ssTALONps

Gotta try that X-33, I always like your outstanding designs I thought adding tail gear might ruin 'cleanness' of design. Tail strikes can be avoided with more cautious take off control.

Just had a test run on Laythe with ARX-3 to test feasibility of surface-to-orbit refuel operations and to find optimal ascent procedures. While this maybe not the case of yours, as you don't use ISRU mods, I thought this might give you some figures for managing limited fuel supplies So I Hyperedited to Laythe orbit, brought down the ARX-3 into one of equatorial islands, burnt excessive fuel and touched down. After filling up the Vulture with Hyperedit, I sat my target orbit as 90x90km equatorial orbit. The result is greater then expected. The key to increased efficiency is to not engage 24-77s at all time, not to mention Laythe's thinner atmosphere and lower gravity. Here is my ascent profile; 1. Rotate at 80m/s, pitch up to 60 deg, engage ASAS and initiate jet only ascent phase. 2. At altitudes of 10km, ignite LV-T30 by pressing 6. 3. At altitudes of 12km, disengage jet engines and close intakes by pressing 1 and 3 respectively. 4. At altitudes of 25km, pitch down to 40 deg. 5. At altitudes of 30km, pitch down to 20 deg. 6. At altitudes of 40km, pitch down to prograde vector and burn until desired AP is achieved. 7. ??? 8. PROFIT!

I totally agree on that, although I'm pretty much amazed by such designs

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/27631 Sorry for the delayed release, but ASX-II EURS is finally uploaded! As I use ISRU mods like Kethane or HOME mod, I was initially going to upload it without provisions for independent tugs, but as Tada requested, it now has rearward docking port for tugs. I still recommend to use at least ISRU mods, especially HOME admin module; it's always a better idea to have self-sustainability for colonies But if you do not want use mods, you can still dock tugs into heat shield on LKO. Just don't forget to deploy landing gears on landing, or rover wheels will burst and since the EURS has already high ground pressure, you CAN NOT repair wheels once over 6 wheels are burst simultaneously!

ASX-II EURS, as requested by Tada, has been uploaded!

Here's an album of ASX-II Single Launch Surface Refuel System testing for ARX-3. http://imgur.com/a/l7JVX#0 This new refuel truck has more capacity, RCS fuel, and most importantly, single launch to Laythe capability. It now has detachable fairing and integrated interplanetary stage/heat-shield for injection burn and reentry. It will reach LKO with 2.8km/s of dV, which is sufficient for Laythe transfer burn. Be aware, if you try to land with mass over 15t, most rover wheels will burst. I'll release it after more testing

Thank you! Yes, the ARX-3 is not tailored for full-fuel landing unfortunately ARX-3B's somewhat longer runway requirement is owing to CoM shift to the front. This is inevitable, as extra cockpit adds significant weight to the front.

Voilà! ARX-3B 2 seat version updated!

Thank you! I'm actually quite surprised by community's reaction toward my simple design! I'm glad you liked my design! Now answering to your question: The ascent profile I provided is almost identical as ordinary rocket ascent profile, and maybe not the most efficient ascent. Like you said, one might think it'll be more efficient to accelerate with jet engines; however this only applies to turbojet engine SSTOs. This is because, unlike godly turbojet engines, basic jet engines does not generate enough thrust at altitudes above 9km to sustain jet engine only ascent. It's maximum speed with full throttle at operational ceiling of 9km is only around 200m/s and at this altitude, air is dense enough to slow down you a lot, I mean, A LOT. So it'll be a wise decision to pitch up and ignite rocket engines to quickly get out of lower atmosphere, not to mention to minimize loss of dV to basic jet engines consuming fuel with low specific impulse. I found it while testing ARX series that once you do not use turbojets, you'd better pay more attention to vertical speed as well as pitch angle then orbital speed at altitudes lower then 20km because the atmosphere only slows you down. Thus the design of ARX-3 is basically, as I preferably call it, 'Rocket on a wing' I found #3 of your impression quite a nasty problem to solve and haven't found a craft-wise solution You'll have to rotate the camera with arrow keys to avoid deselecting last fuel tank when performing refuel mission. If you're planning to use ARX-3 and/or modify its design for your amazing project, you're welcome as long as you credit me as original author! I'll keep a eye on your project!

Thank you! Well, it's one of main reasons I prefer ARX-3 over ARX-3N as it's normally impossible to attach it. I'm glad you like my design! I really like your Soyuz rockets

Intro DOWNLOAD - Spaceport v1.0a Updated instruction for use in conjunction with F.A.R. mod on Spaceport! v1.1 ARX-3B 2 seat shuttle updated! v1.2 ASX-II Exo-planetary Universal Refuel System updated! One of the most successful designs of Aircraft Research eXperiment project (yes, I know it’s boring acronym), the ARX-3 / ARX-3N is a 35t class medium sized SSTO that is capable of Munar low orbit insertion and return, depending on version. With unmatched versatility, realism and reliability, these remain one of my favorite SSTOs of all time. While they do have inferior performances when compared with world flooding with intake spamming, turbojet powered high performance SSTOs and nothing to stand out in performance aspect, nevertheless they’re designed with both realism and reliability in mind and will go where you want to go! Overview The ARX project started out as an ambitious project to design more realistic, reliable and most importantly, sustainable (compatible with future updates) SSTOs. Key design features include: 1. No intake spam – This is just ridiculous… 2. No turbojet engine – I anticipated worst case scenario nerfing of turbojet rendering it obsolete. 3. Wings must have low AR – Taking structural integrity into consideration. 4. Vital components must be protected – For when reentry heat damage gets added. 5. 80x80km orbit insertion within 10 min. – Rapid orbital deployment for faster rendezvous. 6. Ground refuel capable – Total re-usability, you don't call something a SSTO when it can not be refueled after landing! 7. Reliability – Easy to fly and must have almost same dV after orbit insertion. This unique design philosophy resulted in many interesting design. Many of these designs, however, were merely experimental ones and could not meet all of design goals, although some showed promising performances. This included a design inspired by ARCA’s IAR 111 ‘Excelsior’ supersonic mothership. With further modifications incorporated, the ARX-3 finally came into light. ARX-3 'Vulture' The ARX-3 ‘Vulture’ is versatile, yet easy to fly SSTO capable of reaching prograde orbit over 500x500km, or if the need arises, polar and retrograde orbits. If flown right, it will have around 850m/s of dV on orbit after ascent. Even though I expected significant reduction in performance as a result of abiding harsh design guidelines, the ARX-3 is more than capable of most ordinary SSTO designs. As it completely relies on auxiliary rocket engines (4x 24-77) and main rocket engine (1x LV-T30) for main orbital insertion burn, you’ll find its ascent profile more of a rocket then a space plane. This was essential as it permits rapid deployment time nearing that of rocket. It has one inline docking port for ordinary docking operation and two small docking ports intended to be used as refuel ports; they’ll perfectly match with ASX series refuel trucks (included in download). If you’re a big fan of ‘SSTOconomy’, you can use single ARX-3 over and over again for refuel mission. For unmanned shuttle missions, it’s equipped with hidden unmanned probe and RTGs for unlimited operation. You’ll never, ever run out of electricity! The maneuverability of this SSTO is actually quite great. You can fill it up with liquid fuel after landing and use it as low altitude high maneuverability jet fighter. It will also glide gorgeously after reentry, making approach glide easier. On limited occasions, the ARX-3 can be used as a payload launcher with maximum payload around 3t, though it’s not designed with payload delivery in mind. While attaching payload on top of fuselage is possible (as seen on top screenshot of thread showing sat launch version), I do not recommend it as it will result in gradual pitch-up tendency. Recommended payload attaching point is beneath the main wing symmetrically. ARX-3N 'Voyager' The ARX-3N ‘Voyager’ is a further development of ARX-3. As the suffix ‘N’ suggests, it replaced LV-T30 with LV-N, almost doubling its dV on orbit after insertion. With optimal ascent, you’ll have 1.5km/s to 1.7km/s of dV, enough for Munar / Minmus low orbit insertion and return. To compensate for low TWR of LV-N, it adds additional 2 pair of 24-77s, relying initial ascent on those fuel-hungry engines. This is unavoidable as all of the ARX series does not accelerate into orbital speeds within upper atmosphere. When fully fueled up, it has dV exceeding 8km/s meaning it can be used as interplanetary transport, although I don’t use it for that; let’s think of our poor kerbal caged for months and years within crampy cockpit It maybe a little bit cheaty as I clipped one fuel tank inside of LV-N but overall fuel capacity is same. The extra fuel tank was necessary to provide attachment point for parking gear and lower wing. ASX-II EURS refuel truck The ASX-II Exo-planetary Universal Refuel System is intended as primary surface refuel system for outer planets, especially Laythe, as requested by Tada. As the acronym suggests, it's designed from the beginning to have universal refuel capability for light to medium SSTOs. You just have to attach Clamp-o-Tron Jr. like ARX-3 does. Don't worry, it's extremely simple! It's all stock and has integrated Interplanetary Stage / Heat Shield (IPSHS) for more reality and self-propelled injection burn. With on-board fuel, it has 2.9km/s of dV, enough for Laythe transfer. The ASX-II is supplied with dedicated launcher, fairing and heat shield system. At launch with fairings, it has part count of ~350, which will pose problems for low to medium spec PCs but once in orbit you'll find it hardly ever causes lags. Since it lacks skycrane and relies on parachutes for landing, you can't use it on non or low-atmospheric environments. Even with all those parachute-spams, you still have to deploy landing gears for shock absorbing or all rover-wheels WILL burst. Within full sunlight, maximum cruise speed is around 20m/s and at night it drops under 14m/s, which is still manageable. The handling characteristic is quite good for such a large (35t) truck. I strongly recommend using ISRU mods like Kethane or HOME mod as IPSHS uses almost all of on-board fuel. After all, it's always a better idea to have ISRU system. If you're 'purist' though, you can always attach interplanetary tug behind IPSHS and let it do the transfer, conserving fuel supply of ASX-II. Note that actual appearance of ASX-II is slightly different from screenshots as I'm too lazy to take up-to-date screenshots All in all, both the ARX-3 and ARX-3N are highly versatile, multi-purpose SSTOs. While I generally prefer ARX-3 over ARX-3N owing to more ease of operation and realism, you’ll find both of them useful. The ASX series refuel trucks will make any SSTO to have refuel capability, providing total reusable fleet of SSTOs. For flight instructions, please see ‘How to use’ tab on Spaceport. Have fun with these!!!

Wow, nice one! How about 2.5m large vertical scoop instead of radial one?

I just found that majority of Kethane on Laythe lies deep under the oceans! Kethane Hydrate maybe? I like the idea of custom generated pockets but I think you should add 'altitude filter' specifically for Layhte, so that Kethane won't generate underwater... Other than that I love the mod!

Keep up the great work! I love the smell of Kethane in the morning Can we have ETA for another awesome mod?

I noticed that even without laser drills the ISRU can produce fuel out of nothing... I used combination of DynaVolt SP and NB for exo-planetary refuel probe designed to land on small bodies like Bop or Gilley, using drills to mine fuel... But after I completed TJI and wait for mid course correction, I realized my fuel tanks are full!!! lol!!! I hope there'll be some kind of workaround for this... atm I just manually turn ISRU off on interplanetary journey... Lower the laser drills by pressing U or V, and time warp like x10000 for a min and BOOM, fuel!!!

Thx for your great update JDP! One pseudo-bug reporting: I think you reset Remote Command crew requirement back to 5... My Duna orbital mission command, which is occupied by 3 crew, ceased to work... I quickly recognized this problem and changed .cfg crew requirement back to 3... I think you should notify people about this!

So I was en-route to Laythe yesterday... I successfully pulled out Jool aerocapture maneuver, setting course for direct Laythe transfer... Then I realized I accidentally put myself on retrograde rendezvous orbit, relative velocity peaked around 5900m/s! Running out of delta v budget, I had no choice but to try aerocapture again... But plunging deep into Laythe's atmosphere turned out to be bad idea as my Proteus IPV disintegrated over Laythe... No screenies but trust me, rendezvousing with retrograde orbit is not recommended!

nice l00! can you update your ISRU mod? I desperately need it for my grand tour of the Kerbol system

After TJI (Trans-Jool Injection) burn the MechJeb worked fine... Until about 344 days later... The Smart A.S.S. doesn't work anymore... And I found that my Dragon Rider CM also lost it's reorientation capability... I think this is not MechJeb-only problem, but I'm reporting it just in case...

LOL finally!!! that monster managed to circumnavigate!!! and since your highest altitude is 30km, your behemoth is qualified as successful PK-SST design!!!

the cause of problem I think is lack of vertical stabilizer to control yaw force... you might wanna put some control fins vertically... other than that it's kinda awesome!!! tri-plane FTW!!!

thx for confirming atmo engines are bug free but I think they burn fuel LOT faster than RL engines... I'm even considering to add rule stating you can use old C7 fuel tanks...

thx!!! and I do plan to add Hyper Sonic Transport challenge after fuel consumption bug is addressed (hopefully 0.17 update)... the PK-HST challenge will require participants to design high altitude aircraft capable of cruising above Mach 3 with maximum altitude of 30km... I know in RL hypersonic indicates speed above Mach 5 but hey, that's 1700m/s!!! at this speed and altitude people can't use jet engines; they gotta use aerospike rocket engines with low throttle setting... but as long as damn fuel consumption bug is present, I can't add this challenge atm...

I'll post my try asap but what do you mean by autopilot? I guess MechJeb Autom8 feature? I'm not going to use MechJeb's autopilot for entire flight but wanna use some of smart A.S.S. (like Prograde) and orbital information display... is this ok?

lol you can actually use rocket fuel tanks since KSP does not have separated fuel feature atm... I'm using rocket fuel tanks for my new design!!!