Reach for orbit with an ion glider!

[zarakon]

The new ARM update brought with it some buffs to the ion engine. Most importantly, it now has higher thrust to reduce burn times. Some people immediately call it overpowered!

The question: Is it now possible to reach Kerbin orbit using the ion engine alone?

The answer: Maybe. Let's find out!

I've done a couple attempts on my own, and it seems like it might be within reach. It's certainly more plausible now than with the old weaker engine. My best attempt got up to around 20km and 500 m/s before running out of fuel. An attempt with more fuel instead took too long, and I ran out of daylight. There are still tricks I haven't tried, and probably some I haven't thought of, which may be able to make it possible.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: The DynamicWarp mod. This will allow you to use 4x time acceleration while flying without affecting the physics. This is really nice since it can take quite a while to gain altitude in an ion glider, and the normal physics warp has very bad effects on vehicles made of mostly wings.

Scoring:

- There will be two separate scoreboards, one for those who manage to reach orbit, and one for those who do not.

-- If you reach orbit, you'll be ranked based on the time taken to reach orbit (MET).

-- If you don't reach orbit, your score is altitude/20 + orbital speed. So if you reach 20km and 500m/s, your score would be 1500. These are your simultaneous speed and altitude numbers as taken from a single screenshot.

Rules:

- No parts mods

- No debug menu cheating, hyperedit, or anything obvious of that nature

- No abusing infiniglide (gaining speed by flapping control surfaces). Ion gliders really don't need to be very maneuverable, so keep your control surfaces to a minimum.

- No spamming of weightless battery packs

- No other forms of propulsion, obviously.

- Drop tanks and staging ARE allowed. SSTO is NOT a requirement, though it would be extra impressive.

- MechJeb, Engineer, and DynamicWarp mods are allowed. Other mods which just give information or control automation are also most likely allowed.

- Submit sufficient screenshots to show MET, orbital speed, altitude, and proof of orbit

- Make sure to click your speedometer over to show orbital speed, since the goal here is to reach orbit, not highest air speed.

Orbital Leaderboard:

1. zarakon - 31:04

2. Nedal - 46:29

3. gamerpuppy - 50:22 (first to orbit, also landed on Minmus)

4. Fengist - 51:28 (also landed on Minmus then Mun)

4. O-Doc - 53:12

5. Spica - 1:07:14

6. Ziv - 1:10:29

High Flyer Leaderboard:

1. SSSPutnik - 4255.9 (45582, 1976.8)

2. Comma_dose - 3538.8 (39758, 1550.9)

3. donfede - 3511.2 (37654, 1628.5)

4. totalitor - 3373 (36007, 1573)

5. Lou - 3086.2 (34350, 1368.7)

6. Tarantulae - 2302.4 (31075, 748.6)

7. Blue - 1945.8 (25055, 1945.8)

8. ttnarg - 1843.3 (20307, 827.9)

9. DeMatt - 1681.2 (22020, 580.2)

10. cyberklad - 1536.4 (22481, 412.3)

11. Aghanim - 1530.8 (20100, 525.8) - FAR

12. MaverickSawyer - 1002.6 (13474, 328.9)

Edited May 9, 2014 by zarakon

[Javster]

I don't see any outlying flaws with this. might give it a go.

[KvickFlygarn87]

The rules say nothing about you having to use ion engines

[MaverickSawyer]

Same here. Warming up KSP now.

[zarakon]

The rules say nothing about you having to use ion engines

Rules:

...

- No other forms of propulsion, obviously.

...

Just try to stick to the spirit of the challenge anyway, please

[Holo]

The rules say nothing about you having to use ion engines

And if the challenge was "find as many loopholes as possible", then maybe you could put the information you just learned to use.

[KvickFlygarn87]

Just try to stick to the spirit of the challenge anyway, please

Whoops, missed that

[MaverickSawyer]

High Flyer entry. Score: 1002.6

[zarakon]

Looks like you still have half of your fuel left. Did you run out of daylight?

[MaverickSawyer]

Nope, I stalled out and fell from the skies. Not enough lift.

[zarakon]

Here's mine, definitely room for improvement

1581.4

[metaphor]

I'll try this on Kerbin, but in the meantime here's my attempt on Eve: 19 km up and 85 m/s.

[zarakon]

I made an attempt at flying west, but didn't get screenshots due to the sudden nature of the failure

1. Due to the slow ascent, I barely cleared the mountain range west of KSC!

2. Flying west to keep up with the sun seems to probably be the best way to go.

3. Around 22km and 500m/s (surface), my glider spontaneously started shaking and flexing violently until it tore itself apart. Turning off mechjeb, SAS, and timewarp as soon as it started didn't help. Possibly a CoM shift issue? I've never seen it happen like this though

[Blaster]

Hmmm... some modifications to my previous attempt, and perhaps I can actually reach orbit. Then, the KermaJet KI series can finally get off the ground.

[DeMatt]

Bleh, thought I'd give this a try. Unfortunately, my attempts ended up falling short of orbit, so they're all High Flyer entries.

Flying east, for a total (screenshotted) score of 1681.

Same plane, but flying west, for a total score of 1306.

And just for giggles...

An early design that, after takeoff, somehow stabilized itself, in midair, at just over 3 m/s. No control inputs from me or SAS, no engine, nothing. KSP aerodynamics... you so silly.

[totalitor]

My result is 21766 m and speed 609 m/s so score is 1697. I had plenty of fuel left but the plane just didn't go higher. It seems to be the same design that DeMatt had but if you keep things simple this is what you get...And I made this a day before. Maybe I add rcs-thrustets, are those allowed to keep vessel position right?

[zarakon]

Maybe I add rcs-thrustets, are those allowed to keep vessel position right?

No, the thrust you could get from RCS would be pretty significant for an extremely light craft like this. You can add control surfaces. One small per wing should give you plenty of control without letting infiniglide take over

[MaverickSawyer]

I made an attempt at flying west, but didn't get screenshots due to the sudden nature of the failure

1. Due to the slow ascent, I barely cleared the mountain range west of KSC!

2. Flying west to keep up with the sun seems to probably be the best way to go.

3. Around 22km and 500m/s (surface), my glider spontaneously started shaking and flexing violently until it tore itself apart. Turning off mechjeb, SAS, and timewarp as soon as it started didn't help. Possibly a CoM shift issue? I've never seen it happen like this though

Your control surfaces are to blame. They're too strong. I used mine only for pitch control. If you add roll to the mix, they start to encounter infiniglide/phantom forces/kraken at some point.

[zarakon]

hmm, alright I'll try disabling the roll and yaw controls on them

[totalitor]

I added more wing area for higher altitudes. I gained more altitude but less speed. 24402 m and 583 m/s. So result is 1803.

Without rcs thrusters rolling becomes impossible at this altitude. Look at the picture. I try to fly straight...

[zarakon]

You could try adding a reaction wheel. For some reason the large 2.5m one weighs the least, and it's lighter than the smallest RCS fuel tank. Still pretty heavy though, for a plane of that size

[cyberklad]

22481M / 20 + 593,4M/S = 1717,45 points.

[zarakon]

Your control surfaces are to blame. They're too strong. I used mine only for pitch control. If you add roll to the mix, they start to encounter infiniglide/phantom forces/kraken at some point.

Well I tried disabling the roll and yaw controls on my control surfaces. Instead of self-destructing at 22km it did it at 11km instead!

So I moved some of my wings to shift the center of lift, and added struts to try to prevent the flexing. One or both of those things worked perfectly, so instead of destroying itself, my glider destroyed all the records!

I flew more than halfway around the world before going through all 2800 units of xenon, and never ran out of daylight. I reached 927m/s surface speed, 744 orbital speed, and over 29km altitude.

(clicky)

Score is 2202.8, since it's orbital speed that counts, not surface speed. cyberklad, that means yours is 1536.4

Going west is a double-edged sword. The sun becomes your friend, but the rotation of the planet becomes your enemy. I think it's probably the way to go though, since ~366 m/s is an easier number to overcome than 0 electric charge

Edited April 9, 2014 by zarakon

[Tarantulae]

I love ion challenges. Decided to give this one a try. After numerous failures with multiple ion drives, I decided to go for simplicity and just use 1.

Here's my results... 2,302.35 from 31,075m altitude and 748.6m/s. No orbit.

Image Album

Here's the official numbers image.

[ttnarg]

I'm not good with planes so it's unlikey that I'll ever do this challenge but here a suggetion: How about once your up to this speed could you detectch the wings as they are not as much use when you get high. Or maybe a whiteknight design?