KerbalX

Description

The Scorpio Orbit is a two-stage orbital shuttle which runs entirely on rocket engines. The first stage is a disposable side booster with attached Mainsail engine, while the second stage is the orbiter featuring two Skiff engines.

Scorpio Orbit features an inline docking port, seats for 6 kerbals and a total dV of 5.7km/s. The orbiter, when fully fuelled, has a total vacuum dV of 3.2km/s, and it tends to reach Kerbin orbit with about 2.0km/s.

Take-off goes fairly normally along the runway. As soon as you take off, pitch up to around 50 degrees in order to escape the lower atmosphere. At around 10km you can start pitching down for the gravity turn, but do it slowly as the heavy, asymmetric booster can cause the shuttle to flip over if the manoeuvres are too hard.
The booster should take you almost out of the atmosphere, at which point the orbiter takes over. You should circularise with over 2km/s dV in the tank, which is enough to reach Duna one-way, or return from the Mun or Minmus.

The booster features a row of Separatrons, and detatches very cleanly. However, you must stage as soon as the Mainsail cuts out because the thrust becomes very asymmetric (you have a few seconds of margin).
While the booster is attached, you can increase or decrease the thrust of the Mainsail using the [H] and [N] keys. Slowly decrease the thrust in the Mainsail as the fuel in the booster is burnt, so that the shuttle does not spin out of control. This is easier than it sounds. There exists a Kerbal Engineer readout entitled thrust offset angle which you can use to check (it should be less than a degree).

A mod aircraft called Scorpio Orbit. Built with 92 of the finest parts, its root part is mk2Cockpit.Standard.

Built in the SPH in KSP version 1.12.5.

Details

• Type: SPH
• Class: spaceplane
• Part Count: 92
• Mods: 3
• KSP: 1.12.5

Mods

• Making History DLC
• ReStock+
• Squad (stock)