[Showcase] Show off your Launch Vehicles!

[Giggleplex777]

I've been busy wasting my time building launch vehicles lately, and I want to see what you guys come up with.

Please include the payload capacity and other stats (e.g. part count) if possible. A brief description and .craft file would be nice too.

I'll start with some of my own:

Neptune X

The Neptune X is part of the Neptune LV family, which are Saturn V derived rockets (evident in the five engine core stage). It's the biggest rocket in my "Budget" mode (Career mode with all parts unlocked) fleet. The second stage is powered by a KR-2L and is designed to deorbit itself with leftover fuel, like my other upper stages. The fairing is 5.5m in diameter and can fit 3 S3-14400 tanks or even an entire Kerbal X with room to spare. No fuel crossfeeding from the boosters; just tried-and-true parallel staging.

Payload capacity: 135t to 80km orbit

Part count: 177

Cost: 336 993

Height: 66.7m

Fueled mass (w/o payload): 765.7t

Total thrust at liftoff: 12 250kN

Liftoff TWR (w/ 135t payload): 1.38

Subassembly: http://www./download/0o39phlcyqpjq7q/Neptune+X.craft

Jettison the fairings at 40km

Antares

I really like this one. It has a unique first stage setup that is powered by four Mailsails in the core stage which are fueled by the central tank and two external tanks with fixed boosters. The boosters are tweaked so that they burnout at the same time as the external tanks are drained, eliminating the need to the decouple the boosters separately. The second stage engines come in two different configurations: a composite version made up of a Mainsail and four LV-T45s and another with one KR-2L. The KR-2L increases the payload capacity to 105t to 80km while also reducing the part count (it's a pretty OP engine). It uses the same 5.5m fairing as the Neptune X, although a smaller fairing is shown in this picture.

95t to 80km orbit

184 parts

Polaris

The Polaris launch vehicle was derived from the launcher for my MPCV (the leftmost one in this picture: http://i.imgur.com/xzOoPyx.png). I later replaced the original launcher of the MPCV with the Polaris to improve performance and for a more standardized rocket family.

8t to 100km orbit

95 parts

Edited December 26, 2014 by Giggleplex777

[Jackvony]

Could you provide a download for the launchers. Really love the first one.

[RocketPilot573]

Lands back at KSC Falcon style.

[Woopert]

I'll get more stats up and downloads later, but for now here is what I got. Credit for the Kerbalized American flag in the pictures goes to Mulbin.

Launch Vehicles

The naming system for our launch vehicles is as follows

LC: Low Cost

First number: payload to LKO

Second number: first stage engines

Third number: second stage engiens

Fourth and numbers after: respective amount of engines per stage

LC10-2-1

Bring up to 10 metric tons to an 80km orbit with this low cost launch vehicle. Features two Skippers for the first stage to offer gimbal roll control and a composite LV-909 and LVT-30 upper stage! Includes probe core, RCS, and SAS systems on the upper stage for deorbiting.

Payload to LKO: 10 metric tons

Cost: 44,130 funds

Spacecraft and Payloads

Low-Cost Crew Vehicle

A low cost option for launching a Boeing CST-100 styled crew vehicle into orbit with a Falcon 9 v1.0 style rocket  with a second stage with enough fuel to land back to Kerbin for recovery!

Low-Cost Exploration Vehicle

A low cost option for launching an MPCV into orbit with a fully fueled upper stage, powered by an SLS Block I style rocket with realistic SRB separation!

This one I copied was inspired by Giggleplex777, credit to you for the first stage. Lifts around 40 metric tons to 80km orbit, relatively low-cost as well.

Design for a 60 metric ton lifter to 80km orbit. All of my lifters are designed to be low-cost, practical, mostly realistic, and smooth-looking.

Edited November 13, 2014 by Woopert

[KingPhantom]

@Giggleplex777: how did you the bottom rockets of the neputne x? how can you add engines to a structural part and than put it on the side? i tried it 1000 times with the stuctural cubes... but i wasnt able to put a "top hat" on the side and a liquid engine below that.

[Roflcopterkklol]

I do not seem to make many rockets these days.

Download link if anyone wants the lifting rocket.

http://www./download/5ko942d7k9c08p9/Roflcopters+Lifting+rocket.craft

[Kurotenshi]

I recently threw two complementing launcher families on the forums, The Alpha and Beta Series

I've also been building a lot of replica launchers lately:

[table=width: 500]

[tr]

[td]Ariane 5

[/td]

[td]Ares I

[/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]Proton M

[/td]

[td]Soyuz

[/td]

[/tr]

[/table]

Everything is up for download on the thread in my sig

[KingPhantom]

hmmm... the same with this cones... how do you rotate them on top of the straight rocket??? i use part clipping often and i tried this a 100 of times.. but failed...

[Majorjim!]

hmmm... the same with this cones... how do you rotate them on top of the straight rocket??? i use part clipping often and i tried this a 100 of times.. but failed...

Hey man, if I understand you correctly, you need to place a part, either cubic struts or an ibeam to one side of the fairing at 90degrees to the rocket. Then attach the cone to this part, centred with the rest of the rocket.

You can use surface attachment or another cubic strut.

I hope that's clear enough.

Remember to add more separator rockets to the side with the cone on as it is heavyier and will separate slower than the other halves.

MJ

[Kurotenshi]

I did a tutorial where you can see the beam I use to attach the cone on top, have a look here

[KingPhantom]

nice tutorial, but majorjim has the point... i tried the ibeam... it worked for some points i was able to put 3 radial engines to a sturctural part. so my egg has "side engines"... but i was not able to turn the cone to the middle on the support rockets...

[Tankbuster32]

I really like the idea of this thread, though I mostly play modded KSP. Would launchers that use mods like KW rocketry be ok?

[Slam_Jones]

My first attempt at getting my Hawkeye Cruiser to space, using 24 SRBs as the first stage:

The SRBs continued to rip themselves apart and take my cruiser anywhere but space. After a revision, I now use this:

Just replaced the SRBs with Orange Tanks and Skippers. Haven't needed to launch anything bigger yet... usually I just launch modular sections and put it all together in LKO.

[Giggleplex777]

I really like the idea of this thread, though I mostly play modded KSP. Would launchers that use mods like KW rocketry be ok?

Preferably stock. You can make a new thread for modded rockets if you want.

[Giggleplex777]

@Giggleplex777: how did you the bottom rockets of the neputne x? how can you add engines to a structural part and than put it on the side? i tried it 1000 times with the stuctural cubes... but i wasnt able to put a "top hat" on the side and a liquid engine below that.

You'll need to enable part clipping to do that. I use Editor Extensions (http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/38768-0-25-Editor-Extensions-v1-4-11-Oct-2014-%28EdTools-Editor-Tools-replacement%29) and radially attach the engine first before attaching the cones on top.

Could you provide a download for the launchers. Really love the first one.

Here's the WIP subassembly: http://www./download/0o39phlcyqpjq7q/Neptune+X.craft

Fairings should be jettisoned at 40km.

Edited November 14, 2014 by Giggleplex777

[Majorjim!]

These are some great launchers Giggleplex. The Neptune X stands out as particularly lovely.

[Giggleplex777]

These are some great launchers Giggleplex. The Neptune X stands out as particularly lovely.

Hang on, I just noticed a problem with the Neptune X subassembly, give me a minute to fix.

Edit: Fixed

Edited November 14, 2014 by Giggleplex777

[KingPhantom]

aaaah ok. it's a mod feature. that explains it all! thx

[Tankbuster32]

Ok. I will follow this closely, thanks for creating it.

[Darth Lazarus]

currently working on a stock summary of soviet/russian/ukrainian launchers.

pic already posted in the WIP thread

[Itsjustrocketscience]

A Ship capable of getting to Jool (hopefully), So far all I've done is a small hop to the Mun to test it's functionality. it's headed for Vall tomorrow.

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Unless I did everything wrong. which is actually pretty likely as I've never posted pictures on KSP forums before.

Edited November 16, 2014 by Itsjustrocketscience

[technicalfool]

file:///C:/Program%20Files%20(x86)/Steam/SteamApps/common/Kerbal%20Space%20Program/Screenshots/screenshot237.png

You need to upload those images to an image or webhost somewhere before linking them in the forums using the tag. Imgur is one of the popular sites.

[Itsjustrocketscience]

I also heard something about albums earlier, what are those?

[Giggleplex777]

I also heard something about albums earlier, what are those?

You're using imgur, right? There should be a album button in the top right corner. Click that and then follow the instructions to make a album (a collection images). When you're done that, open the album and you should see the URL like this: http://imgur.com/a/pI08Z#0. Copy the "pI08Z" and put it in your forum post with imgur album tags like this: [noparse]

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[/noparse]

The end result should look like this:

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[Itsjustrocketscience]

That's pretty cool, thanks.