KerbalX

Description

This spacecraft, developed under Project G.O.A.L. (Giant Orbitting Antenna Link), is a simple proof-of-concept comms relay lifted into orbit by the Globus stage-and-a-half booster.

A stock rocket called G.O.A.L.. Built with 59 of the finest parts, its root part is fairingSize1.

Fairly-obviously inspired by, and modelled after, the real-life Project SCORE, a 1958 project to place a demonstration communications satellite into orbit using an Atlas B rocket (becoming, in the process, the first-ever orbital launch of an Atlas), bringing most of said Atlas into orbit with it (and, thus, becoming, at the time, the largest object ever placed in orbit).

The Globus rocket, which you might remember from the Globus-Quicksilver (although I actually built G.O.A.L. well before the Globus-Quicksilver - rather fittingly, seeing how SCORE came years before Mercury-Atlas!), is my recreation of the original Atlas, with its three engines in a stage-and-a-half configuration - two booster engines mounted on a ring-shaped thrust structure, jettisoned partway through ascent, and one central sustainer engine, which burns all the way to orbit (initially firing through the open center of the booster thrust structure). As with SCORE, G.O.A.L. is a small experimental comms satellite, permanently attached to the top of the launcher that brought it to orbit. (Unlike SCORE, G.O.A.L. has solar panels to recharge its batteries, because I wanted it to stay useful for longer than a single battery charge.)

Built in the VAB in KSP version 1.9.0.

Details

• Type: VAB
• Class: satellite
• Part Count: 59
• Pure Stock
• KSP: 1.9.0