I keep quitting because of this one single reason.

[Esme]

I'm puzzled that anyone would stop playing because they haven't managed to implement something that is notoriously difficult to do in the real world - to the point that no manned SSTO has yet been flown in real life.

That seems as crazy to me as refusing to play snooker because you can't get a 147 break every time.

Me, I've never succeeded in building a SSTO either, nor even being able to do a successful manned Mun mission (and I've over 300 hours of playing time), but i'm having a whale of a time with KSP!

[Temeter]

I'm puzzled that anyone would stop playing because they haven't managed to implement something that is notoriously difficult to do in the real world - to the point that no manned SSTO has yet been flown in real life.

We didn't even send unmanned SSTOs into space.

It's not that difficult though. You just need a (COM) stable plane with lots of fuel, an insane amount of control surfaces or (maybe preferably) SAS. Then you go to 20k+, accelerate as far as you can, preferably at least 1.3k m/s, get your apoapsis as high as possible while throttling jets, and then use rockets to fly at a high angle to get the apoapsis to ~80+ km. Get there, burn to orbital, done.

The biggest fight is really the patience to keep your plane all the way stable during the long acceleration process (quicksave if necessary), avoid flameouts (recommend mechjeb/far flight analysis) and get the control authority high enough to pull your nose up at 22k, but not too high as to not rip the lighter plane apart during return to lower atmospheres (which is why the static force of SAS is useful). And of course bring enough fuel, the needed amount really depends on how fast you get on jet engines, which is why B9 Sabres are king.

Edited April 23, 2015 by Temeter

[Wolfos31]

The closest humans have ever come so far to a Reusable Launch Vehicle was the shuttle. We've never made any SSTO.

[John FX]

I have been playing this game for 3 years, and have landed on all planets, and come back from most of them, built big stations, all that stuff. But in my 46 serious attempts (I number my designs, and so know the exact figure) to make an SSTO, only 3 have been able to reach orbit, only one of those could carry a cargo while doing so, and then an update broke that one. A practical SSTO plane and an Eve surface return are the only milestones I have yet to achieve in this game, and I've been failing at both the whole time.

Those are the two things I have yet to do also. In terms of "It doesn't matter how good you are, it's still really hard" a spaceplane and Eve return rank the top two IMHO

I sometimes make rocket SSTO myself, using the empty craft for interplanetary shuttles. Mostly though I recover spent stages with stagerecovery similar to the falcon.

Even then I only do that in career when the settings are pretty hard, for a normal career game (FAR, DRE, RT, no quicksaves or reverts) I don't bother.

[Temeter]

The closest humans have ever come so far to a Reusable Launch Vehicle was the shuttle. We've never made any SSTO.

And that one was kinda terrible.

[klesh]

For me, the VAB is for going to space, and the hangar is for making planes (and rovers for space, I guess) that will just fly around Kerbin for fun and the sandboxiness.

[iVG]

Have you tried Ferram ? Stock pre-1.0 atmosphere is very dense and lift is not calculated properly.

[Mat2ch]

Hello Dragonchampion,

I love making Space Plans that classify as SSTO. So maybe I can give you some hints.

First you've got to create some kind of plane that has enough lift and power. Usually two RAPIER engines are fine. Make it slick as possible. Pack 1/3 liquid fuel (or less! Airbreathing engines are very efficent) and 2/3 rocket fuel.

Now build an air craft that can fly. Means: Have a look at the Center of Mass (CoM) and the Center of Lift (CoL) (the buttons down left in the SPH). The CoM should be slightly in front of the CoL. Now empty the tanks in the SPH and check where the CoM is moving. If you've done it right it should stay almost where it was before (this will become a whole lot easier, when the tanks empty equally as it shall in 1.0)

Play around with the wings, so that you get a good CoL on the plane.

Now add gears. Put the front gear where you like, but the aft gear right under the CoM. This will make it easier to lift the plane from the ground.

Now do flight tests. Is the aircraft stable? How does it handle without SAS? A good plane just stays where you point it. Watch the prograde marker on the navball, it should be a little bit beneath where you're pointing your nose. If it is not you may need to add more wings.

Don't forget to add inlets. Lots of them. I usually pack 4 per engine. (The ugly grey ones)

Flying to space:

Get to 12000 km as fast as possible and point your nose almost horizontally. Now gain speed and slowly climb. Something between 10m/s and 100 m/s is fine. Less is better. Always watch the intake air (the fuel icon top right, click it and you'll see it). When the intake air goes below 0.10 it's time to switch to rocket mode. I always do this manually. Don't forget to close all the intakes, they produce drag when they're open. Do not try to pull your plane up, just go forward, don't touch the controls.

Switch to map mode, watch your apoapsis. When it goes over, say, 75 km, cut the engine. (Oh, the RAPIERs tend to overheat, watch that, too). Now point your plane prograde. Use SAS if you like. Watch your apoapsis, it will go down a bit, due to air resistance. Push it slowly back up to 75 km. Once you're above 69 km plane for your orbital burn. Do it and you've got a plane in space!

Edited April 23, 2015 by Mat2ch
Spelling error

[Wolfos31]

Mat2ch,

That's a really good guide. I've managed a few spaceplanes but nothing awesome. I think tonight I'll try building one exactly as you describe and see what I come up with. Looking forward to it. Thanks.

[Caelib]

I've been playing for two years and in my opinion, SSTOs are just not practical for anything beyond LKO use. Re-usable rocket stages is a more realistic and viable approach IMO.

[Mat2ch]

I've been playing for two years and in my opinion, SSTOs are just not practical for anything beyond LKO use. Re-usable rocket stages is a more realistic and viable approach IMO.

SSTOs are really only practical to bring things to a space station or - like the Space Shuttle - to put satellites very cheap into orbit. SSTOs may be realistic one day. Have a look at Skylon!

I wanted to show you some of my SSTO space planes. There's a thread which collects them, so I posted the pictures there. Click here!

Edited April 23, 2015 by Mat2ch

[Brotoro]

The difficult part about SSTO Spaceplanes is learning to FLY them properly. I'm pretty sure I could get some of my early vehicle designs to orbit if I were to try nowadays.

Spaceplanes are useful for moving kerbals to and from orbit on Kerbin or Laythe, or for lifting small payloads, but not for much else.

- - - Updated - - -

However... all bets are off as to whether what I know about spaceplanes will be valid in version 1.0.

[Mat2ch]

Spaceplanes are useful for moving kerbals to and from orbit on Kerbin or Laythe, or for lifting small payloads, but not for much else.

There's someone in the SSTO thread who brought a full orange fuel tank into orbit! Click!

Now I've got to try this myself...

[Brofessional]

My advice for spaceplanes would be to start small

This x1000. Don't try to make some 12 engine monstrosity as your first SSTO spaceplane. One SABRE is all you need.

It's true you'll need a larger craft to carry useful payloads, but you should start with just getting a single astronaut up there and back.

The most useful thing SSTO's can do is not launching tiny satellites, it's shuttling kerbals back and forth. You can build a big interplanetary ship that you just park in LKO between trips and use SSTOs to recover the crew for just the cost of fuel; and soon you'll even be able to refuel the interplanetary ship for virtually nothing via asteroid mining.

[Raptor9]

I've been playing KSP since 0.13, but I didn't successfully get an SSTO spaceplane into orbit and back until a year ago. I was trying since spaceplane parts first came out, but I too gave up several times and returned to try again. Persistence is definitely key.

My personal design philosophy that seemed to work out was focusing on making good airplanes first. Find out how to make them maneuverable but still stable, powerful but efficient enough to get somewhere, etc. When I had developed my proficiencies in aircraft design, I started making spaceplanes by modifying my fastest- and highest-flying airplanes. Swapped the turbojets for RAPIERs, changed the fuel mix to include some oxidizer, etc. Had to tweak it a little to maintain proper Center-of-Gravity and Center-of-Lift locations, but that's where the airplane design experience came in handy, and it wasn't as frustrating as jumping straight into spaceplanes.

In any case, good luck and don't give up.

[StrandedonEarth]

I've tried spaceplanes, I've had one that could make orbit but the others couldn't quite make it. Overall, I just don't have the patience for that long speed-building run above 20km. I prefer rockets, even if my 500-part lagathon seems to take almost as long to make orbit

[SRV Ron]

The early Atlas rocket was a capable SSTO. As it staged two of its heavy rocket engines midway in its flight, it was not a true SSTO. It did place the first Mercury capsule into orbit.

Consider a simple two stage design where the first stage is a turbojet aircraft. Fly that carefully and you can reach speeds over 2200 m/sec at over 40,000 meters before being forced to stage to rockets.

This had enough fuel to do a Mun flyby and land.

[TheSaint]

Designing a SSTO spaceplane and flying it to orbit? Easy. Especially after the Rapiers were introduced. When Porkjet came out with Spaceplane Plus I said, "Oooh! These look neat!" I had a working design in about two hours of trial and error. Flew it up, docked it with my space station, everything was hunky-dory.

Landing a SSTO spaceplane? This is why I finally gave up. What a colossal pain in the keister. I killed so much time (and so many Kerbals) it just wasn't worth it anymore. I went out and bought a joystick for crying out loud, because everyone was saying, "It's so much easier with a joystick." No, it really isn't. After several evenings of frustration I did actually manage to get one off-center barely-stable landing. I took a screenshot, recovered it to the hangar, and went back to rockets. When 0.90 came out I decided to go back and see if things got any easier, and discovered that my old design couldn't even get off the runway anymore. I've never gone back. The hangar is for rovers now.

I have done vertical reusable SSTOs. I have a cargo design that can take an orange tank (or about 50 tons of cargo) to a 100-km orbit, and a crew design that can carry 7 Kerbals to a 100-km orbit. I'll be curious to see how they hold up with the new reentry heat.

[Slam_Jones]

Once you figure out the basics, it's actually pretty easy.

Oddly enough, lately I've had more success with a TurboJet/48-7S combo than with RAPIERS, as the TurboJet doesn't flame-out nearly as early (assuming same intakes).

One big, BIG thing to remember: less is more. The less mass you're pushing to orbit, the less fuel you need to push it there. The less fuel you take, the less fuel you need to push it there.

After you make your SSTO, take a look at it and ask "okay, now what can I remove?" Any extra weight will just make it harder... so keep it as light as you can.

Edited April 23, 2015 by Slam_Jones

[n.b.z.]

There's someone in the SSTO thread who brought a full orange fuel tank into orbit!

I did that twice when I started trying to make sense of planes. First time it was done as an external load, second time in a large Mk3 bay. In both instances, attaining orbit took half a decade because the planes were struggling, and the partcount was such that the time... went... by... slooow...lyy.... whilst stuttering immensely. Also, the MK3 machine had a tendency to fall apart into every single Mk3-piece at once when looked at in the wrong way.

I'm SO looking forward to the bigger wings, which will greatly reduce partcount because

- they're bigger, less wing pieces needed

- thus, less struts needed

- also, fuel in wings = less dedicated tank parts

I guess that TOTTO (The Orange Tank To Orbit) will become a much more common achievement in the future.

[Yakuzi]

@OP: SSTO's can be a bit tricky to start off with, but once you get the hang of it they're pretty straightforward, rewarding and very fun to design/fly. Since we're at one.oh.eve, getting into SSTO's now would be somewhat of a waste of time, however, we can figure out how to get you to orbit and back without littering when the new update is released.

Spaceplanes are useful for moving kerbals to and from orbit on Kerbin or Laythe, or for lifting small payloads, but not for much else.

This is simply not true. Granted, MSTO's are easier and more efficient in interplanetary transfer, but you can get a considerable payload fraction into orbit or wherever with SSTO's (also SSTO does not necessarily mean spaceplane). Some examples of heavy payload SSTO's:

SSTO by TeeGee:

Mesklin:

Also by Mesklin:

Rune:

Download/fly/analyse/reverse-engineer a couple of craft on the exchange and before you'll know it the majority of your designs will get to orbit and back without too much hassle (Check out Exothermos, Rune, Wanderfound, Hodo, Overfloater, etc). SSTO's are in my humble opinion the most entertaining and rewarding part of KSP.

Edited April 23, 2015 by Yakuzi

[n.b.z.]

Landing a SSTO spaceplane? This is why I finally gave up. What a colossal pain in the keister.

Two suggestions:

1. Before going to orbit, go fooling around the KSC doing unmanned aerobatics with about the fuel load you would have after returning from a real mission. Get a feel for the speeds needed to keep the craft barely flying, and the speed needed for proper control.

2. I cringe most times I watch a youtube video of someone landing a plane, not because everyone is bad at flying, but they move the camera all over the place, each time losing the perception of how they move relative to the runway. Which results in either a crappy landing, or a good one, in which case I admire how they pulled it off while sabotaging themselves.

I recommend to place the camera BELOW the plane, so you can see the runway and have the plane above it. Look more at the runway, less at the plane. Move the camera only when required.

Also: using SAS, and a healthy dose of reaction wheels, is no shame.

_____

For the rather general problem of This Isn't Working At All, I second the advice of building SMALL and simple first. The first plane should just handle well enough to be flown around the KSC and landed in one piece. Then, orbit may be next. Little planes usually have LOTS of TWR on a single air-breathing engine. You can easily expect so see "reentry" flames from around 12000m upwards. This makes it easy to get to speed and altitude.

Here's my quick recipe for making a working plane (which may become outdated in 1.0, though):

1. Take one Mk1 jet fuel tank

2. place one monopropellant tank in front of it, and one in the back. (We want the CG to never shift; we'll use monoprop. only, as that empties both tanks equally)

3. put a turbojet on the back.

4. now, the CG is way in the back. Place a 1-seat capsule, a battery, a reaction wheel, and a probe core at the front. Juggle these pieces around so the CG is in the middle of the jet fuel tank again

5. place Structural Wing Type Bs on each side, put control surfaces on the trailing edge. Add a vertical fin, also with control surface.

6. place some radial intakes, one radial monoprop. engine on each side, and gear: two wheels slightly behind CG, one in the front. Attitude on ground either parallel to surface, or slightly nose-up. You may place additional gear at the wingtips for goof-proofing.

7. using the offset tool, move stuff forward/back to move CG again into the middle of the jet fuel tank, and the Center of Lift just slightly behind it.

This sort of plane can reach a 100km circular orbit, land back at KSC, and then do it again on the remaining fuel if flown well. It should also work with less intake spamming...

Edited April 24, 2015 by n.b.z.
Forgot rudder (point 5).

[BDelacroix]

You are not alone in having a difficult time with SSTOs. Though I'm sure you can find someone to say "it's easy!".

[Dragonchampion]

This had enough fuel to do a Mun flyby and land.

Does TWR just not matter in space or something? I've always tried to avoid TWR of < 1 whenever I have made ALL my ships, rockets included.

It should also work with less intake spamming...

Wait, what?! How did you put them so that the input is covered? Does that mean that my intakes can even be clipped inside my craft so make it look nice?

Edited April 24, 2015 by Dragonchampion

[n.b.z.]

Does TWR just not matter in space or something? I've always tried to avoid TWR of < 1 whenever I have made ALL my ships, rockets included.

Wait, what?! How did you put them so that the input is covered? Does that mean that my intakes can even be clipped inside my craft so make it look nice?

On the TWR: once you are in orbit (= no longer investing power to prevent falling into the ground) and out of an atmosphere, you can easily get away with less TWR than 1. This will just require longer burn times.

The way i spammed those intakes:

1. place one set of intakes using 3-symmetry. Move them way back using the translate tool / widget. I recommend using the snap mode (toggled on/off by the C key) and the global snap grid (toggled with the F key). (Holding shift down while dragging a part makes the snap grid twice as fine.)

2. place another set of intakes, move it back using the translate tool, position it one "snap step" ahead of the other intake.

3. repeat until the desired intake spam level is reached

I forgot something in my "quick recipe":

8. create an action group to toggle the jet on/off, and one to toggle the rocket motors on/off. The jet group might also open/close the intakes, but this may not be necessary.

With the current aero model, intakes can be clipped as crazy/cheaty as you see in my picture. They probably also work if completely hidden away into some other part. This could/may/will/should/whatever change with the 1.0 version.

EDIT: the placement of the solar panels on the intakes (and, if you can spot it, the single RCS thruster on the bottom intakes) was done by attaching "cubic octagonal struts" on the fuselage, which run straight through the intakes. This was difficult to get right for the RCS thing - i wanted the thruster to point through the CG, but no struts visible in the intake.

Edited April 24, 2015 by n.b.z.