First Rocket & Early Career Tutorial
Note: This tutorial is written based on RP-1 v1.4. Key mods include Kerbalism, RealAntennas, TestLite, ROEngines, and Taerobee. The intended audience for this tutorial is anyone who is new to RP-1, or simply wants to speed up their early game and beat some historical dates.
With all the recent changes to RP-1, it's time for a new early game rocket tutorial. This document will contain some design ideas for your first few rockets, including discussion of key considerations for each type. It will also look in detail at the first few missions from the VAB (and the SPH), including which ones are critical and which ones are optional. Lastly, it will look at what technologies you should unlock first (including a discussion of why), examine what technologies are needed for first orbit and first science orbit, and set forth a reasonable path to get there.
This guide was authored by norcalplanner in April of 2020. Welcome to the new career tutorial!
1. New RP-1 Career Settings
- Selecting a Difficulty Setting
- Choosing a Launch Site & Investing KCT Points
- KRASH Settings
- Accept Your First Contract
2. Overview of Early Rocket Archtypes
3. Designing Your First Sounding Rocket
- Probe Core and Tanks
- Engines and Burn Times
- Fins and Drag
- Decoupler, Booster, and Clamps
- Scientific Experiments
- Flight Profile and Testing
4. Building a Rocket
6. Next Steps
- First Launch After Action Review
- But What If Something Went Wrong?
- Buying Tech Nodes
- Accepting More Contracts
- Purchasing More KCT Upgrade Points
Note: This section may need to be merged with the existing article.
So you're starting a new RP-1 career. Congratulations! You have a lot of fun, interesting, and satisfying gameplay ahead of you. Full instructions and recommended settings for a new career can be found HERE but we're going to review a few key items in this tutorial as well. Start a new career and select your desired difficulty:
- Moderate for experienced players
- Normal for those new to this version of RP-1
- Easy for those who are completely new to RP-1/RSS/RO and still learning the mechanics
- Hard for masochists who have played many careers on moderate and want more challenge
Note that the primary thing affected by the difficulty setting is funds – most other settings are unaffected. This walkthrough is written based on moderate difficulty, but will point out where things will be different for those on easier settings. Also make sure to disable all contracts in the Contract Configurator screen other than the official RP-0/1 contracts. This includes disabling Scansat contracts, as RP-1 has its own Scansat contracts built in.
After choosing your new career settings and entering the KSC scene, select the RP-1 preset in KCT. If you've installed KSCSwitcher, DO NOT spend your two initial KCT upgrade points unless you want to base your career out of Cape Canaveral, Florida. You still have to press the second button on that initial KCT window to proceed, but then simply close the window. If you don't have KSCSwitcher installed or simply prefer to stick with the Cape, skip the next step and invest the points as suggested below.
Go into the Tracking Station and select the launch site you wish to use (Brownsville is good for beginners), then pull up the main KCT window and spend the two upgrade points as desired.
How should you spend those two points? The safest way which preserves the most options is to put one in the VAB, and the other in the SPH. Each building will then have a build rate of 0.1. However, if you're more of a rocket person, feel free to put both of the points in the VAB initially for a VAB build rate of 0.115. The SPH will still jump up to a build rate of 0.1 whenever you invest the first upgrade point in it, even if that occurs months or years after your career has started.
If you don't spend any of your starting points in the VAB, your build rate will be near zero and even very small rockets will take 10s of thousands of days to complete. Make sure you put at least one point in the VAB.
Before building any rockets, update the KRASH simulation costs from the KSC scene so you don't break the bank when testing your designs. You can either turn the costs off entirely, or set them to something very low, such as the recommended RP-1 Config.
Go into Mission Control and accept the “First Launch” contract. Total payout is a meager 3,600 funds, but we're going to earn a lot more. (Note: Players on normal or easy will have larger advances and contract completion payouts.) Before leaving Mission Control, look at the contracts and milestones which are already accepted by selecting the “Active” tab. We'll talk about these more in a bit, but for now just be aware that there are lots of these sorts of contracts which will automatically be accepted, even during flight, and will serve to reward you for pushing your program farther and faster.
There are generally four early rocket types that a new career needs. Please note that the identifiers are arbitrary and have no connection to any formal rocket naming scheme. Click the links for images and further information.
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- Construction: 0.30 m diameter – similar to WAC-Corporal
- Typical Missions: First Flight, Sounding Rocket (Low), Karman Line
- This rocket is very similar to the one in the tutorial written for 1.6.1. Major changes include a pointier nose shape, elimination of TestFlight research teams, and two different thrust profiles for the Tiny Tim.
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- Construction: 0.38 m diameter – similar to Aerobee
- Typical Missions: Suborbital Return, Early Intermediate Altitude, Low Space Bio Return
- This rocket is a larger version of the Type 1, with an increased diameter to allow use of the Aerobee Recovery Parachute and the early biological sample container. To push this larger rocket with confidence, you'll need either the XASR or AJ10-27 engine upgrade. Note that some players choose to skip this diameter, choosing instead to put the 0.38 m biological sample capsule and Taerobee parachute parts into a 0.3 m rocket and pay the aerodynamic penalty.
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- Construction: 1.65± m diameter – similar to A-4
- Typical Missions: Intermediate Downrange, Difficult Altitude, Low Space Film Return
- Based on WWII-era V-2 rockets, this larger sounding rocket has much more capability. It also takes much longer to build, especially if a controllable probe core is fitted. There's some flexibility in the rocket diameter - smaller sizes (such as 1.5 m) offer cheaper tooling and less drag, but larger sizes (such as 1.8 m, used in the example rocket) will provide better future growth opportunities.
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- Construction: 1.65± m diameter – similar to WAC-Bumper
- Typical Missions: 3000 km Downrange, Difficult Downrange, Late Difficult Altitude
- Essentially a combination of a Type 3 with a Type 1 or 2 as an upper stage, this two-stage rocket is the most capable of the early sounding rockets. With just the first engine upgrades (RD-101 / XASR) and the right profile, it should be possible to complete the 3000 km Downrange Contract. (Experienced RP-1 cavemen may also achieve success with a three-stage RD-100 / WAC / WAC design.) A stretched and upgraded version of this rocket, with better engines, lighter tanks, and a third stage added on top (as well as some other bits), may be good enough to put your first satellite into orbit.
Note: Before we get started building and launching these rockets to complete various contracts, please understand that this walkthrough is offered merely as one way of progressing at a healthy pace when starting a new RP-1 career. Many will have different ideas, and that's great! There are many roads to success!
We're going to start with a Type 1 sounding rocket, based loosely on the WAC Corporal. Note that this and the other example rockets all use the legacy Redstone texture, as the dark horizontal band near the top of each tank makes it easier to see how the tanks are configured and assembled.
Enter the VAB, then unlock and select one of starting 0.3 m sounding rocket probe cores. (You can also select a procedural probe core if you wish, but tooling costs mean that a procedural core is generally a better choice for future rockets, especially after the first avionics upgrade is purchased.) Next, select a procedural "separate" tank and attach it beneath the probe core. Right click the tank to bring up the Part Action Window (“PAW”), then select the high pressure variant (“Tank-Sep Steel-HP”) and use the sliders to match the diameter of the 0.3 m probe core.
Note: Procedural parts are a big thing in RP-1. You'll spend a lot of time with the PAW open as you design your rockets.
Copy the tank and attach the copy on top of the probe core, then bring up the PAW and choose the “Smooth Cone” shape. Cycle through the different cone shapes and pick one that looks nice and pointy. “Peaked #1” or “Sharp #1” are probably going to be the best cone shapes from an aerodynamic perspective, so you may wish to choose one of those. (Tip: You may want to get in the habit of specifying all tanks as smooth cones, even if the top and bottom are the same diameter, as it will make modifying existing designs easier in the future.)
Unlock the Aerobee engine and add that to the bottom of the sounding rocket. Right click each tank and choose the fuel mixture for that engine (which should be Aniline/Furfuryl/IRFNA-III). Right click on the engine to bring up the reliability data from TestLite (currently at 0 du), and note the rated burn time of 47 seconds for this engine. You can always burn five seconds over the rated time without any concern, and can frequently burn longer than that with minimal risk.
Note: Engine burn times and reliability are key considerations in RP-1. Engine choice and rocket design heavily influence each other, since many early engines have no throttling capability and short burn times. Many designs, particularly early in career, involve firing the engine longer than the rated burn time.
Now stretch the top and bottom tanks until you get a burn time in the MJ or KER window of around 55 seconds (reflecting an actual overburn of only 3 seconds, since TestLite gives each engine 5 seconds of extra burn time for free). The important thing here is that both tanks on this rocket have the same maximum diameter (0.3 m) and length, so we only have to tool one part. Before we leave the tanks, set their priority in the PAW so that they will drain bottom to top – this will help keep the CoM higher up in the rocket, making it more stable during launch. (tank priority controls need Advanced Tweakables enabled in game settings)
The rocket should look something like this:
Minimizing tooling costs is important, particularly in the early career. However, it's still important to tool most of the procedural parts you're going to build, as it greatly reduces cost and speeds up construction time of your rockets. Also note that the diameter of a part for tooling purposes is the maximum diameter, so the smooth cone and the cylindrical tank are considered the same part as long as they're the same length.
Now unlock and select the early fixed B9 procedural wing part. Place four of them around the base of the tank just above the engine. Press J while over the wing to access the B9 tweakables menu, and make them into small, thin, and very swept fins. The leading edge should be swept around 60 degrees and the trailing edge swept around 45 degrees. When you have the shape right, right click on the fins and reduce the strength down to 0.15 or so to save weight. Here's a screenshot showing what the fins should look like from a bit further along, after we've added the solid booster:
Minimizing drag, particularly transonic drag, is a key part of this (or any) rocket design, particularly if it will go supersonic deep in the atmosphere. If the fins are too large or not swept enough, the rocket won't go as high as it otherwise would. For this early sounding rocket, it can mean the difference between reaching space or not. If you're looking for feedback on your fin design, open up the FAR window and select Transonic Design as shown above, then look at the "Mach 1 Wave Drag-Area" figure as you fine-tune things.
Add a 0.3m procedural decoupler below the engine (be sure to reduce the impulse and force to zero so staging doesn't knock your rocket off course), then add a Tiny Tim booster beneath that. Copy and paste another set of your fins to the bottom of the solid booster, possibly making the fins a bit larger or putting them in 6x symmetry if more stability is needed on launch. Add a launch clamp, and use the offset tool to position it so that it doesn't interfere with the fins. Then adjust the staging so that both engines ignite at the same time the launch clamp is released, with the procedural decoupler in the next stage above. Note that the Tiny Tim only burns for around a second, so you'll need to stage almost immediately after launching. The Tiny Tim also has thrust curve and two variants with different thrust in 1.8.1, so try both out and see what works better for you.
We're almost done. The rocket should look something like the image above.
Lastly, let's put on some science gear. To keep the cost down on this first rocket and get it built and launched sooner, we're only going to add the thermometer and barometer, which each weigh less than a kilo and cost only 1 fund. Since they have the same weight, place them on either side of the probe core, then use the offset tool to move them to the inside of the probe core. (On future rockets with procedural cores, it will be possible to configure the core to include certain experiments, resulting in fewer parts and a cleaner design, but we'll cover that in a later part of the tutorial.)
Tip: With Kerbalism it's a good idea to turn on all science experiments, including those on the probe core, while in the VAB.
We're going to try to hit multiple biomes on the initial launch. Angle the rocket a few degrees (no more than 3 or 4) to the east or west to head towards a nearby biome. Precise flight paths aren't as critical with the Kerbalism Science system, since it's no longer possible to gain an experiment's entire value by dipping into a particular biome for a few seconds.
Now it's time to test your creation. Save the design, then click the KRASH button to enter a simulation. If everything works well, your rocket should leave the atmosphere. Adjust the angle in the VAB slightly if you're either going too far sideways and missing space, or not far enough sideways and missing a new biome.
Once you're satisfied, enter the RP-1 window and go to Tooling. Choose “Tool all” and watch how the cost and build time of the rocket both plummet.
Thanks to tooling, the rocket above drops from 323 funds to 82 funds, and the time to construct it improves from 94 days to 66 days.
Hit the launch button to start construction on the rocket. Before leaving the VAB, we're going to do one more thing. Save the rocket under a different name, then grab the root part and rotate it 180 degrees so that the rocket is heading the other direction. Increase or decrease the angle as desired (and do another sim if you want), then launch it as well and exit the VAB.
Note: Building multiple copies of a rocket is common in RP-1, especially with new designs when engine reliability may not be the best, or when you're trying to launch during a certain transfer window. It's also important to keep the VAB busy all the time to maximize your career's progress. In this case, we want the VAB to start building the second rocket while the first one is being rolled out to the launch pad.
While this tutorial focuses more on rockets and the VAB, recent changes to RP-1 strongly encourage using the SPH to build planes in addition to your rockets. There are different schools of thought whether your first plane should be a Cessna analog for lower cost science gathering, or something more creative and high-performance like siimav's SuperJunkers design, which can break the sound barrier using starting node plane parts. Whatever you build, make sure that you include the same science instruments on the plane that you placed on the sounding rocket.
There's also a decision to be made whether a camera should be included on your plane. Without a camera, a Cessna analog will typically finish construction before your first sounding rocket, and will therefore be your first launch. With a camera, you'll gain even more science on your flight, but the sounding rocket will finish construction first.
Regardless, start building your first plane now if you've invested one of your two starting KCT upgrade points in the SPH. Having both production facilities working simultaneously will help keep your fledgling career progressing at a good pace.
If you've followed these instructions and haven't yet started building a plane in the SPH, you should have between 20,500 and 20,700 funds in your account. If you are building a plane in the SPH, you may have less than 20,000 funds in your account, in which case you should skip this step. Bring up the Upgrades tab in KCT, and [gulp] spend 20,000 funds on an upgrade point, leaving you almost broke. Use the upgrade point to increase the build rate of the VAB. Your sounding rocket should now take less than 60 days to build. (Those playing on normal or easy can purchase another upgrade point or two and increase the speed further, if desired.) Your KCT build menu after buying the VAB upgrade should look something like this:
Rushing rocket builds, which was a valid tactic in older versions of RP-1, is now much more expensive and therefore no longer as appealing of an option. While there may still be a limited role for rushing in a competitive race into space, its use in a typical career should be reserved for those rare occasions when you're in danger of missing a contract deadline.
Press “Warp to Complete” to fast forward to when your rocket is done, then press the green “Rollout” button next to your completed rocket. Warp to Complete again to fast forward to the rocket being on the pad. If it's night time, warp to morning so you can enjoy the visuals of your first RP-1 rocket launch. Press the green “Launch” button to get this party started! Here's what the demonstration rocket looks like on the pad, with info windows showing:
Double check your staging, throttle up, take a screenshot or two for posterity, and double check the Kerbalism window (in the upper right) to make sure that all the science experiments are on. Press the space bar to launch, then press it again to stage either the moment the SRB burns out, or right before the decoupler overheats. If everything is going well you'll now be heading up at breakneck speed, passing Mach 1 approximately 10 seconds after launch.
Kerbalism will automatically collect and transmit science so you don't have to worry about setting action groups or clicking science instruments like a madman. You'll see a number of notifications blinking in the corner; most of these are the auto-accepted contracts and milestones we mentioned earlier. You'll be blowing through these, collecting lots of funds and setting many new records for height and speed during this launch. If the angle is correct, you'll hit space and at least one other biome during your flight.
Your nosecone and fins will likely burn off and explode as you enter the lower atmosphere, but stay with the rocket all the way to the ground - Kerbalism is still collecting and transmitting science right up to the point where it either loses signal or is destroyed due to lithobaking.
Congratulations! Your first flight is complete!
If everything went well, then the rocket should have reached space and you've completed a lot of milestone contracts. This example rocket broke all speed milestones up to 1,500 m/s:
Because of a slight bobble during initial staging from the SRB, this rocket didn't break 160 km. It did, however, complete all altitude milestones up to 140 km:
Note that the funds balance is now over 25,000, and that we gathered over six points worth of science.
Maybe TestLite decided that your rocket engine would have a bad day. Maybe staging was incorrect, or maybe the experiments weren't on. That's OK! It's why we built a backup rocket. If something happened to your rocket and you didn't pass the Karman Line (100 km in altitude), then you'll be offered an additional contract for "Altitude Sounding Rocket (Low)" to gain a bit more funds on your next launch. Add another rocket to the queue as insurance for the second flight if desired, or simply roll the dice and hope that the second launch will work better than the first. But first, let's start researching some science.
Note: This subsection may need to be merged with the existing article.
Head into the R&D complex. If you gathered at least five science points on the first flight, you can now purchase every starting technology. I strongly recommend purchasing Post-War Rocketry Testing first (located in the middle of the tree) followed by Supersonic Plane Development (up at the top of the tree), then the other starting technologies. These two will be immediately helpful in your quest to obtain more science and funds at the beginning of your career. The first nodes for avionics and materials science can also be helpful, as they have the effect of opening up lighter probe cores and fuel tanks, respectively. Purchasing one or both of these nodes will make the 3000 km downrange contract easier to complete.
After exiting the R&D complex, head back into Mission Control and look at the available contracts. The screen should look something like this:
The next key contract to accept is "Karman Line". Not only does it have a large payout, but it can be completed by the rocket you already have under construction. It will also open up other lucrative contract opportunities once you complete it.
After accepting Karman Line, go ahead and accept the "Downrange Milestone (3000km)" contract. You won't be completing this for a little while, but the 19,000 fund advance and the lack of a deadline make it free money at this point. Note: Advances and payouts for all these contracts will be higher if playing on normal or easy.
If your first rocket didn't break 100 km due to an engine failure or other reason, then the "Altitude Sounding Rocket (Low)" contract should also be available. Accept it if offered.
Note: This subsection may need to be merged with the existing article.
Between the rewards earned from the first flight (if it went well) and the advances for the newly accepted contracts, you should now have well over 40,000 funds. Exit Mission Control and go into the KCT window. Purchase two KCT upgrade points (or more if playing on normal or easy), and spend them on improving the VAB and/or the R&D complex. Let's discuss the options:
- Two points into R&D. Putting a lot of points into R&D early will speed up your initial research, bringing new techs like the XASR engine and the X-1 cockpit to your door sooner.
- Two points into VAB. Further speeding up the VAB will increase the pace of new rocket construction, allowing you to fly more missions (and possiby more complex missions) in the same amount of time.
- One point each into R&D and VAB. Splitting the baby, speeding up each a little bit.
While the choice is up to you, I'd recommend putting at least one point into R&D, especially if you already have two or three points invested in the VAB. While many players find the VAB more important initially, bringing new tech online is important to progressing quickly. Note that this gets into areas of personal play style and preferences, so players may have strongly held differences of opinion regarding what should be prioritized in the first year. Whatever you do, don't let your funds balance just sit there doing nothing. Invest in your program!
One of the less obvious rewards known to veteran players is that the game provides bonus science when recovering craft. The first craft to be recovered from an atmospheric flight will net 5 bonus science points, while the first craft recovered from a suborbital flight into space will net 8 bonus science points. Use that parachute or land that plane earlier rather than later to earn bonus science! Remember that every 20 science points earned results in a free KCT upgrade point, so each science point is effectively worth 1,000 funds worth of KCT upgrades in addition to its value in unlocking tech nodes.
This one is straight forward with a rocket-centric career – launch the second copy of your Sounding Rocket Type 1 rocket that's already under construction, using the opportunity to gain some additional science. Some of these experiments take 10 or more minutes to complete, and so there's value in this instance flying the same mission profile again. As with the previous mission, consider adding a backup rocket to the build queue for fastest progress just in case of an engine failure or other mishap.
If your first launch of your career was a plane from the SPH, then your first sounding rocket launch can complete the Karman Line contract. Be sure to grab the Sounding Rocket (Low) contract from mission control before launch for some extra funds.
As before, once this mission is complete, purchase a few more KCT upgrade points, then visit the R&D complex to put additional tech nodes into the research queue.
Now we really start to get into different ways to proceed based on player preference. Some will choose to build a 0.38 m Type 2 rocket to take advantage of the Taerobee parachute/decoupler part and the early bio sample container. Note that this rocket, being a bit heavier than the Type 1, really needs at least the XASR engine, so hopefully that's the first tech node that you're researching if you're going this route. Here's a picture of a Type 2 Rocket in the VAB, configured to complete the first suborbital bio sample mission:
Others may choose to stick with a modified Type 1 rocket, adding a resized 0.3 m inline RealChute part and decoupler, or simply accepting the aerodynamic penalty of having the 0.38 m Taerobee parachute jutting out further into the airstream compared to the rest of the rocket. Here's a picture of a modified Type 1 Rocket with a 0.3 m parachute, which can be launched before you have access to any engine upgrades:
Still others will take this opportunity to jump up to the much larger Type 3 rocket, using an RD-100 or A-4. This option will give you more capabilities in terms of flying cameras, larger sounding rocket payloads, and greater downrange distance, all at the cost of being more expensive and slower to build. Here's a Type 3 Rocket with a parachute:
And some players who are min-maxing hard and racing to orbit caveman-style will ignore this contract and go straight for the 3000 km downrange contract with a Type 4 rocket. The thought with this option is that completing the downrange contract opens up the first orbit and first science satellite contracts, which have the largest fund advances in the early game. This large early injection of funds allows for greater progress earlier; the downside is that your downrange rockets will have limited du and fail more often, making this a riskier approach.
Once again, there are multiple routes to go forward. Some players will choose to first fly a few of the bio sample missions or film missions for additional science, especially if the Post-War Rocketry Testing node isn't unlocked yet. Others will gain du on newly unlocked engines a bit more cheaply with sounding rocket altitude contracts. Still others may choose to build so-called “deathsticks” consisting of a cockpit on top of a Type 3 rocket, completing the Break the Sound Barrier contract that way. (While still a somewhat viable if ahistoric option, make sure to watch the altitude rating of whatever cockpit you're using, and include enough parachutes so that your pilot survives the “landing”.)
But whether you jump into it right away or you choose to fly some other contracts first, the 3000 km Downrange contract is the next big one to accomplish. This will be the most difficult mission to date, and will likely require extensive simulation. Hopefully by now you've unlocked the first rocketry node, so you have the RD-101 and XASR engines. Things will get even easier if you've unlocked the first nodes for materials science (aluminum tanks) or tracking station (lighter procedural avionics).
Here's an example showing one way of constructing a Type 4 rocket which can complete the 3000 km Downrange contract. This requires the purchase of two science nodes, Post-War Rocketry Testing and the first Materials Science node. In addition to the engines mentioned above, it also has the first fuel tank upgrade (Tank-Sep-Al). The overall appearance looks like this:
The upper stage is simply a stretched and upgraded variant of the first 0.3 m rocket we designed, but with two tiny separation motors angled to provide both ullage and spin stabilization. Part details of the upper stage are shown below:
The first stage is a streamlined 1.5 m design, with a procedural avionics part in between the two tanks to allow full control of the first stage. The streamlining is key, as this rocket has a high TWR and will be going very fast in the lower atmosphere. I'd also note that the strength of the fins was adjusted from 0.65 down to 0.4 to reduce their mass and gain some additional delta V. As before, part details are shown below:
MechJeb's SmartASS should be used with this rocket. With the high TWR and associated "spicy" ascent, this design works best by cranking it over 15 degrees immediately after launch, then locking surface prograde with a -1 degree pitch adjustment. The goal is to be pointed somewhere between 40 and 45 degrees above the horizon when the first stage burns out. Wait a second or two for the altitude to go above 60 km (where the air is just a bit thinner), then quickly trigger the ullage motors followed by the XASR. I've managed to get this as far as 3,800 km downrange, so it should be fairly tolerant of slightly suboptimal ascent profiles. Here's a picture of it mid-staging as the ullage/spin motors are firing:
If you're finding it difficult to fly this high TWR design, try increasing the length of the first stage tanks to reduce the initial speed off of the pad. For example, stretching the lower stage tanks to 6.5 m will increase that stage's burn time by 20 seconds and reduce the initial TWR from 2.45 to 2. Note that you'll need to reduce the amount you tip over - I found that 9 degrees worked well with the revised design.
Also note that this rocket will require spending additional funds in the VAB for tooling the tanks and avionics, and possibly engine unlocks if you haven't already unlocked the RD-101 and XASR. This is one of the first times in an RP-1 career when you should limit your purchase of KCT points to make sure you have enough funds while designing your rocket in the VAB. Simply design, tool, and start constructing a few copies of the rocket first, then purchase any desired KCT points afterward.
Access to these two contracts, and their large fund advances, is the biggest reward for completing the 3000 km Downrange contract. The decision about when to accept these first two orbital contracts depends entirely on your experience, play style, and risk tolerance. Whatever you decide, understand that there's a two-year clock ticking as soon as you accept either of these contracts, and that failure to meet the deadline runs the risk of bankrupting your space program. It's the biggest decision to date in managing your career.
My own personal rule of thumb is that there are two prerequisites for accepting these contracts. First, I must have gathered enough science points to at least start researching all required nodes for the first science satellite. In other words, the tech tree in the R&D complex should look something like this:
This allows you to focus mostly on accelerating your program rather than being concerned about whether you'll be able to gather enough science to unlock all needed nodes.
Second, it has to be an appropriate time on the calendar. My own benchmark is April 1952 or later. While it is possible for an experienced player to complete the 3000 km Downrange contract and accept the first two orbital contracts before 1951 is over, thereby committing to first orbit sometime in 1953, doing so will be a stressful experience with many opportunities for failure. It's not recommended for those still figuring out RP-1.
If this is your first or second RP-1 career, consider waiting until 1954 or later to accept these contracts – doing so will give you a bit more latitude to recover from setbacks, while still potentially giving you the satisfaction of beating Sputnik. Just make sure that you're using the time before accepting the contracts productively, completing other contracts to earn funds, science, rep, and du for your engines. (This is also an opportunity for you, the player, to gain additional experience in running your program while the stakes are lower.)
Invest in your program during this time by purchasing KCT points and unlocking new hardware. Keep your VAB busy constructing rockets to complete contracts, and use the SPH to fly manned supersonic planes (which is outside the focus of this tutorial). However, it's best not to purchase any facility upgrades at this time – hold off on ordering a new launch pad until after you accept the first orbital contracts. And don't even think of upgrading the tracking station or mission control until after you've completed one or both of those orbital contracts.
When you do finally pull the trigger and accept the contracts, there are two things you should do. First, order a 60-ton launch pad from the KCT menu. While it's possible to get to orbit with a 20-ton rocket, things are much easier with the larger pad. (Many of my first orbital rockets are between 25 and 30 tons.)
Second, use most of your your remaining funds to purchase KCT upgrade points, and pump 2/3 or more of those points into the R&D rate. While you'll still be flying additional missions to complete contracts while you're waiting for various tech nodes to unlock (which are needed for the First Science Satellite contract), it's critical that you prime the pump and speed up your research rate as soon as possible.
[more to follow]