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Hey guys! Well I finally managed to make a working SSTA. I'm quite proud of this one. I usually just carelessly build spacecraft fast and forget things like solar panels, batteries ect. but this time I actually took my time in the SPH hanger and it turned out flawlessly! Well almost. (Forgot reaction wheels. ) This SSTA has VTOL engines, a functioning RCS system and enough DV to begin with to get to Duna or do a Minimus round trip without refueling. It also has four seats so you can easily put a pilot for control and an engineer to speed up mining. The VTOL engines are nicely balanced so landing on Duna with these will be a piece of cake! I still haven't tested its re-entry capabilities but I went up to about 1400 m/s before burning out on Rapiers so I assume it will be fine. The COM/COL placement might be bad so I am going to place an octagonal strut to mark the COL. This helped when I designed an aircraft launched shuttle because the shuttle carrier had stall problems. Download is coming soon. Still got tweaking to do so I thought I'd just put this here. Also Action group list + how to fly tutorial coming with download so stay tuned! Fire

Extended cargo variant of the Czar Galactica MK 3, featuring a laundry list of improvements. Can now lift and deploy 180 tons to a 100km circular orbit and return to land safely at the KSC runway. https://kerbalx.com/NoobTool/Czar-Galactica-Mk-3-EX 5 x CRG-100 MK3 cargo bays, 1 x CRG-50, 1 x CRG-25. It can now take-off weighing 965 tons! My intention is to fly this thing to Laythe and deploy a sizable surface outpost. The plan is to deploy stationary surface assets via precision inverted air-drop and then have them land under parachutes. Preliminary flight tests have been promising, I just have to watch the part count. Wish me luck!

This is my first post on the forums. Sorry if it's a little long, I recently built a craft that I just had to share and I didn't think a few sentences would do it justice. I set out to build a high capacity cargo SSTO spaceplane. Originally my design goals included 3 full length Mk3 cargo bays, with one being ramp loading. I encountered some design issues along the way (some technical, some aesthetic). I was forced to revise my previous plan. I decided to go with 4 full length Mk3 cargo bays. I give you the Czar Galactica Mk 3. 705 parts (including the mining module in the cargo bay) Built in 1.2 pre-release (which I am thoroughly enjoying btw). Fully stock. https://kerbalx.com/NoobTool/Czar-Galactica-Mk-3 900 tons is the crafts approximate maximum gross vehicle weight for getting off the runway and into orbit (this became a design goal as the craft neared that figure). Fuel must be balanced with payload. With the configuration in the craft file, I was able to make a circular 100km orbit with >33000 units of liquid fuel and ~5000 units of oxidizer left in the tanks. 34 Rapiers, 14 Turbo Ramjets, 14 NERV's. I tried to avoid spamming engine pods all over the fuselage. The bicoupler pods connecting the wingtip pods feel a little contrived for my liking, but I think they'll stay. They resolve a number of design issues from previous variants. The above image is of a previous variant. Note the absence of the bicoupler engine pods connecting the wingtips. In orbit, dorsal bay open, solar panels deployed. The solar panels are housed in what I call "blister bays" (Mk2 cargo bays clipped into the flat surfaces of a Mk3 fuel tank, leaving just enough room for the Gigantor solar panels). These protect the solar panels during atmospheric ascent and re-entry. I guess that brings us to ascent and re-entry. Ascent is straight-forward enough, in fact it's pretty much all straight forward. pull back off the runway until you get level flight and maintain that heading, maybe hitting the "F" key now and again to drop the nose, until you hit the requisite 400m/s for the rapiers to become effective. From there, don't touch anything. The craft will accelerate and climb on its own. If you try to pull up at this point, the canards will shear off. Toggle the NERV's at around 19-20km (you should be going around 1240m/s at this point). Switch modes on the Rapiers around 21-22km. Still maintain the craft's natural heading until around 26km, then pitch up to 35-40 degrees. Continue to burn the Rapiers until you have an apoapsis around 3 to 3 1/2 minutes out and 100km (you may need to pitch back down during this burn). Circularize on NERV's alone. Obviously not a very efficient ascent profile, but a craft this heavy faces some unique challenges. I welcome you to play around with it and post any revisions/improvements here. It would be greatly appreciated. The craft survives re-entry from reasonable orbits well enough (as long as you baby it), but don't plan any aggressive aerobraking or aerocapture maneuvers. Atmospheric flight with empty or nearly empty tanks is surprisingly good for a craft weighing over 310 tons completely empty. Landing without parachutes requires a little finesse, but is totally doable. The CoM is slightly forward of the CoL when the craft is completely empty (very slightly). So don't forget to move any remaining fuel forward before re-entry. I included a module I call "Mandible" in the dorsal bay of the craft file. It's meant to dock to the front of the craft to allow it to refuel in flight via asteroid. I guess that's about it, I invite you to play around with it, post revisions and or improvements here, along with any missions you fly with it. I would very much appreciate it. A few more pictures for the road: Landed at Minmus. Landed on my first attempt! Scuffed one of the drop fins on the ice, but it stayed on. WooHoo! This view shows the cargo ramp deployed. A couple of Ascent images: (sorry they're at night)

Ok, so that was probably a bit of an overstatement to say that absolutely everybody uses canards all the time, but it still got me wondering... I had never heard of canards before playing KSP. I might have seen a plane with canards IRL, but I don't recall it if I have. Most planes that I see do not have have them (although this might be a biased sample as the majority of planes are passenger airlines, and have a very specific purpose and therefore a very specific design). If I were to draw a 'typical' plane then it would have wings and a tail with elevators, and I might even be able to stretch to a delta-wing with elevons. I'm not saying that they don't exist IRL, but they are just a lot less common (to me) So why is it this way? Probably about 30% of atmoplanes and spaceplances I see on this forum have canards. (Why) are canards better for KSP than in real life? Or to turn the question around, why don't we see as many planes IRL with canards?

This is nothing especially sophisticated, but I just finished designing an SSTO with a claw on the front and lots of dV for cheaply deorbiting space junk, and sometimes rescuing stranded kerbals in the process. I took a few pictures during its first mission. (I named it "Seraph" because the wings remind me of a snow angel.) It's 100% stock, 71 parts, 17.1m long, 55.685 tons wet / 20.655 dry, and gets to 80km orbit with around 3800m/s dV remaining (thanks to a nuke engine). The oxidizer runs out near the end of the circularization burn, which means switching to the nuke and having uneven thrust throughout the burn, but I'd rather have that happen during circularization than other maneuvers later. Balancing was a little tricky since the center of mass moves backward a little as fuel drains. I rearranged the fuel tanks to put a little more of the LF+OX tankage toward the back, to keep the CoM a little closer to the front when oxidizer is empty but fuel is not, and settled for having the CoL a little farther back than I'd like during takeoff in order to prevent the plane from flipping backward during reentry. While experimenting with different wing placements, I also learned how to use flaps properly (I think). Anyway, here's an Imgur album (with image descriptions) and craft file. Comments and criticism are welcome. Flight profile is in the ship description, but it's basically just 10 degrees the whole time. (I'm usually not very good at landing on the runway. I was excited that I actually managed to do it this time — and then I bounced and almost went off the end. )

Good news everyone! We have rebuilt the Chipmunk for use with 1.1.3 The Chipmunk MK II can reach a 150km orbit and return without refueling. For it's size, that's pretty decent I think. The craft struggles to break the sound barrier (it's shaped like a potato, so what do you expect) on assent so you may have to dip the nose a bit to help it. Perfect for emergency crew recovery. Action Groups: Abort. Toggle cabin lights. 1. Toggle Rapier mode. 2. Toggle docking light. 3. Toggle docking port and toggle rapier. 4. Toggle elevator deploy for re-entry. It flies reasonably well considering it's just a potato with a little bit of control surface added in for good measure. Pick yours (like a hot potato) up today! https://kerbalx.com/Dr_Farnsworth/Chipmunk-MKII Did I say Potato enough?

The Dual Spaceplane Heavy Lifter Part 1: How to make a Spaceplane Sandwich. This one of several posts I have about the idea of a “Spaceplane Sandwich.” If you haven’t, please read the General Discussion thread first. Good candidates for a Spaceplane Sandwich are any SSTO planes with extra thrust, extra lift, extra fuel and some space on the top of the fuselage for the payload. (i.e. no vertical stabilizers in the way) It does not need any cargo capacity of its own. One simple way to make one is to take your largest cargo plane, remove the cargo capacity (payload bays, passenger cabins, fuel tanks etc), move the vertical stabilizers out to sides (somehow) and add really heavy landing gear (it will be carrying more than twice its weight). Once you have selected your plane, you’re ready to make the sandwich. (I’m using the YB101 that I built for the DSHL project, you can get it here.) By default the SPH wants to put the top plane on upside down or sideways. So you have to go through these steps to build a top plane to go with your existing bottom plane (takes about 3 minutes) . 1. First make whatever part that contains the CoM the Root Part. In this case it’s a Mk2 long LFO tank. (from this point on I’ll be calling that the “bottom CoM part”) 2. Add a Decoupler over the CoM. 3. Add a Demo payload to the Decoupler at the CoM, in this case we’ll use a 40 ton fuel tank. (it’s good to use a fuel tank as a demo payload to figure out the maximum lifting capacity of the sandwich, later you’ll replace it with a real payload.) 4. Add another Decoupler over the new CoM. 5. Now go to the parts sidebar, and get fresh copy of whatever your bottom CoM part is. In this case it’s a Mk2 long LFO tank. It will usually attach sideways. That’s fine. 6. Use the Rotate and Offset tools to rotate the part right side up and center it over the decoupler. Now look from the side and move it forward or rearward so it is directly above the bottom CoM part. 7. Use Alt-Click to take a copy of the forward fuselage from the bottom CoM part and attach it to the top CoM Part. 8. Repeat with rear fuselage. 9. And the wings. (Note: if the wings of your plane are not attached directly to the CoM part, you may want to rethink that.) 10. Add any other parts from the bottom CoM part that are needed (RCS, chutes, etc) 11. Finish out the demo payload with nosecones, tailcones and fins. (For more on payloads see: The Dual Spaceplane Heavy Lifter Part 2: Payloads: Putting the meat on a Spaceplane Sandwich.) 12. Retract the gear on the top plane. 13. Moar Struts (actually just these struts) Running struts from around the landing gear of the top plane to above the landing gear of the bottom plane seems to distribute the weight nicely. If you run struts from top to bottom, they will re-attach when you change payloads.(Struts are usually not necessary on the payload if it properly packed.) 14. And now you have a Spaceplane Sandwich. Don’t be surprised if the first time you put it on the runway if falls backwards, you may need to go back to the SPH and use the offset tool to move the payload (and/or the top plane) forwards or rearward. I don’t know anything about the physics of hypersonic biplanes, but I do tend to end up with the top plane a little forward of the bottom plane. The result is sometimes a little silly looking. (This is KSP.) It looks basically like two planes carrying a bomb bigger than either of them. (To me it looks like a last-ditch attempt to win a war in a cartoon.) But it looks a lot less silly when you release the payload in orbit. The Dual Spaceplane Heavy Lifter Part 2: Payloads: Putting the meat on a Spaceplane Sandwich. This part took me a while. For the longest time I could get fuel tanks to orbit on a Sandwich Lifter, but I couldn’t reliably do it with spacecraft of similar mass. The problem was drag. If your payload has too much drag you will burn too much fuel on the way up and not make orbit, and even if you have a reasonable amount drag but it’s in the wrong place the vehicle still will become highly unstable at transonic speeds and may just tumble out of control. The problem was that I was designing the fairing the way I did for a rocket; primarily minimizing mass (which means hugging the payload shape tightly) and secondarily minimizing drag (which meant adding some slanty areas). That was wrong. First, l learned what “Center of Drag” was. It goes along with CoM, CoL, and CoT but is not shown in the VAB/SPH. If the CoD is forward of the CoM, the vehicle will tend to flip around. If you have ever put too wide a fairing on the nose of a rocket, you know all about that. Think of a dart; heavy, pointy nose in front, thick body a little bit forward of the middle, and light draggy fins in back. You do also want to minimize mass, of course, but that’s secondary. These parameters lead to one simple shape; the fairing forms a gentle slope from the nosecone out to widest point (the CoM should be just at or slightly forward of the widest point) and then another, slightly longer, gentle slope from the widest point to the tail, and fins on the tail. Putting the fins at 45 degree angles keeps them out of the jet wash. You’ll recognize this shape. It’s the shape of a bomb. Form follows function; bombs are designed to be carried on high-speed aircraft. It just works. Making the payload consistently bomb-shaped is what makes the entire Spaceplane Sandwich concept work. There are a few other considerations, order of assembly, getting the girder segments to poke through the fairing, etc. So I’ve made the following step by step. Interestingly, as I went through the process to get the screenshots for this tutorial, I made a mistake. The payload doesn’t get to orbit at first. I had to go back and fix it. I thought about redoing the screenshots over. But I realized it made for an excellent “teachable moment.” Can you catch where I go wrong? This is the Icarus, a hybrid interplanetary tug/lander I just loaded with a bunch of fuel. Because the ship started in the VAB we’ll start there. We’ll move to the SPH shortly. 1. First we find the CoM and mount decouplers on what will be the top and bottom of the payload. 2. We add a spacer, here I’m using an empty fuel tank, on the will become the rear of the payload. 3. Mount a fairing to that, and build the fairing in the bomb shape we discussed earlier. Note: “clamshell” fairings seem to get all explodey with girders sticking through them; “potato chip” fairings appear to be safer. 4. (optional) Temporarily remove the spacer. The fairing will move with it and stay intact. (This is just to see better, I can never work with all those fairing its flying around.) 5. Attach long girder segments to the decouplers. 6. Run struts from the girder segments to the payload, supporting it evenly. 7. Reattach the spacer/fairing assembly. Hopefully the girder segments will be long enough to poke through the fairing, if not add more. 8. Attach a tailcone and fins. 9. Use the reroot tool to make the bottom (ventral) girder segment the root part. 10. Save the ship. 11. Go to the SPH, load your Spaceplane Sandwich. 12. Remove the top plane WITH its decoupler. (It may flip sideways, that’s fine.) 13. Remove and delete the demo payload. 14. Click the Open button and Merge with the craft file you saved in step 10. 15. Mount the payload on the bottom plane. Note:I have had a problem w/ the Long Girder Segment not wanting to attach to the decoupler properly. The green ball attachment point appears on the wrong end of the girder (the end already attached to the payload) ,then it wants to attach there, with the girder segment clipping through the plane. If that happens, putting a small girder segment on the decoupler first puts a green ball there. Then the payload will attach correctly. 16. Mount the top plane on the payload. (Struts should reconnect by themselves.) Note: At this point you have just combined three very complex vehicles, usually with conflicting forms of symmetry. Depending on partcount, computer memory and/or whatever KSP bugs exist, we appear to be pushing the limits of the SPH at this point. This is when symmetry goes wonky, struts and fuel lines may get disconnected. Adding more symmetrical parts is iffy at best. None of this, however, has anything to do with this tutorial. All I can tell you is to watch out for that kind of thing. I’ll say again: Don’t be surprised if the first time you put it on the runway if falls backwards, you may need to go back to the SPH and use the offset tool to move the payload (by the bottom plane’s decoupler) and/or the top plane, forwards or rearward. I don’t know anything about the physics of hypersonic biplanes, but I do tend to end up with the top plane a little forward of the bottom plane. Now, as I said in the beginning; that did not get into orbit. Can you tell me why not? The shape. The back half of the fairing isn’t long enough. Back to the SPH where I replaced that short spacer with two size one hollow tubes. Then I rebuilt the fairing, this time making it a mid-fairing and adding an actual nosecone. That one went into orbit nicely. One last note: If your payload is atmospherically streamlined, you might not need a fairing, (i.e. a sleek Mk2 ship or a fuel tank that just requires nose and tail cones). But the fins do not appear to be optional. Just a girder with four fins will do. But you will need some fins back there. The Dual Spaceplane Heavy Lifter Part 3: Orbit: Properly serving a Spaceplane Sandwich. (OK, enough sandwich puns I've been told they're metaphors) This one of several posts I have about the idea of a “spaceplane sandwich.” This article is about packing the payload in a fairing. If you haven’t, please read the General Discussion post first. So you’ve got your Spaceplane Sandwich and you’re about to make orbit. There are still a couple of things to consider. 1. What about Debris? Once you clear 55km, and before the orbital insertion burn, you can jettison nosecones, tailcones, and the fairing. Note: “clamshell” fairings seem to get all explodey with girders sticking through them; “potato chip” fairings appear to be safer. But that still leaves the girders and decouplers holding the planes to the payload. Do you want the planes to carry the payload (and that debris) all the way to orbit? I like to aim for an Ap of 72 km and a Pe of about 52 km. Just a little short of orbit. Then I separate everything. The payload and one plane make a short burn at Ap to orbit. Then I fly the other plane home, and all the debris deorbits with it. 2. Are you really making orbit? Normally when you design a spaceplane or rocket, once you make orbit, you can usually make orbit again, the same way, every time. That’s not true with a Spaceplane Sandwich. Every time you fly it, you have a different payload; different weight, different shape and size of fairing. In short it’s a different plane every time. And if you’re like me, you’re probably pushing max payload capacity (and drag). So you might not quite be making orbit every time. Fortunately, the Spaceplane Sandwich concept gives you a lot of options here. Does the payload have engines? After jettisoning the fairing it might help carry everything up. “Borrowing” fuel from the payload is another option. Or you could go back to the SPH and add fuel to the payload for the purpose of transferring it to the planes on the way up. (Did you use empty fuel tanks as a fairing spacer?) My point here is that even though the planes should be able to carry the payload (fairing, girders, and all) to orbit. It doesn’t have to. And debris-wise you probably don’t want to. So, that’s putting Spaceplane Sandwich in Orbit, Comments about the Spaceplane Sandwich concept in general, belong in the General Discussion thread.

Hi, I'm much more experienced in rockets than planes, but I wanted something to enter Laythe, look for landing place, land, and reach orbit. This thing just does that. It's really very very simple. Craft file is here: SP01 simple 01deg v2.craft It has wing AoA of 1 pixel rotation (is that a degree?), control surfaces and landing gear rotated back to 0°, very little clipping other than the pre-cooler which is offset into the adapter tank. It flies nicely. About 15 "presses" of elevator trim for takeoff and for the climb up to 9km. Down to about 8 presses of trim to hold a prograde angle of about 8 degrees on the start of the speed run, reaching 1450 m/s at 24km ready to switch to closed cycle and - then an only then - activating SAS. And for re-entry, maximum vertical trim keeps it at a decent angle. It makes LKO with very little spare LFOx remaining and about 100-160 LF spare for atmospheric flight. However, I can never, never get it to be "roll stable". I dislike SAS intensely, so I try to fly only with trim and fine control. And that works fine apart from the need to correct the roll every 4 seconds. Is there any way of getting a plane to fly straight without SAS? Are there any requirements for build order (i.e., place each wing part and control surface individually with symmetry, or build the whole wing and then place it as one piece with symmetry? I seem to remember there being a build order required for multiple engines and air intakes...)? Does the landing gear have an effect on stability (I'm pretty sure it is perfectly aligned, at least is gives no other problems on takeoff or landing)? I've tried using a rocket fin rather than the tail fin shown, but that didn't make any difference. I'm pretty certain the cargo is balanced. Help! Please!?!

Um.... What happened to the .craft files from the previous version of B9 Aerospace? You know, like the "Vance" etc...? If anybody could be able to post a folder containing the ships in a reply below, that'd be great!

Hi folks, I don't know if this is possible and I don't have an "entry", but I'm wondering if any of you have created low-tech spaceplanes before getting the last upgrades to the facilities. Restrictions on the plane: Must be capable of getting a payload to LKO. Small payloads are OK, large payloads are better. Realistically, 14 tons to orbit given the mass restriction would be fantastic. Must be capable of returning to the Space Center after deploying its payload. Doesn't have to be SSTO, but the less you drop the better. SSTO would be ideal. Doesn't have to take off on the runway, but c'mon, it's a spaceplane, not a rocket. I've already seen some very impressive SSTO rockets. No tech that costs more than 300 research to unlock -- that means NO: Rapiers, Whiplash, Aerospike, Ion (on a spaceplane?), shock intake, engine pre-cooler, or quad adapters (although bi-adapters are available and you can make a quad with 3 bi-adapters). That probably means Panther engines. Not more than 255 parts or 140 tons total weight. NO Mechjeb or WiseASS. The planes should be human-pilot-able, because hardcore stock If you really want me to score them, I will, but I'm honestly just wondering if it's even possible at this point. I am -working- on an entry but it decided to spontaneously fall out of the air at 6km and 600m/s just after the panthers started giving me 174kn thrust. And yes, that is two different flights with the wings and engines set up a little differently.

Dear all, I'd like to create spaceplanes in RSS to achieve an orbit and stuff like that. What problems I found out by now using ksp-stock-sized related mods: ksp-fuels are way too dense --> spaceplanes don't produce lift enough at normal angles of attack (more angle - more lift - more dragg) ksp fuels are way too dense --> runway collapses jet engines and the rapier are adjusted for kerbin atmosphere and kerbin airspeeds Thoughts to come by these problems: using C7's Sabre Engine (2.5m) of the B9 pack and adjusting it to: use intake air / liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen in the correct ratio adjust it in size and weight to the planned sabre engine from Reaction Engines Limited adjust performance-values to work at mode switch conditons (~30km @ mach 5.x) Unfortunately I'm not a modder and don't know how to destroy adjust the configs correctly. Do you know: someone who created the piece of code I am looking for? a link to the modpack I am looking for? which values have to be adjusted? how to adust those values? do you know someone who is developing a jet-engine pack for RSS/real fuels? If you have other ideas to get a proper technical base for spaceplane engines, I'd like to read your suggestions. Thanks, Lukas

An X-15 replica-thingy. Disable the pitch on the canards until the last approach. Download: https://kerbalx.com/awfulhumanbeing/X-15-+-launcher

Hi all, I've run a few SSTO planes now and it occurs to me that I can probably do better, but I don't have the information I need yet. If anyone knows this stuff it'd be a great help. For SCIENCE! I'm using the latest Steam version of the game on PC (V. 1.1.3 I guess?) as I understand that makes a big difference to spaceplanes. 1) Would hacking the config file or something for KER to convince it to run on this version actually work, or would it just break stuff? Has anyone tried this? I would like to know my net delta-v but I'm too lazy to calculate it myself. 2) I've read that Kerbin's atmosphere is stacked in layers with hard boundaries between the layers; does anyone know offhand what altitude the cutoff points are (aside from the 70km cutoff to space)? I've noticed that my air intake tends to drop smoothly when I monitor it over 10km, so I may not even be asking a meaningful question here. 3) Does it still count as a spaceplane if the payload is the entire fuselage including cockpit? 4) I've noticed the sonic/reentry effects are sensitive to the craft's profile, and that heating effects are also sensitive to the craft's profile, but I read that drag effects are simply a function of the craft's mass times some co-efficient. Is that still correct for this version? 5) I noticed the shock cone weighs twice as much as the ramp intake, and the inline intake seems to just be all-around better than the pre-cooler, is there some reason that the shock cone and precooler are better parts for a spaceplane?

Hello there! I've been playing KSP for a while, but I mostly use rockets, since I like them most. I've built some planes but never a SSTO. At least a working one. So I started to learn a lot about this things. I've seen in many videos that they close intakes at certain altitude, near atmosphere limit, and the engines keep running (RAPIER). Also, they angle the craft almost horizontally once in atmosphere, and they fire the NERV really late. I would like to get some guidelines about this matter. Thanks!

I'm trying to make a high altitude supersonic plane for a contract in Realism Overhaul. So far I am failing horribly. On the runway, once it picks up speed, the plane turns around goes butt-first along the runway until the engine stops it, as if the center of lift is in front of the center of mass. I am using FAR. Screenshots: As you can see in the last picture the plane lines up with the retrograde marker automatically, even with SAS on. Any ideas?

My last challenge (Kerbin Atlantis) didn't go so well but I have another idea. In this one, you have to launch a spaceplane to Jool and circumnavigate its atmosphere with it. (I'm not sure if someone has already made a challenge like this or not. Keep in mind that I am relatively new to the site.) The spaceplane can be launched by a rocket or takeoff from the runway. Refueling is allowed on any difficulty. Easy: launch a spaceplane and enter Jool's atmosphere. Minimum crew: 1 Medium: launch a spaceplane to circumnavigate Jool's atmosphere and return to Kerbin alive. Minimum crew: 2 Hard: launch a spaceplane to circumnavigate Jool's atmosphere, land on Laythe, and return to Kerbin alive. Minimum crew: 4 IMPOSSIBLE: launch an SSTO from the runway to circumnavigate Jool's atmosphere, land on Laythe, land on Duna to refuel, and return to Kerbin alive. Minimum crew: 6 Scoring System The scoring will be based on the mass of the spacecraft. There will be a winner for every difficulty mode. Make sure you show me evidence on doing this by showing me pictures ora video. Make sure to include the mass of the ship in your submission. The only mods banned are the Alcubierre Drive mod and HyperEdit. The due date for submissions is 7:00 pm US Central Time on June 24. Any craft submitted after the due date and time will not be scored and will not be able to win. Good luck and happy travels! -The Raging Sandwich Edit: I am extending the time limit to the end of July. Now that I look back at it, it was really short to begin with. Leaderboards: Easy: N/A Medium: Teilnehmer- 11.962 T Hard: N/A Impossible: N/A

I give you my newest spaceplane, a self refueling SSTA (although, it most definitely won't come back from Eve). It's already done a mission to the Jool system and back stopping on Minmus, Duna, Ike, Laythe, Vall, and Pol (and then Duna and Ike again on the way back). It also includes an orbital scanner so you can choose the best landing spot for refueling. https://kerbalx.com/nestor_d/OSP-Mk31-Firebird Here's an album of the first half of the mission:

Previously I've tried to launch a SSTO but to no avail: you just can't seem to do that with low-tier tech. So I've decided to approach the problem with a different solution: a spaceplane on top of a reusable first stage. The design will be similar in concept to Dyna-Soar and Boeing X37-B.

Hi guys, I was trying to design a spaceship/spaceplane hybrid that is similar to Dyna-Soar. I've managed to get it into LKO, rendezvous with my space station and return to Kerbin. It survived the re-entry pretty well, but the issue came right after the re-entry: prograde pointed right towards the ground, and my ship started tumbling like a washing machine. Would really appreciate some help if somebody could guide me on what's wrong with the plane. (I've checked the COM and COL, COL is constantly behind the COM even when the tank is empty. Thanks!

Kerbals are on a Mission to the Jool System, but because of the newest recession of Kerbin's economy, the Space Program couldn't afford to lose a single tank or engine, so it was decided to use a self reuelling SSTO spaceplane, which made the journey very, very long because the constant need for stops along the way (7 and a half years so far, stopping at Minmus, Duna, and Ike). The first intended landing site atthe Jool System was Vall, but the dwindling fuel reserves made Laythe the only viable because of the possibility of either an unpowered descent or sporadically using the much more efficient air breathing engines on the plane. After a refuelling stop on Laythe's surface, landings on Pol and Bop are planned. Tylo is, of course out of the question as it would mean a permanent residence there for the Kerbals and their ship.

What's the most common one you use on your designs / what'd you recommend for a NEWB? All RAPIER Pros - fully reusable, fuel always drains evenly, good (best?) payload fraction to LKO, high thrust weight ratio Cons - low ISP in space , not optimal for missions beyond low orbit 2 RAPIER 2 NERV Pros - fully reusable, can fly to space without oxidizer. Symmetrical layout. Decent delta V. Once fuel type for air breathing and rocket engines. Cons - one nerv can only lift 15 tons whereas a single rapier can do twice that, at a pinch, so you are carrying one more rapier than you really need - and those suckers are heavy. 2 tons each. Also the NERVs drain fuel front to back of the stack like a rocket , so won't take from wing tanks and try their hardest to mess up CG 1 RAPIER 2 NERV https://kerbalx.com/AeroGav/Astrojet-Citation Pros - fully reusable, can fly to space without oxidizer. Symmetrical layout. Good Delta V Cons - poor performance when subsonic, hard to bust through the sound barrier. Swapping RAPIER for Whiplash improves this at the expense of a little delta V though lower airbreathing max speed. 1 RAPIER 2 NERV 2 disposable panthers (coupled to rear of NERVs) Pros - solves the poor subsonic performance of the above layout, nice controllable climb not as banzai as a pure RAPIER/Whiplash design at high speed. Cons - not fully reusable, though Panthers are only a third of the price of a RAPIER and enable to sort of missions you'd need a pretty big rocket for. https://kerbalx.com/AeroGav/K211-Tundra-Goose NERV + disposable whiplash on decoupler behind NERV Pros - very high delta V, can go to Duna and back, since you're not dragging the dead weight of air breathing engines once they outlive usefulness. Cons - not fully re-suable, though still only 2000 kredits a pop https://kerbalx.com/AeroGav/whippynerv NERV + disposable RAPIER https://kerbalx.com/AeroGav/Astrojet-Citation-X The last word in performance. Re-using engines is for peasants.

My latest and greatest. A nice looking, MK2 SSTO SpacePlane that has over 5K DV remaining after launch to LKO. Room for 2 crew, docking port and full RCS make this a very practical and useful ship. I flew to Minmus, then to the Mun, then back to Kerbin with no refueling. Album of mission and video of launch to LKO below. https://kerbalx.com/g00bd0g/MK2-Space-Plane-4xR-1xN

No pictures, sorry. Use your imagination dangit. So forever ago I made a plane that could go 1400 m/s. It was mk2 part size and had 4 ramjet engines. It has to have a heat shield on it because it goes so fast... Later I slapped a mk2 cargo bay in there thinking... "If I could get this into a suborbital flight, then if I just release a small probe with a lot of speratrons then I could get it into orbit." So I did. I got to about 52,000 meters, the majority of the atmosphere gone, and released the probe. Albeit The Evil Kraken attacked the original probe design, so I couldn't get a perfect orbit but it was an amazing achievement. The plane then re-enters near another large landmass... and you can turn the engines back on to control you landing... or crash like I did. Anyways, it only took about 250 units of liquid only fuel to get up there, and then maybe 12 seperatrons to get the probe into orbit. That is pretty cheap in my opinion. Getting the entire plane into orbit is a little tedious and fuel intensive. Finally, the heat shield on the front of my plane is NOT aerodynamic... it would be nice to have aerodynamic ones so you can make a fast plane, and still be protected.

So I've built my first successful SSTO tanker! Two flights under its belt now (first did not return so well, but some adjustments to CoL fixed that nicely for the second), and I'm pretty proud of it! Thanks to @bewing @AeroGav and @mk1980 for the general spaceplane advice. As a first design, it's obviously going to be less than optimized, so now I'm hoping for some advice in refining it. craft file here Current outstanding issues, aside from just general efficency... it wobbles like hell, especially when low on fuel. I suspect this is due to the wing design? Also, I think I'm getting extra drag, with each wing segment adding its own drag rather than being obscured. I had them separately attached to the center for stability, but maybe I should have the wing components attached front to back to eachother? Fuel percentage to orbit varies widely on how well the ascent went. Flight profile (also open to suggestions): run out the end of the runway and probably end up drifting down towards the water as you accelerate. Build speed at sea level 'till 500m/s or greater, then start to climb. Make certain your TWR and thrust are going up, otherwise level out and accelerate more before climbing. Shallow climb, aim for 1200/1300m/s before the engines start to drop off. Kick in the Skipper before flameout. Once the Whiplashes die, hit 5 to close the intakes and let the rapiers autoswitch. Push your trajectory up to 40-50km then hit 2 to kill the rapiers and follow orbital prograde to desired AP with the skipper. When delivering fuel, keep the very front nosecone full (minus a bit of ox if you want) and empty the rest. Re-entry: PE to 30km over KSC (if using trajectories mod, just put the X on KSC). Standard 15-20 degree inclination to slow. Main thing to watch is overheating the RCS, but it's not too troublesome. Feel free to invert and pull "up" towards the ground to avoid overshooting KSC. I've was screaming over the mountains at 1700m/s and still had no trouble bringing it down with inversion and airbrakes. Final approach at around 100m/s, then pop the brakes and settle lightly to the runway at 50 or less. I think the wings are my biggest issue here, but I don't think I can reduce them in size, as I'm already pushing my limit on getting into the air when fully-loaded. Other designs attempted: all whiplashes and all rapiers. The first couldn't push the AP out of the atmosphere on the skipper alone, and the second gently nosedived into the ocean for lack of thrust.

Fly a plane around the world, Submit the mission report (F3) also show the plane you made it in, but the catch is, you have to stay below 14 kilometers ASL