hypervelocity

@winged quick question for you mate! and first off, many thanks for creating RO configs for the great B9 parts, your effort is greatly appreciated, many many thanks!!! the question I had is the following: how did you come about the engine's masses? I notice you set SABRE M to 8 tonnes, but I found the following working paper quoting the engine's mass at almost half of what you have in the RO configs - https://web.archive.org/web/20140127114808/http://www.reactionengines.co.uk/tech_docs/JBIS_v57_22-32.pdf (Page 31) I want to get to orbit but I don't want to "cheat" my way to it (setting aside the fact I'm using non-existant engines for my planes :$)

@winged that is one beautifully looking Skylon !!! I did try initially to replicate Skylon in my quest to get a functioning SSTO spaceplane. I did reach the engine's airbreathing mode maximum velocity (I believe it was Mach 5.6) at circa 26km altitude and switched to closed cycle mode, but remaining delta-v was never enough. I believe my top performing flight reached orbital velocity of 4.5km/s, but that was it. I then moved on to lighter, smaller designs - trying to reduce overall dry mass by replacing tanks with wing area, intended to get 2 birds at once: getting more lift to reduce fuel consumption and reduce total mass by combining tank and wing together. I didn't have a look at editing SABRE's configs yesterday, but I did try one more attempt with my current design and reached an orbital velocity of 6890 m/s - I'm closer than ever and starting to think this is actually possible! EDIT: actually - we should create a RO/RSS SSTO spaceplane challenge, shouldn't we? I bet this would be a longstanding one - at least I know I have been trying to build one for the past year or so !!!

@Phineas Freak, ah, lovely, that's exactly what I was looking for, as I think the closed cycle vacuum isp might be understated in the current config. Many many thanks for all your help, I will try it as soon as I get home PS: in case anyone is interested, managed to reach 6.8 km/s orbital velocity with a SSTO spaceplane using 3 x SABRE S + 1 x J2-X - the closest I ever got to a functioning SSTO spaceplane in RO+RSS !!! I'm almost there!!! I will share the craft as soon as I get it to work.

@Phineas Freak thanks for your reply, very much appreciated! so if I was to change the engine's ISP I should be editing the thrust/fuel consumption ratio correct?

hi guys! hope everyone's doing great today where can I find RO's configs for B9's SABRE engines? I tried looking around the RO folder but couldn't find them! also, would anyone know how to change the engine's ISP? I was reading a bit about SABRE and would like to push the engine's vacuum isp to 460 seconds for a couple tests I'm doing

Hi all! hope you are having a great day! I just wanted to share a cool new interactive feature by NASA that shows all the incidents and close calls ever occurred in human spaceflight! I am still discovering the microsite myself but I can tell you already it is really cool! https://spaceflight.nasa.gov/outreach/SignificantIncidents/index.html Hope you enjoy it!

@Munar pilot One Intrepid Spaceplane craft file coming right up! https://www.sendspace.com/file/4icx8m (link will be good for 7 days)

Today, I am living up to my promise! I humbly give you Reds Station, a Lunar orbital science outpost and observatory constructed under Real Solar System & Realism Overhaul. The station is a fully equipped orbital science laboratory with a crew capacity of 5. The middle section contains 2 Observatories, and it rotates freely to generate 0.55g of artificial gravity (specs in the imgur album description). It was assembled in low lunar orbit in 4 flights (Command & Rotation Modules, Arm & Observatory 1, Arm & Observatory 2, Propulsion Module) Hope you like it!

hey @frisch! I think I might have something for you - I had ample success with my Intrepid Spaceplane - a lightweight LEO & Moon Taxi capable of carrying 10 crew and delivering 3.3km/s of delta-v to serve the LEO & Reds Lunar Station (http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/148678-13-planetary-domes/&page=7#comment-3105724) operations. Specs (craft file https://www.sendspace.com/file/4icx8m The vehicle handles reentry very well, keeping stability and control throughout the descent (usual profile is a shallow reentry, 300-140km Ap & 60km Pe, coming down mostly holding 20° AoA) Total Wet Mass in the screenshots is 11.4T with 200m/s delta-v (RCS fuel for reentry). I had created a thread in the past asking for spaceplane aid in RSS/RO - there are some good tips in there, plus a link to a spaceplane thread with the basics (try searching for threads I created and you will easily find it). Also, @NathanKell did a comprehensive youtube video showing the design process of a smaller vehicle: Hope this helps!

thanks for the reply @Stevie_D!! B9 has a Sabre engine and the guys at RO did configs for it, so I'm using that to try and build the Skylon !

wow @Stevie_D, this looks hawt!!!!!! I will sure be downloading the pack once it releases! shameful but humble ask :$ would you consider going with a less yellowy texture for the command pods? I think the colour/textures on the Kraken capsule look absolutely gorgeous and will fit the overall theme of the rest of the game's parts. again, this is looking fantastic and cannot wait for the release! great job!

this looks great!!! I have been using the following resource to create my spinning habitats: http://www.artificial-gravity.com/sw/SpinCalc/

Hi guys! hope everyone's doing great! I was wondering if someone ever managed to build a Skylon or similar SSTO spaceplane with the B9 motors and configs provided in RO. I only managed to get to 4.5km/s, almost half way to orbit - I can't seem to get the fuel fractions right and also don't think my ascent profile is quite right, I only manage to get to the engine's airbreathing temp limit at about 25km up in the atmosphere, which I think is a little low. I was just wondering if it's even possible EDIT: I know SSTO spaceplanes are pointless and impossible to build with current tech... but hey it's for fun that I'm trying!

@Motokid600 Ion if going with ultra-light spacecraft; Hypergolic if medium-sized spacecraft; Gravity assists with Patched Conics > 5 (not that easy to get right at first attempts); Nuclear/Hydrolox with the boiloff fixes suggested before & in the HeatPump threads. EDIT: also, don't be afraid of humongously big & heavy launchers - I've learnt to stop worrying and just scale up!

you do it outside the quotation marks, as in: "F:\Kerbal Space Program CURRENT\KSP_x64.exe" -force-d3d11