Burning Bridges
Enviado de meu SM-G3502T usando Tapatalk
In any case saving 20 or 50 kilograms weight from a probe that is just 1 or 2 tons is more important that the little push from the separator.
Huh? I got a 50-ton space station payload into orbit with no problems. Granted, I used mechjeb for the ascent, as the whole thing lagged quite a bit during the initial stages. But once I was coasting towards apoapsis, everything was 'k. Part of the payload was a full orange tank, and I had another half orange tank left over once I reached my space stations 150km parking orbit. I could easily have taken it to the Mun.
The lifting rocket is 196 parts, seperated into 5 stages. (Lots of struts and seperatrons to make sure everything seperates neatly with no collisions). Orbital stage is 4 LV-T45's (double bicoupler) under two orange tanks. Lifting stage is 6 mainsails with 2 orange tanks each, radially mounted. (No asparagus staging, although that would've helped. I didn't feel like setting up the seperation steps. Finally, the boosting stage consists of 12 large SRBs. The lower set gets very close to overheating, but the SRBs run out of fuel a few seconds before 'splosions would occur. This could be circumvented by shifting the lower ring of SRBs closchwise one step and the upper ring counterclockwise. That way the exhaust would have a clear burn path.
Look! Burning Bridges! Up there in the sky!
It's a bird! It's a plane!
It's... Capable of lifting 45 tonnes into orbit! :O
All stock parts except for Mechjeb
Hello, Burning Bridges. I am Ulminati, and I an here to ask you a simple question.
Is a heavy lifter not entitled to beauty in its ascent?
'No!', says Kermany. 'Pnly ugly rockets can lift or the universe crashes'
'No!', says Polant. 'Attach moar rocket until success!'
'No!', says Jakan. 'Kamerica not permit us buiring rocket!'
A solid booster block is doable I guess. The main problem is that a solid booster block means your mainsail and LV30's won't be firing until the booster stage is spent, effectively becoming many, many tons of dead weight until the SRBs are spent. But, since you asked. I'm going to make a MK II eclipse where the boosters are mounted beneath the asparagus stages so only boosters and mainsail fire at launch and see if I can take it to orbit.
[edit]
Here you go, Burning Bridges.
Stage 1: SRBs + mainsail.
Stage 2-5: Asparagus Stalk + mainsail
Stage 6: Mainsail
Stage 7: Payload
Able to reach 100km orbit with a 45t payload.
Hm, that's pretty clever, and powerful, but not easy to build and test.