The VTOL ssto challenge!

[Fenceingmadman]

Build a VTOL stto that is also a spaceplane fly it to all of Jools moons and land on each. Non atmospheric ones in vtol mode. Atmospheic ones in horizontal flight. 

In flight Refueling is allowed

Stageing is allowed

No part restrictions 

Optional mods

•Any

 

Edited November 5, 2019 by Fenceingmadman

[Pds314]

4 hours ago, Fenceingmadman said:

Build a VTOL stto that is also a spaceplane fly it to all of Jools moons and land on each. Non atmospheric ones in vtol mode. Atmospheic ones in horizontal flight.

No part restrictions 

Mandatory mods

•FAR

Optional mods

•Any

 

Hmmmmmm... does the SSTO need to land on all of Jool's moons in a single stage without refueling using stockbalanced parts? If so this challenge is most-likely impossible.

So let's say you circularize for just 400 m/s and find some REALLY efficient gravity assist route to Jool. It costs 1100 m/s from LKO.

Ok, and you're gonna aerobrake, land on Laythe then circularize for 100 m/s.

And then you need to spend 900 m/s to throw yourself at Vall, 400 to circularize. 900 to land, 900 to take off, 400 to throw yourself at Tylo.

1050 to circularize, 2300 to land, 2300 to take off, 1050 to throw yourself at Bop, 400 to circularize and land. 500 to take off and aim for Pol, 300 to slow down, circularize and land, 500? for Kerbin return trajectory.

13500 rocket Delta-V, whilst carrying wings, landing gears, a jet engine, empty jetfuel tanks from reorbitting on Laythe, and a rocket powerful and efficient enough for the mission profile. I'm thinking not gonna happen.

 

If you have 350 s ISP, you need a mass ratio of 52!

If you have 800 s ISP, you need a mass ratio of 5.6! Better but still totally impractical stock when almost half the mission requires a TWR over 1.

And neither of those account for the use of jet engines AT ALL.

Edited November 4, 2019 by Pds314

[fulgur]

Quote

Is this challenge possible?

Many challenges we see are nearly or literally impossible to achieve, and usually very little thought has gone into them, these challenges just annoy people, waste forum space and show that the submitter hasn't really tried.

So test your challenge yourself first to make sure it is possible, you don't have to be successful but you'll soon know if the challenge has a hope of being completed.

You must try this challenge to make sure that it is possible.

It might be possible because of ISRU. Refuel at Minmus, Bop, Pol, and indeed when landed at Laythe and Tylo.
And also you could probably have the RAPIERS mounted on servos to do the VTOLing.

Also, why FAR? It slows down my (already slow) game FAR too much. I really don't want to use it if I were to attempt this challenge.

Edited November 4, 2019 by fulgur

[Pds314]

6 minutes ago, fulgur said:

You must try this challenge to make sure that it is possible.

It might be possible because of ISRU. Refuel at Minmus, Bop, Pol, and indeed when landed at Laythe and Tylo.
And also you could probably have the RAPIERS mounted on servos to do the VTOLing.

Also, why FAR? It slows down my (already slow) game FAR too much. I really don't want to use it if I were to attempt this challenge.

ISRU should make this challenge possible. Since the biggest chunk of rocket Delta-V needed in one hop is only about 4300. And you might be able to reduce that if you stop at Pol or Bop first to refuel, then hop to Tylo from there.

Edited November 4, 2019 by Pds314

[fulgur]

Yes the only thing is making something light enough to VTOL, aerodynamic enough to SSTO and furthermore have drills which reach the ground.
And also that weird rule that you must have FAR. I do not want to use FAR, it slows down my computer (which used to run fine, but then I updated Linux and now it runs really slowly).

FAR, go FAR FAR away from this challenge. Unless you want to use FAR. In which case you're free to.

Edited November 4, 2019 by fulgur

[Kergarin]

That's exactly what I had planned for Jool in my next career playthroug. 

But you might get more participation if you remove that far rule

[fulgur]

On 11/4/2019 at 3:14 AM, Fenceingmadman said:

Build a VTOL SSTO that is also a spaceplane. Fly it to all of Jool's moons and land on each. Non atmospheric ones in VTOL mode. Atmospheric ones in horizontal flight. 

In flight refuelling is allowed.

Staging is allowed.

This makes it a rather much harder challenge, and also a slightly easier one. Your craft has to fly well in both vertical and horizontal modes, but luckily it is rather easy to pilot a VTOL craft when there is no aerodynamics to muck things up.

Staging would make this more interesting and also a little easier. I'm thinking now of a separate craft for Tylo, to fit in a cargo bay; that might open up a lot of opportunities - think Mk3 or even the MkIV mod.

Also as I said above are you going to try this challenge? According to forum rules you must.

Edit: Here's a design I fiddled about with, but as this challenge is very complicated and I don't have much spare time for KSP anymore, anyone could use it as a starting point.

The main difficulties were giving it enough thrust to do an atmospheric VTOL, but with the 'horizontal in atmo, vtol in space' rule that's not necessary, unless Tylo.

Edited November 5, 2019 by fulgur

[Kergarin]

Had some time to work on this. I now have an isru Jool 5 ssto spaceplane which does Tylo in one piece without staging or a separate lander. 

How is vtol defined? Can the plane just land vertical on its tail, or does it have to tilt it's engines 90deg?

It has a wild engine mix which would be hard to tilt