First time posting a rocket here, so forgive me if the description is a bit wonky. This is the nuclear powered interplanetary explorer Dauntless. She's built to carry a crew of 12 to Cyleroo and back. A (untested) lander is carried in the cargo section that should be able to land a crew of 2 on the surface of Cyleroo and return them to the Dauntless. The booster is expendable, however the upper stage is designed to be reusable with resupply from a tanker. There are a pair of Vroz modules that serve as the main habitat, with a separate Patriot capsule that serves as a descent vehicle and also is where the crew resides during launch.

Activation Groups:
AG1 toggles the main control gyro
AG2 opens and closes the cargo bay, which in this version holds the Cyleroo lander
AG3 toggles self illumination lights
AG5+slider 1 up deploys communication and radar dishes
AG6+slider 1 up starts the radar dishes spinning
AG7 triggers the launch escape system.
AG9 deploys solar panels
AG0 toggles RCS thrusters.

Operation:
For launch I run the throttles at full until I reach about 150m/sec, at which point I throttle back the core booster to 80% thrust. RCS is toggled off, and the gyros are toggled on for launch. Pitch over to about 70 degrees early in flight, with the SRBs being ungimballed the craft is a bit sluggish to respond early on. Keep pitching over to around 45 degrees, throttle up at around 20km altitude. Activate stage 2 when the SRBs run out to ditch them, and run the core until it is down to about 45% of fuel remaining, and then coast. Jettison the fairings around this time too. Once you approach apogee, lock prograde and burn the rest of the fuel. Maybe cut off a bit early if you want, there's a bit extra fuel on board so the end orbit is a bit elliptical. The core first stage has some retro rockets to push it away from the rest of the spacecraft, so, watch for those to fire.

The next stage separates the forward descent module from the nose. Take control of that, jettison the nose fairing to reveal the docking hatch. It's a relatively simply flip and dock maneuver to dock nose to nose to the habitat "egg" of the main spacecraft. EVA the crew to these two modules if you want, though it is technically optional. Deploy the solar panels and other decorative gizmos, activate the RCS, and you're ready for interplanetary flight. Acceleration is a bit low since there's a lot of water propellant on board, so the burn calculator isn't always happy with that. I have not tested the Cyleroo lander yet, but the Dauntless itself definitely has the performance to make a round trip.

GENERAL INFO

  • Created On: Mac
  • Game Version: 0.9.508.0
  • Price: $1,914,204k
  • Number of Parts: 485
  • Dimensions: 257 m x 43 m x 43 m

PERFORMANCE

  • Total Delta V: 14.5km/s
  • Total Thrust: 884.3MN
  • Engines: 115
  • Wet Mass: 6.21E+7kg
  • Dry Mass: 1.69E+6kg

STAGES

Stage Engines Delta V Thrust Burn Mass
1 67 5.3km/s 836.3MN 4.0m 6.21E+7kg
2 0 0m/s 0N 0s 2.6E+7kg
3 0 0m/s 0N 0s 2.6E+7kg
4 0 0m/s 0N 0s 6.22E+6kg
6 9 9.3km/s 4.6MN 1.38hours 6.09E+6kg

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