KST Nabukodonosor: a heavy tanker with 448t (14 jumbos) of fuel payload

[Elington]

Hi All,

Kerbal Petroleum and the Ascent Komputronics Society are happy to present the "KST Nabukodonosor" supertanker!

KST Nabukodonosor "B"- large docking port

Payload specs:

Total mass: 533.3t

Available fuel on orbit: 448t (= 14 jumbo-64 tanks)

Monopropellant: 2250L (about 1/3 spent during the ascent)

Orbital maneuvering configuration (discarding the last launcher stage fuel reserve):

Payload + 1 jumbo-64 tank + 1 Mainsail engine => available DeltaV 185 m/s

Launcher specs

A. Structure

974 parts

3870t takeoff mass (dry mass = 1150t)

Asparagus layout, in jettisoning order:

- 4 stages of 6 lateral boosters each (4 x 6 x [2 x jumbos-64 + 1 x Mainsail]),

- 2 stages of 6 main lift elements each (2 x 6 x [2 x jumbos-64 + 1 x Mainsail]),

- 1 central stage of 6 main lift elements (1 x 6 x [2 x jumbos-64 + 1 x Mainsail])

B.Performance (Ascent Komputron design and analysis)

TWR: average 1.75, min 1.4

Fuel reserve at 100 km circular LKO: 60t (among which 32t from the orbit maneuvering stage) for a total of about 335m/s of DeltaV (with no loss of payload)

C.Test Flight

Flight Plan (Ascent Komputron's optimizer result)

Boosters jettisoning sequence

End of injection phase

Final orbital data: 508.8t of fuel = payload fuel + 60.8t reserve

Thank you for reading

David

Ascent Komputron topic: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/59899-NET-AscentKomputron-rocket-design-%28reads-craft%29-ascent-optimization-aerobraking

Edited February 5, 2014 by Elington

[theend3r]

Looks a bit unwieldy and difficult to (re)distribute fuel. I have something similar but in a more linear formation:

Other than that, your design is pretty awesome, keeping the tips of the boosters is an interesting idea.