Riddle me this... How could I stack these for Multi Stage Deployment?

[Huntarr]

I built this Scansat and Kethane probe. Now I can't figure out a way to stack them for separation. I had the idea to carrier 3 stacked vertically. Any ideas. I hate to move the Kethane scanner, it seemed to be in just the right spot. Using KW Rocketry, Kethane & SCANsat parts mods for the sat.

Craft file attached

http://www.filedropper.com/sar

Edited February 1, 2014 by Huntarr
answered

[SuperBigD60]

How about a tricoupler?

[Skorpychan]

How about a tricoupler?

This. They seem compact enough for you to get away with that.

Otherwise, go radial!

Stick them on horizontally on the sides with radial adapters, and hold down with struts.

Use the 6-way adapter, and stick one probe on top, and two on side mounts. It's even got the ability to stack two more on!

I've found the radial adapter and horizontal probe idea works well, if you use enough struts. I've been able to toss a good many probes up like that.

[Soda Popinski]

I'm playing using FAR & Procedural Fairings, so this was my quad probe payload to my Jool mothership.

[Captain Sierra]

Using a tri-coupler, you can fit it into a 3.75m fairing easily. You MIGHT also be able to fit it into a 2.5m expanded, depending on your launch vehicle.

[Mystique]

Using a tri-coupler, you can fit it into a 3.75m fairing easily. You MIGHT also be able to fit it into a 2.5m expanded, depending on your launch vehicle.

Are you talking about KW fairings? Because for procedural ones size of payload is not a problem, it's just all about how stupid that fairing will look

P.S. What's the point of having ports on probes? Do you plan to collect them after scan?

[Geschosskopf]

Ya know.... It's usually a better idea to put Kethane and SCANsat on separate probes. For several reasons:

1. The SCANsat stuff needs a polar orbit but scanning for Kethane in a polar orbit is a waste of time. Seriously, you're never going to use any Kethane that's more than 20-30^ off the equator, if even that much, due to the amount of fuel you have to waste on the inclination changes both getting there and coming back. So put the Kethane probe in an orbit inclined about 30^, so it only needs to scan about 30^ of the surface area, which takes only 1/3 the time as doing the whole planet from a polar orbit. And while you're focused on this happening, your SCANsat probe in polar orbit can be mapping in the background without you having to watch.

2. Everything works best at a different altitude. With SCANsat, the Multispectral biome/anomaly thing needs to be between 240-270km while the hi-res color altimetry scanner needs to be 740-760km. Meanwhile, the Kethane scanner needs to be as low as possible where you can still warp 100x. This is because the Kethane scanner only scans 1 hex wide regardless of altitude, so to maximize hexes scanned per minute, you have to maximize orbital velocity. It actually takes the least GAMEtime if it's so low you can only warp 50x, but that takes too much REALtime so compromise where you can do 100x.

3. The Kethane scanner only needs 4 RTGs but can only tolerate 100x warp before coverage gets too spotty to be effective. The SCANsat stuff, however, with 4x Gigantor solar panels, can scan perfectly well at 10,000x warp, even in the background. Thus, Kethane probes can be small and light but SCANsat probes have to be bigger (at least if you've got multiple ships flying around and warp at high speed a lot). Thus, effective SCANsat probes are often too big to bundle easily, whereas you can easily bundle Kethane probes.

[Huntarr]

I love this community! Thanks for all the great ideas. I was lucky enough to make the probes very compact.

How about a tricoupler?

So f*ing simple and elegant. Thanks SuperBigD

Calling it the Six Shooter.

Side view

Top ViewView with 1st of 6 deployed

Ya know.... It's usually a better idea to put Kethane and SCANsat on separate probes. For several reasons:

Your right, may need to go back and tweek SAR/Kethane sat. The bottom 3 are RADAR/Multispecs.