LVPL MK-1: A light weight efficient lander for all your vacuum needs! (No mods)

[Michaelbak]

Lightweight-Vacuum-Personnel-Lander MK-1

Hi KSP forums! I'm really used to seeing a lot of big beefy landers for landing on places like the Mun and Minmus but I like to focus on lighter weight designs. The LVPL MK-1 is my newest lander and by far the most effective.

It's a two stage design consisting of a primary stage for general use with a throw away fuel tank to aid in initial orbital and landing phases. It consists of four separate mono propellant thrusters which give it extremely versatile maneuverability and balance, only being biased to one side due to a landing light (which can be removed for day time only operations). The craft is even balanced enough to be entirly usable using only two thrusters if one is compromised during a faulty landing. This design uses a great deal of weightless parts and as some of the images show has room to be configured with extra batteries, science parts, or lights as necessary for the mission protocol.

A few key notes for effectively understanding and operating this craft:

-It has a fairly unique landing procedure as it lands on it's parachute which is located on the center bottom of the craft. The chute can withstand forces equal to that of landing legs but greater care must be taken so that the craft lands directly on the chute itself. The thrusters are designed in such a way to be recessed from taking any damage from landing, however landing directly on a fuel tank will likely result in some form of major failure.

-Due to it's unique design the craft must be mounted upside down on it's lifter craft and flipped around when preparing for landing.

-The first stage of the craft is mean't to be disconnected ONLY when the craft is landing and moving downwards within vacuum. Separating this external fuel tank stage while moving forward or in a pressurized environment may lead to collision with the craft and damage or otherwise major failure. If disconnecting the stage within these parameters is necessary, equipping a single sepratron to one side of fuel tank (as seen in some of the photos) has proven to be extremely effective at safely performing this separation.

-The craft being equipped with the standard parachute cannot safely land on Kerbin with certain levels of fuel left in the tanks. It is strongly advised to fire any remaining fuel during the re-entry stage to ensure a safe landing on kerbin after a mission.

Specs: Stage 1

3,076 Delta/v

4,025kg

2.03 TWR

Specs: Stage 2

2,594 Delta/v

2.94 TWR

2,775kg

Landing light and communotron 16 with 1,250 electric charge capacity equipped standard.

Cost 15,250

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Edited December 13, 2014 by Michaelbak