In ways for which they were never intended: A craft-sharing Challenge

[cantab]

Hundreds of thousands of people have bought KSP and set about building craft for all manner of missions. But what about the untapped potential of our craft, the things they were never meant to do? What new feats can be achieved with old ships? That's what this Challenge is for, to use spacecraft In ways for which they were never intended.

It's pretty simple, and there's not really any scoring as such. Just take a craft that someone else has built, and use it for a different mission. Meanwhile submit a craft of your own to keep things going and give people some options.

Challenge entry rules:

Succeed or fail, submit a mission report covering what you set out to do and how it went. It must not be the intended mission of the craft!

You don't have to submit your own craft, but it's encouraged.

The allowed modifications to the Challenge Craft (CC) are limited. You may:

• Add informational or autopilot parts that do not affect the CC's performance, such as MechJeb.
  
• Change staging, action groups, and stock tweakables.
  
• Put the CC on your own launcher, if and only if it doesn't come with one. The launcher may get the CC to low Kerbin orbit, no more.
  
• Refuel the CC using your own craft or infrastructure.
  
• Use more than one of the CC.
  
• Use the CC in modded environments such as FAR or Alternis Kerbol.
  

Challenge Craft submission rules:

First up, only submit a craft if you intend on entering the challenge (ie flying someone else's craft) as well. Also, one CC submission per person.

You must provide the following:

• The craft file. Dur.
  
• ONE image embedded in the page. You may link to more.
  
• The part count, and whether the craft is provided with or without a launcher.
  
• A description of the intended mission or purpose of the craft.
  

Craft requirements:

• Stock parts only. The CC may be built with a modded environment in mind, but may not have any mod parts.
  
• The craft must have done its intended mission. No untested stuff.
  
• Don't be stupid. No submitting just a command pod, no submitting something that disintegrates on physics loading, you get the idea. And no making the intended mission amount to "Do Anything and Everything" either.
  
• Sensible part counts please.
  
• No Kraken drives. They're too finicky.
  

My Challenge Craft submission

To get the ball rolling here.

Chamberlain.craft

103 parts, includes launcher.

The Chamberlain is a "space bus", built to ferry four passengers and up to two tons of cargo (with more possible if it's put on a bigger launcher or partly empties its own fuel tanks) to and between craft in Kerbin orbit. It has loads of delta-V so that it can ferry passengers between ships with radically different orbits, not merely bog-standard equatorial LKO. Landing is of the passenger space only, with a controlled glide to allow selection of site before a final parachute descent.

The craft file supplied has a couple of science packages for cargo, instead of the empty fuel tanks in the picture.

Action Groups:

1 - SCIENCE!

3 - Toggle solar panels and antenna.

5 - Toggle Chamberlain main engine (the LV-909).

Be careful with your gravity turn, it likes to flip over!

[SpenSpaceCorp]

My Submission: A stock Saturn V quick slap-together replica

Craft File: http://www./download/q7b33asc4srdl45/Saturn+V.zip

Part Count: 118

Description: This is a quick Saturn V "replica" (more of a test to play around with the new larger parts) that I made which is not necessarily meant to be EXACT in looks/thrust etc, but similar. One thing missing though, is the lunar module.

Intended Use/Mission of Craft: Orbit the Mun and return safely to Kerbin (without a lander). Although I DID succeed in landing the command module and returning it back to Kerbin.

Mission Report: The vessel had just launched for another test flight to the Mun, and just after launching, I decided that I wanted to add something to the craft. Instead of reverting the flight or ejecting the capsule, I decided (and succeeded) to land the whole rocket, unstaged, no parachuted active, vertically on the surface of Kerbin about a kilometer away from the launchpad, intact, with no damage at all!

Total Mission Time: 3 minutes, 58 seconds

Highest Altitude Achieved: 1,927m

Highest Speed Achieved: 80m/s

Highest Speed Over Land: 47m/s

Ground Distance Covered: 996m

Total Distance Traveled: 2,144m

Most Gee Force Endured: 3.4G

Images:

Launch: http://i.imgur.com/HITZXeP.png

Powered Descent: http://i.imgur.com/0EK8AUI.png

Misson Log/Flight Results: http://i.imgur.com/JvRxt5D.png

This is the final image of the landed Saturn V replica:

Edited April 22, 2014 by SpenSpaceCorp

[SpenSpaceCorp]

Be careful with your gravity turn, it likes to flip over!

Try adding large flaps/control surfaces/wings at the bottom of the craft, to bring the center of lift behind the center of mass of the launcher, just to make things more stable.