Kerbal space program payload

For example, the Saturn 5 rocket could carry of , kg to LEO. I'm not asking if my rocket will get to orbit or not because I know how to check that. I'm asking how were the Saturn 5's and other rockets payload mass calculated?

I'm sick of designing rockets for every new craft I launch, so I just want go to rockets for a specific payload mass. Sorry if my grammer is bad, it is 3 am. Even better, you could design rockets for a payload class: one for payloads up to 5t, one for up to 10t, 20t, 50t So if you want to send up a tons new shiny thingy, let's say, you pull out your 10t lifter from subassemblies, without building a custom launch vehicle specifically for that mission.

Use the excess fuel and delta-v to de-orbit a re-use the stages, maybe. That is what I want rockets that could carry specific payloads to orbit, but what I need to know is how do I calculate how much a rocket can carry. Probably the easiest way is via experimentation. You can certainly do the math, but depending on which direction your solution takes it can be either nice and simple or incredibly complex.

I would definitely check out Pecan's stuff above and see how that works for you. EXP is the exponential function, which nearly every spreadsheet and scientific calculators should have.

Divide that result by The result there is the maximum cap on your rocket's mass. Plug the maximum cap in as M and solve the equation for Md. Whatever is left is your maximum possible payload for the design. Practical example: You've got a single stage booster with a KSx4 booster which you're separating from the payload with a TRA, with a set of four AV-R8s for additional control during the early part of the flight for 0.

The mass of the engine is 9. So, the maximum payload for that particular booster is I can work through another example if you'd like, or you could wait for more help from Pecan. Or both. You have a tonnes tonne difference between the maximum mass and the dry mass, so that's tonnes of fuel needed.

That'd correlate to six Jumbos and an X worth roughly , which have a dry mass of 26 tonnes when combined. Subtract that from the calculated dry mass there So that'd be the payload mass for the booster and no, the situation is NOT improved with the bigger fuel tanks, but rather the opposite; the new extra large tanks have an inferior mass-to-dry mass ratio as compared to the traditional tanks in the game.

Not sure if anybody realised this, but this is in the tutorials section I don't think this is a tutorial You should've created this in the gameplay questions section.

A while back Temstar wrote a good guide on selecting and configuring engines based on payload mass. Ideal design is two stages to orbit or three stage to Kerbal escape. Adjust their number and power output to reach that goal. Tweak the second stage design so that it has the performance to place the third stage and payload into orbital insertion range.

An optional design should be capable of a 75k payload orbit but is not critical. Tweak the third stage design to have sufficient performance to place the payload into a K orbit with a comfortable reserve for recovery if desired. An optional design would have enough fuel left to push the payload to Kerbal escape.

Don't overbuild the launch vehicle. If it takes nearly all the thrust just to lift the boosters off the ground by themselves or you have excessive acceleration on the first 10, meters, you are just wasting resources. Asparagus or onion designs, while not always desirable, are most efficient because all the engines are working to lift the payload to orbit during flight. They get staged when their fuel cans are empty and they are no longer needed to lift full fuel tanks for the rest of the design.

But how can that be true? If I plop a single capsule on top, weighing 0. Here is my Sandbox design for a 3 man payload with service module fully fueled in orbit.

Mass At 5K ready for the orbital turn. Speed is ideal and at full throttle. Note, the stock NASA has the right amount of power for this design.

Careful not to turn too fast or this design will flip ends at this stage of the flight. In orbit. Note, the second stage placed the Gah - I knew I'd forgotten my own formulae; and I still can't find where on the interwebz I got it from. From that has - needs it can re-work the remainder to give a 'spare capacity' figure in tonnes. In the specific case you give it leaves 1. I've also found this calculator on this forum the calculator itself is not interesting, it's the formulas used shown on the forum post that interest me.

So using that method instead, and plugging in the same values in my example gives me a launch capacity of 0. I don't understand enough about rocketry to know which is more accurate, but the difference between your formula and their's is only in the final equation. They also use a mass ratio to find the dry mass, but in KSP we can easily find that by just removing all the fuel I wish you could do that with a single click Since the author does admit those calculations are "very rough", I'm leaning more on yours to be more accurate.

Anyway when I come home I'll give the rocket a try and see how much it can really get into space. My only concern, though, is that there is no where any mention of TWR for the rocket. Wouldn't that make it possible, using this equation, to design rockets that can theoretically lift certain payloads but in reality cannot due to lower than minimum TWR? Thank you to every one that answerd my question, although they didn't help me in the way I expected I still appreciate your help.

The reason your answers didn't help me the way I expected is because I designing my rockets before the payloads, it has to be the other way around, I can't really explain what I mean but I was confuesed about how rockets were build, and your answers helped my realize that I was building them the wrong way, so thank you. Yes, of course you can, but the point you use to attach the subassembly to the ship remains invariable. I hit that snag when I was putting together an Apollo clone.

Yes, HAL, actually you can do that. See you in Jool orbit. I need to download a weapon mod first. LOL gotta hurry, unit AE doesn't respond to my maintainance queries any longer - would you be so kind and check it out? Oh, Omnissiah preserve us, it's gone where Skynet has not and employs the most lethal weapon known to mankind!

Originally posted by dennis. If you have a craft made of N parts, the subassembly can include at most N-1 parts, and the remaing one needs to be desgnated as the root, because the subassemly has to be attached to something.

You can't just drop a whole ship including the root part into the subassembly box. Per page: 15 30 Date Posted: 24 Feb, am. Posts: Discussions Rules and Guidelines. Note: This is ONLY to be used to report spam, advertising, and problematic harassment, fighting, or rude posts.

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