Difference between revisions of "RT-10 "Hammer" Solid Fuel Booster"

Revision as of 03:26, 28 February 2014

RT-10 "Hammer" Solid Fuel Booster
Solid rocket booster by Found lying by the side of the road
Radial size		Small, Radial mounted
Cost	(total)	400.00
	(dry)	175.00
Mass	(total)	3.563 t
	(dry)	0.750 t
Drag		0.2-0.3
Max. Temp.		2000 K
Impact Tolerance		7 m/s
Research		Basic Rocketry
Unlock cost		1 200
Since version		0.7.3
Part configuration		solidBoosterRT-10_v2.cfg
Maximum thrust	(1 atm)	197.90 kN
	(vacuum)	227.00 kN
Isp	(1 atm)	170 s
	(vacuum)	195 s
Fuel consumption		15.83 /s
Thrust vectoring		No
Burn time	(1 atm)	20.7 s
	(vacuum)	23.7 s
Testing Environments
On the surface		No
In the ocean		No
On the launchpad		Yes
In the atmosphere		Yes
Sub-orbital		Yes
In an orbit		Yes
On an escape		No
Docked		No
Test by staging		Yes
Manually testable		Yes
Solid fuel		375

The RT-10 Solid Fuel Booster (also known as an SRB) is a solid rocket booster used to provide a short burst of additional thrust to a rocket. It comes as a single unit. The engine and fuel tank are one single part which means that it isn't possible increase the burn time for it by adding more fuel tanks.

Usage

RT-10's are one-shot rocket boosters often used to help get the massive bulk of a large multi-stage rocket off the ground. They burn at a constant thrust until they run out of fuel and then cease to work. RT-10 boosters can be stacked with axial decouplers or divided in different groups assigned to different stages, to allow for staggered firing and a longer total burn duration.

Another possible use is as a last stage for imparting high impulses to a very light payload: in this role, the high mass ratio of the RT-10s offsets the low vacuum specific impulse and the high thrust allows to complete a burn while in the vicinity of a planet, taking advantage of the Oberth effect. Since SRBs cannot be extinguished after ignition, though, this is difficult to put to fruition in KSP since the impulse cannot be easily changed.

RT-10 Solid Fuel Boosters are prone to overheating, especially when large numbers are clustered together. The main ways to overcome this are by using custom staging to stagger the firing, and attaching additional parts that are not SRBs (typically struts, control surfaces or winglets) to act as heat sinks. These 'heat sinks' can provide extra functionality by holding the boosters more securely to the main rocket as well help provide additional control.

Deliberately overheating the RT-10 — such as by stacking two and firing both at once — can let the booster function as an impromptu decoupler sometimes called “explosive decoupling”. This is useful if trying to maximize Science while at the lowest level of the technology tree, before proper decouplers are available.

Description

Trivia

Between 0.7.3 and 0.15.2, the RT-10 was of limited use, mainly for providing extra challenge or silliness related to its high thrust to weight ratio. In rare cases it provided a small performance boost from overcoming the sticky pad bug or getting a rocket up to ideal speed.

In 0.16, the RT-10 had a specific impulse (or I_sp) of 442.4 s, higher than any other solid or liquid fuel rocket, making a useful, if situational, choice (especially during launch). However, its increased mass in 0.17 reduced its I_sp to 212.4 s. Other than these foibles, the RT-10 is possibly the most consistent original part, still looking and behaving much as it did in the earliest releases.

Changes

The texture prior to 0.18

0.18

• Retextured

0.17

• Full mass increased from 1.8 to 3.5 tons; dry mass increased from 0.36 to 0.5 tons.

0.16

• Thrust increased from 130 to 250 (part rebalancing)

0.8

• New texture for the Solid Rocket Booster

0.7.3

• Initial Release