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SSTOs! Post your pictures here~


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Made a small and reasonably cheap medium range spaceplane SSTO with modest tech requirements. The Turbo Ramjet engine is the only 300 point tech node required.

It's capable of Mun or Minmus flyby or lifting 4.5 t payload to LKO. If the payload is extra fuel it can even go into orbit around Mun or Minmus and return to Kerbin.

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Noting some of the older posts that didn't get enough love...

SSTO for deep space navigation:)

http://i.imgur.com/LnPqp38.jpg

Has 6706.7 DeltaV and can visit such planets as Dres or Laythe or Bop/Pol

Holy B-class asteroids is that a lot of Delta v! I assume you mean when it's on the ground? If you mean in orbit, then... wow. Didn't even know that was possible.

A pointless SSTO (oh look a pun)

http://i.imgur.com/SOJtDxQ.png

That is a beautiful SSTO.

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The mission, to Moho, fully reusable/recoverable, no discarded stages that become useless, no ISRU.

The design:

12038399_10103920538990263_8886913359077386205_n.jpg?oh=6ee82b8b63aafbc9fefb1f1148ff72a7&oe=5698A80B

A mostly chemical ejection booster that pushes the stack to well past escape velocity, then uses the remaining LF and LV-Ns to retroburn and aerobrake back down to LKO to refuel.

Then the science lab + fuel tanks are left in moho orbit as a station (with LF for 2 lander refuels), the lander thus gets 3 landings,

The return vehicle comes back... the whole thing can be repeated if the next time it brings more fuel instead of a lab + lander+ command pod + misc other stuff (I really should have made the hitchhiker part detachable too so that it could carry more fuel there) - it could then take the empty tank back, so that the empty tank from a fueling mission is recovered

I decided to launch that mission with SSTO flights.

I only needed 2.

That booster went up in here:

12079947_10103920539299643_7804082981841770667_o.jpg

I found that my lifter took that >130 ton stage to orbit with ~32 tons of excess fuel and ox.

Thus establishing the payload fraction to be over 36%, and the maximum payload to be over 160 tons (I had previously treated it as a 125 ton payload SSTO).

The rest of the mission went up in this:

12095269_10103920539404433_7429022844425493780_o.jpg

A lighter payload... but it sure was hard to wrap it in a fairing (probably would have been better off if I hadn't... but whatever.

Keeping the Center of mass in an acceptable spot was also difficult, I had to fully fil the forward tanks on the SSTO, and remove fuel from the read tanks, then lock the forward tanks so that they wouldn't drain and make it too tail heavy while still in the atmosphere... once over ~35k and following prograde, I unlocked the forward tanks for the rest of the orbital burns.

That bulbous cargo pod barely cleared the runway on takeoff... I couldn't pitch up and lift off the runway like with the other payload... so I just ran straight off the end of the runway before pitching up.

I have the rendevous setup for 0.3km, but havent docked the two yet.

I'll post a pic when I do... the 2nd payload will still be docked to the SSTO, so I can top up the whole stack from the SSTO fuel reserves (since I'll used up some resources docking). The booster stage will dock with the upper part while still attacked to the SSTO... forming a nearly 400 ton craft... should look pretty impressive in orbit, to see that massive thing that the SSTO lifted, while still attached to the SSTO that lifted it in just two trips.

Edited by KerikBalm
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Spaceplane SSTO D-4 Outrider [stock] is an evolution of the D-3 Ranger I made yesterday.

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[TD=align: center]Standard config

rrWY78I.png[/TD]

[TD=align: center]Medium Range config

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[TD=align: center]Long Range config

OK7cxOv.png[/TD]

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It is also possible to make a Shuttle config that will take 8 passengers and 4 t cargo to a station in medium Kerbin orbit. Other combinations are also possible.

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Wow, Val! An ssto with a TWR greater than a hairdryer! Something's changed :).

It looks great too by the way.

Thank you! I decided that not all my SSTOs needed to be record breakers. So I made userfriendlyness the primary focus of this one.
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Jonesin' for KSP, but I don't want to do any more career before 1.1... so this.

I don't know what it's for, but it went to orbit hella fast. I've since realised that tweakscale can take things below 0.625m, so the middle tank disappears completely...

SXV3k4P.jpg

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Back to making big craft... This one christened the Bishop Star Cruiser is able to get to Minmus with a lab and ISRU on board.

http://i.imgur.com/77WUBv1.png

Star Cruiser Bishop by Jolly Roger on Sketchfab

JR

That looks awesome. I assume it lifts off vertically and the VTOL is only for extremely low-gravity worlds?

Rune. Unless there's some hidden landing gear I'm not seeing, of course.

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That looks awesome. I assume it lifts off vertically and the VTOL is only for extremely low-gravity worlds?

Rune. Unless there's some hidden landing gear I'm not seeing, of course.

No it's a regular SSTO space plane, it takes off from Kerbin horizontally on the runway. But you are right about the rest, the landing engines allow it to do a VTOL type landing on low-gravity moons and use the ISRU to refuel. It should basically be able to go to every planet & moon except for Eve, (and I'm not too sure about Tylo). It's a WIP so I have to still test it some more.

JR

Edit: The landing gear are not showing up in the Sketchfab 3D image but they are there in the design. The drills are also missing - I think I may need to update my loader software.

Edited by Jolly_Roger
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Hi there ! This is my little something i have been working on for a while. It makes it on its own from Kerbin to Minmus for a pit stop, then jumps to Laythe. I have placed several mining drones over Minmus, Ike, Bop and Laythe. There are some images missing, i forgot to take them :D

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Edited by DuoDex
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