Mission 52 - one-Kerbal rocket SSTO

Mission 52

Reusable Prototype Vehicle Type-02
Description: A single-stage-to-orbit vehicle capable of carrying one Kerbal into low Kerbin orbit and back.
Mass at launch: 25545 kg

Mission objective: Launch into low Kerbin orbit, then de-orbit and land near the space center.

Crew: Newmin Kerman

For the first time, the MechJeb software was installed on the spacecraft; however, its autopilots were not used. More on that later.

The craft ascended with two toroidal aerospike engines, connected to the main fuel tank via Radial Attachment Points (in suborbital test simulations, the Stack Bi-Adapter tended to fall off when the parachutes fully deployed).

Vessel in stable 70 km orbit

Watching the sunrise from the inside

MechJeb's landing autopilot tended to waste too much fuel. Instead, a maneuver node was set up, and MechJeb showed the predicted landing site. A manual de-orbit burn occurred at the node. Any deviations from the landing site were corrected using short and careful bursts of the engines. Final predicted landing site was 2 km west of the space center.

Re-entry

Deployment of the six parachutes caused the predicted landing site to shift to about 9 km west of the center.

Landing gear down

Touchdown

Newmin Kerman stands beside the vehicle.

Mission 51 - experimental unmanned SSTO

Mission 51

Reusable Prototype Vehicle Type-01
Description: A robotic vehicle designed to reach low Kerbin orbit without jettisoning parts (single stage to orbit) and return to the surface. It contains a toroidal aerospike engine for great efficiency in the atmosphere and in space.
Mass at launch: 12002.5 kg

Mission objective: Launch into low Kerbin orbit, then de-orbit and land near the space center.

Going straight up until reaching an altitude of 10 km

Gravity turn

The RPV Type-01 in a stable orbit of 70 km

UI screenshot for proof

After one orbit was completed, the spacecraft deorbited on the opposite side of the planet from the mountains west of the space center. (note: This took several trial and error attempts, most of which landed in the ocean. I'm considering using the Mechjeb autopilot mod for the maneuvers that are too precise to be done manually.)

Plasma during atmospheric re-entry

Parachutes deployed at about 23 km above sea level

Fully deployed at 500 m above the surface

And thus concluded the flight of KASDA's first SSTO.

What is KASDA?

Kerpton Aero-Space Development Agency

(insignia depicts a green onion/leek flying through space)

KASDA is my space agency in the indie game "Kerbal Space Program". Space flight has been one of my major interests ever since I started using Orbiter Space Flight Simulator back in 2009-2010. I got Kerbal Space Program in June 2013, and decided to make KASDA soon after I got it.

The original thread
is located on the Kerbal Space Program forum, the first post of which includes the complete list of missions (50 so far) and the list of mods used. All mission reports after mission 50 will now be on this blog, because having 10 posts per page with about 10 pictures per post makes each page very long. Mission progression is done in a reasonable manner (starting with a small satellite) and quick-saving is allowed.

The name of the Kerpton Aero-Space Development Agency is a reference to:
Crypton Future Media - creators of Hatsune Miku, a singing software character
Japan Aerospace eXploration Agency
NAtional Space Development Agency - one of the precursors to JAXA.