Kerbal Space Program - Kerbal to Eve orbit in 1126 kg
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- Опубліковано 27 сер 2024
- This is the lightest ever Eve ascent vehicle. Without magic wings, EVA construction, or other aero exploits, it's smaller than any others that do use these.
My low mass Eve mission and the later grand tour feature a 2105 kg Eve lander. At the time, this was the lightest Eve ascent vehicle, barring Stratzenblitz's 1427 kg magic wing craft. However, I recently saw a forum post from Ultimate Steve mentioning a 1.4 ton Eve lander. He realized that a fairing isn't necessary here, as the propeller stage gets above most drag anyway. After some iteration on a fairing-less lander, I got this 1.1 ton design; it can take one kerbal from the ocean to a 90x100 km Eve orbit.
The first stage is a propeller with angled fins, which provide better lift per mass, and go up to 43.5 km. It can go slightly higher than this, but that wasn't necessary.
The rocket has two Twitch engines and one Spider engine. The Twitch is great - it's much lighter than the Spark, and has better atmospheric efficiency and TWR. The Spider is worse for both but it's very light and provides gimbal control. I arranged the engines so they all fire at once and decouple cleanly, which involved careful part clipping and offsetting. This maximizes thrust while not compromising efficiency. Note that this doesn't reduce drag at all, since there's no fairing.
After the pair of Dumpling tanks is drained, they are dropped along with a Twitch engine. This reduces the drag of the rocket early while maintaining good TWR, which is important on Eve.
When the Oscar tank is emptied, it's dropped with the second Twitch. The Spider and the remaining tank get to just over 2400 m/s at 110 km. I need the extra altitude to buy time for the low thrust jetpack, which finishes orbital insertion.
There's a bit of EVA fuel left, which is useful for rendezvous with a mothership. Unless I improve the drag of the rocket and/or my ascent profile, it's not worth dipping into this to further reduce mass.
Music: Corbyn Kites - Overdrive
Note: At 0:48 the Oscar tank doesn't appear to be draining fuel because I'm tabbed out of the game. You can look at the fuel monitor in the corner or the delta-v readout to see that fuel is still draining. Or just look at 0:50 to see what happens when I tab back into the game.
This is quite literally ballin
I would let this craft fly into me any time
nice shape
OPAF
Now do it without MechJeb :D
I'm not good enough of a pilot for that 😭
Very nice!
Impressive video once again, I can't imagine the amount of fine tuning that went into getting this thing into orbit.
Any plans on any KSP 2 content any time soon, or are you gonna wait for some of the crazy ass bugs to get patched before having your trip ruined by the kraken?
how is your control point forward in the chair?
The Mechjeb unit works as a control point in this orientation. The rocket still works with the EVA seat control point, but I need to control pitch and roll instead of yaw angle, and I'm not good enough of a pilot to do that consistently. In an actual mission I'll probably ditch the mechjeb unit as it adds drag and doesn't really give any advantage beyond convenience.
Pingas
Insert creative and original joke about the shape of the fuel tanks