Early Orbital Rocket Tutorial

Early Orbital Rocket Tutorial

After you've completed the 3000 km downrange contract, the next step is to launch a satellite into orbit. To show one way of accomplishing this milestone, this tutorial will show you how to build a workhorse early American rocket, the Thor-Able. As with the early career tutorial, please note that this is simply one way of progressing in an RP-1 career. There are many paths to success!

This will be a two-stage rocket, using an AJ10-37 upper stage and an LR-79 lower stage. Both of these engines are unlocked in the 1956-57 Rocketry tech node. The rocket will also use integral fuel tanks, which are lighter and more capacious compared to comparable conventional (separate structure) fuel tanks.

Let's design the rocket from the top down. First, create a satellite. This extremely boring satellite is a single part, a TL3 science core. This tech level reduces power draw dramatically, while also continuing to reduce mass compared to earlier versions. This particular science core has a radiation detector, a thermometer, and a barometer all integrated into the core. It also has 10,000 EC, which will allow it to power the experiments in orbit and broadcast the results back for quite some time.