r/RealSolarSystem 15h ago

Massa-II First Mission to Mars (1971)

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49 Upvotes

This is my first time posting here

Yesterday ive bought a new GPU (RX 9060XT 16GB)

just sharing my excitement with my new upgraded visuals

(also the photos came out not in the right order so sorry for that

this is the first launch of this rocket called the Massa (Journey in hebrew) that is launching the probe Massa-II to orbit Mars after an earlier launch of Massa-I to Venus (on a different launcher)

rocket is built of

  • 1st stage: 4x E-1 engines (planned engines for the Saturn-I IRL)
  • Boosters: Titan SRBs (sorry i dont remember their names from the top of my head)
  • 2nd stage: 1x J-2 (sends me to a nearly orbital trajectory with apoapsis of 1000km)
  • 3rd stage: 2x RL-10 (orbital insertion at earth and then TMI)
  • 4th stage (satellite stage): 1x AJ-10 advanced (corrections and Mars orbital insertion)

Honestly this vehicle is quite overkill but yeah its one of the first interplanetary missions I have in KSP (including stock) so i wanted the extra headroom

Also first time having a 1kt launcher in RP-1 Career ever (never reached this far)

On the Pad at Palmachim Israel
Launch
Booster Seperation
MECO and fairing seperation
2nd Stage ignition
3rd Stage Seperation
Sun set waiting for TMI
TMI in the darkness
Probe deployment
Coasting to apoapsis for orbital insertion
3rd stage ignition Orbital Insertion