired ssto i made last October. Fully fuelled weight was around 275 tons if i remember correctly and empty weight 51.4 tons. Made to a 200km orbit just barely with 300 m/s delta-v left. Even managed to land it back to ksc.

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[Overfloater]

I flew to the Moon:

I also did a Mars+Phobos+Deimos mission, just don't know how i'm gonna make the mission report. Been messing with the footage for 2 months now and nothing good comes out

Edited January 24, 2015 by Overfloater

[Sparker]

Roikkeli, very nice Skylon! First i thought it was made of modular fuel tanks, but it turned out these were KW rocketry side fuel tanks

Overfloater, nice mission! You could at least share some pictures of your Mars mission, because there are not very many of them in the Internet actually!

[Fenisse]

I am getting ready to lower the... erm... "curtains"?

Yes, that was inside the VAB. You better not know how it was outside.

But I am a good person, and I'm going to show you anyway.

[Sparker]

Not a complete copy of Energia rocket, but looks nice anyway.

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[immelman]

Go big or go home! For my RO Mars mission I'm using my version of the proposed Apollo C-8 launch system, 4568 Tonnes, capable of more than 210 Tonnes to a 250km orbit.

Eight F1's in the first stage, Eight J-2's in the second, it's a monster

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Edited February 7, 2015 by immelman

[stratochief66]

Nice rocket, immelman! What do you intend to do in your RO Mars mission? I was recently fiddling with making Skylab into a crew habitat for a Mars orbital or flyby mission.

[immelman]

Nice rocket, immelman! What do you intend to do in your RO Mars mission? I was recently fiddling with making Skylab into a crew habitat for a Mars orbital or flyby mission.

I'd like to do a Mars transfer and landing using chemical fuel and in one launch, thus the C-8!

With using the third stage for the Mars transfer my mission mass is about 76-82 Tonnes, so I'm trying to shrink everything down!

Here is the lander, it's pretty much ready:

The Skylab is a great idea! I'm using a hitchhiker for living space and a rotating section for the three kerbal crew to sleep in. In reality this would be pretty small, but doable I think:

[Sparker]

Mars mission is good! I am also making one. What is your mars ascent vehicle?

[avi]

Here's a rocket that I call the Jupiter V Medium. It has the same dimensions as the saturn V, but the second stage engine is more powerful (I'm using the Energia lower stage engine for the second stage), the first stage has more fuel (it's the same size as the saturn V tank, but with utilization turned up to 100%), and I attached two space shuttle SRBs to the sides. If flown right, it could lift around 200T to LEO. Attached to it is a 45T lander with 9 km/s of delta-v I tried to use to land on Mars. Unfortunately, it was only aerodynamically stable face-down, so I just took it around Mars' moons. Like with the Saturn V, when not just carrying a payload to orbit, the third stage can be used as a transfer stage.

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After this I might try for a Jupiter V Heavy with cross-feed liquid boosters, or maybe a C-8 replica like Immelman impressively made.

[immelman]

Mars mission is good! I am also making one. What is your mars ascent vehicle?

I've gone with parachute assists, the lander uses it's engines to slow down more than a 1000 m/s before deploying the parachutes and then takes over again for the last 500m. I used the Apollo LEM descent engines for the landing stage, which also acts as the the first ascent stage.

[avi]

I may have to use that design myself, given what a failure my attempt was.

[GiantTank]

I want to lift over 10,000 tons to LEO. Also return from venus in an inefficient way. So...

Yes, thats a ton of weight. 700,000 tons. The newer version pushes it to 900000. A 7GN SRB on the bottom. Also, this one only has 5 energia first stage engines (it was late). The new version, which I cant launch due to severe bugs in loading vessels in VAB, has 40.

The space center for scale. The booster is 70 meters wide (80 on newer) and around 400 meters tall.

This ship could likely go and lift upwards of 50,000 tons to LEO, though TWR on the ground would be a limiting factor. I would likely need additional SRBs on the side, boosters for a booster. Might also put up 2 or 3 space stations in one go, we can see about that.

Edited February 19, 2015 by GiantTank

[immelman]

Someone should get the Seadragon mod RO compatible:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/91043-Seadragon-for-24-2-official-release

That would solve large masses to orbit, It would have to be an ocean launch to be realistic though...

Edited February 20, 2015 by immelman

[Hattivat]

I'm pretty sure I've seen someone post a config for it in the main thread a month or two ago, haven't tried using it though.

[Sparker]

I may have to use that design myself, given what a failure my attempt was.

As I see not only I had problems with landing huge things on Mars...

My first design for a lander+ascent vehicle was this:

But the 10m heat shield couldn't decelerate this 80-ton thing good enough before it crashed into the surface. Attempts to create some lift by shifting center of mass were also unsuccessful, because FAR didn't like the fairings. Anyway i think that this classical design would work in real life if it could fly with some angle of attack.

Then i decided to try the lifting body reentry vehicle from NASA costellation video: http://youtu.be/uUBhn3_P3hU?t=2m35s

I also added some control surfaces for pitch and yaw control, and it works much better than the classical design. It creates enough lift so it's possible to actually fly it, and it can decelerate itself down to ~800m/s and even less before parachute deployment. The craft on the screenshots is ~20t with ~12t resource module inside, but with a bit larger fairing base(8m) it's also suitable to land ~70t payloads on Mars in the same way.

[Tankbuster32]

I recently downloaded RP-0, but I'm going to complete my first stock Laythe mission before really going into it. I will post stuff here.

[immelman]

As I see not only I had problems with landing huge things on Mars...

My first design for a lander+ascent vehicle was this:

http://i.imgur.com/QYF8Pul.png?1

But the 10m heat shield couldn't decelerate this 80-ton thing good enough before it crashed into the surface. Attempts to create some lift by shifting center of mass were also unsuccessful, because FAR didn't like the fairings. Anyway i think that this classical design would work in real life if it could fly with some angle of attack.

Landing on Mars is hard! Great NASA talk about it:

Problems:

- Purely using engines for descent will result in a huge payload to initially lift to orbit.

- Slowing down in Mars before deploying parachutes using engines probably wont work in reality since you have to light your motors in a MACH 3+ jet stream.

- Got to keep peak G forces down since the crew will have spent almost a year in low G.

- Supersonic parachutes on large masses.

I like your lifting body I lot, especially the ability to control your pitch!

[Tankbuster32]

I promised posts.

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