Athena I - A reliable, proven and long-range spacecraft

[mythic_fci]

Ever wanted a ship with extreme mission flexibility? Perhaps a ship that can transfer crew directly from your Munar station to your Minmus station without refueling? Well, you've come to the right place! This ship can traverse the entire Kerbin system without a single refuel!

The Athena I was slightly based off of ideas of a Dragon with a service module. I basically put some fuel tanks and a few rockets inside a capsule, added an LVT-45 as a main engine and some 1m tanks to cover the engine up and provide it with fuel. After some trial-and-error testing, I had perfected the Athena itself, but my own launcher's safety record was pretty spotty. That's where Rune comes in. He kindly offered his 20t "Ranger" launcher(Check the series out here) for my use, and I heavily modified it to fit my specifications (I added a few extra tons to the lifting capacity). Now, the launcher and spacecraft work in harmony and haven't failed once. The Athena itself has the range for a docking, Munar orbit, then a direct transfer to Minmus orbit. It then heads back to Kerbin. This is demonstrated below.

PROVING FLIGHT

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ABORT DEMONSTRATION

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CREDITS

FCISuperGuy(me!) for the design of the Athena and modifications to the launcher

Rune for generously providing me with his Ranger launcher

You can download this ship here.

Edited May 24, 2014 by FCISuperGuy
Major redesign of page

[mythic_fci]

So, no one needs this? If you happen to stumble by, please DL and review!

EDIT: Goddamn, 380 views and 0 comments minus this one? I need to step up my game...

Edited May 25, 2014 by FCISuperGuy

[Pogosi]

It looks nice, I will try it out...