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This is my first spacecraft exchange, i have have always wanted to share my SSTO with the world. SSTO Lammergeier Specifications: Part Count, 93 Mass, 68.362t Height, 4.5m Width, 20.5m Length, 19.7m This my SSTO, the Lammergeier, seen here on Minmus Here it is in the SPH, and you can see its interesting wing shape. Here it is back on Kerbin after its voyage to Minmus, it has made the trip a couple of times and hasn't failed me yet. Thank you.

Hi everyone. I'm an experienced KSP player and understand most of the science behind the rocket-building aspects of the game, and have hundreds of happy hours landing all over the Kerbol system in stuff that rode tall pointy things to space. Spaceplanes, however, have always eluded me. Well, I've decided to tackle that challenge, and want your expert advice on the way. I've watched some tutorials, noted design features in other people's successful ships, and have tried quite a few iterations without any success. I don't have the RAPIERs unlocked yet in this career save, but I kind of want to solve the SSTO challenge without them. Feels like I'll know the art better if I do it that way. I have a ship I'm happy with, and it's struggling to get sub-orbital. I can reach about 25km and 1,100m/s with my air breathers (why can't I get it higher or faster?), and the nukes just don't cut it to take it the rest of the way. I'm conscientious of effecient ascent profiles, but I may not be doing it right. I climb at about 45 degrees until around 10,000m, and then gently lower my nose to 10 degrees and ride the air breathers until they quit--when they reach about 5-10% thrust, I engage the nukes. Here's a picture of my spaceplane. Not all the fuel tanks are full, and it's aerodynamically sound both wet and dry. Help me, oh mighty wizards of the SSTO world. (also, how do I embed imgur pictures into a post...?) http://imgur.com/FaQggff [edit by Snark: put image inline]

Have you ever wanted to launch an entire space station into orbit, but you didn't have a big enough rocket? Luckily for you, the engineers here at the KSC Badger Works division have come up with a solution to that problem: the Pteradactyl. With it's 3.75m fairing and fuel tanks bigger than Valentina's closet, the Pteradactyl will put almost anything into LKO, or you could just launch it with full tanks to refuel a flotilla of motherships for a Duna window. Really, I don't know what those engineers were thinking when they built this, but hey, here it is. Download from KerbalX Use at your own risk. Any damage to property or loss of kerbals or payload is due to your bad piloting. Any awesome space stations or other cool stuff you get to orbit is only because you used this awesome spaceship.

So I've been poking around with 1.2 off and on between another project I've been working on, and I've decided to go bang my head on the wall to create a reusable spaceplane with as low a tech as I can get my hands on. Preferably without upgrading anything (thus, 30 parts/18 tons) and max tech level 4 (the 45 cost tree region). While doing this, and after banging my head on the wall repeatedly, I decided I'd poke my head in here and see if anyone had been taking up the idea... and haven't seen much. I love Thrimm's work, but his lightest is a 25tonner. I haven't seen much else out there. So, has anyone been successful at this so far? I assume someone (or many someones) have, so if you know of them, would you be kind enough to point me at them for some ideas?

1. Crafts must be able to safely land without parachutes. 2. Crafts must not require any building upgrades to build. 3. Crafts must be stock. Category A. Reuseable SSTO spaceplane limited to tech level 4. Bonus points if it's crewed and if it has scientific instruments on board. Category B Reuseable SSTO spaceplane limited to tech level 5. Bonus points if it's crewed and if it has scientific instruments on board. Category C Airbreathing Crewed crafts capable of reaching >20,000 meters required to have a thermometer and barometer on board. (intended to be used for contracts) Here are my entries, Category A: (okay I used a level 5 fuel tank, but I had a low enough part count that I could have replaced the fuel tanks with the shorter ones). Not even gonna share the craft file for this rather unimaginative design, this craft is capable of getting into orbit but it requires the operator to be rather precise. this one has all of the low tech science on board. Note I had to tilt it at an an angle and it was just barely short enough to fit the required 15m dimensions but upon startup if you hold the a key it will reorient itself in the right direction. (it seemed harder to get into orbit in vertical takeoff). Again, this is not optimized but it does reach orbit, not too proud of this one, here's one more to prove I landed it: Here's my Category C entry: Now this one I consider much more useful, this will enable you to complete any of the survey contracts I've seen: This thing will literally fly itself up to 22,000 meters just by hitting the prograde button. I posted this earlier now that it's a contest I will try to fly it again to post a higher height, here is the craft file: it's exactly 30 parts and doesn't even have a front wheel. http://pastebin.com/raw/eQWfQM6T

I've been trying to fly the GN Drive powered (vertical) spaceplane over the Earth in Real Solar System for quite some time now. The problem, though, is that I never managed to really shed off the orbital speed during the atmospheric entry, and attempting to land the SSTO at that speed resulted in the ship itself blown up like fireworks. The only way I could find so far is perform a reverse-thrust with the GN engine in docking mode, but I'd like to find another way if possible. I'm using the stock parts for now, though I would like to have this problem solved before I install more advanced mods like FAR.

I dug through the forums and couldn't find anything quite like this. It promises to be a pretty kerbal sort of challenge, so hopefully we will get some interesting entries. Building an SSTO seems to be pretty popular for early players. Airbreathing spaceplanes are the most common, though pure-rocket and VTOL SSTOs are typical too. Building a reusable SSTO in Demo Mode, on the other hand...that's a bit of a challenge. It's easy enough to stack stages in Demo to achieve pretty much anything you want, but with only a single liquid-fueled engine, what you can do in a single stage is limited. The LV-T30 (at least, the one in the Demo) has a sea level TWR of 14.8, which isn't exactly ideal for an SSTO. With an ISP maxing out at 305 s and the demo's maximum tankage ratio of 9:1, the theoretical maximum delta-v of an LV-T30-based SSTO is 5.47 km/s with a launch TWR of exactly 1:1. This is more than enough to reach orbit, of course, but when you factor in decreased atmospheric specific impulse, aerodynamic drag, a reasonable launch TWR, and a host of other considerations, you end up cutting it pretty close. And getting back down to the atmosphere, surviving re-entry without heat shields, and still having enough fuel to land without parachutes...that's tough. So that's the challenge! Build a single-stage rocket using only Demo parts that can take off, reach a stable orbit, re-enter, and land propulsively without a parachute. A list of demo parts is available here. However, this list includes the TVR-1180C Mk1 Stack Tri-Coupler, the AV-R8 Winglet, and the Telus Mobility Enhancer, none of which are present in the demo I have, so they aren't allowed for the purposes of this challenge. Anything else on that list is fine. To qualify as a single-stage rocket, the entire rocket (minus launch clamps) must reach orbit and return to land without any loss of parts. A stable orbit is an orbit greater than 70x70 km. Water landings are permitted as long as you touch down under rocket propulsion and no parts break. No autopilot mods, but anything else is fine. Control is going to be a challenge; without a vectorable engine or control surfaces (and minimal mass budget for reaction wheels or RCS), a lot is going to depend on aerodynamics and your center of mass. For that reason, some part clipping is fine. Scoring of qualified entries is based on extra points, available as follows: Playing in the actual demo: +200 points Reaching an orbit of at least 100x100 km: +500 points Retrograde orbit rather than prograde orbit: +300 points Using a single re-entry rather than multiple aerobraking passes: +100 points Landing on the daylight side of Kerbin: +50 points Landing on land rather than on water: +75 points Landing in sight of the VAB: +200 points Landing on the actual launch pad: +100 points Landing on deployed landing legs: +25 points Ties will be decided by whichever entry has a lower launch mass. Good luck to all!

Okay, so maybe someone can help me out here. As you can see in this screenshot: http://imgur.com/a/1DNJ4 according to the stats I normally pull from KER, I should have an abundance of all the good things I need to get me into space (TWR, Thrust, DeltaV, etc.) But when I get to about 340m/s, everything just flatlines. I think drag may have something to do with it, but I don't remember how to pull up the drag overlay or calculate that... Here's the craft link if anyone's interested: https://kerbalx.com/KrisKolumbus/Stock-SSTO-Test

So I'd intended this craft as a stock cargo lifter, but didn't notice until I uploaded it to KerbalX that my Mk2-2.5m adapter was from MK2 expansion, and don't feel like fixing that here, so meh. I'm still proud of the design so I'm sharing it anyway. Meet the Firefly. Full album here Designed for station component lifting, it comfortably puts 57t in LKO (Mk3 long rocket fuel tank used as test payload). Average efficiency flight profile leaves 600d/v in the tanks for orbital maneuvers and rendezvous. Takes shameless advantage of magic autostrutting to keep the payload in place. Just pick the biggest central part of the cargo and select "autostrut heaviest part" and it'll lock into the engine pylons with no fuss. I'll probably fix the adapters in the next couple days; just have to decide what I want to replace them with.

Press space to get into space! It is solid fuel SSTO, which doesn't need to be controlled. It takes to orbit only one kerbonaut - a little, but surprisingly if we take note of the other parameters. It has no control surfaces, no SAS, no gimbal, no RCS, but you just press spacebar - and you reach stable orbit. You can use warp, or drink tea. Aerodynamics is great thing. Completing various aerodynamic experiments, I found that the ideal craft that needs no control. Number of components: 28 (1 LVL VAB) Weight: 63.453 kg (2 LVL Launchpad) Cost: 15.659 Technologies: (2 LVL R&D) 1. Why solid fuel? I stopped on the boosters for the reason these are cheap, inefficient and low-tech. The worst way to make SSTOs. Liquid fuel engines represented more broadly, have a good specific impulse and receive fuel from separate tanks. That facts too simplifies our task. And there are no distinct call, no gratifying achievements without the hardcore gaming conditions. 2. How it works? The whole essence of the craft is in asymmetrically located sepratron. During the launch Zen pitching down in a few degrees. In the flight process this craft is well stabilized by wings, so the turns pretty weak, but the higher an atmosphere, the lesser wings help to stabilize. So this SSTO pitching closer to the horizon. And finally, in a vacuum, asymmetrically located sepratron hull slightly deflects the center of mass from the center of thrust that causes the craft slowly rotating (about 20 degrees per minute). Due to this rotation, Zen performing successful orbit rounding manuever. This concept allows you to save delta V. Due to a well-balanced design, the final orbit is almost circular, from 140/72 to 120/74. After using the solid boosters Zen cabin is heated to almost 700 K. At 800 degrees and above kerbonaut better not to get out of the cabin - this is his heating limit. 3. Will there be more such crafts to visit other celestial bodies? Planning any precision maneuvering is extremely difficult, since the positions of celestial bodies are relative to each other and constantly changing. I won't be able to one click launch craft to Dune or Eve. However, I'll do more such "stock autopilots". I will create a craft that automatically leaving the surface of the Dune or Laythe - a sort of evacuation module for kerbonauts. I'm also interested in orbiting more payload and greater number of passengers. Later I will try to create the least tech automatic SSTO, that will be better for career. But now I'm concentrated on KSPeriments. Craft download link: https://yadi.sk/d/Ljdu4N1jzJGGC Screenshots: Thank you for watching! I hope you enjoyed.

Help! How do you land heavy space plane? It is really hard to get it going parallel to the ground at 60~80m/s! Craft file: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2dwd4kcTgMlY3dwY08zVHdBVUU/view?usp=sharing

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-36773074 Many knew that it probably won't play out from the start, but this is a confirmation: apparently SABRE tech is now being pegged for an air-launch system. Which has its own unsolved challenges.

When the boys at R&D say to slap a pair of Ion Engines on an already proven design, the folks at engineering jumped at the chance (even if they are slow as molasses and weigh a ton)!! It was completely pointless, and only served to make their cheap, reliable, one Kerbal SSTO that much more expensive. Oxidizer had to be drained to compensate for the weight, and a much different ascent path is needed for this model. Word of Caution, do not use the staging controls past the first stage to activate Rapiers. Stage 0 is set to the hardpoints holding the ion engines to the craft. Activating this stage will detach the engines. Ion engines are only to be detached in emergency circumstances. Action Groups: 1: Toggles Rapiers and Intakes 2: Toggles Rapiers (used to deactivate the engines once in space). 4: Toggles Docking Light 5: Toggles Ladder 6: Toggles Solar Panels and Ion Engines. 0: Toggles Antenna Abort: Detaches Ion Engines. Download Link is here for this interested in taking this puppy for a spin: Wholfine Hybrid SSTO - Ion Edition Mk 2. - Stock

So , my most recent creation was based off @lodger 's Xkos. https://kerbalx.com/AeroGav/ASES-SP2-Xkos-Dual-Nukes It weighs about 30 tons, and it's a 3 holer. My rule of thumb is that you want one Rapier or Whiplash for every 30 tons and 60kn Closed cycle power for every 15 tons mass (if nuclear) or every 10 tons mass (if chemical). So, it's got about the right amount of jet engine power by my book. In rocket mode, we have an embarrassment of riches. With 120kn nuke power in a 30 ton ship, that is sufficient by itself. But it also has a Rapier producing 180kn in closed cycle mode. On it's own , that would also be sufficient. With both, it's already in LKO before I manage to burn all the Ox off. If I continue to run the nukes till our LF is gone, our PE ends up halfway out to Dres. It's carrying 2 tons of Rapier, 6 tons of NERV, 11.4 tons of LF and 2 tons of Oxidizer. I'm wondering what's going to work best here - 1. Fly it with full tanks as i have done so far. 2. Leave the oxidizer tanks empty, because we're wasting LF burning it at 305ISP in a Rapier when we could be feeding it into a nuke for 800ISP 3. Use configurable containers mod to swap the adapters to hold all LF and no ox, and don't use the Rapier's closed cycle mode 4. Drop down to a single nuke, saving 3 tons, and bring enough oxidizer to get us through the roughest part of the ascent (1 ton may be enough?). Now, how do you fit one rapier and one nuke to a ship that size and not have horrendous off-axis thrust probs?

Wageera Aerospace, the same people who brought you the Kearjet Bussines/Leisure Jet, have the pleasure of bringing you a new design: The N2 Personal Shuttle is a SSTO spaceplane, designed to carry 1 crew plus baggage to orbit or to a space station and back in a safe and economical fashion. It is an excellent spacecraft for pilots seeking the challenge of precision flying and the ultimate in speed, and for space programs in need of a cheap way to level up their pilots, and bring science and crew to space stations and back. This spacecraft can reach anywhere on Kerbin either via long-range atmospheric cruise or a faster suborbital hop, and will always achieve orbit safely and with margin to spare as long as you follow the instructions provided here. In most cases, even if you somehow have managed to run out of fuel during climb, as long as your apoapsis at the time is at or near 65 km, and your speed is above 2 km/s you will be able to limp into orbit with the translation RCS system only. The amount of ΔV remaining after orbital insertion will depend heavily on the launch profile used and the parameters of the target orbit but the best we’ve seen in testing is 347 m/s ΔV remaining when inserted to a circular equatorial 71 km orbit. The usual ΔV remaining after inserting into a 100km circular equatorial orbit is about 300 m/s ΔV plus about 600 kg of monopropellant, wich is more than enough to perform a rendezvous and dock to a refuel station with very wide margins of safety. After refueling in orbit, you can get up to 1.44 km/s ΔV. A typical cruise speed in atmosphere is about 1300 m/s (Mach 4.4) at 26 km altitude. Basic capabilities: Stability: Very stable in all regimes, up to and including hypersonic reentry. Just trim it as needed and it will fly hands-off, no SAS required. Stalls: Due to its mixed canard/elevon design, this spacecraft will not stall, but, upon reaching critical angle of attack, pitch authority will be lost, and the nose will drop, with no tendency to drop a wing as long as reasonable yaw angles are maintained. Stall recovery is the same as in a normal aircraft, but be conscious that it will take more height to recover. Achieving the critical angle of attack is almost impossible whenever full power is applied. Other unusual attitudes: For all tested anormal pitch, roll and yaw attitudes at speeds below Mach 1, centering all controls will result in either immediate self-stabilization or a mild dive from which you can then recover by slightly increasing pitch. Anormal attitudes above Mach 1 were not tested, due to the obvious risk, but our best guesses engineering models indicate that the spacecraft should recover in the same way. Aerobatics: The N2 was not designed to perform aerobatics, and consequently pitch and yaw are too sluggish for aerobatics, but it still can do cool aileron rolls and barrel rolls with ease. Variants: The plane comes in two variants, fully fueled, and jet fuel only, so you can easily fly a lighter, higher performance model for short hops that do not require oxidizer or monopropellant, without having to waste time manually editing fuel tank levels and worrying about potential center of mass issues. Included in your download, in classic Wageera Aerospace style, is a VERY comprehensive Pilot's Handbook with everything you might ever need to take the N2 Spaceplane to orbit and back. Download from: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7TPwnJRH1AYQ2pjLVdzaEVEbk0/view?usp=sharing

So, I decided to finally try to make a spaceplane SSTO. It's all going well, until i got to the altitude where i need to switch mode. My engines didn't change mode, so i used the action group i set to change their mode. Didn't work. Ok. I tried manually changing their mode. Still didn't work. I've tried everything, and the Rapiers won't change mode. I've restarted the game (as well as my computer), i've done everything i can think of and it just won't work. can someone please tell me why this is happening? Craft file: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0Bx91FQJHP8inZkI5QWs5OTFNaXM?usp=sharing NOTE: I haven't tried deleting and redownloading my game. I think it may be because of some modifications i did to the squad folder in order to attempt to make a mod, but i still don't think it should of made the difference that it did.

I want to ditch the wings and jets to improve vacuum efficiency but re-dock with them later on for re-entry and landing. Pics and videos are greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

https://kerbalx.com/AeroGav/Juno-basic-ssto I don't think I can 100% take the credit for this, because jets were buffed in 1.2 i think. 30 parts and a whopping 11.2 tons . It gets transonic at 10km with 4 Junos, a quick burst from the Terrier gets it to 1.4mach where upon it can supercruise on jet power alone up to 15km while maintaining 1.4m. After that it's just a case of open it up and hope for the best.

You see the title. Introducing: Artemis I. I whipped her up just earlier today; I was on a whim trying to test out new, creative ideas in KSP. Then, I started thinking about the SSTO I had made just a few days before (The Billy-Bobdock I, just entered it into the K-Prize) and how it was so overkill, so that lead me to challenging myself with this question: How small can I make a typical spaceplane SSTO? This was my answer to the challenge, and it SERIOUSLY WORKED ON THE FIRST TRY. Sure, I had to quick load a few times, but the craft succeeded the first time out of the SPH, and that was amazing to me. The Stats: ~1700 Liquid Fuel. 165 Oxidiser. 1 R.A.P.I.E.R. Hybrid Engine. Let's get into the details of the first flight, shall we? Takeoff was a little daunting due to the back of the plane being low to the ground, but not pitching up and just letting the plane glide off the runway solved that problem. The rest of the assent seemed pretty average as of the actual experience, but something I only found out about once I was in space really changed my look on that part of the flight. After only ~5 minutes in the atmosphere, I put myself on a sub-orbital trajectory that I would extend into an orbit with my propellant as per the usual, but that's when I noticed I had less than 100 oxidizer left in my tanks (due to burning high-atmo), and that got me kind of startled. I thought, Could this really be the end, this far into take-off? Thankfully, presumably due to good technique during assent, good maneuver planning, and a whole load of luck in what LF/O hybrid tanks I put on the craft, I got into a 70x70 orbit with less than 35 oxidizer to spare. After this, I let the craft move around Kerbin once, and I then deorbited it in such a way that it would land near the KSC, normal normal normal. Reentry was pretty hard, mostly because even though my plane was stable, this would force all the heat to flow into the cockpit and destroy the craft, so after a few failed attempts pointing straight up and down to spread the heat, I actually tried to make the plane unstable, and I succeeded, kicking the jets back on after getting to ~15 kms BC I had quite a bit of LF left over to regain stability. After this, I simply changed the direction of my plane (I had overshot the KSC) and landed on the runway. Hope you enjoyed that short story, reply with constructive criticism, Billy-Bobdock v. Artemis as a name, or suggestions for new designs if you wish, Rain Out.

Getting to the Mun is easy, landing on the Mun is hard. Getting there with a reliable way to get back is harder. Getting there and back with a full orange tank? Why not Behold! The Wyvern IL (Interplanetary-Lander) She has 7 Whiplashes, 6 Rapiers, and 8 NERVs, really quite the mouthful, there. With a full length cargo bay, she was designed to carry cargo to and resupply mining bases on Minmus, but hey, where's the challenge in that? Let's head for the Mun! Huh, it appears that we actually have a decent Thrust to Weight here, let's try landing somewhere! Whoo! The orange tank is still safe and sound. Alright, time to head home! (No pics, sorry )) Gah! The heat! Well lookee here, we'll be home before the next orbit. Last Orbit, and Big Orange is safely nestled within the cargo bay. Final Touches Full Orange Tank to the Mun and back, unfortunately we overshot the KSC, and now they're stuck on the Eastern Continent. Prepare for a rescue mission! Download here: https://kerbalx.com/NightshineRecorralis/Wyvern-KX Comments? ^^

Rush jobs are never good. Could do with a little polish - some dihedral, smaller ailerons, solar panels, and heck, maybe i should have remembered to give it a fuel tank. 2 Nukes a bit overkill on something this small, but how else do you mount with symmetry? Jeb is a brave Kerbal.

I present to you the Galactic Swallow (not related to the real-life commercial space travel/tourism company). My first attempt at building a spaceplane that can do more than just strand crews in orbit. It has 6 Whiplash engines and 3 Vector engines. It also has a cargo bay into which I put science stuff, the battery, monopropellant tank, and the antenna. See? It can do science and strand Kerbals in space. Craft stats: # of parts: 81 mass: 85.41t height: 7.4m width: 18.4m length: 20.8m Performance notes: This thing can barely reach LKO. The placement of RCS thrusters needs a lot of work. Take off can be problematic, but if you don't have any fancy aerodynamics mod installed, just hold S on full throttle and you should be just fine. Download on KerbalX: https://kerbalx.com/download/craft/19846 Feedbacks are always welcome.

The Tesladyne is an experimental aerospike SSTO designed to prod at the limits of LFO propulsion. It is capable of ascending to a 100x70 km orbit, and returning safely. More skilled flyers may have superior performance. To ascend, pitch up to 45 degrees after takeoff. At 10 km, move into gravity turn. To descend, lower periapsis to 65 km, and aerobrake at 90 degrees pitch. When periapsis is below the surface, pitch down to 45 degrees for reentry. Glide to landing. Images, and download, available at KerbalX.

ISO an SSTO that could take off from Eve and get to orbit 91K*91K+ Can use Interstellar-ext. and FFT and Spitefire. If you need other mods name them.

Hey there! I was playing a lot of KSP RO recently and I wanted to be one of the first guys to ever build a SSTO in RO. But I have never built a SSTO before, neither in regular KSP. So I decided to build one, just to check if there are any unknown issues. So, here it is! The Arrowspike A-1. Let me know what you think about it! It is using 2x R.A.P.I.E.R. Engines to get it into Low Kerbin Orbit and it can carry up to 4x Kerbals and plenty snacks. The only known issue I had is that I appeared to have ran out of electric charge just before landing (it crashed on KSC :/ ). Also I decided to use a crew cabin instead of a cockpit, to avoid aerodynamic resistance. Here are some pictures of it: Thank you very much for taking your time looking at my amazing creation !