Search the Community

Of course, I immediately thought of KSP after seeing this article because that is how my brain has been wired ever since I launched my 1st career rocket circa 2016. Ultrafast, air-breathing rocket engine moves a step closer to reality... Cool image btw...I think I know what I'll be designing in the SPH tonight. Link to Article: https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/air-breathing-rocket-scli-intl-gbr-scn/index.html Cheers, RS

Welcome, ladies, gentlemen, and anyone else who happened to stumble upon this forum topic, to... Here, you will find a blooming aerospace program, just starting to get a foothold in the market that consists of vehicles able to transport you to space! Shop now, and a round-trip ticket to Kerbin Orbit and beyond is just around the corner! Come take a look at our inventory... NOTE: Some craft flags and names might be inaccurate if the screenshots were taken before the mass class reorganization. SEE THE GALLERY HERE SPACEPLANES Note: Only spaceplane classes Angel through Power are available at this time. Higher-class spaceplanes will be added as they're created.) DOWNLOADS AND ACTION GROUPS Third Triad (Eleven spaceplanes) (Class 9: Angel) FS-A Gardia The result of when an team of engineers decided to strap RAPIERs onto a fighter jet and partially fill it with rocket fuel. Gardia is surprisingly orbit-capable, fit to be a trainer vehicle for young spaceplane pilots. Note: Ejector seats were swapped out for normal seats in the name of weight savings; pilots have to bail out manually in case of an spin-out they can't recover from. FS-A Angel The next step up from Gardia, Angel is a Mk2 spaceplane that has roughly the same range as her elder, smaller sister. Additionally, she has a cargo bay with space for a small space probe, so possibilities are prone to increasing exponentially. FS-A Tyrfing When plans to make a sword-shaped SSTO were first revealed, people thought AAAE's engineers were crazy. "Are you nuts? A giant sword could never make it into orbit, let alone in a single stage!" they said. Oh, they were so wrong. Not only that, FS-A Tyrfing, with its aggressive ascent profile and docking capability, quickly became the go to luxury SSTO for most daring of pilots in transit to kerbin space stations. NOTE: Like with Apollo, take special care when reentering Kerbin's atmosphere. (Class 8: Archangel) FS-A Mystletainn An SSTO spaceplane capable of carrying an orbital missile to low orbit and then deorbiting once the missile has hit its target. She has attained her rank due to her stylish looks and rapid response time. FS-AA Archangel The first Mk3 spaceplane, designed straight after FS-A Angel, and later on redesigned following numerous failures with returning subsequent prototype MK3 SSTOs from orbit. Like with all MK3 SSTOs listed after her, land with care. FS-AA Ferrybot Jr The younger sister of Archangel-Class Spaceplane FS-AA Ferrybot. Ferrybot Jr comes equipped with a docking port, RCS, twin nuclear engines, and capacity for 8 kerbals. She requires speeding up to 440+m/s at sea level due to heavy weight at takeoff, but is incredibly maneuverable, capable of even recovering from a spinout when almost dry. FS-AA Ferrybot Ferrybot Jr's aforementioned elder sister. She is capable of sending 32 kerbals to space stations in Low Kerbin Orbit. Check regularly for signs of sentience. (Class 7: Principality) The first class of spaceplanes to presently lack a spaceplane named after the class itself, instead having a reusable rocket having the class and name. (listed after spaceplanes). FS-PR Spectre When Spectre was first built, she was not granted a classification or a name because the head engineer thought he was building a Minmus Trainer. Luckily, this error was corrected when a plucky intern informed him of its landing legs, rover cargo bay, and "twin tail fins". The intern would later correct a head scientist when he first discovered Laythe, but mistook it for Kerbin. FS-PR Journeystar An ambitious SSTO built with a mining and ISRU rig pre-installed. She is capable of munar landings, but consumers may want to have engineers install extra batteries depending on their electricity needs. After first successful test runs, she received additional tuning from an SSTO manufacturer called Arctic Aerospace (headed by Arctica Frostbite, forum account link unknown.) FS-PR Wyvern A magnificent beast with an interesting wing design, Wyvern is tested and confirmed for the ability to send a small rover to the Mun and return safely to Kerbin. Wyvern might also potentially be capable of Minmus returns, though she wasn't designed and built with Minmus in mind. FS-PR Apollo Returning to the MK1 cross-section, Apollo is the first of AAAE's spaceplanes able to take a round trip to the mun. Dissatisfied consumers suggested renaming her "Icarus", but our engineers insist on not being afraid to use Apollo's on-board RCS and/or focus intensely on not letting her blow up on final reentry. Second Triad (Seven Spaceplanes) (Class 6: Power) FS-PO Ancile Vaguely shield-shaped (but not really), Ancile has sufficient delta-v for Minmus landings and interplanetary flybys and returns. With an additional front docking port, she also is capable of docking to Tyrfing, the sword-shaped SSTO, because why not? FS-PO Phoenix Following the revamp of a previous iteration of this craft by AA, AAAE was still determined to make a version not heavily modified by AA. And thus a couple iterations later, under the codename of Mystletainn, Phoenix finally rose from the ashes of AAAE's failed attempts. Their engineers insist it should be able to get to Duna and back if flown correctly. PS-PO Perseus A cargo SSTO designed to carry ten tons of cargo to either the Mun or Minmus, drop the off, and return safely to Kerbin. With her surplus fuel, her range can potentially extend to other bodies, given that she's refueled somewhere along the way. FS-PO Heracles The prototypes of Heracles, first of the three successful Power-Class SSTOs, were met with crash after crash when test pilots found themselves unable to regain flight control. With contractors and investors furious, AAAE turned to Arctic Aerospace - who would later offer slight tweaks to the Journeystar - for help, and so with major redesigning and tuning, the first successful version of Heracles was engineered, tested, and ultimately landed successfully by even AAAE's remaining pilots following the previous disasters. Heracles is capable of sending a full orange tank to Low Kerbin Orbit, and comes equipped with a single NERV for extended range. FS-PO Aegis Weeks after the failed landing of the yet-unreleased FS-PO Phoenix's first prototype, and during extensive testing and reiterating of further prototypes thereof, AAAE's backup engineers thought it would be a good idea to create a heavier cargo SSTO so FS-PO Heracles wouldn't be so alone in the Power SSTO class. After one prototype failed to get off the ground and another's wings fell off on the runway, the Aegis was born. Currently the heaviest cargo SSTO, and bearing a similar nose design to her little sister, Aegis is able to carry 78.8 tons' worth of payload into LKO and return to Kerbin safely following the release of said payload into space. She even has a built-in docking port in her cargo bay so she can rendezvous and dock with space stations. You know, so she doesn't drift off while her cargo is being re-positioned and docked. (Class 7: Virtue) FS-V Phoenix Anger The Phoenix Anger is the superior successor craft to Phoenix. With over 5,200 m/s of Delta V in Low Kerbin Orbit, our engineers have projected round trips to Laythe to easily be within reach of skilled pilots! Comes complete with capacity for 6 kerbals and the .95 ton "Virtue" rover. FS-V Iris After the success of Ferrybots Sr. and Jr. and the failures of various Duna SSTOs, AAAE felt like they needed more practice, and, furthermore, an additional means of staying afloat. And so Iris, codename Minmus Rex, was built with one mission in mind: Ferry a substantial amount of kerbals to Minmus and back. Luckily, she can easily do just that, though a round trip to the Mun might require slight refueling, if not only excessive aerobraking on the trip home. REUSABLE ROCKET "Rocket" instead of "rockets" because we only have one vehicle at the moment. DOWNLOADS FSR-PR Principality Principality is the sole reusable rocket sold by AAAE. Capable of reaching and returning from LKO like all of AAAE's current spaceplanes, she has been projected to be able to lift up to 30 tons worth of payload to low orbit, and potentially serve as an ascent stage for heavier payloads with their own propulsion. Note: Factor the payload's fairing into the payload's total weight. FLAGS: The classification flags currently in use, along with two versions of AAAE's company flag, can be found HERE. UPCOMING SPACECRAFT: Short-Range VTOL SSTO (LKO) Long-Range VTOL SSTO (Mun/Gilly(?)) ...Duna Cargo SSTO? REQUESTS: CLOSED, BUT SUGGESTIONS ARE OPEN  Mystic Labs A new subdivision of AAAE that focuses on less conventional forms of transport in general, from Jet Rovers to Weird Shuttles, and to more conventional forms of space transport such as tried and true rockets! While SSTO Spaceplanes are still mostly found in AAAE, Mystic Labs will cover anything else... just as long as you don't mind the inherent flaws in wackier craft. GALLERY CRAFT FOLDER Ursa Major - An SSTO spaceplane with an experimental two-stage design - the first stage is designed to carry you into orbit, while the second stage undocks from the main ship and is able to go anywhere in Kerbin's satellite system and return to the main ship afterwards. It tends to torque upwards in RAPIER mode in a vacuum, and in both modes in high time warp, so, watch for that. Be sure to shift all remaining fuel to the front of the spaceplane when returning to Kerbin! SSTO-11 Twintails - A private SSTO with capacity for 3 crew, but with two rather pointless plane tails in the back, hence the name. She was designed when two drunken engineers moved to Mystic Labs decided to poke fun at Fox Kerman's seeming obsession with vulpines. Launch Vehicles Colt and Pony - An super-ultralight reusable and a light semi-reusable launch vehicle, respectively. While Colt is only really useful for sending small probes into orbit, Pony can send payloads of up to around four-and-a-half to eight tons to low orbit and still be able to land its center stage. Mustang - A medium reusable launch vehicle that was built with sending orange tanks to orbit in mind. SSTO and landing capable like the Colt! Note: Fire up the engines to point retrograde during late re-descent due to on-board vernors and airbrakes giving insufficient control. Integrity - A Minmus rover previously only available by purchasing/downloading FS-PR Spectre. Virtue - A prototype Laythe rover previously only available by purchasing/downloading FS-V Phoenix Anger. Expeditioner Duna - Not just a titan of a rover, but a fully-functional base on wheels at 98 parts. Launch and transfer vehicles sold separately. As always, thank you for browsing through and potentially even ordering some of our craft for replication and delivery. We hope to see you again soon, as the number of available craft is bound to increase further overtime.

I was building a very large scale spaceplane, with custom internals inside MK3 cargo bays. The plane was more than 170 parts, probably around 200. When I first experienced the plane falling apart, it was just some clipped parts falling out of the main plane. I fixed this with a few structural connectors. I launched again and when I tried to pull up off the runway, my wings just went crazy and blew the plane up. I thought I might try again but not pull up so hard. So I reverted to launch, and my plane immediately.. well it’s kind of hard to describe. The parts were all separated from each other, but still seemed connected via invisible joints, and then separated and fell apart, some parts were sent away at extremely high velocity. After falling apart, the remains violently exploded along with the runway. I am on my phone so I do not have a screenshot. I will try and get some screenshots next time I’m on my PC.

Hello everyone, It's Trekkie148 here, I'm just wondering on how to make my space shuttle stable, get to orbit, rendezvous, docking with an object, maybe mun orbit, and mostly mk2 and mainly mk3. I am using the mod Kerbal Engineer Redux and for visual Planet Shine to see the ship from the dark side of a celestial body. When ever I make a orbiter that looks like and supposed to act like the NASA space shuttle and I also empty out the tanks of the orbiter and put on the CoM and CoL indicators and sometimes CoT all standing for Center of Mass, Center of Lift, Center of Thrust, and I try to make the CoL closer to the CoM, I seriously do not know about what is happening what is happening with my design because it keeps on flipping my spacecraft either while landing or Reentry. This thread will be updated tomorrow on Thursday November 22 2018. Stay tuned, But do tend to give me help and reply. This helps out a lot. Thank you everyone. Also Happy Thanks Giving!

This is a generic, low-tech (mk 2) stock spaceplane. The problem I'm having with it is that while I can get to suborbital with it, and -almost- manage the last little bit to orbit, I can't quite seem to get it all the way there. Is it because I'm using Panthers, which are just not quite up to the task of going high enough and fast enough before I kick my rocket motors on? Should I just be patient and scrape a bit more tech together? Or is there a way to make this sad little plane's dreams come true? On a side note, is there a good way to get this thing off the runway other than belly flopping off the end? I feel like maybe I put the wheels too far back

I present to you fine spaceplane enthusiasts... the Kerbal Wind Tunnel mod! We all build spaceplanes to fly faster and higher, but how do you know how fast or how high your current design can go? In the real world of aircraft design, engineers calculate the flight envelope for their aircraft before the first test flight rolls out. This mod runs your spaceplane through a virtual wind tunnel while still in the SPH and predicts its engine and flight performance at every speed and altitude. It also gives you a readout of various performance curves, plotting against angle of attack: ... and velocity: Try it out and start building even better spaceplanes today! You can even output the data to a CSV file to incorporate knowledge of the performance data into a KOS script or the like! Check out this Imgur album for more details on these images and more: https://imgur.com/a/D2i4Fge Download it from GitHub: https://github.com/DBooots/KerbalWindTunnel/releases Or SpaceDock: https://spacedock.info/mod/1927/Kerbal Wind Tunnel Source: https://github.com/DBooots/KerbalWindTunnel Released under the MIT License (with sub-components under their own license). P.S. This mod incorporates a pretty sweet graph-drawing library I made. If anyone's interested in super-simple graphing of data, hit me up.

So I built this giant spaceplane with huge wing system, about 19 Rapier engines, and 1 NERV nuclear engine. It keeps on flipping out after it lifts from the runway, and it takes the full runway. can anyone help me?

I am attempting to build a SSTO spaceplane. However, at high speeds (about 1.3 km/s), if I turn (even slightly to change pitch a few degrees), it is easy to turn too violently and have my plane break apart from the extreme g-forces. I have already strutted my wings and engines together. Also, I have tried reducing the authority on the control surfaces, but reducing it too far has made it hard to take off. The center of lift is always behind the center of mass during flight. Here are screenshots of my spaceplane: Thanks for any help!

All I wanted was to figure out how much excess thrust I had for my spaceplane along its ascent profile. And then I wanted to know the lift curve slope and level flight AoA so I could program my kOS spaceplane autopilot better. Next thing you know, I'm writing a mod to work in the Spaceplane hangar to calculate flight envelopes, alpha curves, and so much more. And it works, sort of totally! Check out the release thread here: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/177302-ksp-142-kerbal-wind-tunnel/ This shows that the Aeris 4A has a ceiling of about 22km and a max speed at sea level of about 790m/s and a max overall speed of about 1360m/s at around 14km using its air-breathing engines. Then, at 15km and at 964m/s its level-flight AoA is 2.8 degrees and it has 365kN of excess thrust. Great! But now I want to freshen up the GUI (thanks @TriggerAu, but this was clearly designed for Transfer Window Planner ) and add in Lift, Drag, and L/D curves for a given altitude and mach number. I also want to move to using background threads for calculating (right now, I either hang the program for 20 seconds while it calculates that graph or put up with artifacts from my non-thread-safe implementation on the BackgroundWorker, as you can see). First, some credits: Thanks to @linuxgurugamer and @Boris-Barboris. I learned a ton about the aerodynamics model from your Correct COL mod. Also your method of drawing line graphs is coming in handy for the lift curves I'm working on drawing. Thanks to @TriggerAu. I learned a ton about making the graph from your Transfer Window Planner. And thanks to the MechJeb team. I'm using a lot of your tricks to make things more thread-safe.

OPT Reconfig Supplies highly needed config files to keep OPT Spaceplane Parts | Continued useful and alive in the absence of the original modder, @K.Yeon and in the changing KSP gameplay landscape. It is an optional enhancement to OPT's "Main" package (V2.0.1) and it does nothing by itself. It is required by OPT Legacy and by OPT Spaceplane Continued. Do not use this: With my old modlets OPT_USI or OPT_WBI. They are now features of this mod. With OPT Legacy v1.0.9 or lower. If you have an OPT FAR config already. If you have one of these, delete it. This mod also contains an OPT FAR config. Both will run and will cause serious problems. Required by OPT Legacy 1.1.0 or higher, and OPT Spaceplane Continued. Required mods for this: B9 Part Switch + ModuleManager just to work. Community Resource Pack or WBT (Wild Blue Tools) bundled with any of Angel-125's mods, for tank options. Required mods for IVA: ASET Prop Pack by @alexustas ASET Avionics by @alexustas For KSP 1.8 and newer: RasterPropMonitor (Adopted), by @JonnyOThan For KSP 1.7.3 & earlier: RasterPropMonitor by @MOARdV Supported Mods: Connected Living Space, by @Papa_Joe FAR (Ferram Aerospace Research Continued) by @dkavolis Kerbalism by @Sir Mortimer OPT "Main" by @K.Yeon RemoteTech by @tomek.piotrowski Snacks! - Friendly, Simplified Life Support by @Angel-125 TAC Life Support by @JPLRepo USI Life Support by @RoverDude Recommend Extras: The WBI Suite of Mods [GitHub] by Angel-125 Textures Unlimited: Recolour Depot by @Manwith Noname (Does not support OPT Legacy) Craft Manager by @katateochi Craft Manager replaces the stock caft loading UI with something bigger, more beautiful and very feature rich. It also integrates KSP with an external craft sharing website, KerbalX.com, (also created by Katateochi), where you can download or share pre-made craft files that use OPT. Over 5% of the ~16,000 craft files hosted there use OPT parts. Feel free to show off your own OPT craft, or view others' works in the OPT Showroom thread. What OPT Reconfig does: Adds a higher tech tree node than Experimental Aircraft Engines for the most OP of engines. Makes all main pack engines less OP or keeps them OPbut makes them rightfully more challenging to use. Makes the weaker engines stronger at reasonable cost. Makes these exact changes to OPT Main's engines: Buffs the Isp and doubles the thrust of J Aerospike, and gives it decent gimbal. Makes the ARI-75 engine require EC to justify its higher vacuum Isp and gives it an instant-response second mode for vacuum lander-friendly use. Makes the J-92 Shcramjet into dual-mode with the second mode as a proper EC-guzzling future scramjet that starts at Mach 4 and is useful in upscaled systems. Makes the Dark Drive regenerate and require Dark Goo (as implied in its part description) and also serve as an RTG with half-life, and gives it 1 deg of gimbal. Related: equips the J science lab with a facility to produce Dark Science required to regenerate Dark Goo, and gives the stock Experiment Storage Unit some Dark Science tankage to avoid all Dark Drive equipped craft needing to have a J science lab. Makes the HAE-02 Mk2 engine less thrusty. Replaces dirty old Firespitter configs with B9 Part Switch and Wild Blue Tools (WBT) which make it much easier to add the tank types you want to all parts in OPT Main and Legacy). Provides additional tank types if the following mods are found: CryoTanks, Near Future Propulsion. Integrates USI, TAC or Snacks! (life support) through B9 Part Switch or Wild Blue Tools. Integrates Kerbalism through its own mechanisms for crewed parts and B9 Part Switch for all other parts. Delivers the OPT FAR config. DOWNLOAD OPT SPACEPLANE CONTINUED :: SPACEDOCK DOWNLOAD LEGACY :: SPACEDOCK :: GITHUB DOWNLOAD RECONFIG :: SPACEDOCK :: GITHUB

Inspired by the dreamchaser spacecraft developed by the sierra nevada corporation, I give you the dreamflyer. A small wing, orbit capable, jet powered, spacecraft. It is capable of long distance jet flight, of close to the speed of sound at low altitudes <10 kilometers. It is incredibly maneuverable, incredibly stable, and easy to fly. It can transport 3 kerbals into orbit aboard its lifting rocket, and can dock to an orbiting spacecraft with its small docking port mounted atop. (RCS systems not included.) Images included are after its first test flight, with accurate enough orbital mechanics, landing at any location without the use of the jet engines is possible. The vehicle flew to an altitude of 150 kilometers, reentered the atmosphere, an under low power, flew itself to the island runaway. Flying instructions for launch, start your gravity turn as soon as possible, the flight profile would allow for the vehicle to get into orbit even if the gravity turn is not perfect. There is excess delta v in the orbital insert stage, and the OM stage just for this scenario, but it is advised that you avoid such a situation as possible. Once on orbit, it is advised, though not required, that the jet engines be deactivated, as to avoid a burnout within the engine. But it has no effect on the flight profile. By default, the jet engine fuel tanks are disabled, to ensure that there is excess liquid fuel for the return journey, and can easily fly great distances if needed. https://imgur.com/gallery/FiSR3 https://www.mediafire.com/file/hx5cqimoko0qfdv/DreamFlyer.craft

post SSTO's here post modded SSTOs can use stock parts, just no 100% stock

So for what ever reason I keep encountering a rotational torque being applied to my starting tech jet planes on take off, despite the fact they are perfectly symmetrical in design and are a based on a generic leer jet profile. Large swept wings in front, smaller elevators in on the tail, vertical tail fin, and two small engines located above the elevators, yet some how I am getting some torque being generated, causing the plane to yaw hard to one side or another. My COM is in front of the center of lift and my center of thrust is behind that. Regardless if SAS is on or off and the steering is locked or not, I can't correct the random yaw. What am doing wrong?

Duna presents particular challenges for spaceplane design. The low gravity and thin atmosphere means that you need big wings, but once you have them, you tend to keep going forward until you drift down low enough and smack into a dune. In other words, landing can be a nerve-wracking process and it is hard to do it at all precisely. Similarly, take-off can be very dangerous as you need to build up a significant amount of speed to have enough lift to un-stick, and sufficiently flat areas for this aren't easy to find. The Brikoleur Aerospace Kombine (BAK) Zephyr solves this problem with full (Duna) VTOL capability. It carries a full science payload, a retractable solar panel for orbital use, and has reasonable crew capacity. On-surface refuelling requires the Klaw; it has an inline docking port for in-orbit refuelling. If precise positioning is not important, it's easiest and cheapest to make rocket-assisted short landings, where your hover rockets provide the lift your forward velocity doesn't. The same applies to take-offs. Craft: https://kerbalx.com/Brikoleur/Zephyr NOTE: Since the Zephyr is optimised for Duna, it is not able to even take off from Kerbin under its own power. If you want to play with it at KSC, replace the Terriers with Darts. It won't have the dV to reach orbit, but you should be able to land on the heliport at the top of the VAB. Atmospheric entry and flight to destination Set your Pe to around 10,000 m above the destination. Enter at a moderate pitch, ca. 30 degrees, and once Pe reaches the surface, control your precise landing spot with pitch (steeper = slower). Aim for a spot a few km before the target. Approach When approaching your target, slow down by making S curves or holding a steep pitch and climbing. Maintain a nose-up attitude, lower gear (which also opens the hover thruster bays), shut down the forward jets (Action 1), and start the hover jets (Action 2). You should be able to get to about 100 m/s while maintaining normal aerodynamic flight. Short landing Maintain a nose-up attitude (10-20 degrees) and gradually apply throttle to control your descent rate. Once you're down to a safe touchdown speed (recommended 40 m/s or less), lower throttle, touch down, and brake to a halt. Hover and vertical landing Pitch up sharply and apply throttle to the hover jets to kill your horizontal speed, activate RCS. Use RCS retrograde if necessary. Then switch control to up (Action 9), level out (use SAS Surface/Radial Out if necessary), control your altitude/descent rate with throttle and your horizontal vector with RCS; to move forward toggle the main jets on and off briefly (Action 1). Lower yourself to the surface by controlling throttle. Short take-off Activate both forward and hover thrusters (Action 1, Action 2), switch on RCS, apply full throttle, and pull up. Once you have enough forward speed, kill the hover thrusters (Action 2), retract gear and close the hover thruster bays, and fly yourself to orbit. Vertical take-off Activate hover thrusters (Action 2), set control point to up (Action 9), SAS to Surface/Radial out, RCS on. Then apply throttle to lift yourself off the surface. When at a sufficient altitude, activate forward thrusters (Action 1). When you have built sufficient speed, set SAS to normal mode, control forward (Action 8), RCS off, deactivate hover thrusters (Action 2), raise gear and close bays, and you're off.

Hello, and this is my first post here! I hope this is not too much of a noob question, but is there anything like a VOR to help landing an aircraft, SSTO, or shuttle? If there is then I missed it, if there isn't then what else can I use to help make landing a bit easier? Is that too many questions? Any and all advice will be gratefully accepted. It is needed. Thanks you in advance, but I must attend to my clockwork band.

To any who decide to take this challenge: I may change things around for the challenge itself. There are some geniuses out there who are phenomenal at this art and skill, and I'm one of them, and in the very beginning (before I even started on this challenge myself), I gave set rules that must be met to succeed at this challenge. Those set rules, as I have come to find out, were easily met. As an overall point to be made, if you beat the original rules, that is easy mode, at least for this challenge. All is subject to change, however, if things are changed to be harder, then I will say it is for that reason alone, and will give a harder version of the original challenge. My weight limit WAS below 50 tonnes, and that was beaten 50 times over by one vessel, literally. Before we start, I'll give an example. Or two. Can range from a drone thats simply 6 pieces to a full blown barge that has 256. Like the one I built. Sadly my barge didn't make it out of LKO, and I used some of it's fuel to make that orbit stable, it wasn't gonna make it out of Kerbin's influence. However, it is a step int he direction I want to go, and this is what I wanna bring to the Micro-engineering challenge, so attempt 1 failed. Here's the challenge. Make the smallest vessel you can that can go to any planet in the system and is reusable 100% Requirements: cannot use any big parts (or if you do, use less than 5) Any part bigger than the OKTO drone core is too big, but I'll allow a small limit of 5, ya know, for a science JR or some such, maybe even a nice powerful relay/antenna cannot be over 30 tons. Previous original version (50t) was beaten, literally 50x over with 1 measly drone. Props to you, ya brilliant prick. Must have a stable orbit when changing planets (Optional harder version) Must be able to make a voyage between at least 2-3 planets in one trip Unrequired: Does not need to be an SSTO Does not need to be the size of a penny Going to and from the surface of celestial bodies Having a kerbal pilot the craft ___________________________ I wanna see what you people will come up with. I will be taking this challenge up myself, but I'm gonna be doing it in career mode. Extra props if you do it in career mode before I do Extra challenge, if you do it in career mode, the end product cannot be over 50k Because I don't know how much a xenon ghost engine costs, that pruce may be subject to change I plan to use about 6-12 ghost engines, soooooo....yeah, probably subject to change. They sure sound expensive. ___________________________ Micro-engineering challenge 2.0 (Med) Weight limit of 20t has to be able to go to and from a planet's surface, or two. That does not mean you have to do all of this without refueling Stabilized an orbit around every existing celestial body ___________________________ Micro-engineering challenge 3.0 (Hard) Weight limit 50t Must go to the surface and back to orbit of every celestial body in the game (except that one moon rock thing that's too small to have a gravitational pull) Hell, if you can land something on that damn rock, you get the overachiever award get something into kerbol's local atmosphere and fly it back out Good Luck. You wanted a challenge, WELL HERE IT IS, YOU MASOCHISTIC [REDACTED]!!! ___________________________ The original concept was build something out of nothing but small parts. Yeah, you can have a 1000 piece object if it doesn't exceed 30 t for easy, 20t for medium, and 50t for hard, and it can even be as big as a space station for all I care. You're really just supposed to use nothing but small parts, but whats the fun in not using something bigger every once and a while? Majority part limit is 0.625m.

A mod aircraft called 747-8. It is very maneuverable and is very stable at both high speeds and low speeds. Takeoff speed is 50 m/s, landing speed is ~<100 m/s. Can climb straight up like fighter jets. Try it out for yourself! Please try it out and tell me about things that need improvement. Building tips are always welcome https://kerbalx.com/Ruddy3702/747-8 Pics for you guys

Ok, guys, I did something especial for you. After the years of hard work - ummm, ok, months of hard work - I presented the "Fidget". It doesn't a spaceplane which broken dV barriers, which can fly to the Eeloo, or did something similar. No, it's a workhorse. Cabotage ship, to orbit and back. But - with style, comfort, and without any recovery. Just refuel it, and fly to orbit again. Characteristics Ship class Spaceplane Wet mass 31 494 kg Dry mass 19 994 kg Part count 73 Cost 79 807 ker$ Engines 2 JX-4 Whiplash 3 J-404 Panther 1 T-1 Aerospike Dart 1 LV-N Nerv Fuel mass fraction: 36.5% Crew 1 pilot, 2 passengers Max atmo speed on ramjets 1450 m/s For vertical takeoff and landing used a group of Panther's, no LFOx engines. Transfer of center of mass close to zero for all flight time. Powerful RCS, reaction wheel, and good classic aerodinamic scheme did it stable on reentry, stable on vertical takeoff and landing and highly maneuverable (for spaceplane, I mean). dV reserves on orbit - 150-200 m/s for Aerospike, plus 500-700 m/s for LV-N, so it more than enough to reach space station on low orbit, docks with it, and returns to Kerbin with good Lf (and Ox) reserve to vertical landing. Runway doesn't needed more. Of course, its pure stock. Some more pictures: Full album: Download craft from KerbalX: https://kerbalx.com/Ajiko/TA-28VN-Fidget Flight profile and some notifications on the page of craft on KerbalX.

This mod is obsolete. Replaced by OPT_Reconfig A single-config mod. Converts all OPT Spaceplane Parts for deep integration with the Wild Blue Industries mods. Due to the popularity of OPT_USI, and interestingly, my migration to WBI, this was bound to happen. This modlet has been provided as its own mod due to the complexity of WBI. The many adjustments expected to come may make it impractical to provide this as merely one among the static MM patches already provided within the OPT downloads. Download :: SpaceDock :: GitHub This modlet will: Remove dependency on Firespitter and Interstellar Fuel Switch (except for the required portion used by Night Mode made by @stali79 ) Support Snacks and TAC LS. Do not install together with USI LS and my OPT_USI. You will get no support. Integrate Pathfinder, Snacks and AirPark. This modlet does: Adds resource switching to all parts with few, OPT-specific templates to reduce clutter when picking modules. Cockpits and cabins get fuel, KIS and snacks options. Cockpits get AirPark feature. Nose parts also get a SAS package. Cargo and hollow bays get fuel, KIS and snacks options. Remaining fuel tanks, inline SAS and wings get only fuel options. Labs get Doc Science Lab features. H cabin gets KIS and snacks options, and Geology lab, but no fuel. H noses get fuel, snacks and SAS options. Antenna gets WBI Geo scanner features. This modlet does not: Afford access to the full spectrum of WBI tankge options. If anyone asks (and I'm expecting it), I will gladly allow this but only for the cargo bays and hollow fuselages. Support other life support mods.

Here's some images of my last hurrah with the Flying Tiger port of KSP, figured it was fitting to share those here, and the night before the new release... It's a lot of images, but I thought the ship was just a really cool way to end off some good... and bad memories... (not to brag, but the game only froze 3 times during creation)

Hey all. A long time ago I made this spaceplane and got it into orbit and back. I'm not one for testing planes so I want to see if anyone else would test it out. Tips for an optimal trajectory for takeoff would be appreciated. Also, feel free to edit it and send it back(but keep it stock, save MJ, and don't go too far off of what it is.) Remember to check the action groups too. Thanks. Link: https://kerbalx.com/Brendo/Shadowhawk Sorry, but the imgur album with my pictures for some reason shows up as someone else's starcraft game so I don't have any here.

Inspired by the Blohm & Voss BV-141, I decided to give creating an asymetric monstrosity a shot and see how it flies. My own yet-to-be-named kontraption uses a MK-1 sidecar design with a MK-2 main body and three rapier engines.It is, unsurprisingly, hard to control at low airspeeds or at high altitudes, but with the throttle up, engine gimbal and good pressure over the control surfaces give it a decent flight profile. The first test flight ended with an overheat at ~1400 M/S and the second made an orbit and came back down beautifully. Unfortunately, asymetric braking lead to an accident on the ground upon landing and caused me to lose the first model. A second prototype is still under construction. I'll be testing it with FAR by week's end. Enjoy! https://imgur.com/gallery/i3klJ

Image by @DiscoSlelge

A simple to fly single seat SSTO. For those days when you want to go to orbit just to enjoy views rather than because you have to. https://kerbalx.com/Scarecrow88/Javelin-SSTO

If you require a simple to fly spaceplane for performing crew changeovers in your Kerbin spacestations, this could be the craft for you. Capable of reaching a tested 250km orbit, possibly higher (no guarantee offered above 250km) it has the ability to carry up to 10 Kerbals to relieve those hardworking Kerbonauts whizzing along above the planet's surface. Action group keys and basic pilot notes can be found on the Kerbal X page, from where you can download the craft. https://kerbalx.com/Scarecrow88/LKO-Crew-X