Deep Space I Long Range Interplanetary Ship

[ReconXPanzer]

Hi Guys,

I finally managed my first 100% stock long range interplanetary craft.

I present to you: Deep Space I

Specifications:

Liquid Fuel: 9387

Oxidiser: 11473

Solid Fuel: 16 (For Crew escape system)

Electric Charge: 36980

MonoPropellant: 780

Main Propulsion: 8x LV-N Atomic Rocket Motors

Escape Craft Propulsion: 2x Seperatrons (Initial Boost) and 2x Rockomax 48-7S

Crew Capacity: 7

Part Count: 239 (512 with Delta IX Launcher)

Delta-V: From Guesstimating roughly 4,000m/s (-ish) (I managed to return to Kerbin with around 5500 units of liquid fuel remaining).

And of course a whopping great imgur album to go with it.

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For my first mission is simply planned to reach Duna, nothing really that special, just to test how easy and how much fuel I would have left to spare from just getting to Duna and getting back. Once I got to Duna I would plan to aerobrake in its atmosphere and bring myself to a circular orbit 1,000km above the surface on an orbit with next to no inclination. The aerobraking didn't go too well, as afterwards, if it hadn't been for a 500m/s burn I would've just flown straight past Duna, which would've been a bit of a disappointment. Once around Duna, I decided to have a little mess around with the Kerbals and their expressions and the capsule windows (see album for details). Then after a few hours in orbit I decided to get back home.

I had originally planned to aerobrake (if necessary) around Kerbin and bring myself into orbit, then I would launch another few rockets to bring the Kerbals back and refuel Deep Space I without launching a new one. Essentially making the spacecraft reusable in some respect. But the Mun decided it would thwart my plans and use its gravity to mess my trajectory up so in the end I just ejected the crew escape module and let the rest of the Deep Space I spacecraft fall to its death.

Even if the crew module is ejected, Deep Space I has a large probe core to allow unmanned operations.

Download Links:

With Launcher: https://www.dropbox.com/s/4eizsrnjsrl2z9p/Deep%20Space%20I%20%28With%20Launcher%29.craft?dl=0

Without Launcher: https://www.dropbox.com/s/rhm1jiwvyrsx7pt/Deep%20Space%20I.craft?dl=0

Have Fun

ReconXPanzer

Edited October 31, 2014 by ReconXPanzer

[Nickel AP]

I know this is a very old post (3 years, wow) but I have a few questions. Before I get to that though, my motivation is that I am currently trying to build an interplanetary tug to carry my landers, rovers, whatever. I Have made it to duna and back using a ship with single orange and 8x LV-N engines. However, I feel like the twr is poor and despite it being one of the most efficient ways of getting to other planets, I am having a hard time loving the burn times due to twr. So because of this I have been working on bigger, faster, stronger tugs (MORE ENGINES!!!!) to give it oomph, but still having poor twr no matter how naked I make the ship.

Now to my questions. What was the TWR on this ship? You mentioned using oxidizer so I am assuming this older version of ksp had lv-n require ox? with this new ksp 8 lv-n seem like they wouldn't have enough push to get that much payload anywhere in a decent time. I am sure you could get to duna (Obviously) but what was your burn time? Was it incredibly long?. 

The new tug design I have come up with is essentially engines and fuel with some ports for docking (28xLVN, 2x2.5 mono tanks, 2.5 storage, science storage, probe core, 7xbatteries, 8x rcs and each engine has 2x 400 liquid fuel tanks) Essentially the ship is a giant engine and fuel tanks. twr is still < 1.0 with a burn time of 8 minutes.

I could probably make it to some outer planets with this but seriously, bare bones build with 28 engines and still less than 1.0 twr? How are the LV-N considered good for interplanetary missions.

Edited December 21, 2017 by Nickel AP