SSTO 6-Kerbal Duna Lander (Rocket)

[horndgmium]

Here's a craft that took a bit to make. I went through and tweaked EVERYTHING multiple times trying to get first of all, the ability to send a single stage rocket up, and second of all, to be able to send 6 Kerbals up to my 250km space station. I ended up tweaking it so much that I managed to land six Kerbals on Duna with the same time (to be fair, I had 182 dV in my rocket right before aerobraking though).

Oh also... you need to turn off the large engine as soon as you feel comfortable/the bordome of waiting doesn't keep it on. I usually turn it off permanently as I coast to my orbital burn.

I took half of the fuel out of the Dragon command pod (which is gorgeous by the way) both to give the draft more dV and for lightness. Launch profile (since I only took before and after screenshots) was controlled entirely by MechJeb. 0.5km g-turn start at 85 degrees with 89km finish (which was too high) to a 250km orbit. Used the Mun for escape. I aerobraked on Duna at 9km trajectory which put my less than a couple hundred meters from a mountain . But my favorite part about the whole thing was that I made it to Duna in one stage (if you count the decoupling of the launcher as a second stage then I guess after landing it was two stages).

Oh and... if you use it you'll probably want either another battery or some more solar panels. Landing in the dark had... complications. I didn't put any on because I liked the look of having over 6000 dV.

Mods Used:

MechJeb

KW Rocketry

Dragon Command Pod

Craft File: https://www.dropbox.com/s/yv6egdh3g4isjp8/CTS-1%20Dragon.craft

Edited March 2, 2014 by horndgmium