The Alpha II: DLA Aerospace’s Irreplaceable Workhorse

Link to my Discord: https://discord.gg/gHQPmvzjGJ

Details

• Type: VAB
• Class: lifter
• Part Count: 35
• Pure Stock
• KSP: 1.12.5

Your Medium-Sized Launch Vehicle of Choice!

Look forward to have this vehicle in your fleet!

General Overview

The Alpha II is the second rocket design to be released in the Alpha launcher class, designed by DLA Aerospace. It’s a 2 stage vehicle, having a 1400 Kilonewton Mainsail engine in the first stage and a more efficient Skipper engine in the second. It is instantly recognizable by the iconic, thin swept-back fins on the first stage.

Performance

This thing gets off the pad fairly quickly thanks to the high TWR from the Mainsail engine and further accelerates as the mass of the rapidly emptying fuel tanks decreases. The Skipper stage doesn’t disappoint either, with a very respectable thrust-to-weight ratio of around 5.2 by the time it runs out of fuel. Depending on the payload’s weight, it will have around 2200 m/s of Δv in low Kerbin orbit.

Control

As the atmosphere becomes more thin the higher the vehicle flies, the fins lose effectiveness, so the engineers have equipped the Alpha II with Vernor thrusters, 4 on the 1st stage and another 4 on the 2nd. These will massively increase the vehicle’s controllability as it exits the atmosphere and onward. In fact, those are actually seen firing on the thumbnail during the time where the rocket goes supersonic.

Concluding Thoughts

In my humble opinion, this thing turned out great. It’s extremely useful for shorter-range missions and lighter payloads, but can still carry a lot of weight for it’s relatively small size.
I’ve used it very often for multiple missions by slightly modifying the fairing and installing the payload the way I need it. It has an iconic charisma that makes me marvel at it’s reliability and overall simplicity. You can do so much with only 35 parts!

I haven’t uploaded any craft in an extremely long while, so I hope you can enjoy this launcher that I was planning to upload over a month ago but sort of forgot about it and carried on with life. I hope I can get back into uploading craft with some of the spare time I now have.

Have fun!

A stock rocket called Alpha II. Built with 35 of the finest parts, its root part is fairingSize2.

Built in the VAB in KSP version 1.12.5.

An Alpha II lifts off from the KSC launchpad.

The same Alpha II vehicle seen here launching my Supply Return Vehicle to an LKO Station.

Stage Separation.

The payload safely in orbit.

WARNING: I put lots of work and time into creating my craft and posting them to KerbalX with good reliability and high quality. I encourage suggestions to improve my content.