KerbalX

Description

A stock rocket called Kaiju SN25. Inspired by SpaceX’s Starship - Built with 597 of the finest parts.

Mods

• Breaking Ground DLC
• Making History DLC
• Squad (stock)

*BoosterGuidance Boosted or MechJeb Landing Guidance is recommended for landing Stage 1 (BN12)
**MechJeb has been removed as a dependency

Details

• Type: VAB
• Class: ship
• Part Count: 597
• Pure Stock
• KSP: 1.12.5

The era of reusability is in full swing!

SN25 is the 25th iteration of the Kaiju program - This venture aims to return Kerbalkind to the Mun and beyond, possibly even to Duna!

In order to perform a boostback to the Island Airfield (This is where I have been landing mine, makes for a more believable recovery scenario) you will need to begin staging with about 600 m/s remaining - I am sure that you could extend the upper stage’s range a little bit by waiting until around 400 m/s or so. AG1, 2, and 3 control BN12’s engine rings - Just press each one in succession and then stage normally. I did some tests with hotstaging but as users of MechJeb know, it’s a little finicky unless you know what you’re doing (Which I do not)

SN25 will continue its ascent; when your AP reaches 65km I recommend shutting down the Swivels to conserve as much fuel as possible for deorbit and landing. With the settings provided in the screenshot below you should have no problem reaching 100km x 100km with ~600 m/s to spare.

BN12 boostback/landing is best achieved through a combination of FMRS (Creates additional persistent save so you can recover stages), BoosterGuidance (Good for pt1 of the boostback, I ran into bugs with the 2nd part when decoupling the hotstage ring) and MechJeb Landing Guidance (Final touchdown). Trajectories is also recommended for landing predictions.

Re-entry is where things get fun. I like to pitch up to 40° and turn on Kill rotation when I reach 60km (Unfortunately this version of Kaiju does not have RCS just yet, although a future version will include the same flush style thrusters that are on BN12) and then toggle Gears to unlock flaps.

From here you will want to open the play sequences for FORWARD/AFT FLAPS 1 and PITCH, and play the first sequence until you reach 7.5s - This is where the craft is most balanced. From there, use PITCH and slide back and forth to adjust your nose.

Once you are in the atmosphere and doing your bellyflop (You can probably turn off Kill rotation at this point) maintain slight forward momentum so that the flip maneuver is easier. At 1500m, make sure that your Cheetahs are toggled off and that you are only using the 3 core Swivels, engage Land somewhere in Mechjeb Landing Guidance, and pull the play sequence forPITCHback to about 2s. Kaiju will pitch up and begin its landing sequence - Once you are in a stable descent pull the play sequence forFORWARD/AFT FLAPS 1" all the way over to the end point to fold the flaps in.

Flags:

MechJeb Ascent Guidance settings: