Big O

[Elmetian]

Horizon Heavy Industries presents the Big O, or Big Orange, a robotic fuel tanker designed to effortlessly transport a full Rockomax Jumbo-64 to LKO with absolutely no fuss. I conceived it as an intermediate between static refueling stations and interplanetary tankers. The product is a vessel that can efficiently change its orbit to rendezvous with other craft, but without the extra fuel and part count associated with an interplanetary tanker. It comes equipped with 5 docking ports for simultaneously refueling several craft of varying sizes. For those aesthetics junkies, I made sure the the Big O integrated seamlessly with its Tiào L booster so that the upper stage engine and monopropellant tanks fit neatly within the stack decoupler. All fuel tanks are easily reachable to avoid awkward camera angles when clicking on them to transfer fuel.

Action Groups:

10 decouples the Senior Clamp 'O' Tron docking port and ignites the sepatrons on the nose cone

(The Big O uses the minimum number of action groups so they don't interfere with any you might have used on your existing craft)

Flight Notes:

Increase throttle to max and engage SAS before launch. Stage using the spacebar as usual. Wait until your altitude is at least 10km and your velocity is above 200m/s before beginning a slow gravity turn to 75° and throttling down two notches. Continue pitching over and throttling down gradually so that by 25km altitute you're at about 45° and 2/3 throttle. Switch to the orbital navball and follow the prograde vector. I suggest staying above 1/3 throttle for the majority of the first stage.

By the time you reach main engine burnout you should have an apoapsis of about 70km and an orbital velocity of at least 1400m/s. Stage again using the spacebar and press 10 to jettison the nose cone now that you're in the upper atmosphere. Throttle back up to at least 1/2 and follow the prograde marker. I recommend aiming for an apoapsis no greater than 100km so that there's plenty of fuel remaining in the second stage to deorbit it. Don't forget to manually extend the solar panels and make sure to charge the batteries before decoupling, otherwise the second stage may run out of electricity before you can perform your retro burn.

Edited March 27, 2014 by Narcosis

[The Destroyer]

Small, cute, and effecient. I like your designs!