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Ariane 5 / ATV replica

Realistic replica of the Ariane 5, works Stock-only, works with RSS (RealSolarSystem)

Originally built to celebrate VA219. The last flight of the ATV-series spacecrafts, the Georges Lemaître ATV lifted on 29 July 2014 to date still being the heaviest ISS cargo mission. Arianespace was the launch provider for the European Space Agency (ESA), primary contructor for the spacecraft was the EADS Astrium (nowadays: Airbus Space).

This ATV doesn't have a pressurized cargo space, instead, to give it some utility, it carries liquid fuel/oxidizer in Rockomax X200-32 Fuel Tank, which makes it an excellent spacecraft for various sorts of rescue missions. In particular due to its immerse delta-v in stock KSP that allows it to reach almost every orbit, often even multiple orbits. In particular given that even the upper stage itself has a huge amount of delta-V to spare that allows it to reach a number of orbits without even staging and igniting monopropellants of the ATV itself.

Without any mods it's an easy-to-launch, grossly overpowered launcher that even the very beginners can use to reach orbit or any of the moons. More skilled players can even try other planets!

1. [R], [T] to enable SAS and RCS, [Z] set engine to full trottle
   
2. [Space] to ignite Vulcain, [space] again to ignite EAPs.
   
3. Wait till EAPs run out of fuel. [space] to discard them.
   
4. Look at the top bar, wait till you get to the dark-blue atmospheric density bar, [space] to drop fairings.
   
5. Now gently rotate rocket with [D] to aim at the horizon. Control rotation with [Q] and [E]
   
6. Wait till you run out of fuel in the main stage, [space] to drop it, [space] again to ignite engine of the upper stage (Aestus engine on EPS upper stage)
   
7. You can either throttle down and keep pointing at horizon while looking at the map [M] to see how it slowly circulizes, or less realistic approach: press [X] to shut the engine off, press [1] to deploy solar panels (important not to run out of power!) and wait till you approach Apsis, then correct rotation to point at horizon, [Z] to full-thrust and look at map till your circulize.
   
8. Welcome to orbit! Seriously though - remember about solar panels if you coast (action group 1), enjoy plenty of spare delta-V once you reach the orbit! ;)

Of course KSP doesn't support everything real rocket had, therefore few simplifications had been made for the sake of the gameplay:

• There are no Size 2 gimbaled solid rocket boosters. So I had to reproduce them with four regular boosters stacked. No gimballing though
  
• There is no Size 3 equivalent of Poodle, so rocket is using Skipper instead, and unrealistic staging with 4-parts fairing that otherwise shouldn't be there
  
• There is no proper representation of the vehicle equipment bay (VEB) that's the control module of the rocket, got batteries, many other systems, but importantly: the altitude control system (SCA - Systeme de Contrôle d'Attitude) that controls rotation of the upper stage. It is represented by the Vernor Engines that use liquid fuel instead of monopropellant thrusters due to their inefficiency. Vernor Engines allow to deliver enough thrust to allows for much easier control of the rotational moment of the rocket
  
• There is no way to tie enabling of RCS thrusters on the rocket to staging, so RCS thrusters on the ATV respond along with the upper stage thrusters. You can disable them and tie action group to re-enable them after the separation (I did not want to do this to make it more newbie-friendly)

• Delta-V: 9 792 m/s (stages: 1489m/s, 2374m/s, 2397m/s, 3531m/s)
  
• Mass: 430 284 kg
  
• Cost: √114 385.8
  
• Parts Count: 80