BSC: Kerbal X - We have a winner!

[zekes]

soooo has anyone tried mine?

[Deathsoul097]

Or mine? 10CHAR

[700NitroXpress]

Your rockets for the challenge? ^^

[fireblade42]

From the Kerbal X's description of being on of the most successful rockets, I put together my most successful lifter designs with a very Mun capable payload. It also had the ability to scale to the payload by changing the number of outer tank stacks.

I usually follow a launch profile that I got from one of Scott Manley's videos, keep it <200m/s while under 10km then full throttle at orbit prograde until apoapsis is ~100km then coast up and circularize.

in the VAB

diagram of the major parts of this setup

Album of it on a mission to the Mun

Craft file

[vetrox]

Right. I've been hard at work testing my attemp. See end of post for a details regarding the various design decisions and explenations for various things.

I present "The Ambitious". Function over form. I was tempted to make something more inspiring but thought i would keep it simple as we are aming these at new players

Plenty of fuel left over, even with sloppy ascent profiles. Enough fuel to get to both mun and minmus and with super duper carefull launch window planning it may even reach and return from duna. No landing legs on this one its purely for visiting and creating debris (I like rings of debris in ksp)

Craft file here

Purchased at a used rocket dealership. We were assured by a salesman that "The ambitious" is able to visit the two nearest celestial bodies and come home.

Our engineers aren't quite sure whats under the protective shroud at the top of the rocket but Kerbanaughts enter through a secret hatch under the parachute.

There was a hastily scrawled note from the previous owner "I didnt purchase the optional "landing" pack. Land at your own risk"

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Halfway through that album i made a quick update. Moved solar panels and put the engineer on the final stage for the photo flight. Dont worry the craft file is all stock. I also made a quick change since that album. The orientation of the outer tanks was changed slightly so the craft is more stable during the final asparagus stage (with 2 outer tanks remaining)

She went through alot of testing. Initial craft were all mainsails. This proved succesfull however when launching straight up the high g forces at full throttle would tear the ship to pieces. All skipper engines would get her to orbit but it was a bit more difficult so i opted for a central mainsail, with the droptanks using skippers. This provides an excellent TWR all the way up.

Now I probably wont win this due to lack of landing gear. However i really wanted the whole space module to be covered by a shroud. I made a few designs to incorperate landing legs withing a shroud but the part counts were getting a bit too high so i had to decide between functionality or looks. I went for looks as it wouldnt take much for a new player to take the shroud off and slap some legs on it plus it will inspire them to shroud or get one of the mods that has them.

Early tests I tried to put one of the big reaction wheels (these were the "all mainsail" tests) and those things are weak. With a TWR on the ground of 3.1 the reation wheel would fall off the bottom, taking the central engine with it. Or if it was further up, the kraken would come out and devour the ship!

It does have plenty of dv to land and take off from the mun however on its test flight i was reminded how weak the thin stack seperators are (the hastily scribbled note does state about landing at your own risk. However my shroud is seup just as i like it (with the parachute poking through the top)

I will test everyones craft when the first round of voting starts.

Edited November 15, 2013 by vetrox
Poor Grammar

[Andrew Hansen]

For my entry, I present to you the Kerbal X Revised!

From the VAB Description:

The Kerbal X Revised has plenty of fuel to comfortably take three Kerbals out to either Minmus or the Mun and return them back to Kerbin safely.

Designed by Kiphirdington Kerman (although most of the KSC staff just call him Kifton), it is one of the most reliable rockets in the Kerbal Space Center.

Action group 1 toggles solar panels.

Why vote for the Kerbal X Revised?

• Enough fuel in the transfer stage to go to Duna, and enough in the landing stage to land on the Mun.
  
• 77 parts (one part less than the stock version!).
  
• No part clipping.
  
• All stages designed with high TWR for easy maneuvering (every stage has a TWR above one!).
  
• Uses asparagus staging.
  
• Mainsails don't overheat (EDIT: It's because 0.22 changed heat production from 500 to 400).
  
• Very stable lander with high-placed landing legs and radial engines. A single ladder extends all the way down to the ground.
  
• Lander capable of putting itself right-side up if it falls over on the Mun.
  
• Able to touch down at 13 m/s without damage.
  

Download link for .craft file.

To the Mun!

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Off to Minmus!

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EDIT: Minor changes were made to .craft file. Sepatrons are positioned slightly differently and no longer "damage" anything as they fire. Also, the solar panels were assigned to action group 1.

Edited November 18, 2013 by Andrew Hansen

[Johnno]

soooo has anyone tried mine?

In my view you've failed to produce a valid entry. The spirit of this challenge was to improve on the Kerbal X, not to design a craft with a separate lander thus forcing rendezvous and/or docking.

[Xeldrak]

You've all been added (I hope).

Sorry for the delay, I was rather busy yesterday.

[mhoram]

Updated my entry.

News: can now land on Minmus and return, added Asparagus-stagig

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/58037-BSC-Kerbal-X-Start-building!?p=777665&viewfull=1#post777665

[mpink]

It's the "quickly" part of getting heavy stuff off the planet that makes it less efficient. You don't really want to get going too fast too soon, or you waste a lot of delta-V to drag.

Standard asparagus staging is the most efficient way to launch because it sheds maximum weight as you go, while maintaining a near-liftoff TWR for the whole burn. If a craft has a decent TWR at launch (I shoot for 1.3-1.5), it will have excessive TWR after staging off a few sets of drop tanks. Anything above 2.5-3 really is overkill, if that kind of TWR is needed at any point then the ascent profile is... shall we say "interesting"? If you're going for efficiency it's better to drop the engines with the tanks, decreasing the dry mass and increasing overall delta-V.

Not saying this method is bad, just that it values launch speed over efficiency. We can afford that in KSP!

Yeah its an odd craft.

It starts with a very low TWR (1.1 ish). I am under the impression that we should be trying to maintain terminal velocity for most the most efficient launch so dose this not mean we should be pushing for max G force at around 15K M ?

Looking at my images it only makes 4.5 G so its not too crazy and at 32K M when it dumps its main drive section it was going 2K M/s so there is no insane drag of aerodynamic effects.

Its designed for direct ascent so i dont think it dose a very good job as an orbital drive section where you would want lower G over a longer time at a higher altitude.

I think my main concerns come from useless mass. Adding 0.4 mass to each LV 30 just bugs me.

I should have used t-400's with fuel lines and jettison the center LV 45 when it gets lighter (runs out of fuel).

Doing so results in dropping all the tanks before doing any turning witch is a bonus but i wanted to use the structural fuselage as it demonstrates a different cross fuel feeding method.

Dose anyone know if the craft suffers from more drag as the drive sections are not node connected to the drop tanks ?

Im guessing that it dose not and that KSP isnt that complex with its drag yet.

Doing further testing iv decided to change my craft to update the description adding.

Bigger is not better !

To Convert into a Mun lander replace fuselage's with t-400's and the Poodle with an LV-909

-----May-Require-Additional-Parts------

Legs, Ladder, solar panels & fuel lines

I found these changes resulted the drive section reaching around 3K M/s at 45K M.

Although landing 3 kerbals using just an LV-909 is somewhat tricky due to low TWR it had more than enough fuel to get me there and back.

With the original craft using 3.25 orange tanks its coming in at one of the lightest 3 kerbal craft so far

Im very much looking forward to test flying all the craft before voting. Theres some very interesting designs out there. Iv not tried any of them yet as entry's often get changed and i dont want to vote on an old version of a craft. Im most looking forward to reading all the descriptions though.

[Rhomphaia]

Finally got around to taking some pics.

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entry post has been updated, craft file unchanged.

[Carl]

Achhh forgot my screenshot doesn't include a proper name when i took it. The actual name in the Craft file is "Kerbal X V1.0"

[NeilC]

Yes, for optimal launch under KSP's drag model you want to maintain terminal velocity - but you want to get to terminal ASAP.

At sea level terminal is about 100m/s, and rises exponentially - there's a table on the wiki. Because drag causes huge losses while low in the atmosphere, you want to get through that quickly - a good KSP ascent profile is usually straight up until ~6-10km depending on TWR, then pitch over and start your gravity turn.

Why pitch over? Because of another kind of loss: gravity. As long as your thrust is straight up, gravity gets subtracted directly from your accel force. When you pitch over, you get to "keep" the horizontal component of your velocity as orbital speed - gravity doesn't reduce that. While you're ascending vertically, 1G's worht of thrust is wasted just hovering - you only get "credit" for anything above TWR=1.

That means, for your craft's 1.1 TWR, at launch you are accelerating at 0.1G, or roughly 1m/s per s (1m/s^2, unit of acceleration). At that rate, even with your mass constantly decreasing due to fuel burnage, you won't reach 100m/s for 60-70s. About 80% of the fuel you burned for that minute is totally wasted - very inefficient. If you had a launch TWR of 2 instead, only 50% of the fuel you burn for 10s would be wasted - much better way to get to terminal velocity.

An optimal ascent would be to reach 100m/s instantly (or as close to instantly as possible - think high initial TWR using small SRBs), then maintain terminal velocity (~1.2-1.5 TWR) straight up until about 8km, then start pitching over and give'er all you got while remaining just under terminal. Above 20,000km you should always have your throttle pegged - you'd need a crazy TWR just to keep up with how fast terminal velocity is increasing at that altitude.

I'll post soon with my Kerbal X design, its launch is something like that.

[Death Engineering]

Death Engineering Presents...

The "KB X-11" with "KB X Command Module"!

Features:

• 158 parts, 152t
  
• Named for the 11 engines that fire at launch
  
• Tested as a Mun orbiter or one-way Mun lander and a return capable Minmus lander for three crew
  
• Docking capable
  
• No debug clipping
  
• Control through aerodynamic and thrust vectoring (one of the 11 engines)
  
• Demonstrates simple clustering, asparagus staging, and structural reinforcement
  
• Tidy RCS tanks and battery placement
  
• Solar panels do not need to be deployed
  
• Stable, stress tolerant lander
  

KB X Command Module

Description:

This craft is very easy to fly and get into orbit. It demonstrates building techniques such as clustering, asparagus staging, internal fuel lines, simple "no debug" clipping and using action groups. No throttling back during ascent is required, just point-and-shoot. I've tried gravity turns at 10km, 14km and 20km and got into orbit easily with all attempts. Munar orbits are easily done, but Munar landings are a little tight on fuel (returns from Mun are not likely). Minmus landings and returns are also easily done.

Action groups:

• G - Deploy landing gear and ladder
  
• 2 - Open/close docking port
  
• 5 - Deploy chutes and jettison service module
  
• 9 - Toggle CM engine
  

Craft file: KB X-11 with KB X Command Module

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Edited November 16, 2013 by Death Engineering

[briansun1]

@ Xeldrak I finish my entry it's on page 7

[timemaster]

timemaster

The "Kerlington 1000"; it's very similar to the Kerbal X but with a few additions

: An engine cluster on the upper stage

: An escape tower

: Aerospikes on the lower aspargus staged boosters

and the return

Craft file: https://www./view/2x9jl9crw91t0gc/Kerlington_1000.craft

Edited November 17, 2013 by timemaster

[I_Killed_Jeb]

Introducing the Meercurio Alpha!

.craft

Description

After the spectacular failure of the Rockomax Moho-7 Program, blamed primarily on the fact that the entire rocket was built out of boosters, the KSC-led Meercurio series of liquid-fueled rockets was born. Initially designed to be a really large fireworks display, the Meercurio rockets feature innovative vegetable-y staging and an in-cockpit keyboard that curiously only features two random integers. Be warned, these "spaceships" have been rumored to have been created to speed up the natural selection of Kerbalkind...

==Action Groups==

6 - Ladder

7 - Legs

Design Principles & Thoughts

Kerbal-X is kind of a difficult ship to "improve" on. What's its purpose? Orbiter? Direct ascent lander? It's a perfectly capable ship for taking its payload to Kerbin orbit, and it that sense really doesn't need "betterment." So I decided to take a slightly different take on it using the 1-man capsule, an often neglected part, because I feel it's important for new players to "think small" once in a while too. I also wanted to use other lesser-used parts like the pylon, which helps demonstrate that widening the landing legs creates a more stable base. Other than this, I've maintained the look and feel of the original Kerbal-X including asparagus-staged boosters. As a small addition, I've put parachutes on every booster, it makes me feel more NASA-y and if KSP implements debris recovery for inventory/$$ purposes, this should hopefully help with that. But mainly the goal is NASAness.

The Meercurio Alpha is a versatile ship designed for manned exploration of the Kerbin system. Its orbital stage and direct-ascent lander should have more than enough juice to travel to the surface of mun or minimus and return home safely. I've noticed that recently the trend has been to fully max out the science in every ship, and I consciously tried to move away from that to build a simpler craft (92 total parts, a dozen less than my heavy lander!). Of course, if a person downloading my ship would like, the design is versatile and powerful enough to handle science jr containers and goo pods without significantly changing mission parameters (it has unnecessarily excessive electricity stored for this very purpose). As always, I keep clipping to a minimum (zero in this particular case) so anyone regardless of experience shouldn't have a problem taking the boat apart and putting it back together again with modifications of their choice. It's a rock solid rocket so I didn't add an escape system or action group, though the lander stage should be able to escape a catastrophic launch on its own.

Pics!

(N.B. The munar mission pictures used a prototype rocket with the only difference being an adapter part which I changed for better aesthetics)

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Edited November 16, 2013 by I_Killed_Jeb

[mcirish3]

OH crud, totally forgot about this challenge. How much time do I have?

[Blaster]

Reynard Rockets steps up with another simple yet crazy contraption. This is the Reynard Apex Munar Ship. The RAMS features just enough fuel to make a munar landing and back, but without going overboard on orange tanks! Reynard Rockets successfully landed 5 variations of this ship on the Mun, every one with enough fuel to return to Kerbin with haste. The keen observer will note that the RAMS is comprised of the Reynard Apex Ascent Rocket (RAAR) and the Reynard Orbital Fast Lander (ROFL).

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Unlike previous flights, Reynard Rockets has decided to release the flight video in all its unedited glory, showcasing the ability of the RAMS to perform successfully, even when there are piloting errors or technical difficulties.

Get your RAMS here: Download

Edited November 16, 2013 by Blaster

[pedorsf]

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VMT is a manned vehicle able to land on the mun an return without any difficulty and probably go from the mun ground to a minmus landing an return. Please aim for a 75Km orbit

Download: http://www./view/6cbs29hifn8uwrb/VMT.craft

Edited November 16, 2013 by pedorsf

[Giggleplex777]

Kerbal G

The Kerbal G is designed to be the spiritual successor to the Kerbal X. With its crossfeeding boosters and (totally advanced) fuel flow system, it can go a tiny bit farther than its predecessor. As an added bonus, the Core Booster contains a probe core so you can pilot it after jettisoning it.

A LES is included just in case a certain Kerbalnaut is piloting the rocket. It is advised to jettison the escape tower right after jettisoning the boosters.

The Kerbal G is capable of achieving orbit around the Mun and with its very optimistic parachutes in case you what to bring the Kerbals home! In one piece! It even comes with a docking port and a bit of RCS for those want to wa... I mean spend more time in space.

Features:

- Autonomous control

- Fixed and deployable solar panels

- Working LES

- RCS and docking port

- Docking light

- SCIENCE! (pretty useless in sandbox)

- Can withstand 4x physicswarp

- Snacks

Action Groups:

Backspace- Abort (only during booster burn)

1- Toggle anntena

2- Toggle SCIENCE!

3- Toggle Solar-collecting -thingies

9- Deploy parachute

0- Jettison LES

Warranty void if:

- Used to land on the Mun

- Thrusty-things are pointing the wrong way

- ...you run out of snacks

Download it here: Kerbal G

Edited November 16, 2013 by Giggleplex777
Fixed spelling mistakes

[XolotlLoki]

Introducing the Delta X, an asparagus-staged heavy lift booster with a direct ascent Mun lander on top. It was inspired by the Delta IV Heavy and Falcon Heavy. The craft is capable of Mun landing and return to Kerbin, all with the CSM still attached (though it can be jettisoned if desired). It includes ladders for easy Munar EVA.

Delta X defines the following action groups:

1. Toggle torque
   
2. Toggle ladders
   
3. Activate parachute
   
4. Cut parachute
   

I documented my Direct Ascent Mun mission. I was able to land on the Mun, and return to KSC with my entire CSM intact. I splashed down just north of the beach.

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Craft file.

[Pulsar]

Pulsar Aerospace proudly present the "Impulse 3 MMO" (Manned Mun Orbiter). A simple rocket that capable to orbit around the Mun and return.

For extra safety, It also come with Launch Escape System.

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Part counts: 95

Delta-V: Approx 7660

Surface TWR: 2.2

Action Groups

1: Toggle Solar Panel

2: Run science experiments

Abort: Escape System

CRAFT HERE

Edited November 18, 2013 by Pulsar

[Nao]

Ohhh finally i get to design something before thread closes

Since now we have career mode i think Kerbal X should be more of an inspiration and technology showcase craft for the sandbox rather than a learning tool. Thats why i decided on a more complicated craft that is "easy to get into but hard to master".

I present you The HexaDragon launch system. (former KEX)

Features!

Triangular based design

Around 8000m/s dV to play with

Additional 1000m/s with optional 3 kerbal escape pod.

Landing legs for landing on moons and smaller planets.

Replayable (flexible) design, allowing the player to reach more distant targets through use of creativity and cleverness. (escape pod as a lander, use of drop tanks, special fuel management and manual decoupling)

Nuclear free!

Design:

- 132 parts (82 for lander) including 12 struts only for launcher that serve mostly educational purpose.

- Minimal clipping (present mostly in optional escape pod)

- No asparagus (standard) launch system

- Includes solid boosters for first stage

- Drop tank system (lander)

- Followed by asparagus (lander)

- Optional use of RCS propulsion on escape pod.

Usage:

- Fully stable on launchpad without stability enhancers, no wobble in flight

- High starting TWR for stunning liftoff

- No calories, no overheats

- No pollution! launch debris stay in atmosphere.

- Design encourages better flight profiles (stable and sluggish at first, nimble at gravity turn, long burn time for changing to horizontal flight)

- 6 landing legs giving stability and redundancy, 2 level landing area illumination.

- Emergency "escape pod" in case of crash, lack of fuel, or other mishaps like loss of control, tipping over during landing etc.

- Parachute system that gently rotates the ship into right position when deployed

- Excitement increasing system! Creating harmless explosion at touchdown

- Possible return in escape pod to Kerbin

- Enough thrust for powered landings on Kerbin

Educational/showcase

- ascent efficiency highly dependent on flight profile, not hard to get to orbit, but allows for lot of improvement over several ascents. (refining bad habits)

- drop tanks + asparagus staging, shows the difference in a less stressful environment (than ascent)

- use of angled (rotated) parts, notably landing legs, boosters and fuel tanks.

- RCS for small craft propulsion, idea of emergency systems.

- encourages no debris left in orbit.

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HexaDragon craft file.

More pictures will be uploaded if i have time . Oh and if anybody feels like ascent TWR is too low, i have reasoning for that but that's for another post/discussion (in short it makes the player think and let's him learn something).

Edited November 17, 2013 by Nao

[BlazeFallow]

Ladies and Gentlekerbs, may I present the Kerbal XD. A re-envisioning of the Kerbal X incorporating the Delta Heavy design.

When Jeb saw the folks out at "that space agency which shall not be named" developing their Delta series lifters he decided it was pretty sweet that they had really big boosters on their rocket so he stole, er... appropriated their design documents. Upon looking over the designs it quickly became apparent that their Delta system obviously had the same fatal flaw that all of their rockets seem to have: not enough boosters. So here we've added more boosters in a modified asparagus design so that even the boosters have boosters.

Design Details:

- 181 Parts in 8 stages.

- roughly 8000 dV

- Can be kept at full throttle without worrying about lost efficiency to drag until the gravity turn when the rocket should be throttled back to 2/3 power.

- Separatrons implemented for clean separation of boosters.

- Plenty of SAS torque for easy maneuverability.

- Weight of atmospheric maneuvering devices (wings) drops away with the last set of booster tanks to get rid of useless mass.

- Capable of Mun and Minmus landings with (mostly*) safe return.

- 2 RTG's instead of solar panels for constant flow of power even in darkness.

- Escape Tower with enough TWR to flee from the burning pile of mistakes and regret your lifter may turn into at any point in flight. (Note: you'd have to be trying to break this rocket for it to be necessary)

*The escape tower can also provide an extra ~300 dV for extra boost to put you on a free return trajectory from the Mun. Depending on when you attempt your Mun escape (pro/retrograde), you may or may not need the extra dV

- Action groups:

1: Toggles ladders

0: To be used only during Emergency Abort Sequence. Once Escape Tower has burned out, toggle 0 to cut tower away and deploy chutes.

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Edited November 18, 2013 by BlazeFallow
Updated link to craft file