Many of the lessons learned from these ships were applied to my later planetary missions. These rockets were all created in Kerbal Space Program 0.23.
First up is To The Mun:
Notice it includes solar panels, landing gear, and launch stability enhancement. It even included a battery bank. Yes, this was a serious attempt at reaching the Mun. Upon pressing the spacebar, four RT-10 solid boosters fire. Once ejected, four more boosters light up. Once those are exhausted the orange Rockomax Jumbo 64 tank feeds the Skipper engine.
The transfer/lander stage is made of three FL-T800 tanks each with a tiny 48-7S engine. Landing gear is attached to each tank. The return stage is a FL-T400 tank with one LV-909 engine. I equally spaced three OX-4L 1x6 solar panels around the tank. Between the fuel tank and the Command Pod MK-1 I used a Z-1k rechargeable battery bank.
The upper stage is heavy and it flexes a lot as physics are first applied at the launch pad. I think this could have been fixed with better struts. As an inexperienced pilot at the time this craft could not reach orbit.
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| To The Mun |
Alice:
Second in the series. It was a reworking of the To The Mun ship. Gone are the solid boosters, replaced by six double stacks FL-T800 tanks on top of a FL-T100 and a LV-45 engine. The orange tank is now supports a Mainsail engine. This craft uses asparagus staging, seven engines fire at launch. Tanks are dropped in balanced pairs as they empty until only the full orange tank is left.
The transfer/lander and return stage is the same as To The Mun with the addition of three FL-T800 tanks equipped with LV-45 engines. This change was intended to help establish circular orbit and for the Mun transfer. These engines are pretty powerful. On the rare occasion the ship held together until they fired, it tended to go out of control quickly thereafter. If only I had known to ease up on the throttle.
Because the upper stage is heavy and under strutted, the Mainsail has a tendency to push the orange tank through the ship causing total disintegration. Where the first ship seemed under powered, this one was had too much muscle for my skill level at the time.
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| Alice |
Alice2:
The upper transfer/lander/return stage is same as the Alice. Everything below is gone. The lift stage is two stacked FL-T800 tanks with a LV-30 engine. This is surrounded by eight FL-T800 tanks with LV-45 engines. Asparagus staging and a lot of struts were used.
Going back now and looking at my earlier attempts at design, I find most of them were quite capable of completing their intended missions. Not so with this one. Originally I found this craft to be very dangerous to fly. Even now it could not make orbit with my best efforts. Had I used LV-30 engines instead of the LV-45 it might have made it.
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| Alice2 |
Alice3:
The upper portion remains the same as the Alice. The lift Stage is quad FL-T800 tanks with LV-30 engines. Surrounding and using asparagus staging are four FL-T800 tanks and LV-45 engines.
Obviously, I could not get this to the Mun, or in orbit, 3 months ago or else there wouldn't be more ships in the line. Today this one surprised me. It actually flies pretty well.
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| Alice3 |
AliceC:
Why isn't this the Alice4 or AliceD? Uhm, because. OK, it is a tribute to Alice Cooper, whose action figure (It's not a doll!) is next to my computer.
The upper portion remains the same as the Alice. The lift stage is built around a central stack of one Rockomax Jumbo-64 on a Rockomax X200-16 with a Mainsail engine. This core issurrounded by four Rockomax Jumbo-64 tanks on a Rockomax X200-8 with Mainsail engines. The outer tanks use asparagus staging so all five Mainsails fire at launch and empty pairs are dropped until only the full central tank remains.
The smaller Rockomax tanks were placed under the orange tanks because I had read that doing so would prevent over heating. This was an overpowered beast of a rocket that came apart at the seams. Better strutting would have prevented this. Another issue was a weakness of KSP 0.23 and that is the connections between parts didn't always behave well. The smaller tanks wobbled and often lead to a violent but exciting end to the mission as they sent parts flying everywhere.
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| AliceC |
AliceK
Finally, the first ship I designed and flew that actually landed on Mun. I crashed so many times trying to land. Success is sweet.
The AliceK was a complete reworking from the ground up. I decided the Mun mission should be more of a psuedo apollo style craft. I began at the top with the Mk1-2 Command Pod with chute.
The lift stage is three Rockomax Jumbo 64 orange tanks on Rockomax X200-16 tanks with Skipper engines mounted on TT-70 radial decouplers. These are angled 5 degrees by holding shift and pressing S. It gave a little more stability in flight. These use asparagus staging to central orange tank, X200-16, Mainsail combo with standard canard fins for stability. Struts hold it all together. All four engines fire at launch, dropping the outer three tanks when empty
The second stage is built around a Rockomax X200-16 tank with Skipper engine. It is Surrounded by three FL-T800 tanks with LV-T30 engines on a TT-38K radial decoupler. All four engines fire at once. Nothing is ejected until all the tanks are empty.
The third stage starts the Munar transfer. It is three double stacks of FL-T200 tanks with a LV-909 engine. Once ejected the 2x3 solar panels could be extended.
Completion of the transfer, actual landing, and the start of the Munar liftoff is handled by three double stacks FL-T200 tanks with Rockomax 48-7S engines. 6 landing struts are mounted to the central Rockomax X200-16 tank. The center tank with its LV-909 engine was used for return and reentry burns. There is a Z-4K rechargeable Battery Bank on top of tank.
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| AliceK - "One giant leap for kerbalkind." |
Yes, it is way over designed, but that is what it took for my first landing.
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| AliceK Flag onMun |
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