The incredible adventures of Fido the Rescue Rover

[MiniMatt]

Built for Xeldrak's Better Stock Craft: Rover + Skycrane challenge a mere two months after the challenge actually ended (ahem) Fido was designed as a hypothetical replacement for the stock Rover + Skycrane craft.

Main aim was to make the skycrane useful after deployment rather than just more debris (something I'm all too good at making all on my own). To this end it's equipped with much more fuel allowing for return trips from many bodies, landing lights and legs, much less savage TWR, a high gain antenna such that it can relay scientific readings from the rover and act as a target for bouncing laser beams off (I know - not really relevant in KSP, but, well, imagination). The rover was also improved, maintaining 6-wheel drive & low centre of mass whilst adding RCS powered roll-recovery, RTG power in addition to solar, and a command chair for rescue missions.

The Incredible Adventures of Fido the Rescue Rover!

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Overall mass goes up to a (slightly chubby) 3.4 tons and part count up by 11 to 63.

With ~1,500 vacuum delta-v (sans passenger) Fido is capable of landing at and returning to orbit around:

Mun, Minmus, Ike, Dres, Bop, Pol and Gilly

... where dozens of stranded crash happy Kerbals litter my save files.

Further it's capable of one-way first contact science missions at:

Duna, Moho, Eeloo and Val

Strap on some parachutes and one way missions to Laythe & Eve should also be possible.

It's also capable of making a very pretty crater on Tylo.

Thrust to weight ratio tweaked to be just above 1 on Kerbin to allow for testing - this still allows for controllable landings on Mun and Minmus but may want to further tweak down for lighter bodies (and likely descend on RCS alone at Gilly).

Afix upside down atop a rocket of your choosing using an appropriate fixing (eg. docking port for rescue missions, stack seperator for one way missions). Initially Fido is configured with front wheel steering and six wheel drive. Remember steering and motor power can be individually toggled for each wheel to suit conditions and battery power. As with all rovers, one may find control is more stable when using the docking mode controls (lower left).

Fido is equipped with RCS thrusters to enable self-righting after a roll and to allow for a "hop" up to the base station docking port when parking.

Fido makes just one use of part-clipping. Part clipping is something I'm rather down upon in Xeldrak's BSC challenges as I feel it hinders a new player's ability to decipher the inner workings of a stock craft. In this instance however I feel justified in using it - the RTG generator is clipped inside the octagonal scaffold at Fido's hindquarters. Here I feel clipping makes sense from an engineering perspective (that really is just scaffold around an empty space - may as well fill that void with something useful), and from a new player perspective in that the result is clearly visible externally without disassembly; plus the clipping is detailed in the in-game description along with instructions on how to do it (ie. Alt-F12).

Craft file is here

[HazelPine]

Awesome! Could have won the challenge too, if it wasn't 2 months late...

[GPoliceMZ]

Your Rover/Lander Design is pretty Good. I will integrade it into my Space Program . Thanks!

[Justin Kerbice]

nice story and design.